How to Make Green Home Improvements that add value to Your Home

How to make green improvements that add value to your homeHome improvements serve several different purposes. For starters, they help make life in your home easier and more convenient. They can also increase the value of your home and make it more attractive for potential buyers, which can be a big plus.

For those who are environmentally friendly, there are lots of home improvements which aim to reduce the carbon footprint of a house as well. Best of all, you can get all of these benefits from individual home improvements. Here are some examples.

1. Give it a fresh paint job

Nothing says “fresh” like a new coat of paint on the walls. As time goes by, walls accumulate scratches, they chip, and the colours fade away until you have a bland hue not worth looking at. It’s one of the first things prospective home buyers will notice and it’s not exactly going to make them go crazy for the home. Fortunately, there’s a quick and easy way to remedy this – painting the walls with some fresh paint!

Not just any paint will do the job all that well. Most paints contain lots of harmful substances that slowly leech into the air as it dries. Even once the paint is dry, these layers slowly release fumes which can very slowly harm inhabitants. This is part of the reason people hesitate painting over their walls, even when it’s necessary. You have to know which paint to get for the job. Look for paints that have a low VOC content and no lead. It’s a pretty big difference which will drastically reduce the environmental and health impact of repainting the walls.

2. Work on the entrance

What’s the absolute first thing people will notice when walking inside your home? Some would say it’s the windows, while others would argue that the floors would be a noticeable element. Neither are really the first thing that you encounter. It’s the door.

Doors are the elements that give off that first impression of your home. Whenever you walk into a new place, you can roughly gauge what it’s going to look like based on the look of the door. It’s a measure of quality in the design and décor. When people put emphasis on the quality of their door, you can be sure that everything else is also made to be up to par.

The door you get for your home should have two important qualities. It should be thick and properly secured so as to prevent burglaries, as the front door is the first line of the defence for your home. At the same time, it also needs to have good insulation, to prevent heat from leaking outside your home. It can help keep your heating bill down and reduce wastefulness.

3. Plant a new tree

If your home has an expansive back or front yard, it can always benefit from some outdoor green additions. Planting a tree gives you green benefits in every sense of the word. We often underestimate the impact of a tree on our home. Trees are extremely useful. They not only contribute to the soil and improve the eco-friendliness of your home, but they also have some practical benefits that go along with them.

Large plants like this tend to balance out the temperature around them. A tree will provide you with shade throughout the year. If properly positioned, you can drastically reduce the amount of heat that’s going towards your home in the summer. A leafy tree will also look gorgeous and give your home a lot of extra curb appeal. People like trees and they’ll gladly purchase a home with one in the yard.

4. Keep the heat in

While you do need help keeping the heat out during the summer, winter is another story entirely. This time of year, you want to keep the heat trapped inside. This helps keep the heating and electrical bills down. You achieve this with the help of proper insulation.

When it comes to insulation, the walls do most of the job. They aren’t likely to leak all that much heat to the outside. It’s the weak points that you have to watch out for. Windows aren’t often insulated well enough to retain heat. Single pane glass windows will act as a siphon and slowly leak heat out over time, increasing your home’s heating needs. To better retain heat, you might want to install uPVC windows or models with multiple glass panes. The increased insulation from non-conductive materials and air pockets can drastically reduce the amount of heat that leaks out.

5. Hit the lights

Lighting has an enormous impact on the aesthetic aspect of your home. Every home needs some form of lighting, but not all bulbs are created equal. You would be surprised at how impactful using different lightbulbs can be. Fluorescent lighting is considered cold and irritating, and it’s recommended that homeowners replace these bulbs with iridescent ones, as they’re warmer and more pleasant. That’s not the only benefitThat changing light bulbs can give you, either.

While one light bulb might not be all that different from another, the tiny differences in efficiency quickly stack up when you account for the huge number of bulbs in your home. LED lights are considered the most efficient option, as they use the least amount of electricity while providing the most illumination. They’re a good option for green and sustainable homes.

6. Instead of replacing try refacing

Thousands of kitchen remodels take place each day throughout the United States. T he unfortunate truth is that most of them rip out the existing Kitchen cabinets and purchase new ones. T here is a much more eco-friendly and equally important less expensive way to do your kitchen cabinets. It is called refacing for repainting. Refacing can be done yourself but most of the time the best choice is using professional.

Conclusion

Introducing green home improvements is a step in the right direction. It allows you to increase the value of your home while also making it more eco-friendly. It’s something every homeowner should strive for when renovating their home.

Additional real estate resources

There is a ton to learn about green energy. That’s why John Cunningham has put together a green energy guide for the most serious environmentalist.

There is more and more buzz today about smart devices in your home. Smart devices help us save energy and money. Find out exactly what smart devices can do for you in this techie article written by Paul Sian.

In Michelle Gibson’s article, you can find quite a few common improvements that are eco-friendly. This is a great “how-to” article focusing on green home improvements.

Author bio:

Sarah Jessica Smith is a young blogger from Sydney. She is in love with life and all the things that can make her daily routine easier. She loves to write about home improvement, lifestyle, and all the small things that make life such a great adventure.

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