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6 Simple Ways To Make Your Home Eco-Friendly

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Many people are trying to be more environmentally conscious these days in every aspect of their lives- including their home. Turning your house into an eco-friendly oasis is easier than you think, there’s no need to build a new home. There’s many small, simple ways to make your home more efficient, and improve the environment.

Use Friendly Paint

If you’re rebuilding or renovating, consider purchasing paint that’s low in VOCs (volatile organic compounds) which are compounds high in toxicity that can cause air pollution and even cancer to those who breathe it in. VOCs are unstable compounds that vaporize into the air still seep out even years after painting. Paint the second largest VOC contributor into the atmosphere, second only to vehicles. Choosing a paint that is low in these compounds will help reduce your carbon footprint, and could save your health! Regular exposure to paint emitting these vapors has been linked to many different cancers.

Try Composting

Altering your lifestyle to include a compost pile is a simple way to help out the environment. Putting all organic food scraps, such as banana peels and eggshells, into a bin and then using the resulting compost on your yard will not only improve your land, but the environment by reducing waste that is sent to landfills. Many cities have a composting service that will pick up your compost if you don’t have an area to use it in.

Install Solar Panels

Solar panels will reduce your electric bill by providing clean, natural energy to your home. Solar water tanks are also out there, to replace water heaters. Harnessing solar energy reduces the need for non-renewable fossil fuels that we currently use to produce most of our energy. Solar panels may be pricey to first install, but the change in electric bills will make up for initial costs.

Use Low-Wattage Light Bulbs

A really simple way to improve the eco-friendliness of your home is to switch out basic light bulbs with low-wattage, energy efficient ones. It’ll not only save you energy costs, but they last longer than traditional bulbs as well. This is one of the simplest ways to reduce your carbon footprint.

Find Low-Flow Alternatives

Another fairly simple step to making an environmentally friendly home is to invest in low-flow toilets and showers. These do the same job as regular appliances, but use less water- protecting the environment and saving you money.

Clean Green

Eco-friendly cleaning supplies are important to protecting the environment and yourself from toxins. Most eco-friendly cleaners contain grain alcohol, coconut oil, or other plant oils instead of toxic chemicals that you shouldn’t be ingesting and that shouldn’t be released into the air. You can also make a change by making your own cleaning products using simple ingredients around the home like soap, water, baking soda, vinegar, lemon juice, and borax to save money and go green.

It’s not hard to take these steps to improve our environment. So, take a trip to the hardware store and get started on making your home and eco-friendly oasis today.

Fahreed Tulbah is the owner of Caden Roofing, a professional roofing company in Austin, Texas that prides themselves on having competent, experienced workers that provide top-quality roofs made with inspected materials for both residential and business buildings.






How To Redesign Your Garden To Make It Safe For Your Children

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How To Redesign Your Garden To Make It Safe For Your Children

Having a garden is fantastic, especially when you have children; however, unfortunately many gardens provide a huge number of hazards to children. It is therefore really important to make sure, upon ever redesigning your garden, to keep a number of crucial points in mind, such as:

Checking your garden is escape proof

Accidents do happen and as a parent you will make mistakes. Unfortunately no matter how hard you try it is impossible to keep an eye on children all the time. It is incredibly important your children do not find a way out of the garden when your back is turned. Therefore when you are installing hedges, fencing or gates for the first time, you need to make sure you haven’t left any gaps, all fastenings are secure and that little fingers cannot unlock or untie anything.

Checking your plant types

Unfortunately, many of the prettiest plants people want in their gardens, such as roses, holly and pampas grass often come with sharp leaves and/or thorns. These are obviously dangerous to young children, who don’t know any better than not to touch. However, this is no reason to not put these in your garden. If these plants are essential to your new garden redesign, you just need to be a bit more considerate about where you are planting them.

You will also need to double check the toxicity of your new plants before planting, to make sure they are not poisonous if a child happens to eat them. Aim to keep all of these kinds of plants at a higher level, far away from children’s eyes, faces and fingers. Or you can always section off an area of your garden using handrails, thereby making the plants inaccessible to your children.

Checking your tools are always safely stored away

One of the most important things to remember, when redesigning a garden with kids around, is to ensure everything is always put back in its proper place. Even if you only put something, like a garden fork or a hammer, down for a second in order to go and get a drink, it can be extremely dangerous. A child might easily pick something like this up off the floor and cause damage, to themselves or even to someone else.

Try to avoid using any tools with power leads, when your children are about. Not only might the cords prove to be a tripping hazard for your children but you may also find tools start and stop for no apparent reason…Upon investigation you will probably find a mischievous toddler is at fault and they are playing an ‘innocent’ plug and unplug game, however, it just isn’t worth the risk of something going wrong.

Checking the safety of your water features

Without a doubt water features are one of the most popular aspects to include when redesigning a garden, ranging from large pools and ponds to simple bird bath fountains. However, whilst they can be beautiful, they are also very dangerous to children, for obvious reasons. Try to keep this in mind when installing your water features and include whatever safety measures you can, whether this include cordoning off the feature itself, covering with netting, or just settling for features too small in size to be a threat to your children.

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Laura writes for Seagull Ballustrades. When not writing, she can be often be found trying to keep her children from destroying her garden.

Starting A Career As A Professional Gardener

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A career in professional gardening is one that is very attractive to a lot of people. It offers the perks of being able to work outdoors, get fresh air and be surrounded by beautiful natural plant life. Therefore it suits those who like to keep active, do hands on tasks and be interactive with their work. It is something that you usually have to get into at a young age to turn into a proper career. A lot of gardening jobs in the horticultural sector start with apprenticeships (which are mostly given to younger individuals).

This article will talk about the career path of becoming a professional gardener and what traits/skills are required to succeed.

In the current climate jobs are hard to come by in most sectors. Therefore experience is an increasingly important factor when applying for jobs and even training courses. Experience usually has to be gained by volunteering and giving up your time. Luckily there are a lot of companies and organisations that are willing to take people on for free! Some good places to look are garden centres, park maintenance teams, private estates and local council volunteer schemes. Gaining this valuable experience will allow you to have an edge over competing candidates when applying for paid work.

When gaining work experience you likely won’t be given highly specialised tasks to complete. But what you will get is a taster for the industry and an understanding of the kind of work that you’ll be engaging in. It’s always good to test the waters before going into a career type job; as often it’s hard to turn round and change what industry you work in.

The best way to enter the gardening trade is to gain certain recognised qualifications. This is usually part of the apprenticeship process if you go down that route. Gaining industry accredited horticulture qualifications opens you up to a wide range of opportunities and jobs. Being a qualified gardener allows you to work on projects such as private estates, botanical gardens, display gardens and other prestigious locations.

One thing to note about the gardening trade though, is that it is a year round job; which means working in all weather conditions. You need to be able to hand the cold winter grounds and surrounding environment, as well as the warmer summer temperatures. Although a gardener’s work is most visible during the summer months, the work continues all year round. Work needs to be put in to make sure that everything is set up right for spring. During winter there is a lot of ground treatment work, fertilisation, seed sowing and top dressing. This is done so that when things start growing again they are already set up to go.

Overall being a professional gardener can be a very rewarding job. It is hands on, healthy, in a great environment and you can actively see the fruits of your labour. If you’re an outdoor type who likes hands on work this would be a very enjoyable and satisfying career.

For more information on commercial gardening, groundcare and landscaping work have a look at the advice section on www.sgm-uk.com

This article was written by Peter McAllister, who works for SGM, a supplier to many commercial gardening contractors, companies and individuals.

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