There is no doubt that green living is the way of the future and eco-friendly homes are no exception to the rule. What before was considered an alternative is quickly becoming the mainstream.
You can build a green home from scratch or have your current home updated to fit into this expanding market trend. There are many benefits and the options are wide. Just think of reduced energy costs, better health, and lower carbon footprint.
So are you on the eco-friendly bandwagon yet? Check out these home ideas and then decide!
A Home with a View
For anyone who loves the outdoors, why not bring the outdoors to your home? With a windowed concept, bring the scenic beauty of the countryside or mountainside, wherever you are, right to your doorstep. Not only do energy-efficient windows open up space around you, but they also offer a few eco-friendly perks. Better insulation, lower costs, silencing the noise, and reduced maintenance are just a few to name.
Living in a Box
If you want a space-saving solution for a green home, design yours like a box. Keeping things straight and in line keeps things simple with one room opening into the other. There are no nooks and crannies wasting spaces and you get dead straight right angles to work with. The outer walls will house your doors and windows, as many as you want, and everything inside will simply follow the walls.
This Pod Does What?
Don’t be deceived by its egg-like appearance, but look at what this sustainable living option offers. This is a first-of-its-kind eco capsule which is a mobile home that sustains itself. Using wind power and solar technology, this home is capable of keeping itself up. Equipped with a built-in turbine and photovoltaic cells, your home will look something straight out of a sci-fi movie! Sustainability has never looked better!
Moving Around
The mobile home is a fairly old concept, but this is a new twist on an old idea. This home is not only a place to stay but will also work as an RV to move around wherever you like. Using the small space concept, it’s the easiest way to downsize your home. With this house on wheels, you get two-floor levels that maximize both style and function. Who says you can’t have it all in a small space?
Unapologetically Modern
Even though it is just a container, your new eco-friendly house model can easily beat any other in the neighborhood. Crafted and engineered entirely from shipping containers, these homes have a smaller environmental impact. Since there are so many out-of-service containers to go around why not use them in a way that gives you a home to live in? Not only do you get a modular home, but you also save money on construction and maintenance costs.
Gardens in Our Midst
What better way to find the perfect transition between the indoors and the outdoors than to blend the two into one another? Inspired by nature this home has a garden on every level. Whether you step outside on the ground floor, the first or the second, there is a lush garden awaiting to welcome you. Even the rooftop of this building will give you more green to enjoy.
Going Solar
Harnessing the sun is the ultimate source of clean, low-cost energy. Plus, it’s endless, at least for the next five billion years or so. This lets you increase the value of your home, use energy free of pollution, and never worry about paying electricity bills. So if you’re looking to offset energy costs, lower the environmental impact of your home, and contribute to energy independence, then solar is the way to go.
Windows to the Rescue
Along with space-saving properties, another way to make your home greener is to design it to follow a more carbon-neutral living style. Have the sedentary spaces such as the living, dining, and bedrooms located in the warmest part of the house, benefiting from the warmth of the sun. Other spaces like bathrooms and kitchens can go in the cooler areas of the home. The perfect way to blend optimal energy use and technology without compromising comfort and pleasant living.
Old Fashioned Way
A combination of sustainable materials such as solar panels, emittance windows, design, and stylistic elements can all make your home more eco-friendly. Throw in using certified wood, wall and roof insulation, and energy-efficient lighting and you get the complete package. This home has it all and if you bring energy-efficient appliances into the mix you not only lower your impact on the environment but also save on your energy bills.
Out in the Clear, I Found My Home
If you don’t want to go compact and small but have more space to enjoy, you can still go green the energy-efficient way. This home features home insulation, solar panels, air sealing, and energy-efficient lighting in large spaces as well. With lots of large windows and ample open spaces, you also get sufficient sunshine, warmth, and cooling all at the same time. This open-concept home with its substantial garden around the main structure lets you enjoy the outdoors as much as the indoors.
Cabin in the Woods
Want to live fully in nature? Go for a cabin in the woods. With this option, you get to choose a site that is more sustainable than others. Work with a blend of the traditional and the modern to get the best of both worlds. A combination of a glass door and fixed pane windows provides big views at less cost than expensive solid glass. Add in a full or daylight basement for additional living space and voila! You have a two-story residence that also reduces your footprint.
