Chances are that you want to make a profit on the price you paid for the house and the only way to do that in today’s market is by remodeling the interior and exterior design. With a few adjustments here and there, there are tons of great ideas, and with these four effective strategies, you may even get the full market value!

Get A New Roof Installed

Roofs are one of the best investments to gain the majority of the money spent on it back on the resale price. If a new roof costs 10 grand, you can expect to add $6,000 or more to the property value, which is quite good compared to other home improvement jobs.

With today’s new roofing coming in various materials and designs, you can give the house a roof to be admired by everyone to see. Many roofing companies now possess these new roofing technologies at affordable rates, so it’s always wise to compare some of the best roofers near me before making a final decision. Talk to them about which material is the most sustainable option and works for your budget. With a new roof installed, you can lower your energy costs and minimize the need to turn the heating on earlier in the year.

Upgrade Windows and Doors

Installing new double or triple-glazing windows and changing the front and back doors can dramatically improve a property’s appearance and drive up the price considerably. This is also great for keeping the home more energy-efficient and keeping it sound-proof, which is one of the most important things prospective buyers look out for. Recycle your old door, bring in the new one, and do your bit to protect the environment. This small act will assist you in becoming a greener house.

Make The House Energy-Efficient

Talking of making the home more energy-efficient, there’s no doubt that energy-efficient houses are more valuable to homeowners and buyers because of the amount of money they can save per year on energy bills. New technologies like smart thermostats, solar panels, condensing boilers, and HVAC systems are some of the best ways to help keep energy bills to a minimum and give the home a high energy rating. Going greener is a lot easier when you install useful tech like this.

By making certain energy-efficient upgrades to a home, homeowners may be eligible to take advantage of another benefit—tax credits.The tax legislation surrounding energy-efficient upgrades tends to change each year. However, by using an updated tax calculator, you can get a pretty good idea about how a specific tax credit might impact your tax return. Ultimately, before claiming any sort of tax credit, it would be best to consult with a tax professional to make sure you’re fully informed and up-to-date.

Give The Garden A Makeover

Your garden has a lot of potential for helping you become a greener household while adding value. You can achieve this by ensuring you hit two key elements:

You should have a place where you can sit and unwind with nature overlooking the beautiful landscape. Giving the garden a makeover by fitting a new patio area, designing a fancy BBQ area, or even installing a water feature or a bespoke swing in the garden will impact the overall layout. The other key element is about making it eco-friendly. This means laying a new green lawn, planting colorful plants, choosing eco materials, installing a water butt, and cutting back on the chemicals you use. Making your own fertilizer is just as good and will make your garden thrive.

No matter the size of your garden, there are lots of inexpensive ways to increase its value and make it more appealing for potential buyers.

The post 4 Effective Ways To Increase Home Value and Gain a Greener Home appeared first on Green Building Insider.

There are a number of ways that clean energy can be introduced into new green building projects or utilized in existing buildings. One option to consider is biogas generation.

Benefits of Biogas Generation in Green Buildings

For a large number of people on our planet, environmentally damaging fuels like coal and wood are still the number one source of power for cooking and heating. Sadly, using these materials in households contributes to around 15 billion trees being cut down, and 4 million people dying each year.

One of the best solutions to this problem is biogas, an ecologically friendly, renewable, and safe alternative to these eco-unfriendly materials. The best part? It’s easy to create and you can derive it from almost any organic material in existence. The most popular sources of biogas include:

• Food waste
• Animal waste
• Organic human waste
• Agricultural waste (free of all pollutants and chemicals)
• Landfill gas

The type of biogas generator, resulting amounts of biogas, and its production time will depend on the type of waste you’re using. Regardless of the generator, it can be invaluable for green building projects.

How is biogas produced

First things first, what is biogas? It’s the result of a natural process called “anaerobic digestion” – the decomposition of organic matter by bacteria in the absence of oxygen. This result is a smokeless, flammable gas that consists of mostly methane, carbon dioxide, small amounts of hydrogen moisture, and trace amounts of other gases.

You can mimic this process on your own. First, you’ll need a suitable vessel to serve as the biogas generator, such as a purpose-built biogas oven, or an industrial biogas production system. The process happens naturally within the reactor, and involves the following steps:

1. Placing the biological waste inside the reactor.
2. The biogas generator crushes down the waste into small chunks. It then liquefies them to speed up and facilitate the anaerobic digestion process.
3. It then heats the biological waste to 37 degrees Celsius, which is the optimum temperature for the microbes to start the biogas production process.
4. The biogas production process now begins. The fermentation process starts with the microbes feeding on the organic matter in the biogas generator, breaking it down into proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and so on. During the process of anaerobic digestion, these materials turn into methane and carbon dioxide.
5. The entire process can take anywhere from one hour to three weeks.
6. Before the resulting biogas is put to use, it needs to go through the process of removing impurities and carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide can then be used for other purposes.

