Going Green With Your Remodeling Project

Thinking about cleaning up your trash you got it covered by waste disposal Sydney. Are you thinking about doing a littleĀ do-it-yourself remodeling? The home remodeling project can be a fun and satisfying experience. You can test or enhance your handyman skills, try out those new tools, or go buy more tools. You can show off your creative and mechanical skills as well as your superior planning ability. The completed project stands as a monument to your handyman abilities. Nothing is a fulfilling and satisfying as a well done remodeling project done by your own hands.

There is another perk for that remodeling project- saving the planet. Yes, you can be a “green” remodeler.

What exactly does “green” mean? Well, there are many websites and resources that provide information on this subject. In general the “green” remodeler will be making choices that affect the following:

  • Water Consumption
  • Energy Consumption
  • Indoor Air Quality
  • Material Life Cycle
  • Project Waste

Water Consumption: The average household uses 11 gallons of water per day. There are many opportunities for reducing water consumption with our indoor remodeling choices.

  • High Efficient Products. If you are planning on buying new appliances or replacing older fixtures, many products today are available with significantly lower water consumption rates. Dishwashers, washing machines and toilets all have lower water consumption versions. It is not uncommon to see 30% reduction in water consumption with these products.
  •  Buy a Dishwasher: Studies show that using a dishwasher efficiently will use less water than hand washing.
  • Plumbing Fixtures: Replace showerheads and faucets with low flow fixtures. You will save water and not even notice the difference.
  • Repairing Leaks: A dripping faucet or leaking toilet can waste 100’s of gallons of water; most of these repairs are very simple and inexpensive.

Energy consumption: Residential Energy Consumption costs close to 300 billion dollars per year in the United States. According to the Energy Information Administration total residential energy consumption breaks down as follows:

  • Heating/Space heating – 29%
  • Air Conditioning – 15%
  • Water Heaters – 16%
  • Refrigerators -7%
  • Other Appliances and Lighting -33%

When doing remodeling, one often is purchasing new appliances or even heating and cooling systems. General recommendations for green remodeling include:

  • Purchase Energy Star Rated Products: Energy Star is a joint program between the U.S Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. Products such as HVAC systems, appliances and lighting that achieve an Energy Star Label have superior energy efficiency. Just replacing your incandescent lights with compact fluorescent light bulbs will save 75% on your lighting energy. Not to mention that they last 10 times longer.
  • Use sunlight for natural lighting and heating: If your remodeling allows, consider designs and layouts that take advantage of natural sunlight for energy use. Then use Energy-efficient windows, doors, and skylights to help lower a home’s heating, cooling, and lighting costs.
  • Improve Insulation: Higher R value insulation in the attic and walls, more energy efficient windows and doors, as well as good old fashion caulking and sealing can reduce energy consumption while improving the comfort of your home
  • Advanced Lighting and Environmental control systems: Use systems that can be programmed to change the temperature settings to minimize energy use. Include motion sensors tied to dimmable lighting controls in your new lighting systems. Ensure that low or non-use rooms consume minimal heating or air conditioning energy.
  • Turn Down Your Water Heater: Many homes still have the water temperature set at 140 F to 150 F. This temperature is certainly not needed for hygiene and with your purchase of more energy efficient appliances; you should be able to get along very nicely at 125 degrees F.

Indoor Air Quality:  Paints, sealants and adhesives emit volatiles during application and curing and air borne residues can linger long after the project is over. Use zero- or low-volatile organic compound (VOC) products to improve your indoor air quality.

Any areas of your home that have moisture are havens for mold; mold is toxic and should be removed by qualified professionals. Make sure you are eliminating sources of moisture penetration and removing water damaged materials as part of your remodeling.

Materials: There are many choices for the remodeler who wishes to use “green” materials. General criteria for green building materials are:

  • Recyclable? – Can the material be torn down and reused for another project?
  • Long Lasting? – Does the material last longer than the typical materials. (Ideally it should last forever).
  • Are they made from recycled materials?
  • Was the manufacturing process environmentally friendly? Was minimum energy used and environmental waste minimized? Were locally available materials used?
  • Is the packaging recyclable or biodegradable?

Answers to the above questions are not always easy for the average do-it-yourselfer to get. Here are some ideas for your material planning.

