10 Easy-to-Make Home Designs That Promote Sustainability

In a world where the environment becomes the capitalist of all human trade, a century-old debate continues to heat up – sustainability. Most of the resources we use at home are finite, and if we keep on using them; the future generations will have nothing left. That is why it is necessary for us to tap the other resources that nature provides in infinite amounts. Below are the 10 easy designs that you can use to gear your home toward sustainability. You do not just save energy but conserve energy in style.
1. Sustainable Landscaping
The quest for sustainability starts in our very home landscape. The easiest approach would be creating a compost pit to nourish our soil. Once the soil becomes healthy, we can start making vegetable patches where we can plant, grow, and harvest, fruits and vegetables of our own. Adding more trees will keep your home cool during the summer and will add more aesthetic value to our house is also a great plus.
2. Use Reclaimed Bricks
Bricks don’t just shrivel up and vanish. Most of them can last for decades and even centuries. So why use new ones if we can just gather old bricks from old homes and from already-demolished ones? Yes, there are old bricks gathered around town, and we can always have our local contractor piece the reclaimed bricks together to form house walls and apply artistic finish on its ancient surface.
3. Use Reclaimed Lumber
Trees that were uprooted and destroyed by storms and other natural disasters can still be treated and processed into a usable wood that can be applied to various home improvement projects. Wood from old chairs and other fixtures can also be reclaimed and refinished for newer purposes. That way, we can prevent the need for newer lumber, which also decreases our contributions in cutting trees down.
4. Employ Passive Design Approach to Cool or Warm Homes
Using a passive design approach in houses can significantly decrease the energy consumption for heating. It uses passive solar air to warm the entire house. According to various studies, buildings that use such design approach can mitigate their own energy consumption for a whopping 90 percent.
5. Build a Solar Water Heater
Building a solar-powered water heater of our own is one of the best things that anyone can do for sustainable living. It helps cut down energy costs, as it only relies on passive solar heat to keep water hot and well-insulated.
6. Use Low Flush Toilets
Unlike their ancient counterparts, the modern low flush toilets can save approximately four and a half gallons of water. This effectively saves a lot of money when it comes to water bills, and as far as I am concerned, saving money will always be something that I should do, on any circumstances!
7. Build a Rainwater Harvester
Rainwater can be used for bathing, cooking, and drinking. That is why it is important to save water by gathering rainwater for future use. Not only that it’s safe, it’s also free! Rainwater is also free from the contaminants that ground and surface water are always exposed to, and according to the Texas Water Development Board, rainwater can even exceed ground and surface water in terms of safety and quality.
8. Install Faucet Aerators
Faucet aerators add air to your faucet, thereby breaking the flow of water and turning it into droplets. This ingenious way of dispersing water allows to cover more surface area, which saves a considerable amount of water in any home. If you don’t believe me, even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency contends that installing faucet aerators is one of the best ways you can do to help conserve water.
9. Use a Higher Ceiling and awnings to improve ventilation
Hot air stays up. That is why it is necessary to keep our ceiling high so they can stay there during hot days. A window installed in the higher ceiling area will allow hot air to escape. Installing an awning can be beneficial too for giving protection both for rain and too much sunlight. Such design will enable the free flow of air, which will decrease the need for relying in air conditioners. Ergo, lesser electric bills!
10. Use Greywater Storage Tanks
Greywater is what remains after potable water has been used for washing purposes. Though generally dirty, it can still be used to flush toilets and nourish the topsoil. Relying on greywater can also help reduce the need to extract more freshwater, which ultimately saves clean drinking water.
In this day and age, it is necessary for us to be aware of the things we could do to help make a difference. Remember, if everyone does their part, our collective efforts will accumulate to become a world-changing one.

Source: enn.com

Study Finds More Fresh Water Entering the Earth's Oceans

A recent study from researchers at the University of California (UC) Irvine has found that since 1994, the overall amount of fresh water flowing into the world's oceans has increased significantly. They found that 18 percent more fresh water has reached the oceans between 1994 and 2006, an average annual rise of 1.5 percent.

The biggest reasons for the increase are the more frequent and extreme storms which are attributable to global warming. It is also a consequence of melting polar ice. The research team, led by UC Irvine Earth System Science Professor, Jay Famiglietti, focused on the issue of greater storm water runoff reaching the oceans.


Unfortunately, the increased precipitation falls unevenly over the Earth's surface. This is a phenomenon of global warming; the higher-rainfall areas of the world get wetter, and the more arid regions get drier.

According to Famiglietti, "In general, more water is good. But here's the problem: Not everybody is getting more rainfall, and those who are may not need it. What we're seeing is exactly what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted — that precipitation is increasing in the tropics and the Arctic Circle with heavier, more punishing storms. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of people live in semiarid regions, and those are drying up."

The study found that global warming has triggered an acceleration of the evaporation and precipitation cycle. Higher temperatures over the oceans cause the fresh water to evaporate and form thicker clouds. It is then dumped on land in ferocious torrents, often in the form of hurricanes or monsoons (think Pakistan floods). The fresh water then finds its way back to the ocean via rivers and channels.

Therefore global warming should also increase river flow throughout wetter regions. However, there is no global system in place to measure river discharge levels, so no definitive data is available at this point.

What the study employed instead was NASA satellites and other satellites that are capable of tracking total water volume each month flowing from the continents into the sea. From the satellite data, the team assembled a 13-year record of sea-level rise, precipitation, and evaporation. The final conclusion is that rising temperatures accelerate the hydrologic cycle, the benefits of which are distributed unevenly over the globe.

The scientists admit, however, that despite their work spanning the longest time frame ever for this type of research, the 13-year study is still a relatively short period, and that more research is needed and is underway.

The UC Irvine study was done in conjunction with researchers from the University of South Florida, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA. Funding was provided by NASA. The research is published in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source: www.enn.com