Meaningful Creativity
A monolith or an obelisk? Perhaps on the outside but on the inside, you can devise an open floor plan within such a structure. An open floor gives you maximum spaciousness inside with an ample connection to the outside. Consider using a dark-colored exterior when living in cooler climates to attract more heat or lighter shades when living in a hot area. Choose doors and windows that go by energy performance ratings to determine what they do in preserving energy every time you open or close them.
Light it Up
When you have large glass windows as the staple of your energy-efficient home, then you also want the lighting inside to do its part. Going green with lighting means greater efficiency, reducing carbon emissions substantially, and saving on energy costs. Then you have the element of durability as LEDs stand up better to stress. As they don’t have a filament, these bulbs don’t break as easily as their incandescent counterparts.
The Building Blocks to A Home
If container homes are your thing, why limit to just one container? In fact, container homes can be as big or small as you want. When there is more than one, they’re usually stacked atop one another or placed next to each other to create one giant room. How do they serve the environment? Well, they’re more affordable than brick-and-mortar dwellings, you get to repurpose steel and give it new life and you get a structure with the ceilings, walls, and floors already in place.
Floating House
Love the water- why not build your home on it? Floating houses are a great concept for people who enjoy being around water bodies (literally). This idea has taken on concepts like being solar-powered, creating zero emissions, and collecting rainwater from roofs and then purifying it. Given that roughly more than 70% of the earth’s surface is covered in water, why not consider a floating house?
Tranquility at its Cheapest
From the frame of your home to its indoor flooring, sustainable building materials reduce the impact of construction on the environment. Wood is a renewable source when it comes from sustainable planting practices. Windows and doors can save your energy cost and if you design yours to take advantage of its surrounding landscape, you will enjoy easier, less expensive lawn care for your home.
Squarest Perspective
If you are into the tiny house trend, a shipping container is a perfect option. Yielding as little as 273 square feet, you can own a studio that utilizes every square inch. With that size, it is really easy to drop a container on any small piece of land and have your eco-friendly dwelling set up there. You get the eco-friendly benefits of recycling prefabricated steel structures, but those that can be customizable to your individual needs.
Pool Time, Anyone?
Pools are a lovely addition to any home, and if yours is eco-friendly, then all the better. So how do you make a pool more environmentally agreeable? You tweak a few things up. Switch to a saline pool instead of a chlorinated one. Keep it ozone-free by using an ozone sterilization system or installing a moss-filtered pool. It may seem like a nasty idea but certain types of moss can keep the water clean while using fewer chemicals and reducing water consumption. All effective ways to a cleaner and greener alternative.
Naturally Open
Do you want to maintain an eco-friendly home? Space is the key. The more spacious your home is, the more convenient it becomes and the more energy efficiency it has to offer. How so is your question? With large windows and simplistic non-processed recycled material as your construction base. Using a frame-stylized medium to construct your house foundation, you’ll find that most of your furniture can be built into the walls, allowing for more sunlight and effective heating saving money and electricity.
Way with Water
What a wonderful feeling it is to be on a luxury cruise and breathe in the fresh salty air of the ocean blue waves. Why only wait for these scarce moments when traveling by boat when your home can provide the same lavishing feel? Floating homes are the next step to advancing as an eco-friendly community. With so much space at our disposal, why not indulge in this and take advantage of specially made efficient insulating crafted architectural services at our fingertips?
Spherically Simple
Certainly not the typical build you would expect to see walking down the street, but we’re getting there. This house is made to soak up the sun. In the summer, its own structure provides you with shade and cooling with the tinted windows. In the winter, you can allow the sun to dry away the chills lingering in your home. Wide open windows for walls and sterile construction materials make for a healthy environmentally friendly building that places your relaxation and peace of mind first.
In the Outdoors
This home encourages you to appreciate the relishing outdoors and provides masses of open spaces for you to love. With 8-star rated heating and cooling, it can only be from the open chamber-like architecture that enlivens the whole house. Nothing says eco-friendly better than a home that opens its doors to the outdoors like a warm embrace. Combining both the luxuries of living in the open and the safety of being behind four walls makes for the best home to help the environment and help you feel satisfied with your residence.
Conclusion
So, as you can see, being sustainable is so much more than simply conserving energy. If anything, being eco-friendly really comes down to taking a holistic approach. The only way we can really save nature is by being one with nature. For so long we have demolished and bulldozed over nature to make way for our own purposes when we should have been finding our way inside of nature’s domain. Now, as far as we have come it is time for us to create a perfect combination between us and Mother Nature to correct our mistakes and sustain ourselves and future generations.