The advantages of biogas generation

There are plenty of things to like about using biogas instead of coal and wood:

• It’s clean, plentiful, and renewable. You can use any organic material lying around to generate biogas.
• Producing biogas reduces your reliance on other energy sources, such as gas and electricity, allowing you to live a more energy-independent life, reducing your energy costs and consumption.
• It helps protect local wildlife and habitats. Unlike other energy sources that require the destruction of wildlife and their homes, biogas only requires waste and a biogas generator.

The disadvantages of biogas generation

That said, biogas production does have some disadvantages, including:

• Being less effective in colder regions, due to requiring the optimal temperature of 37 degrees Celsius.
• Taking up to several weeks, but only if producing on the industrial level.

All things considered, biogas generation is a quick, easy, and safe alternative to destructive and non-renewable energy sources like coal and wood. Anything from nature can be a source of biogas, and you can even carry out the process yourself, in your own home.

Biogas Generation Can Be Great for Green Building Projects

There are a number of great benefits of using biogas generation in green building projects. It is important to consider these advantages when engaging in green construction.

The post Introducing Biogas Generation Capabilities in Green Buildings appeared first on Green Building Insider.

The demand for sustainable homes has surged in recent years. The market for eco-friendly single family homes was worth over $116 billion last year.

There are already a number of great eco-friendly homes on the market. However, many homeowners may feel that they don’t suit their tastes and needs.

If you aren’t interested in the existing stock of eco-friendly housing in your neighborhood, then you will want to consider building your own. There are a lot of benefits of constructing your own property, such as having the opportunity to come up with the ideal design for your family.

Creating a Custom Home Can Be a Great Option for Prospective Eco-Friendly Homeowners

More green homeowners are building their own homes rather than looking at environmentally friendly houses already on the market. A custom house is designed according to your specifications by an architect rather than using a predesigned plan with no homeowner involvement. It is expensive to build, but you will have control over the process, ensuring you get a one-of-a-kind home built according to your liking.

You will choose the designs, give instructions like how big the rooms should be, where they will be located, and other details like lighting fixtures. In addition, you can incorporate some environmentally friendly approaches not to harm the environment. You can even make sure the building process has as small of a carbon footprint as possible.

1. Cost

Cost is one of the considerations to look at when purchasing a new home. You will need land, design of your floorplan, planning, and development of every aspect of the home of your new home. Custom eco-friendly houses will cost twice as much as personalize production houses due to the much variability. You will also need an architect to oversee the project and make sure everything is done correctly. You may visit the eco-friendly custom home builders from Iowa to get a feel for what they have to offer.

2. Marital Status

You don’t want to build a larger house than you need, especially if you care about saving the environment. Larger homes will consumer more energy and have a higher carbon footprint.

Consider a scenario where you are single- loans from banks might be rigid since no one can support you with the second income or two credit scores. In addition, your career might change in the next five years and forced to relocate. Another scenario is when you are in a relationship but not married- you will need to understand what will happen if one of you decides to part ways. Again, laying out the possibilities will bring you peace of mind.

3. Your Lifestyle

Think about your hobbies, habits, and how you live your life today. This includes your focus on sustainability and other lifestyle issues. The amount of storage space is commonly misjudged- the size of closets and built-in storage spaces. You should not underestimate these factors in the planning phase since they will be difficult to add later. The planning and selection process is much easier when you include your lifestyle in the process.

4. Location

Different locations have different codes varying from state to state, even from county to county sometimes. Location and the community around you will have a more significant impact on your life, even more than the house you are building. You will raise your family here, send your kids to school, attend church, get friends from here and those trips to local stores. Make sure they do not affect the quality of your life.

5. Chose A Builder Who Fits Your Wants

The type of builder you chose will show in the quality of your home. Find someone with who you will be able to work for the next five to eight months of your life as you engage in those lengthy talks. Custom homes require a lot of time with the builder as you walk through every plan and detail, and hiring someone you can’t stand will make the process much harder than it needs to be.

Consider the Benefits of Creating an Eco-Friendly Home for Your Family

If you are planning on going in this direction, sites likeeco-friendly custom home builders from Iowawill provide you with the services and the experience of owning that custom house you desire.

The post Essential Guidelines on Building an Eco-Friendly Custom Home appeared first on Green Building Insider.

