We were designed to live in a beautiful environment called Paradise and were given the task to take care of it. Fast forward to the present day, and we already know we failed on both counts. That’s why we have increasingly alarming rates of global warming, but like everything imperfect in this world, it is never too late to reverse the damage. We have been warned so let’s take heed by thinking Green.
Green isn’t just a color anymore. It’s today’s answer to global warming. It begins with conservation, finding renewable sources of energy, and building eco-friendly green homes.
If you want to make a difference by constructing your own green home, consider the following:
- Talk to an expert. Building your green home is a technical and precise construction project. A skilled architect with the knowledge, basics, benefits, and practicalities of building green can present an architectural design for your approval. After some serious discussion on the matter, he should be able to design a blueprint that will be your guide in building your green dream home.
- Get up to speed on building regulations particularly those that have to do with building green houses.
- Look at other green house designs that are already completed. Talk to the owners and listen to their inputs. Take note of their recommendations and testimonials about living in their green home.
- Consider your design aspects like insulation, materials like recycled steel, straw bale, packed earth, timber or oak for construction, electrical appliances, lighting, insulation, energy source, recycling, and water. These design aspects should not only fit into the blueprint for your home but also should extend to and include your porch design, your garage design, and even your toilet design. Further, the materials needed for your green house should be locally available.
- Your architect should be able to assess the land you plan to build your green house on. This is an important aspect of designing your home so it doesn’t alter the condition of the landscape or the land’s ecosystem.
- Like all green building designs, the use of space is maximized even for a multi-level house. Consider building both above and below ground.
- Employ solar power and install solar panes. Once again, these should be included in your architectural design and blueprint pre-construction.
- Use recycled steel as your main construction material and renewable timber as your secondary construction material.
- Shape up or ship out. Try to include a small man-made lake into the design. Rainwater from your roof can be fed into the lake which in turn can be used to water your plants or vegetation.
Building your green home is all about sustainability. This planet was made with everything that can sustain and promote life but we humans have forgotten to give back what we’ve taken. Our planet may be large but our resources are very limited especially with the ballooning global population. There is no time but now to act and reverse the damage. Let’s begin by building healthy homes, yeah?
