What's your best home eco-innovation tip? Tell us and win

By Celsias Team

Posted on July 21, 2010. Listed in:

There’s not better place to start making some eco changes than in your own home. So with that in mind, we’re perusing the Celsias community for your best home-related eco secrets. Tell us your best secret and you could win Terence Conran’s funky ‘Eco House Book’, filled with sleek 'n' chic eco inspiration for your home.

This is the fifth book from designer/restaurateurs/furniture-maker/retailer and Habitat store founder Terence Conran. The book is packed with useful eco advice and tips on everything including carrying out small repairs, improving your home’s energy efficiency, redecorating, furnishing and re-designing your home. In a nutshell, it shows you how to improve not only the look of your home, but also how to get a better-looking carbon footprint.

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If you see any unhelpful comments, please let us know immediately.

Russ

My best tip for a new home or a home you've just moved into, is to setup your recycling infrastructure first. Make things easy to dispose of correctly and you will use them. Setup your compost collection system (bucket in the kitchen and bin outside) and separate recycling bins for each material (this will depend on how your local recycling company likes to receive the material). By this stage, you should be so proud you've set this all up, it will actively encourage you and your family to use it more!

Written in July 2010

Linda Hammond 0°

Replace disposables with re-useable items .We throw away so many items,ink catridges,batteries,razors,buy re-useable items ,refill cartridges,rechargable batteries, reuseable razors,food storage containers,coffee filters its amazing what every household throws out.

Richelle 135°

Replace paper bills with online bills which cuts down on unecessary paper lying around the house and if at all possible pay your bills as they arrive or weekly such as your power bill so you are not left with a whopping big powerbill at the end of the month. Some companies have a system in place that will allow you do that and in the end it saves a lot of stress and heartache. Also get into the habit of saving leftover meals at dinner time and have them for lunch the next day or to put into the freezer to have again if there is just yourself. Turn off lights as soon as you leave the room rather than having your home looking like a Christmas tree. Finally learn how to preserve fruits and vegetables that are in season they are often a lot nicer than the canned variety and are a nice gift to give someone too. Oh and .... :-) Having a shared winter dinner party is a great way to get together with friends and family and it is a great way to try other flavours and a enjoyable experience at the same time!!!

Lynn Lacy-Hauck 0°

All of our organic material from the kitchen goes into one of two bins: One for the chickens and one for the compost bin, so food scraps that are still worth consuming(!?) help out our little egg producing friends. The rest goes into what eventually becomes fertilizer for our garden. We produce a lot less rubbish this way.

Also, if you've forgotten your own bags when you're standing at the check-out counter as I am inclined to do from time to time, ask for an empty box instead. They make good containers for your paper waste on recycling days!

Steve . 85°

Lets start with choosing your home and if you already have one, improving how it works.
Never buy a house either off the plans or second hand without figuring out where the light moves on the site during the day, for all seasons.

The MOST important thing about our home is the passive heating and cooling it achieves, as well as the natural movement of warm air through the house.
Hallways are an enemy..our open plan home with rooms communicating directly off the heated space is very easy to heat.
And if your home performs badly, plant trees to the west to shield western facing windows from summer sun, and cut down or trim vegetation which shields northern and eastern windows from winter sun. Investigate the construction of a trombe wall where sunlight cannot directly enter the house in winter.
Put on a jersey instead of heating your home above 18C.
Put in double the insulation required in the roof.

oops, that more than 1, and they're not that secret.

bren 0°

my best tip is before you dispose of anything stop. Think and assess how this can be reused. If you can't reuse it, can someone else. Think about our land fill when you purchase an item, not when you have finished with it. On a smaller level my eco-tip is use a broom, not a vacumn cleaner on your hard floors.

Frances Forsyth

Don't use your hose like a broom.
Using grade A1 to wash your house and paths just does not make sense. Especially when you consider the carbon footprint of pumping that water all the way from the water source to your house. Conserving water is about more than the water, it's also about the effort that has gone into making sure the water is clean and safe to drink and the electricity used to pump it.

Pete Fowler

One of the most efficient heat storage substances is also the cheapest; water. I've put 20 3 litre plastic juice bottles full of water in my tunnel house. It prevents frosts on the coldest Southland winter nights. Even in Ophir, Otago, which recorded minus 22C once, it would work. In an extreme frost like this a second heat release mechanism kicks in; the water starts to freeze and releases latent heat.

Kirsty

Become a 'rubbish hub'. I am the person to come to at work & in my old neighbourhood (i've just moved house - i have plans for my new neighbours...) if you want something (newspaper, tin cans, old bean plants, wood....)or have some rubbish you don't want to send to landfill but think might be useful.
My cousin's husband gives my friend his woodturning shavings for her boys guinea pigs, the guy @ work gets 3 households newspapers, the local volunteer fire brigade & Lions get aluminium cans & tabs...) If you become the go to person you can divert much more than your own rubbish & save other people money in the process. everyone wins :)

My next project is to attach a hose to the outlet from our wash house. Grey water containing detergent is a rich source of phosphorus. We'll just move the hose outlet around the garden from time to time and supply the plants with phosphorus as well as water.

Written in August 2010

Lee B. 0°

Wow, looks like you guys have pretty much covered it! My primo eco tip is to always do full loads of washing in cold water. Always. My partner works out doors and his gear is usually muddy or worse, and I work in an office so need to look suave. But no worries with the cold wash - it gets everything perfectly clean. Also, its kinder on your clothes so they'll last longer. And it uses SO much less energy. We use a bulk eco-detergent that is biodegradable and it works fine. No fancy expensive cold-water power powder. Next step is to switch to soap nuts. Also big up to everyone who is on the recycling/non-disposal/use-again/feed-it-to-the-chooks journey - that's one of my top eco-actions too. Rubbish bags are down to about 10 a year but still trying to do better.

Have checked out that soap nut site here in New Zealand and it defintely makes me want to give them a try. I have been finding that sometimes our common household laundry powder sometimes makes me itch but there is no rash to proove it so I will certainly be looking into the nuts. I also saw a Youtube presentation on someone using concerntrated soapnut liquid which they whipped up in a food processor to show how frothy these nuts get when they are used. It looks great and good for hair too I found out. :-D

emmag 20°

Make large batches of soup and stews/curries and put in sealed containers in the fridge or freezer. Grate blocks of cheese and freeze in bags. These all save time and money!
Replace white goods as they fail with energy efficient (and water efficient) models. Donate the old ones to recycling/reuse projects.

Share books, magazines or other literature with one another.. Organise to have a street market stall with your friends and get rid of things that you no longer want or need or even have a private one between friends and do swaps with one another.

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