Hire a Professional Painter as an Eco-Friendly Homeowner

Are you an eco-friendly property owner that wants to give your office or house a makeover? Well, it may seem like an easy job where you just need to buy your ideal paint, a brush, and handle it yourself. However, if you need to have perfect work done, you need to hire a professional painter. The good news is that there are a lot of eco-friendly painters that will get the job done right without unnecessarily hurting the environment.

Are you wondering why eco-friendly homeowners should hire a professional painter? A professional painter is in a position to give you the best out of your painting project as there are basics of the job you don’t know. They also know how to reduce their carbon footprint, just like eco-friendly plumbers do when doing their own job.

Here are 4 fascinating reasons why you need to hire a professional painter.

1. Saves A Lot of Time

There are a lot of things that need to be done while preparing your walls for painting, such as filling up the holes, dusting the walls among others. So, hiring a professional painter saves you from all the hustle as he or she can do it on your behalf. If they are trained to do their job in the eco-friendliest way possible, then they can minimize waste and make sure that they don’t use environmentally harmful toxins. There are a lot of eco-friendly paints on the market and professionals know which ones to use.

You can concentrate on handling your other daily tasks and leave the painting tasks to the professional painter hired. Best of all, the professional painter handles all the tasks on time because he or she knows the right thing to do at the right time.

2. Has Lots of Experience           

A professional painter has a lot of experience in the field. He or she has handled various painting projects satisfactorily and you can expect a lot from your project. A professional painter knows the right type of paint to use and the best colors for your house or office.

So, he or she is in a position to advise you on the right paint to buy for your painting project. Search for professional paint contractors near me, they can give you advice on how to keep the painted walls in perfect condition for a long period without having to repaint now and then.

3. Is Well-Equipped with The Right Tools

Painting has many tools needed for the job which tend to be expensive if you are to buy new ones for your project. It makes your project costly as some of the tools like various paintbrushes, patching tools, and safety gear tend to be expensive.

The good news is that a professional painter has the right tools for the job and you don’t have to buy new ones. The painter comes with his or her tools for the project which are key to giving your house or office an amazing finishing touch.

4. Has an Insurance Cover

A professional painter has the necessary insurance cover that saves you from unplanned expenditures on compensation if the painter gets a problem on the job. In case of anything such as an accident during the project, the insurance cover takes care of the medical bills and other expenses of the injured painter.

Best of all, some insurance covers of particular painting companies can also compensate the damages on your property during the painting project. If the painter damages any of your properties, you can be compensated by the insurance cover.

Hire Professional Painters for Your Eco-Friendly Home Today

You need a professional that knows how to do their job without harming the environment. To hire the best one, search for paint contractors near me today and earn the most out of your painting project. They will also use paints that aren’t environmentally destructive as well.

The post 4 Reasons Green Homeowners Need Professional Painting Contractors appeared first on Green Building Insider.

However, there are other issues that you have to think about other than just making your home eco-friendlier. You must also think about other issues that apply to all homeowners.

One of the factors that eco-friendly homeowners have to keep in mind is the resale value of their property. This is something they consider when building the property, but they must also pay attention when upgrading and maintaining it as well. You may find that there are ways that you can renovate the property to increase its value, which will be especially important if you are trying to sell it. You can use sustainable renovation tips to accomplish this. But before you start, you might want to test your home for asbestos to avoid health hazards during renovation.

Eco-Friendly Renovation Tips to Increase the Value of a Green Home

All eco-friendly homeowners want to do their best to keep their houses in excellent shape. There are some obvious environmental benefits of renovating your property. You can make it more energy efficient with a lot of renovation strategies, which helps lower your carbon footprint and lowers energy costs.

However, there are also more practical benefits to keep in mind. Not only does this improve your standard of living, but it helps you prepare for the future. Maintaining high resale value is an essential part of being a homeowner, even if you don’t plan to sell in the foreseeable future. Renovations are some of the best ways you can keep upgrading your house and boosting its value. However, even when it comes to renovations, some can hurt your home’s value rather than increase it. These renovations may cost a lot but may not give you much in return. However, other upgrades can boost your resale value exponentially.

If you’re interested in learning more about the best and the worst renovations for your eco-friendly home, keep reading below. You will learn how to help the environment and improve the value of the property at the same time.

Best: updating insulation

Updating your insulation may seem like a minor upgrade. However, it makes a huge difference when it comes to boosting your resale value and your comfort.

Improving the insulation is also obviously important for making your property more energy efficient. This will lower your carbon footprint and help protect the planet.

