How to Include Eco-Friendly and Energy-Efficient Features in Your Home Renovation
You can turn your current home into an energy-efficient, eco-friendly one! With a little creativity and ingenuity, these changes can have a big impact during both simple and more involved renovations.
Incorporating energy-saving features in your home are good for the environment and your home’s overall value. Read on to discover practical ways you can renovate your home with sustainable, energy-efficient elements that reduce energy waste and make your property more desirable when it comes time to sell.
10 Sustainable, Energy-Efficient Home Renovation Ideas
1. Increase Your Insulation
Adding insulation to your attic and crawlspace to enhance your home’s protection from the extreme temperatures we experience here in Whistler can be a great improvement to your home. You can improve airtightness, energy efficiency, and the comfort of your interior particularly during the winter. Opting for premium insulation in home additions and major renovations to conserve energy long-term can also improve the energy efficiency and comfort of your home. Keep in mind though, you’ll want to do this under the guidance of a professional, as homes need to be viewed as a system and changing the insulation or air tightness and not taking into consideration the entire impacts such as factoring in adequate ventilation can prove to be a mistake. A Professional Builder experienced in Energy Retrofits or Energy Advisors and Envelope Consultants can assist in determining the best approach when it comes to upgrading your home's energy efficiency.
2. Install Energy-Efficient Doors and Windows
You’ll lower your energy consumption and improve your carbon footprint by selecting ENERGY STAR® rated windows, doors, and skylights. When installed by an experienced contractor, these high-quality products will be fitted to perfection, eliminating any previous gaps you had around your doors and windows, and making your interior more comfortable throughout the year.
3. Enhance Your View and Boost Natural Light
With the immense beauty that surrounds us in Whistler, consider a curtain wall. These gorgeous features offer panoramic views of the outdoors while ushering an abundance of natural light into your home. You’ll lower your electricity use as the sun lights your great room.
4. Install Solar Panels
Rooftop solar panels generate a lot of energy and potentially a good amount of savings over the years too! By gaining your own renewable energy source, you decrease your carbon footprint and increase your property’s value.
5. Add Energy-Efficient Smart Lights
Smart lighting can be controlled from your device and pre-programmed to switch on or off at a designated time of day. They can even be used to simulate the sunrise and sunset, so they can help you regulate your circadian rhythm. This feature is shared by most systems and turns lights on in the morning at their warmest and least-bright setting before they gradually become brighter and cooler. These artificial sunrises can be configured to last a couple of minutes or up to thirty minutes, depending on how leisurely you want your morning wakeup routine to be.
You’ll lower your energy usage and use a more sustainable form of power in your home by swapping traditional bulbs for LED lighting. LED lights provide efficient, long-lasting illumination. They come in a wide variety of intensities—from pleasant ambient room lighting to focused function and task lighting. An LED light that consumes just 15 watts produces as many lumens (a measure of light visible to your eyes) as a 100-watt incandescent bulb. Over time, that’s a significant energy savings!
6. Improve Air Quality in Your Home
Add a smart thermostat to automatically adjust your heating and cooling throughout the day, and enjoy the convenience of regulating your home’s temperature (from your device!) even when you aren’t home. You’ll save energy and enjoy comfortable temperatures more readily.
Upgrade your heating and air conditioning unit, add air purifiers, and remove elements that trap dust—like carpeting and curtains. Add hard surface flooring and smart blinds that you can control from afar.
7. Automate Your Home
Purchase new ENERGY STAR rated appliances for your kitchen and save on utilities. Get smart technology that links to your device, and it will tell you if you left the refrigerator door open. When the dishwasher, washer, or dryer is done, you’ll be notified. Additionally, installing sensors in your laundry room, bathroom, and kitchen is smart because they can inform you if something is overflowing and about to flood your home. This saves you energy, time, and hassles!
8. Choose Eco-Friendly Paint
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are toxic chemicals added to many paints. If you want to protect the environment, select an eco-friendly paint that doesn’t contain VOCs.
If you prefer to have your walls covered in wallpaper, get it from a company that offers Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified wallpaper. That way, you know it came from well-managed forests or was recycled.
9. Add a Garden
Eating as much local, sustainable food as possible can improve your health, making gardens high on the wish list of many homebuyers. Plus, the act of gardening itself can be a great stress reliever and source of fun! Recruit family members of all ages to help you plant, tend, and harvest your crops, and enjoy the nutritional value, color, scent, and crisp taste of fresh produce!
10. Restore When Possible
Consider what can be restored in your home in order to produce less waste and lower your material costs. Can your kitchen cabinets be restored rather than replaced? How would a good paint job—or sanding and staining job—up the look of your cabinets?
Rather than replacing the entire kitchen cabinet units, will new cabinet doors and hardware deliver the look you desire in your kitchen? If you’re gutting out your kitchen, could the cabinets, sink, refrigerator, and range be moved to your refinished basement or to your recreation room to offer greater versatility in that space in the future?
Transform Your Whistler Home with Sustainable, Beautiful Materials
Your home should embody your personal style and preferences. So when you’re ready to remodel it, elevate its aesthetics with custom renovations by expert designers at Whistler Builder. You’ll love our passion for craftsmanship and commitment to exceed your expectations. We don’t just build and renovate homes—we build trust, relationships, and community. Learn more about our home renovation services. Contact us today to book a consultation!