Many of our clients are looking to include eco-friendly, green features into their homes. As you’re planning your new custom home (or just getting ideas for your current home), here are a few tips and ideas to reduce your carbon footprint and stay healthier in the process!
Kitchen
Use natural cleaning products. Vinegar, baking soda, rubbing alcohol make a fantastic window and glass cleaner. Lemon juice can help remove stains from countertops (and is fantastic as an adhesive remover too!) Baking soda freshens up carpets. Not only are these all extremely effective, they are cheap and almost always at hand! Vinegar and a bit of dish soap is also quite effective as a weed killer. A great option especially if you have pets or small children around.
Recycle. Consider adding a space for a recycle bin. Some of the pull out wastebaskets include a bin behind the garbage for recycling.
Design a wall of herbs. Not only do fresh herbs taste better compared to dried herbs, but you’ll save on packaging, produce a little more oxygen around the house while they consume CO2 and look great!
Recycle rainwater. Barrels placed around your home can capture rainwater to be used for landscaping and gardening.
Compost bins. A good compost helps to reduce your waste since you’re putting in things you’d normally throw out, but also that compost is great for helping create the garden of your dreams!
Choose cloth over paper. Instead of buying paper towels that get thrown away, invest in microfiber (or even use cut up old t-shirts!) cloths to clean with.
Fill your dishwasher. Washing your dishes in a dishwasher vs by hand can save water. Some studies found that up to 5 times the amount of water is used when you hand wash. So fill up that dishwasher, sit back and relax!
Laundry
Wash less often. Most clothing doesn’t need to be washed every time it’s worn (especially jeans and sweaters). Hang it up outside to air it out or use some Febreze to keep them smelling fresh.
Hang to dry. A space for hanging clothes in your laundry room is great, but you can also hang things in the shower, or with hooks on the wall if you don’t have room. Of course an old fashioned clothesline outside makes clothes smell even better! There’s nothing like clothing that has been dried in the fresh air!
Use natural fabric softeners and deodorizers. White vinegar is great for taking musty smells from fabrics and acts like a fabric softener as well. Baking soda works great in the rinse cycle too! In the dryer, throw some wool dryer balls in with your laundry to speed up drying and fluff up clothing.
Heating & Electric
Solar Panels. The cost of solar panels is decreasing, while they’re becoming more efficient and helps reduce your carbon footprint.
Work with the sun. When you’re planning the position of your home, think about where the sun will be for much of the day. Sunlight streaming through your windows can help warm up your rooms, but in the summer that same sunlight can make your A/C work overtime if that wall of windows doesn’t have shades. A careful plan can take advantage of both of those situations.
Swap out your bulbs. LEDS are energy efficient, last longer and will save you money in the long run!
Build a log home! Beaver Mountain log homes are efficient thanks to our double tongue and groove design and building mass of our logs (which are thicker than many other company’s logs). They hold the heat in during the winter and keep the cool air in during the summer. Often, people walk into a one of our log homes and assume there’s air conditioning on even when it’s not. In the winter, they feel cozy and warm. Radiant floor heating will also help keep the warmth down by your feet where you want it! Our homes are crafted from forests that are sustainably harvested, helping to ensure that the forests will be healthy for future generations.