  • Check out “green material” websites and stores: There are a number of companies that are now specializing in green building materials. Even if you don’tt buy directly from them, you can do a little research and get plenty ideas on what you could use for your project.
  • Check out the products website: There are a number of materials that may not have official green ratings or certifications. For instance, manufactured stone or faux stone products do not currently have a green rating, but still may be environmentally friendly. Go to the company’s website and check out their environmental policies.
  • Wood: use wood materials that have the FSC certification. This means that the wood was processed and manufactured in a sustainable fashion. Wood meeting these criteria will have the FSC logo stamped on it.
  • Paints:  Many paints are reconstituted from recycled paints. Also, consider cleaning instead of re-painting.
  • Long Lasting Products: Check out the expected life of the product, sometimes for a modest cost increase you can purchase a product that lasts substantially longer. The ideal green material should last a lifetime. Purchasing products that will need to be replaced in 5 years is NOT green thinking.

Project Waste Generated:  One of the environmental consequences of any building project is waste generated by the construction process. Using materials where the waste is recyclable or biodegradable is helpful, but careful planning and project management can significantly reduce the waste generated. Can excess materials be returned? Should that last can of paint be a pint instead of a gallon? Are you planning and measuring carefully to ensure that you are not over purchasing?

Why go Green? If you are wondering if you really want to go green on your remodeling project, please consider the following:

  • We all need to be responsible stewards of the precious resources on this planet. If every one of the 150 million households in the US just made a few changes, the overall all impact on energy and environment could be colossal. Global warming is a fact and our natural resources are limited.
  • Lower Energy Costs: The average home owner is spending nearly $2000.00 per year on energy. It is not unreasonable to save 15% to 30% of your total cost with just modest improvements. In addition, future legislation from an environmentally friendly congress may increase taxes based on energy use, so your potential liability for living in an energy wasting home could increase.
  •  Home Value: Statistics are starting to indicate that green homes have a higher re-sale value. The “greeness” of your home may be an important consideration for the next buyer; this attribute will probably increase in importance over the next decade.
  • Tax Savings: The economic stimulus package has included a lot of federal tax incentives for energy saving expenditures. Qualified products could generate tax credits of up to 30% of the product cost. See Energystar.gov for product lists and estimated tax savings.

Hopefully, with spending just a little more time in research and planning, you can have the lifestyle enhancing benefits of from your remodeling project, plus now have the satisfaction of taking a small step in making your home greener.

If you want more information on green building, go to usgbc.org and learn more about the LEED -Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design- green building project rating system.

TriLite Stone Company has been in the manufactured stone industry since 1990. Len Przybylski purchased the company in 1996 and since has built the brand into a leading supplier throughout the US and Canada. TriLite continues to commit itself to producing the highest quality faux stone panels on the market, by providing its signature offering of multiple base colors that is fully integrated throughout the stone. This is a significant commitment to quality as compared to other manufacturing companies, and provides the customer with an end product that can withstand the test of time.

In addition, the manufacturing facility and process utilizes as much “green” as possible, from heating/curing sources of renewable fuels, to utilizing as much recycled material as possible to limit landfill usage.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Len_Przybylski/329685

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2347604

What Is The Role Of A Residential Electrician In Electrical Inspection

Electrician Brisbane Southside is not there for you only during emergency they also reachable if you want them to assist you with new installations, renovations, smoke alarms, office fit outs, air conditioning and provide safety and energy saving advice. With the passage of time, homebuyers have become quite smart and they know which inspections to carry out before they purchase a property. We strongly support this decision because at the end of the day you are investing you hard earned money. You have every right to know what is the actual condition of the property. We all know that a real estate agent will never highlight the drawbacks of a property. If they did so, majority of the properties would never get sold. Hence, as an informed buyer, we need to find out as much information as possible about a property.

As experts, we strongly recommend that you carry out two types of inspections once you have shortlisted the property that you would like to own. One is the building and pest inspection and the other is electrical inspection. Building and pest inspection has become quite common nowadays as many buyers are opting for it. But as far as electrical inspection is concerned, many homebuyers are still lagging behind. Many are not aware and many feel that it is not a mandatory thing to do. But, we think completely otherwise. We believe that electrical inspection is a must and should be carried out at any cost.

For electrical inspection you can hire the services of any inspection company. They have two types of electricians working for them. One is the corporate electrician that looks after corporate affairs i.e. electrical problems in corporate offices and the other one is residential electrician Sydney. They will carry out the inspection at your home. They are skilled professionals with several years of experience. When you hire their service, they will visit your home on the appointed day, carry out checks throughout the house to make sure that everything is all right.