Over the years, your insulation can get damaged and need intensive repairs. In addition, having old insulation can bring a host of issues. For starters, it can make your home much more susceptible to developing mold and mildew and suffering from pest infestations. Furthermore, you might notice strange smells around the house, coupled with temperature regulation issues.

Opting for insulation removal is the best option in such cases. Professional removers can help protect your belongings adequately during the process by moving your furniture to a safe, protected location. Furthermore, they can walk you through the whole process and give you an estimate after a free inspection. Getting insulation removal can make your home infinitely more comfortable and can help you elevate resale value. Insulation is one of the first factors potential buyers assess. Having new insulation can send your home’s resale value skyrocketing.

Best: open floor plan

Having an open floor plan is easily one of the most attractive features for any buyer. An interconnected, open space can seem more inviting than a closed-off, boxy space. A wide-open space can give potential buyers more room to experiment and arrange the place as they see fit. Furthermore, it can make space seem more welcoming, as you can get more natural light streaming through the area. Besides, knocking down some walls can be excellent for homes on the smaller side. And, it can create the illusion that the floor plan is much bigger than it is, which is always a plus.

However, it’s essential to have some definition when creating an open floor plan. You don’t want to knock down the walls and make a big open area indiscriminately. Instead, consider hiring an interior designer or a contractor who can advise you better on how to go about redoing the rooms. But, again, working with a plan in mind can help you achieve an excellent definition.

There are ways to improve the floor plan in an eco-friendly manner. You want to do so in a way that improves circulation to ensure energy is used efficiently.

Best: energy efficiency

Having an energy-efficient house is the top requirement of today’s potential buyers. With natural resources depleting at high-speed rates, homeowners are increasingly conscious. They want to do their best to prevent further damage to the planet. Moreover, energy efficiency at home can help homeowners save thousands of dollars annually and help them live a much healthier life.

When it comes to creating a greener home, there are various steps you can take. Adding solar panels is one of the best ways to boost your home’s resale value. They are low maintenance, and a one-time investment can lead to exponentially lower bills. Furthermore, minor changes such as energy-efficient light bulbs and appliances can make a huge difference too. Energy-efficient appliances and bulbs can cut back on electricity usage heavily and promote greener living.

Worst: quirky designs

As a homeowner, you might tend to think like you need to add personal touches and renovate the home to your tastes. However, if you plan on selling the house, too much personalization can cost you heavily without adding anything of value. Likewise, adding anything too bold and eye-catching can steal the show away from buyers and give them little room to put their spin on the place. If you seek to incorporate some personality into your space, do it through non-permanent features such as your furniture and decorations.

As a rule of thumb, skip adding accent walls, bold door handles, bright wallpaper, quirky tiles, or anything similar. However, if you want to add more permanent changes, you can add neutral-toned wallpaper or paint. This way, you can improve the look of your home without going too overboard and leaving little room for the new occupants to express themselves.

Worst: high-end kitchen

Contrary to popular belief, adding a high-end kitchen may hurt your resale value rather than boosting it. The kitchen is a crucial area in the home, and it’s one of the most functional spaces. However, a super high-end kitchen, no matter how well-designed, rarely ever pays off when it comes to resale value. Of course, you might add stunning new finishes, increased cabinet space, kitchen islands, and the best appliances. Still, you have little to show for it when it comes to resale value.

Instead of going all out and changing everything, you need to focus on the essentials to boost resale value. For example, you can fix areas that are worn out and add increased space. If you want to add cosmetic changes, more minor changes are always better than larger ones. Additionally, you can add mid-range appliances rather than opting for the most expensive models. If you want an instant increase in resale value, do so with minor changes instead of complete kitchen overhauls.

High end kitchens are also often bad for the environment. They are often very resource intensive and use a lot of nonrenewable resources.

Eco-Friendly Renovations Are Important for Boosting the Value of Green Homes

Home renovations can be a fascinating period for homeowners, allowing them to personalize their homes to their wishes. However, it can be easy to pick the wrong renovation idea and lose out on a lot of money. If you plan to sell your humble abode and want to boost your resale value, this list can help you figure out what to invest in and what to avoid. These renovations won’t just increase your home’s resale value but can make your home comfortable, safe, and welcoming for your family too.

The post Renovation Insights to Increase the Resale Value of Eco-Friendly Homes appeared first on Green Building Insider.

One product that eco-friendly building professionals should be aware of is a stretch wrap pallet. Keep reading to learn more about stretch wrap pallets and their role in sustainable building projects.

