Since the beginning of the 21st century, there is a growing demand for sustainable and eco-friendly investment properties. Property which has a lower negative impact on the environment as well as reduces a significant amount of carbon footprint. To support this global cause, you should consider investing in eco-friendly rental property. This will also inspire the tenants to live a comfortable and green life and may positively contribute to the surroundings.
There are many ways to make an investment property energy-efficient. Being environmentally aware, you have to be considerate while choosing the best option for your property.
In this article, you’ll get to know some of the most practical and effective ways to make your rental property energy-efficient and eco-friendly.
1. Ensure proper insulation
Insulation is considered one of the most important thing while making an eco-friendly property since it helps you to keep your area’s temperature comfortable according to the different weather conditions.
Insulating the walls and ceiling aids to keep warm air in and out in your building during winter and summer, which eventually minimize the use of air conditioning devices.
Sometimes, we see gaps around doors and windows, and we tend to ignore them. But this is a key reason for heating equipment or air conditioner being less efficient. Although these are not within plain sight at times, they can be a nightmare for your property. Hence to keep a balanced temperature throughout all seasons, you should make sure all such gaps are sealed in all places.
2. Install a programmable thermostat
To monitor the energy usage of your property on a regular basis, you should consider using a programmable thermostat.
A large portion of the energy is used for cooling and heating purposes. For example, in Europe, 79% of the total energy is used only for heating and making hot water.
With a programmable thermostat, you can adjust your heating and cooling temperature to keep your room temperature suitable to the climate. As it uses a smaller amount of energy, having no mercury, makes it eco-friendlier to use.
To buy a programmable thermostat, you do not even have to spend a large sum of money as the price is reasonable, starting from $35.
3. Always keep your roof cool
The interior of the building gets warm when the heat got trapped in the ceiling. We often see this problem in tropical areas like in the northern part of Australia.
An excellent solution to this problem is to use some green roofs methods such as reflective roof paint, roof covering etc. to reduce heat from building as well as to create a refreshing atmosphere in the building.
By doing so, you can save a large amount of energy plus money.
4. Install solar panels
We cannot imagine having an eco-friendly rental property without considering the usage of solar panels. Although installing solar panels are costly, but considering the longer term, it will benefit you in many ways.
With solar panels, you can produce electricity and can use to power lights, electric heater or and other electronic devices. Also, it will reduce a large amount of carbon footprint, which will be a sustainable option for your property.
For example, in place of using a typical gas water heater, you can install solar hot water with which you can supply most of your investment property’s hot water needs.
See how solar hot water works:
5. Set up a water filtration system
Different chemicals and toxins are normally found in tap water which is harmful to our body. Therefore, to deter these going to your body, you can set up a water filtration system in your building. Besides, installing a water filtration in your rental property will reduce buying plastic water bottles by tenants.
6. Use blackout curtains
Using blackout curtains may help in some ways to make your property eco-friendly such as, filtering out noise or light from your building and so on. Besides, it also functions as thermal insulation, keeping your windows warm during cold weather and cool during summer, saving around one-third of the energy loss from the windows in your room. On top of that, they are portable enough to carry anywhere you want to take.
7. Consider energy-efficient appliances
Energy-efficient hardware (e.g., LED light bulbs, energy-saving power strips) consume less energy and have a long life expectancy, making them the best sustainable choice. Therefore, you should always consider using energy-saving appliances for your rental property.
8. Be careful while using water
It’s always the best to frequently monitor the usage of water of your investment property. Always try to ensure that there are no leaky taps or toilets as they can result in kiloliters of water waste per year.
You can invest your time and money to buy water-efficient appliances that are eco-friendly and can help your tenants also by keeping their water bill under control.
For instance, switching to water-saving handheld shower heads or newly-designed bathroom supplies is a great idea of minimizing the usage of water.
This approach applies to other appliances such as dishwashers or washing machines whichever needs less amount of water to use.
9. Educate your tenants
It is the landlord’s responsibility to let the renters know about the significance of making a property environmentally friendly by guiding them the ways. For example, talking over tenants about the best ways of household waste recycling should be a must.
Wrapping up
Although this whole process may require you to invest significant funding, eventually, it will make your property energy-efficient. Aside from making an eco-friendly property, you may also consider applying for landlord property insurance for the safety of your property.
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