Green Remodeling: Using Natural Building Materials in Your Remodeling Projects

Remodeling is definitely an inside or even an outside job. Whether one desires to make changes to the interior of your respective home, or add charm to a walkway or patio, green remodeling is regarded as the economic and eco-friendly approach to take. Natural building materials could be anything from salvaged barn wood to pervious concrete.
The best advice to have an eco-friendly remodeling project is to select natural materials which are locally available. Building materials can are derived from all over the world to make it on the local diy box store. That means extreme fossil fuel usage, associated pollution, lack of regard for local businesses, and sometimes abusive labor practices. Using a beautiful dark wood like wenge to construct a countertop might sound appealing, but since this wood could only be found in West Africa, we are talking lots of air miles. Finding building materials locally, eradicates those socially unconscious characteristics.
Visit locally-owned hardware stores, find woods that were harvested from within the region, or visit salvage yards. Make the next remodeling project as green as possible. It will be an outing and an education. The U.S. Green Building Council is an excellent resource for specifics of green building issues.
If planning an internal remodel, consider green materials which might be not only earth-friendly, and can be more advanced than the cookie-cutter box store materials which everybody uses. Natural materials that are gaining popularity with eco-conscious remodelers are bamboo, cork and reclaimed wood.
Bamboo may be used for flooring, paneling and molding, to mention but three options. The downside of bamboo, as green and sustainable as it is, is that it usually has to be transported great distances. Cork is utilized for flooring and may be made almost exclusively from post-industrialized waste.
Reclaimed wood is promising at the same time. Raiding old buildings (with permission) for doors, paneling and hardwood flooring Peabody is often a cost-effective and completely green strategy to recycle the old into new. You can even repurpose items for example classic style doors from barn conversions to construct a dinning table, or to make into some wall paneling -- a really unique wainscoting design.
Concrete is usually used for outdoor projects like patios, walkways as well as for other pavement projects. While concrete is a durable material, its production is energy-intensive and its particular production involves high emission numbers of pollutants -- one tonne of cement produced means 2 tonnes of CO
2 released into the atmosphere. Concrete also inhibits ground usage of water. This makes concrete less environmentally-friendly than other available choices. If you are set for the use of concrete though, be sure to aren't likely to get rid of it in the near future. If you ensure that is stays for years to come this could end up as being a better long term solution. There are also more green variations of concrete you can think about.
Walkways and patios might be paved with permeable concrete pavers. These solid pavers are installed over sand or cut stone. Water drains relating to the slabs, thereby preparing groundwater resources. Water that goes to the ground beneath permeable concrete pavers promotes cooler pavement.
Pervious concrete, manufactured from stones and cement, allows drainage too and is EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) recommended. Permeable concrete pavers and pervious concrete are simply two instances of green methods to improve an outside area. Explore the options.
Find what suits specific needs and share the data with neighbors along with the greater community. House-by-house, yard-by-yard, green remodeling makes a difference in the new world of global climate change and other environmental challenges.
Green remodeling has extraordinary benefits. Environmentally, it reduces solid waste and promotes healthy air and water quality. Economically, using natural building materials reduces building costs and takes pressure away from expensive fossil fuel consumption. In some cases, you'll find federal and local tax benefits of making green improvements. At the community level, remodeling the green way promotes a wholesome and eco-conscious standard of life and offers proof of the viability of green building projects.
US Green Building Council,
Concrete production,
Mother Earth News,
Image credits:
Salvaged barn wood - coffeehaus/photobucket
Cork floor - laxsupermom/photobucket
Patio - Kelly8743/photobucket