The Importance of Stretch Wrap Pallets for Eco-Friendly Building Projects

Stretch wrap pallet, a plastic film that is incredibly stretchable, usually made of LLDPE wrapped around objects. The elastic recovery clings to the part tightly.

Stretch film is used to wrap and secure pallets. To help minimize material waste, avoid disruption to loads, and eliminate worker accidents. The reduction in material waste plays a big role in helping ensure contracting projects are eco-friendly. In our blog post, we go into greater detail about the purpose of stretch film. There are numerous widths, thicknesses, and stretch film configurations available.

The following section discusses the two most popular types of stretch film extrusion for green building projects. The process of extrusion is used to create stretch films and a variety of other flexible plastic products. Visit our website for more details on the extrusion method.

It is also known as cast stretch wrap. It is manufactured using the cast extrusion technique. The casting extrusion procedure is a continuous process that involves melting a thermoplastic material and extruding it onto a chill roll using a flat die that has been softened and re-solidified. This technique makes the Cast stretch film more visible, requires less force to stretch, increases tear efficiency, allows the film to sit quietly on the devices, and provides improved cling. As a result, stretch film is suitable for both computerized and manual grading.

Advantages in Cast Stretch Film Cast stretch film: Itis less expensive than exploded stretch film and is thus more prevalent due to its reduced manufacturing costs. Consumers will also display packaged objects due to increased illumination. In contrast to blown stretch wrap, cast stretch wrap relaxes quietly. In addition, cast stretch film has a double-sided cling, which allows for safe packaging.

Disadvantages of Cast Stretch Film: It does not have the power source that exploded stretch film does. Furthermore, cast stretch film exhibits fewer resistance and memory than blown stretch film.

The burst stretch cover is often referred to as the stretch wrap pallet. The vertical die of the ring slit extrudes this plastic melt to build a thin wall tube. Air is blown through the film tube in the shape of a ball through a crack in the die’s middle. A cooling air ring circulates the film tunnel. As a result of this method, the blown film is more robust and challenging than the cast film. Additionally, the exploded film’s superior technical properties usually result in more substantial holding power.

The benefits of a blown stretch wrap: Include increased load capacity and extensibility. The blown stretch film is a high-end production. Until prolonged, blown stretch film has a higher memory level, which helps preserve product loads. Additionally, increased tear resistance is advantageous when securing loads with sharp boundaries.

Disadvantages of Blown Stretch Wrap – Increased processing costs: The blown stretch wrap is opaque due to the crystallization process. Additionally, the blown film is often very disruptive when rolls are unwound.

Manual vs. Automatic wrappers:

• Manual (or hand) wrappers:

Extended heart: An expansion of the film’s center serves as a wrapping stick, providing less strength and making the handwork harder.

A simple mechanism protects a film roll, as well as a mechanical braking unit that provides power to allow the film to be extended.

Polar wraps: identical to mechanical braking mechanisms, but they are located at the end of a stretched shaft. The roll and brake are configured ergonomically to eliminate the need for stretching to wrap loads and strains to reach load tops.

Wrappers that reach for the hands. Two lead rollers for the stretch film have a mechanical portion on this one-handed wrapping product at varying speeds.

Windows that operate semi-automatically:

Turntable wrappers: With these options, the box will be packed is supported by a tower that rotates the load compared to the roll of film. The tower is placed inside of a carriage that can be moved to and from a stabilized mast. The load will be extended by rotating it faster than the film can be fed.

A carriage is used to store the film on a vertical ring in orbital wrappers. The load is fed into the rotating eye, and a film is fixed to it. An orbital stretch wrapper is a kind of horizontal ring structure in which the load is fixed. In comparison, a horizontal ring is rotated around the load. It is pulled vertically up and down about it, similar to a rotary arm stretch wrapper.

Rotary arm wrappers: The load is going to be stationary as a arm rotates around it. This system is ideal for loads with lower weights or those with speeds where the load can collapse due to the fast rotational speeds.

• Winding devices that operate automatically:

Typical fully automated rotary ring wrappers

Automatic wrappers are usually semi-automatic versions of semi-automatic devices. The automated wrappers incorporate a conveyor mechanism that automatically loads, seals, and supports the film on the wrapping machine and automatic devices.

Turntable wrappers: The box to be packed is supported by a tower that rotates the load compared to the film roll. The tower is placed in a carriage that can be moved to and from a fixed mast. Extending the load is achieved by rotating it faster than the film is fed.

Rotary arm wrappers: The load remains stationary as a rotating arm surrounds it. This system is used for light loads or speeds that allow the load to collapse due to the fast rotational speeds.

