Helpful Green Living Tips for Your Prefabricated Home

https://www.claytonhomes.com/studio/manufactured-home-green-living-tips

Green living has become more and more popular in recent years, whether it’s to help the environment, save money in the long haul or simply because you believe it’s the right thing to do. But how exactly do you “live green” when it comes to your home?

There are numerous eco-friendly house products and sustainable ideas for your home. Here are a few green living tips that you can apply to your home as you go green:

General Tips for Your Home

You can include several green living tips for your home in almost every room. The following ideas can be incorporated from the living room to the master bathroom:

• Turn off any lights you’re not using to reduce energy costs. Make it a habit when you leave the house or even when you go from room to room and you’ll soon notice the difference on your utility bill.¹
• Installing ENERGY STAR® certified appliances and other items, such as CFL light bulbs, can help you reduce your energy consumption while also lowering your energy costs.
• Save energy by reducing how often you turn on your air conditioner or heater. Also, consider investing in a smart thermostat such as a ecobee smart thermostats.
• Plug your devices into a surge protector so you can easily turn them all off at once. By doing so, you can prevent your devices from drawing unnecessary electricity.²

Green Living for the Kitchen

The kitchen is one room of your home that has a few opportunities to incorporate green living practices. Follow these tips so that your kitchen can be a more environmentally friendly room:

• Instead of using paper towels to clean up, repurpose household items that can be used multiple times, such as old t-shirts, and recycle them as much as possible after they have been used. Not only will you save money on the amount of paper towels you buy, but you will also be eliminating how much waste you’re throwing away.
• Make a compost bin specifically for  kitchen waste, and fill it with:³
  • Cardboard torn up into pieces (non-glossy only
  • Paper bags and other brown materials
  • Coffee grounds and paper filters
  • Other kitchen scraps such as fruit and vegetable peelings, egg shells and compostable leftovers

Bathroom Green Living Tips

In the bathroom, you have the ability to conserve water, making it a huge opportunity to live green. Check out the following eco-living tips that you can use in your bathroom:

• You can recycle water from your bathroom by filling a bucket with the cold water before it warms up for your bath or shower, then using it to water your plants.
• Save water by timing yourself in the shower and shortening your shower time, as well as turning off the water while you brush your teeth. The EPA estimates that the average showerhead uses about 2.5 gallons of water every minute⁴. Shorten your showers to about 5 minutes to save more water.
• Occasionally check the toilets, sinks and shower heads in the bathrooms for leaks. This will help you be sure that no water is being wasted.
• Consider installing a low-flush toilet. According to the Environmental Protection Agency,” toilets account for over a third of the water used in most homes” and an average family could potentially save thousands of gallons each year.⁵

Live Green in the Backyard

You may not normally think of outside areas of your home for green living improvement ideas, but there are plenty of opportunities. Check out these tips on how to incorporate some sustainable practices in your backyard.

• Start a container garden to grow your own food and help landscape your yard.
• Use the compost you’ve collected in your kitchen to improve your soil in your garden or across your backyard.
• Invest in solar powered lights in your backyard and add some style along your landscaping.

*Trademarks of companies other than Clayton are the property of those other companies.

**ENERGY STAR and the ENERGY STAR mark are registered trademarks owned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

1 “7 Green Living Tips You Can Apply at Home.,” Direct Energy, accessed November 14, 2017, https://www.directenergy.com/learning-center/green-living/green-living-tips-for-home.

2 John Chu, “3 Easy Tips to Reduce Your Standby Power Loads,” Energy.gov, November 1, 2012, accessed November 14, 2017, https://energy.gov/energysaver/articles/3-easy-tips-reduce-your-standby-power-loads.

3Colleen Vanderlinden, “50 Items to Add to Your Compost,” The Spruce, November 08, 2017, accessed December 08, 2017, https://www.thespruce.com/things-you-can-compost-2539612.

4″Showerheads,” EPA, April 19, 2017, accessed November 14, 2017, https://www.epa.gov/watersense/showerheads.

5 “Residential Toilets,” EPA, April 19, 2017, accessed December 08, 2017, https://www.epa.gov/watersense/residential-toilets.