At the end of the inspection they will hand you over a detailed report that highlights all the areas that need immediate electrical attention. Right from loose wires, to power fluctuation, to not working switches and other electrical safety features – you will find the detailed list mentioned. Go through this list before you come to any conclusion. When you know what are the areas that have to be dealt with, ask the residential electrician Sydney to do the needful. Ask them to repair and replace everything so that as far as the safety and security of the individuals and the property is concerned, everything should be updated. After all, we are talking about electrical mishaps that might happen if things are neglected. And we all know how serious it can be. So, please do not take any chance with it. Get all the necessary wires replaced, loose ends connected, old switches replaced and the circuit board thoroughly checked before you move in.

We will also suggest that you share the information regarding electrical inspection to your friends and loved ones as well. Encourage them to go for this inspection. After all every life matters and this is a very easy thing to do.

Is Your Hat Black, Grey Or White? Our Search Engine Optimization Tips Will Make Sure That Hat Fits

You need to write smart and have each page rich in SEO keywords as advise by freelance SEO consultant Sydney. Do you want to increase your site? You might have to try out a little search engine optimization techniques. Search engines look for certain content in your site.This piece offers key information on how to make your organic search engines.

You must have patience when increasing the SEO to increase page rank. You will not build up huge traffic overnight. It can actually take months or longer for new and not using a preexisting domain name. Just as with an offline business, time is needed to build a reputation with an online business.

You need to put some thought into the anchor your text you use for internal website links. Using generic anchor text like “click here” is not going to help your search engine rankings because it is too generic.Using the right keywords as your anchor text will allow you to be noticed by those crawling spiders.

Visit competitors websites to take a look at their source code. This helps you see how the SEO strategies on their websites and which keywords they’re using.

This trend has been established through metrics such as Quantcast scores. Discussion mediums such as forums are a wonderful way to hold onto your visitors.

Present yourself in a way that highlights your field. This is a great way to market your internet marketing campaign. Make sure that you create a site that has a specific targeted audience, and make sure to search engine optimize it to target customers interested in that niche. It is important to listen to what your customers want, not what you assume they need.

Blogs rank well because the search engine algorithms prefer highly-structured data and new content. Backlinking is an essential to raising search engine rankings.

Users will want to find information on your site fast, and improving your content is one of the easiest ways to drive-up traffic.

Proofreading is an important part of any website, but it usually is neglected. Make certain that your website is readable by both human visitors and machine.

A site map which has your keywords. Site maps are excellent navigational tools as well as helpful for search engines and visitors to find their way around your site.

You can give your SEO a boost by using links to relevant and reputable sites. This should be a fundamental part of linking. Search engines pay more attention to links full of good content higher than links connecting various pages of your own site. Look for available link exchange options also, so your ranking and your traffic can increase.

The first sentences of an article should also be usable as a HTML description tag. There are search engines that use this information rather than the tag itself as the blurb for your site is about in their results. Bad content can be very problematic.

Don’t make a wall of links on a page. Blend them in with the content.Pages filled with links are boring and search engines don’t rank them highly.

Social media websites have a very important role to play in search engine optimization.

Think as a customer when you are coming up with tags to include. Find out what terms are that people use for your product or service.

Do not ever publish an article more than once on your site. Having people link to two different pages for the same content will also dilute your incoming link count, which also makes your page rank plummet.

Search engine bots seek out new material, unique content which is full of useful information, so you need to give them what they’re looking for in order to rank higher. People will also share your articles they are good.This will encourage people to come back to your site.

Search engine optimization — or SEO — is simply a core online marketing concept. This method requires you to use specific keywords in your site content in order to secure higher rankings on search engine rank. This will lead more people to the visibility of your products or services.

Make sure to configure your hosting company’s server so that it’s case-sensitive for case sensitivity on URLs.

Google Analytics is a must have. This tool will help you monitor your traffic. You can look at it to do things like find out exactly which keywords are helping to bring traffic by using this tool. You can make changes to your website to focus more on these keywords.

This tactic will seriously improve the ranking given to your rankings by search engines. Meta descriptions serve as calls to action, as they appear beneath the hyperlink for the website in most search engines. Most modern content management systems let you can add meta description for each page of your website.

Be certain to have a website that users find friendly and without errors. Nothing will send visitors looking elsewhere faster than a site riddled with spelling and glaring grammatical errors. You should also stay right on top of your links to make sure they are all active and actually take the visitor where s/he wants to go.

If your website is for a business, encourage the CEO or the owner of the business to become involved online. People like hearing from important members of the big guy himself.

Search engine optimization may sound too good to be true, but it’s the real deal. These tips will help you maximize your SEO rewards. So give the tips a try! You will soon see the results you desire.