Materials for a More Environmentally Friendly House | Billy.com

Whether you’re doing some repairs, building a new addition, or building a new home from scratch, the materials you use matter to the environment. When you’re doing any of these things, you have to look far into the future to see how your choices could affect the world around you. Luckily, you have plenty of options to choose from. Here are some materials to use for a more environmentally friendly house so that you can feel good about your choices.

Salvaged or Reclaimed Wood

Wood is one of the most important materials in a house’s construction. If you want to create an eco-friendlier home, using wood that has been salvaged or reclaimed is a great way to build the structure of your house without increasing the demand for more trees to be cut down. With our forests diminishing every day, we need to do everything we can to save useful wood.

Recycled Metal

You’re going to need metal for a lot of components in your house, particular for things such as piping and ductwork. You can protect the environment even more by used recycled metal products. Not all metals are equally eco-friendly to fabricate, but there’s plenty of choices for environmentally safe alloys.

Bamboo

Bamboo may seem like a strange choice for a building material at first glance. The truth is that bamboo has a surprising amount of tensile strength, and it has become more popular as a building material in recent years. You can use it in the background—underneath floors and inside walls and such. It’s also useful when used up front, such as with screens and floor mats.

Straw Bales

You might think this is another odd choice of material to make a more environmentally friendly house. However, bales of straw are actually perfect for use as insulation inside your walls. Insulation doesn’t have to be expensive foams that hurt the environment. Straw is easily harvested and widely available, and it has a comparatively low impact on the environment compared to the alternative materials.

LED Lights

LED lights are becoming much more popular to add into new homes because of how much more energy efficient they are. Compared to incandescent bulbs, LEDs can offer a lot of light for a fraction of the energy cost. The less energy your home needs, the less energy power plants must generate.