Tips For Building an Eco Friendly Home
March 7, 2020
There are many benefits of building a custom home, one of them being that you can ensure that your home is built the exact way you want. From an open kitchen layout to an upstairs master suite, you can get all of the features you have always wanted for your dream home. One growing trend with custom-built homes is building green.
Building an eco-friendly house will not only help preserve the environment, but it will also help you save time and improve your quality of life quite significantly. However, building an eco-friendly home is not as easy as it may seem. By thinking strategically and utilizing the right materials and technologies early, you can get a custom home that will be environmentally-conscious while saving you money.
Tips for Building an Eco-Friendly Home
Luckily, when you want to build a custom home, you are in control of how it’s built, how it will look, and the layout, among other things. If building an eco-friendly home is important to you, remember these tips during the planning and construction process.
Make the Best Use of Space
While having a giant, beautiful home may have been part of your dream when you were younger, larger homes will have a larger environmental impact. The smaller the property, the less strain it will put on your surroundings. Keep in mind, this does not mean that your desire for space needs to be sacrificed — you just need to be smart and make the best use of it. During the design process, direct your attention to the rooms in your new custom home that will be most important and get creative with the rest. If you’re someone who spends a lot of time in the kitchen trying new recipes and cooking delicious meals, focus on the kitchen. If you’re someone who works from home, you should put some focus on including an amazing home office space in your custom home design.
Use Sustainable Building Materials
Using sustainable, biodegradable, and recyclable materials when possible is a great way to save money and reduce the environmental impact of your custom home. Reclaimed wood flooring not only looks great, but it’s also an eco-friendly choice. Building materials like recycled lumber, plastic, and glass are less damaging than new materials. With all of the past eco-friendly initiatives, more and more biodegradable materials are also being produced with reduced energy costs and pollution — these are the perfect materials to include in the construction of your eco-friendly home.
Go Solar
If you are building a custom in a sunny climate, such as the one in North Carolina, you’ll definitely want to take advantage of all the sunshine. It may be worth considering installing solar panels. While they may be expensive upfront, installing solar panels can save you a lot of money and energy consumption. The average savings per year for homeowners in North Carolina with homes that use solar panels are around $1,000.
Utilize Proper Insulation
Insulation is another thing to consider when building an eco-friendly home. About half of your home’s energy consumption comes from heating and cooling efforts. Proper insulation is perhaps the best way to ensure that you’re not paying too much. Investing in proper insulation keeps the area cool in the hotter months, and warm during the winter, minimizing the need to run heating and cooling units regularly.
Work With an Eco-Conscious Custom Home Builder
Finding the best custom home builder to build the home of your dreams takes some thought and consideration. If building a new eco-friendly home is something that is important to you, you should look for custom home builders that place an importance on being environmentally conscious. Building a new home certainly requires using a lot of natural resources, luckily there are home builders that strive to give back to the environment by building custom homes with sustainable features. These home builders will be able to walk you through the different options you have to make your home eco-friendly.
At 4G Design Build, our custom home builders are committed to reducing the environmental impact that comes with building a new home. In addition to helping you choose the best materials and utilize the available space for your custom home, our partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation helps plant 200 trees for each custom home built. When you work with a home builder that cares about helping you design and build your dream home as much as they do the environment, you’ll be pleased with your experience in building an eco-friendly home.
Build an Eco-Friendly, Custom Home in Lake Norman and the Surrounding Area
If you are interested in building an eco-friendly, custom home there is no better home builder to work with than the team at 4G Design Build. To learn more information or to schedule an in-person consultation with our design team, contact us today!