Help the environment by saving energy through home automation

Kristene Blackham — Lowering the costs of energy around the home is a great way to go green. This can be achieved with an automation system that can make your home energy efficient.

The Energy Triangle

This is a term that refers to your home's heating, cooling, and lighting. The goal of a home automation system is to get all these functions to work together. This ensures your home is comfortable and will be energy efficient. A home automation system coordinates the functions of window coverings, lights, and your thermostat to obtain increased energy efficiency. The benefit of automating your home is that your system can be accessed via smartphone or other mobile device.

Lighting

Lights that are turned on in your home are a big source of energy use. You will be using more energy if incandescent lighting is still the source of light. A device can be attached to the wireless router for your network that connects to smart lighting. This allows you to turn on lights from home or from any location outside your home from a mobile application.

Window Coverings

Traditional window treatments are often thought of as a design aspect and not often for energy efficiency. If a new automated window covering is installed on the windows of your home, then they can control levels of sunlight. The blinds or shades are controlled using a hub connected to the wireless network in your home. This allows you to raise or lower the blinds to help control the amount of light and affect the temperature in the house. The blinds or shades can be programmed or monitored by an app installed on your mobile device.

Thermostat

A smart thermostat can be installed as part of a home automation system. This type of unit works using a wireless connection that allows you to monitor the thermostat from a mobile device. A new thermostat will need to be wired and is a process that often takes less than 30 minutes. The benefit of using an app to control the thermostat is that you can adjust the temperature when out of the house. This is an option when taking a vacation and have turned down the thermostat to reduce energy use.

If you want to know how a home automation system will benefit your home, then visit Vivint's Facebook page for details. There are also a variety of tips for saving energy that are found on Vivint's Twitter page.

Go Green: Eco-friendly moving across the country

Heather Roberts — Today, it seems like more and more people are getting interested in the topic of being eco-friendly. And it is not only widely discussed, but also this 'green' way of living is embraced by a lot of folks each year. Basically, because of the fact that people are getting more concerned about the health of our environment and the preserving of the Nature, the green way of life tends to get employed in a lot of aspects of our daily life. Even in moving houses.

Everybody knows that this task is really tedious and also leaves a big amount of waste once it is completed: plastic wrapping, heaps of cardboard boxes, packing peanuts, etc. The downside of these is that they are only being used once, after which they go directly into the trash bin. So, next time you are about to go through a moving, why not embrace the eco-friendly method and cut down as much as you can of your moving related items.

Sure that's a no-brainer, but try to carry away as little as possible – only those items that you need and use and are of some value to you. Needless to say, the more stuff you have for moving, the more trips back and forth need to be done, which results in more nasty fumes into the air. If you believe there are thing you do not need anymore, why not leave them behind? However, do not throw them away, but rather donate them (clothes, furniture, electronic devices), or make a yard sale. This way these objects will not only go into the hands of people who actually need them, but you will also win some money. The lighter the load of the moving van, the less gas it will burn.

You can go as far as to empty the fridge of all its contents and to give them away. Surely, they will turn bad by the time you move in into your new home.

Usually, moving boxes tend to get used only one time, and once they've served their purpose, they get disposed, even though most of them are still in usable condition. What you can do is to browse around the internet, looking for ads for secondhand moving boxes. Once the moving is finished, you can try to think of something else to use the boxes for. For example, build your children a castle to play in. Or store various tools in them. There are dozens of options. However, if you don't need them for anything else, or you simply can't think of what to use them for – then it is time for recycling. However, there is also the option of buying polypropylene crates that could be used more than just once.

Securing your possessions could be done not only with bubble wrap; plastic degrades slowly and causes pollution. Why not use newspapers instead? Even towels and pieces of cloth can do the trick.

When choosing the moving company you will be working with, look for one whose vans run on biodiesel. If your company of choice does not practice ‘green moving’, ask them to make an exception. If the firm is a reliable one, they would be glad to do anything the costumer wishes.

Provided that you would like to perform an eco-friendly moving, the options that you have and can use are basically dozens. It all depends on how much time and effort you are willing to invest in that undertaking.

 

About the Author

Heather Roberts is a content writer from London, UK. She has great flair for decoration and interior design. She is searching for new challenges and hence often moves to different places. Therefore her present article is focused on how to easily recover if you moved to a new town.