5 Environmentally Friendly Ways To Increase Your Home’s Value

Who doesn’t love helping the environment?  We no longer want large water heaters or other expensive features. Smart buyers are looking for environmentally friendly choices. Water, specifically, is an area ripe for improvement.

The benefits of going green are twofold. First, it adds appeal and versatility to your home, offering unique value compared to other homes lacking these features. Secondly, of course, is that many of these items add actual financial value, both in terms of property value and savings on bills!

Whether you’re currently looking to sell, simply want to live a greener life, or just want to keep your options open in the future, these solutions offer fantastic benefits for everyone.

Harness The Rain

If you live in an area with plenty of rain, turn this to your advantage. Rain collectors can harness this resource for dish washing and other uses around the home, helping to cut down on water bills. However, this water isn’t entirely clean, so it can’t be used for drinking.

That being said, you can add a filter to purify the water for various home uses. This is often where the real value comes in, as it can then be used to provide free shower and tap water! Once you have an effective system set up, you’ll rarely need to use muniipal water.

Organic Gardens

A well-kept garden can do wonders for a home’s price tag, but an organic one also serves a purpose. Whether it’s a large vegetable patch or a simple raised bed, any garden can introduce organic crops. While these will improve your value, they’ll also provide tasty and healthy veggies in the meantime.

Just remember that a key to understanding property value lies in thinking like a buyer. A ready-to-go organic garden helps ease buyers into a better lifestyle and suggests at how green the wider property already is.

The Water Boiler

Even if you have an effective collection system for rainwater, every home still needs hot water. How you heat your water matters a great deal. Your average boiler uses gas or electricity, both of which are power-heavy, to heat water throughout the home.

An efficient boiler, on the other hand, helps save money and adds to the property’s value both financially and in terms of environmental awareness. It will also help improve your home’s energy efficiency, helping to create another vital selling point.

Natural Water Features

Speaking of the garden, how many homes these days feature a water feature of some sort? Most people may think of pools, but these require a lot of clean water and expensive pumps. Still, some simple landscaping can create features that use natural rain water, reducing your need for maintenance and imported water.

A fountain can recycle rainwater, for instance, while a pond serves as an aesthetically pleasing feature. Tastefully done, adding these add little touches to a well-finished garden, increases the value without added bills or running costs.

Water Usage

While cutting down on how much water you use will help keep bills low, it doesn’t influence your home’s value until you make some physical changes. Taps, pipes, and showers all use water, so determining just how much water they use is key.Eco showers speak for themselves, but what else can you do?

Tap inserts can be fitted in your kitchen and sink to ensure a full spray of water without wasting it at the same time. These little features help cut down on water without changing your lifestyle, making them easier to advertise and display if your home ends up on the market.

Similarly, for the extra passionate homeowners, a bathwater diverter can re-direct or collect used bath water into an outside container for use in the garden. If you combine this with a rainwater system, just think how effective this will be. These physical installations add instant value to your home as new buyers can easily see the savings.

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Conclusion

So, there you have it – 5 effective ways to help improve your property value and save the environment. How you choose to implement these depends on your home, of course. Not everyone has space for a pond, but even the smallest organic patch will help. Your home should proudly showcase its green lifestyle, making its water-savvy features tempting for anyone looking to buy in the area.

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The True Benefits of Organics

Agriculture plays a crucial a role in the clockwork of our global economy. Isn’t that reason enough for us to ensure its sustainability? Many would question the feasibility of going organic to feed the seven billion or so mouths in the world, but the fact that this is entirely possible is unfortunately not commonly known. As with every change, this shift in approach from chemical-intensive agricultural practice to organic farming will take time and patience.

For those who still doubt, the great news is that the road to going organic will naturally reap long-term environmental and financial benefits. Aren’t these what we hope to achieve – creating a better world for the future generations?

Health Benefits

With crops being treated heavily with chemicals like growth enhancers or pesticides, it is all but expected that these substances will find their ways into our bodies, albeit in small quantities each time. As consumers, the idea of how a negligible amount of artificial compound causing health problems may seem like a far-fetched thought.

However, the truth of the matter is that while we don’t find ourselves rushing to the hospital after consuming these produce smothered in chemicals, the long-term effects on our health are very real. With studies proving the carcinogenic properties of some pesticides and herbicides used in our food, it is now perhaps understandable why people are beginning to adopt an organic diet.

According to the World Health Organization, studies have shown that exposure to pesticides on a daily basis can increase the risk of health complications like lowered immunity, development of hormone-related disorders and cancer.

Going organic does not only benefit us, the consumers, but the producers, too. The people who toil and make a living from agriculture will find themselves going back to the basics and relying on what nature has to offer. The lack of chemicals employed in organic farming will without a doubt see farmers facing considerably fewer health hazards.

Environmental Benefits

The news of how GMO agriculture and chemical pesticides are killing nature’s little pollination helpers, the bees, isn’t new. Agriculture watchdogs sounded the alarm years ago when bee colonies began vanishing in the United States around the turn of the century, about the time when new insecticides were introduced into the market. The tip in the balance of our ecosystem can trigger a ripple effect, causing environmental consequences on a global scale – some of which we are already experiencing.

In order for sustainable agriculture to be possible, it is beyond vital that we maintain healthy and fertile soil. However, with the constant application of chemicals to the land, how does one expect the earth below to be toxin free? Albeit crops may be susceptible to pests and ever-changing weather, organic farming certainly ensures the “cleanliness” of the ground.

Economic Benefits

Despite being the alternative farming method, the organic farming industry is well worth over £1 billion a year. Imagine how much that figure will jump by when it becomes the only way to go?

With GMO agriculture, everything right down to the seeds requires a costly initial investment. Needless to say, equipment used for releasing the chemical pesticides also cost money. As a result, even before a crop can be harvested and sold for profits, a farmer needs to come up that large sum of money to get things going. Imagine the devastation a small farm located in a developing nation experiences when crops don’t grow.

One of the many unfortunate consequences of GMO farming is it being the cause of countless suicides when crops fail in third world countries.

Consider organic farming. What is actually involved in this method that would require massive investments? Not much, really. While it is always more costly to go the alternative route, it is undeniable that when organic farming becomes a common practice, cost of resources and products will surely decrease.

Why Not Organic Farming Then?

Having said all these, the truth is that organic farming is not in a popularity race of becoming the more well-liked option for those in the industry. Instead, it has to be the only method of farming as we move forward. In order for our natural environment to sustain us, it is imperative that we ensure that it is toxic free and healthy, for the sake of our future and the generations to come.

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