Home Design Basics for a Healthy and Sustainable Home
Designing your home is a challenging yet rewarding experience. Therefore, it is vital to ensure you get it right the very first time. Ideally, home design should be sustainable while promoting healthy living. More people are beginning to appreciate the importance of eco-friendly home designs. But what are the basics for a sustainable and healthy space? Well, below are some prime tips to help you get started.
1. Design for Waste Reduction
Interior designers have the responsibility of putting sustainable measures for waste reduction. Discarding resources and replacing them with fashion and trendy products is no longer justifiable. Luckily, there is a growing demand for sustainable trends such as repurposing and recycling.
Instead of discarding products that are out of fashion, designers can tweak them up creatively for continued use. Another way of preventing depletion of natural resources is by using recycled products or those that can be recycled. This approach can reduce or eliminate waste as it uses waste as raw materials.
2. Consider Energy Efficiency
Energy consumption significantly affects climate change by contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. Home designers should aim to reduce energy consumption for lighting and heating. They should provide renewable energy that is not carbon-based.
A lot of air from a building escapes through the window. So, the designers should ensure the windows provide excellent insulation. Drapes, blinds, and curtains also prevent heat loss, and they can be opened and closed as needed. Light colors can help greatly to save on energy. These colors reflect light around and hence reduce dependency in artificial light. Carpets are also great thermal insulators. Lastly, home automation enables efficient and economical energy use by making it possible to control lighting and heating remotely.
3. Healthy Designs
Interior designs should prioritize the health of the environment. When designing healthy spaces, consider heating ventilation, acoustics, heating, lighting, and air quality. High levels of toxic emission lead to indoor pollution. A designer should ensure the materials have low VOC emissions. The air should regularly circulate to remain fresh and improve indoor air quality. Indoor plants and carpet are some elements that promote a better environment. Ideally, carpets trap dust, while plants are natural air filters. Also, carpets are also great sound insulators. They absorb sound vibration hence reducing noise. Also, great design should have excellent natural light exposure. Natural light enhances productivity and is also a great stress buster. Natural elements in buildings have a calming effect.
4. Use Water Efficiently
Conserve your water by using top-notch appliances and tapware. You should consider a wastewater treatment system and an efficient water purification system. Check out this RO Guide; it will help you as you set your reverse osmosis water purification system.
5. Flexibility and Long-Life
The interior should use materials that have a long lifespan and eschew those that experience wear and tear very often. The aim of using timeless and durable design is to prevent changing design now and then. Home designers can achieve timelessness by choosing simple, functional and classic designs over trendy designs. They should also choose quality over quantity. However, people will need to change over time. Home designers should consider flexible designs that can adapt and reflect the changes. Flexible designs are the key to achieving longevity. Room elements that are easy to replace and adapt eliminate the need for remodeling or demolishing the entire space.
Take Home
Lastly, designs for longevity involve easy maintenance. Since regular changes are inevitable, hard to maintain spaces lead to a lot of waste and resource consumption. Flexible designs are not only easy to maintain and replace. Ideal design elements should be durable, easy to clean, and sturdy, are less to renovate. This means that you will save on costs that would otherwise be used to maintain and clean.
