The green technologies have been highly remarkable revolution and have generated lots of enthusiasm among many people. Many people have opted to adopting energy-friendly approaches like buying solar panels, using foam insulations, man-made parquet tiles and even to the extent of applying landscape plants so as to literally live by the word “green”. The whole concept of “going green” is one of the most notable approaches with which some environmental issues can get to be dealt with effectively. To preserve the environment the green technologies needs to be developed further so as to achieve sustainability. Those who have tried “going green” will confess that this is rather a process than a goal. This implies that newly acquired green technologies have to be subjected through a series of trial and error and in the process improvements are made one after the other.
Good timing and effective plan mitigation are of vital importance as these are what will save the planet from the greenhouse effect – a term which has been used to signify the end of our planet earth. Fortunately the green concept is riding on a positive mark across all platforms and building industry is among the fastest to catch up with this new requirement. Massive changes can now be felt in most building projects as the emphasis is now based on materials which are renewable, highly sustainable and have the capacity to induce temperature regulation – thus leading to reduced emissions of greenhouse gases as well as the total energy consumption. Whether a given project involves building from scratch or just making some renovations, going green is the key to sustainability as the whole concept does bring about energy sufficiency and effective cost-cutting measures.
There are many ways through building projects are adopting the green concepts and most of these are not just limited to energy conservation. Water conservation, solid wastes recycling and installation of energy saving devices for buildings are just a few of the approaches used to ensure that buildings get to have some value of sustainability. Surface runoff is one of the biggest challenges in that it is difficult to harvest this kind of water so as to save the already diminishing ground water. This problem has now maneuvered as installation of pervious pavements allows much of the surface runoff to be absorbed and delivered to the ground where it get to replenish the underground water and thus helping to regulate the heating island effect. This technique can work well especially if the pervious pavements are used for driveways, patios and even sidewalks.
Most buildings do have high maintenance costs and a bulk of this is mostly contributed by the massive energy requirements needed for efficient operations in these buildings. Energy Star rated appliances are known for their superb energy saving capabilities though their downside is that they do cost a fortune to buy and install.This however shouldn’t be compared to the benefits which they do deliver for a lifetime. Heating and cooling contribute to a bulk in a building’s energy requirements and if Energy Star appliances are used the costs can be halved by almost a half of the cost incurred when no energy saving measure is taken. Smart lighting is encouraged for buildings and the trend has been to replace the incandescent bulbs with the LED ones.
Water is a necessity which buildings cannot operate without and therefore any green approach must also be geared towards water conservation. One of the ways of ensuring this is by toilets which utilizes less water yet at the same time can deliver the expected hygienic standards. For instance the new toilet designs will only use about 6 litres of water for flushing as compared to the conventional toilets which do take 13 litres. Appliances like dish washing machines should have an Energy Star rating and at the same time be miser on water consumption. This can save the buildings occupants a lot of money which would have been otherwise used for paying the additionally incurred water and electricity bills. Rain barrels should be installed in buildings and the water harvested this way can be put into uses like washing cars instead of draining the tap for such a purpose.
