If you’re moving into a fixer-upper or simply renovating your own home, you should seriously consider doing so with sustainability in mind. Sustainable materials not only decrease your impact on the environment and function just as well as their less-sustainable counterparts, you also end up saving a huge amount of money throughout the lifetime of your home as well.
Easy On The Earth…
While many newer homes already use sustainable materials in their construction, if you’re living in an older home or purchasing a previously owned home, you’re likely to find a huge number of green improvements you can make.
Aside from the use of sustainable materials in a remodel or renovation of your home, it’s also important to take a holistic approach by focusing on energy efficiency and capitalizing on any materials from the original construction you might be able to use. While sustainable materials are great, nothing is better for the environment than simply using what you already have.
Improvements you can make range from installing super-efficient windows to help regulate temperature to installing a green roof to further help with heating and cooling costs. Nearly every aspect of your home can be made more green and sustainable in some way. Even a thousand small improvements will make a huge impact in the long run.
…And On Your Wallet
Though there is an inherent reward of good stewardship of the earth when sustainably renovating or remodeling, there’s a concrete financial benefit as well. Not only will making your home more eco-friendly save on power bills, but making these improvements actually improves the value of your home immensely.
New homes are incredibly expensive, and it isn’t an outrageous fear that a loan for a new home would be denied. This makes investing in the home you already live in a smart move. You’ll be able to make sustainable improvements to your current home that will make it the home of your dreams, help the environment, and act as a long-term investment for your future should you ever decide to sell.
Making the decision to renovate your home using sustainable materials and energy-efficient appliances isn’t just some ethereal investment in the planet’s future, but a real investment for yourself that can help add a layer of security in the future that otherwise might not have been there.
Remodeling and renovating a home is no small task and will likely require a good chunk of change along with a great deal of time. By choosing to implement any changes with sustainability in mind, you’ll actually save yourself some worry down the line as you’ll already be one step ahead of the curve. Sustainable materials will only become more popular and ubiquitous in home construction, and there is nothing wrong with being an early adopter when it comes to saving the planet!
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