Rotary ring wrappers: With these types of wrappers, the film is contained in a carriage on a horizontal ring that rotates around the container. It is raised and lowered concerning the load. Additionally, the rotary ring technique is a better balanced solution that requires minor wear and upkeep than other wrapping techniques. Additionally, this wrapper can operate at a total capacity (as many as 160 pallets per hour).

Stretch Wrap Pallets Are Important for Eco-Friendly Construction

There are a number of important tools that eco-friendly building professionals should have in their arsenal. Stretch wrap pallets are some of the most overlooked. You should use them to your full advantage as a green building professional.

The post A Full Guide on Stretch Wrap Pallet for Sustainable Contractors appeared first on Green Building Insider.

If you are concerned about preserving the planet and keeping everyone that inhabits your home safe, then you need to avoid them when building a new property. You should avoid using them in the construction of the home and keep them out after it has been finished.

The Importance of Avoiding the Use of Hazardous Chemicals When Building an Eco-Friendly Home

For most people keeping their homes safe from safety hazards is a priority. However, sometimes it’s hard to tell which of these everyday household chemicals threaten your family’s health.

The average family spends roughly $600 on cleaning products each year. While it’s normal to keep your house sparkling clean, some of these cleaning products are chemical hazards and dangerous to the environment. Some of them are carcinogenic, while others have been linked to reproductive health issues.

Today, we’ll look at some of the most environmentally harmful chemicals found in your home.

Bleach

Apart from being very corrosive, bleach can also pose other risks to your health. First, it can irritate your respiratory system if you inhale it. Bleach kills microbes, and when you inhale bleach regularly, it kills off parts of your respiratory tract. It also kills microorganisms if it is released into the environment, which can be terrible for plant and water life around your home.

However, inhaling bleach fumes is only dangerous if you do it every day. Inhaling the fumes once a week won’t do much to your lungs. Just keep your small children away from the fumes because their respiratory system is much more sensitive.

Bleach also irritates the skin and eyes when they come in contact with it. Wash away any bleach that touches your skin or eyes. Inhaling or ingesting too much bleach can lead to pulmonary edema and even a coma.

That’s why it’s important to keep bleach out of reach from small children who love to eat or drink anything they can get their hands on. Use latex gloves and a mask if you use bleach every day.

Ammonia

Ammonia is an ingredient in fertilizers, a water supply purifier, and a refrigerant gas. It occurs as an odorless gas with a sharp, almost suffocating odor. 

Many household cleaning products, like window and toilet cleaners, contain ammonia.

Ammonia fumes can irritate the lungs, throats, nose, and lungs. They are especially dangerous for people with heart and lung problems or asthma. They are also very dangerous to all forms of wildlife, so people that care about the environment should avoid them.

Never mix ammonia with chlorine-based products found in your home. Doing so doesn’t make the cleaning agent stronger, but only more dangerous. Mixing the two chemicals produces a highly toxic and potentially fatal gas.

Air Fresheners

You probably didn’t realize that air fresheners were so dangerous to you and the surrounding environment. Although they smell good, air fresheners are a source of indoor pollution. They contain substances like formaldehyde and toluene, which scientists attribute to numerous health effects, including neurotoxicity and cancer.

Most air fresheners contain formaldehyde which can irritate your skin and eyes. Research suggests that continued exposure to formaldehyde can lead to certain types of cancer. They can also cause pulmonary edema and disrupt the nervous systems of sensitive individuals. Furthermore, they can be deadly to small animals, such as frogs and mice.

Furthermore, air fresheners can stick to walls, surfaces and get absorbed by furniture, which means the harmful effects of the chemicals linger even when you stop using them. Consider switching to natural alternatives like sandalwood, orange rose, and tea tree eucalyptus to minimize the harmful effects of air fresheners.

Antifreeze

Antifreeze contains ethylene glycol, methanol, and propylene glycol, all of which are very toxic when ingested. Antifreeze is great for cooling your engines but is terrible to the body, even in small amounts. Antifreeze damages the heart, brain, kidney, and other internal organs.

The side effects of ingesting antifreeze appear after several hours. For the first few hours after consuming it, the body works hard to break the ethylene glycol into other substances. These substances then harm your heart, brain, kidney, and nervous system.

After a couple of hours, you’ll start feeling a bit dizzy and experience mild stomach illness. After a few more hours, you may enter an unresponsive state or get into a coma. If you survive, you’ll likely have permanent brain or kidney damage.

Kids are more susceptible to antifreeze poisoning because they drink anything in a plastic bottle. Even worse, antifreeze tastes sweet; children can ingest large amounts of the chemical.  

