20 Must Visit Links to Make Your Home Eco-Friendly

May 19th, 2009 by Daniel Schutzsmith Daniel Schutzsmith's feed

Being a new member of the team at Core Industries, I’ve found myself renewing my childhood roots in eco-friendly living. You see, I had grown up in a family that was really more like a homestead. We had a compost, a few gardens with vegetables and herbs, chickens for eggs, goats for milk, wood stove heat, no carpeting, no hot water heater (we used the wood stove), and even an old time washer with hand ringer. Skip forward several years and you can see that I shed much of what I learned as a child and became captivated by the modern amenities of comfort and ease. But now being at Core has helped me re-discover why we did all of that growing up. Yes, it was a pain in the ass to heat your own water on the stove then put it in a 5 gallon jug to take a shower, but it was also a practice that made me aware of how precious water was and how not to waste it.

From that point of view, my wife and I have been thinking of how we can make our home more eco-friendly. Our goal is to take on some projects over the course of the next few years to really make a change in the way we live and teach our children the importance of preserving our world.

So to get us started I’ve been doing some research on places to get good information on products, vendors, and just plain insight on how to make a home go green. Here are 20 links of the best stuff I have found so far but I am sure there is more out there, so feel free to share your links in the comments or email them to me at daniel [at] core-industries.com.

The Green Home Guide
Green home design and building by the US Green Building Council. Be sure to check out the Green Home Checklist to help you understand how easy it is to make your home green.

Green Home Environmental Store
View pre-screened and environmentally friendly products for your home and office. You should also check out their articles which are perfect for those new to green living as well as those with a little experience living a sustainable lifestyle.

Green Home Outfitters
I have not ordered anything from them yet but it looks like you’ll find some great natural, ecologically safe, sustainable, hypoallergenic, and non-toxic products at Green Home Outfitters. They also have engineered panels, biodegradable bags, and say that they “specialize in decorative concrete resurfacer, stains and sealants”. The eco friendly carpeting has me especially intrigued.

30 Days to Natural
Sign up to get tips in your email everyday, for 30 days. You can also checkout tips, downloads, and video diaries from three women making their lifestyles go green. Sponsored by Green Works Cleaners.

Natural Home Magazine
Who would have though, but they’re are print magazines focused on sustainable green home living – I just really really hope that the pages are made with recycled paper (I’m sure they are). This magazine looks like it covers some great topics and they also provide a handy 2009 Resource Guide for finding products and vendors to use for your home.

Sierra Club Green Home
Kind of like the epicenter for green living, the Sierra Club provides some awesome advice on greening your home, keeping your family healthy, and reducing your carbon footprint. As they say on their site, “Your health, your wallet and the earth will thank you.”

The Green Guide For Everyday Living
The Home and Garden section of this e-zine is a fantastic resource of well written and researched solutions to some of a homeowners most puzzling questions like organic lawn care, greening your holiday festivities, a pet food buying guide, and much more.

Green Home: A Huddler Community
Get tips, product reviews, links, and socialize with other people who are also making their homes green. Green Home is especially great because of its user contributed and maintained wiki, providing gems like the Frugal Beginners Guide to Green and the Buyers Guide to Home Tissue Products

Green Home Guide
Got a question for a professional who understands how to make your office/home green? No problem! Ask the folks over at Green Home Guide and they’ll send your question to their “network of the best and brightest green architects, designers, contractors and consultants across the U.S.”

Green Depot
A supplier of environmentally friendly and sustainable building products, services and solutions with showrooms in Brooklyn, Newark, Philadelphia, Boston, Greenport, Chicago, Albany and Manhattan.

Green Home Building
The site design might not look like much, but look past it and you’ll find a wide range of information about sustainable architecture and natural building. They include plenty of real world examples and links to videos and books that will help you on your way.

Planet Green
A joint venture between Discovery and Treehugger, Planet Green provides some articles on DIY projects for the home that will have you reusing and recycling in no time. One of my favorites, How to Mulch With Newspapers.

Best Green Home Tips
A blog providing everything you need to stay green at home; from green building, to earth-friendly furniture, to gardening, to tips and how-tos for keeping it green.

Free Green Home Designs
Thinking of remodeling or building a whole new home? Then checkout Free Green where you can get free house plans, home plans, and floor plans for green home building. Obviously you should consult an architect to make sure that the design will work for your climate, zoning laws, durability, etc… but this is a great place to start dreaming and planning.

Green Nest
Green Nest is an ecommerce store that is a bit different than Green Home Outfitters – the Nest specializes in”providing certified organic products for the home including organic mattresses, shower water filters, organic crib bedding, indoor air purifiers and natural floor carpet”. And the site is run by a husband and wife team of Certified Green Building Professionals too – this scores high marks in my book!

EcoHome Magazine
A magazine that is gear more towards the professional builder or architect but certainly a good read for anyone looking to remodel their home to be eco friendly. The website and the magazine deliver topics on “green building products and product trends, technical innovations, and building science”. Their videos have been captivating me for the past few days – providing me with lots of information, very quickly.

Energy Savers
The U.S. Department of Energy’s website focused on Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The site is packed, and I mean packed, with information to help you understand what you can due to reduce your energy consumption. I’d highly suggest checking their site to find tax credits, rebates, and financial assistance before you make ANY purchases – they can save you green and save green in the long run.

Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings: Online Guide
This site is the online version of the popular book version, now in its 9th edition, of the Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings. Its chock full of tips – I literally was overwhelmed at how much great information and small actionable examples there are here. My favorites so far are the Home Energy Checklist and the How to Choose a Contractor.

Energy Star
The gold standard of energy efficiency, Energy Star is a joint venture between the U.S. Dept. of Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. Choosing an Energy Star certified appliance will reduce your over all energy consumption and help lower your monthly costs. The site lists all certified products and also provides tips for home and office sustainability. The Energy Star @ Home interactive microsite is tons of fun too – navigate through a house and see all the ways you can be more efficient.

Real Goods: Ecohousehold and Products for Green Living
An ecommerce store that sells everything from DIY Wind Turbines to Toilet Sinks (yes it’s real!). This store looks great for those of us who want to take some major steps in reducing our carbon footprint.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Trackback

Email Post