Drain Cleaners

Drain cleaners are great for addressing minor clogs in your plumbing system but aren’t so great for your respiratory and nervous system. Drain cleaners can burn your skin and eyes. If you inhale drain cleaner fumes, they irritate the respiratory system, and chemicals in the fumes enter your bloodstream, leading to seizures and sometimes a coma.

Symptoms of drain cleaner poisoning include severe abdominal pain, vomiting blood, chest pains, collapsing, and diarrhea, to name a few. If you swallow drain cleaner, take lots of water and milk.

If drain cleaner comes into contact with your skin, wash it away with clean water for at least fifteen minutes. For large drain cleaner spills, contact chemical spill clean up companies to contain and remediate the spill site.

Carpet Cleaner

Carpet and upholstery cleaners are dangerous to your health because they contain naphthalene. Exposure to naphthalene has been attributed to the formation of cataracts and liver damage with prolonged exposure. 

Furthermore, the cleaning agents contain perchloroethylene, a known carcinogen. It may lead to dizziness, headaches, and kidney problems even after short-term exposure.

Be Safe: Know the Household Chemical Hazards

These seemingly harmless household products are chemical hazards that threaten the safety of your family. As such, you need to be extra careful when using these substances and keep them out of your children’s reach. In the event you have large chemical spills, contact emergency response ASAP.

Avoid Chemicals that Pose a Danger to the Environment

There are a lot of chemicals that are harmful to the environment. You should avoid them if you are an environmentally conscious homeowner or building a property that is meant to be eco-friendly.

Do you want to read more home-related articles? We have many more on our site. Keep exploring.

The post Most Hazardous Chemicals Green Building Professionals Must Avoid appeared first on Green Building Insider.

Environmentalism has become an even more relevant hot topic issue in recent years as the world has become, as a whole, more conscious of the way our action impact our environment. But is there a reason to jump on the bandwagon besides the obvious PR boost to your construction company?

Construction businesses in particular have become a lot more concerned about lowering their carbon footprint. However, many construction companies haven’t taken adequate steps to be truly eco-friendly. They need to follow relevant trends and prepare accordingly.

And how can you go about improving your ESG strategy?

Why should construction companies become greener?

One big reason for construction companies to become more sustainable is that consumers are demanding more from their businesses now than in the past and they don’t just want more bang for their buck. They expect their businesses to have the same cares that they do.

In fact, 81% of those surveyed by Nielson said they felt strongly that companies should be doing more to improve the environment. Sustainability is also never a bad business model. Adopting greener business practices shouldn’t just save the environment, it should also save you money.

How do we get started?

There are a lot of ways to make eco-friendly construction a priority. Some tips are listed below.

Start small – Begin by implementing recycling into your business plan and promoting it heavily across the business. Try changing out all of your light bulbs with LED alternatives and attempt to cultivate a culture of eco-friendliness throughout the workplace. This means encouraging employees to reduce the use of paper, avoid using materials unnecessarily and reusing material whenever possible.

Take action – Once you’ve installed the basics, consider taking things up a notch or two by only using products made from recycled material. You could also be putting your practices under the microscope and examining areas where it would be feasible to cut back. Cutting back on travel, for example, is an obvious step.

Go renewable – Installing solar panels at your office achieves two things: It’s a symbol to your clients and customers that you are taking things seriously and it will give your building a renewable source of energy. It probably won’t generate enough power that you’ll be able to rely on it 100% but it should at least mean you’ll be using a lot less grid power and it will pay for itself in a matter of years.

Think long term – Establish a long-term strategy that outlines your goals and work to achieve those goals over a number of years. This means setting milestone targets like reducing your carbon footprint by so much at the end of year five and aligning yourself with like-minded individuals who share your ambitions.

Use external help – Many external consultants are able to help businesses improve their carbon footprint and create a plan to improve the environment. Those that specialize in environmental compliance are particularly adept at bringing businesses in line with what is expected of them from a modern environmental perspective.

Ultimately, it’s all of the little things when taken together that are going to make that crucial difference. So, shop local, recycle and think before you act. It’s perhaps easier said than done but it could open up a whole new avenue for your business as an eco-friendly pillar of the community.

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While it’s true that governments and international NGOs can have a far greater impact than individuals, it’s still worth thinking about what effect your actions can have. From installing a smart meter, to reducing your meat intake, every little thing soon adds up, so its good to be in the know.

According to polling by OVO energy, around 87% of the British public know what climate change is, and around 80% understand what a carbon footprint entails. From this, we can also assume that people understand the significance of this also. 

However, now we know this, the important question is: does this knowledge have an impact on behavior, and which changes in behavior are the most consequential?

Driving to Work

Your daily commute makes up a sizeable chunk of your emissions. While older cars tend to produce more CO₂ than newer ones, and much less than their electric equivalents, the average sits at around 123kg of CO₂/km, according to EU estimates.

The poll also found that train travel wasn’t much better, with a train journey from London to Glasgow for example creating a huge 46kg of carbon emissions. This helps people realize that they need to avoid making major eco-tourism mistakes.

Anything you can do to avoid this, therefore, is worthwhile. If you can walk to work for example, then this would help you to significantly help to improve this figure. Not only is it going to diminish your carbon footprint; it’ll also do wonders for your health. It’s easier on your joints than jogging, and it burns body fat nicely.

For many, this isn’t an option. But there are alternatives: invest in a bicycle, start a carpooling system, or ask whether you can work from home.

Bathing and Showering

The average ten-minute shower, according to Mike Berners Lee’s book, releases around 500g of carbon into the atmosphere. Of course, this depends on a number of factors. How warm are your showers? How efficient is your boiler? How long are you actually spending in there? If you run a generous, relaxing bath, then this figure rises to a whopping 1kg, as Ovo Energy’s research found.

Of course, the best strategy here is to take cold showers. Once you’ve gone through that ordeal, you’ll be ready to face the day. Plus, for some reason ice-cold showers rarely last as long as ten minutes (or even one).

Meat

There’s comprehensive evidence indicating that meat products are, calorie for calorie, more damaging to the environment than plant-based ones. Not only is there the carbon cost of raising, feeding and slaughtering the animals, there’s also the opportunity cost. Land that’s filled with cattle, or the grain used to feed cattle, is land that can’t be forested. Our World in Data estimate that beef produces a whopping 60kg of CO₂ per 1kg consumed.

Interestingly, the location of your food doesn’t matter very much. “Eating local beef or lamb has many times the carbon footprint of most other foods. Whether they are grown locally or shipped from the other side of the world matters very little for total emissions.” So, you can stop worrying about that.

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Think Small

No matter how noble your efforts to make a large home energy efficient are, a smaller home will always make less of an environmental impact. It takes less materials to construct the home, less energy to provide it with power, and creates less waste. Let’s breakdown just how downsizing can make less of an impact. We already stated that it takes less materials to construct a smaller home, it also takes less time, which means less usage of the machinery that has a tendency to be harmful to the environment. It also takes far less energy to cool or heat a small space than a larger one, not to mention the lack of waste heating or cooling rooms no one is occupying, and you’d require less lighting. It’s easier to clean a smaller home and requires less harsh chemical products to do so. A smaller home means a smaller environmental footprint.

Consider the Power of the Sun

Solar energy is finally becoming a viable solution for energy use in the United States and other developed countries. While it still accounts for just slightly under 1% of global energy consumption, it is growing at an unprecedented rate. Solar energy consumption is increasing by 102% every year. This is over 802 million quads of energy.

Why is solar power so viable?  Not only can the clean, efficient power of the sun help to save you money, but it can help you make money as well. Solar panels can help you save so much energy that you can sell some back to the utility company. By making this decision before the construction process begins, you are gifting yourself with a golden opportunity those that install solar panels later don’t have. You can design your home to be optimized for solar energy through the placement of your home in the yard to get the best access to the sun and optimal solar panel placement so you can get the most energy possible.

Find The Best Energy Star Products

The Energy Star program was developed in 1992. It was intended to minimize the global carbon footprint, reduce the pressure on nonrenewable resources and help organizations around the world minimize costs.

Since Energy Star products have been widely used for over a quarter of a century, experts have a better assessment of their energy saving potential. Energy Star products are used to cover over 3.7 billion square feet in over 25,000 buildings around the United States. They have helped organizations save over $3.4 billion.

However, some Energy Star products have much higher cost savings than others. You need to do your due diligence before investing in them, because you want to go for the highest cost savings possible. You will need to take a variety of factors into consideration, including the types of energy that you use, the size of your building and number of employees using it.

Energy Star products are those rated to be the greenest options for all your household appliances. When constructing a green home, it’s a good idea to plan out the ideal appliances for your home. Choosing Energy Star rated products can save you money, help conserve energy and water, and help to lower your footprint. Installing these products can help you improve your environmental footprint.

Green building can be the best decision for your new home that is both financially beneficial and good for the future. Building your house, the cleanest and greenest way possible, helps to reduce your environmental footprint. You can save money, conserve energy, and reduce your waste.

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