Environmentally Friendly Building Techniques

1. REDUCE

Create a better insulated home. This will reduce heat and cool air loss, and save you money while decreasing the home's energy consumption. How to do this? Consider using raised heel trusses, which bumps more insulation space into your roof. Also consider insulating the outside of the foundation.

Advanced caulking can help to reduce air inflow and unwanted temperature changes; a good air seal can be confirmed with a "blower door" test. And testing the cooling and heating ducts for leaks, and subsequently sealing them, can also add up to environmental and financial savings, as well.

You can also reduce environmental impact by selecting, where possible, quickly renewable resources such as strawboard, wheatgrass, cork or bamboo. Consider also using engineered lumber, which can also replace lumber cut from old-growth ecosystems.

Insulation is available which is crafted from a sustainable resource: sheep's wool.

Some traditional wood products, such as deck planking, siding and sills, have now been created from plastic lumber, which utilizes recycled plastic jugs. A side benefit is that these products require little maintenance from the homeowner.

Another idea to reduce consumption is the use of durable flooring and pathway items, such as tile, slate and stone. These materials tend to last longer and therefore don't need to be replaced nearly as often as other choices might require.

Select high-efficiency appliances, including washers, water heaters, furnaces, and light fixtures. Work to incorporate daylight as a natural light source into your design wherever possible.

The effort to reduce household water consumption can be aided by installing rainwater collection systems. Think also about installing less lawn and more drought resistant plants in your landscape.

2. REUSE

Use reclaimed lumber where possible to keep this material out of the landfill. Multiple building products have been created from recycled stock. Also stockpile and reuse the topsoil on your lot; don't allow it to be hauled away.

3. RECYCLE

At the construction site, a de facto recycling center can not only save the need to rent a dumpster, but can also avoid putting leftover construction materials in a landfill. By posting a recycling plan for the construction site, and working to recycle such items as concrete, packaging, cardboard, drywall, and lumber, builders can then take these materials to recyclers. These items can then be reused, rather than just creating more waste stream.

4. BREATHE MORE EASILY AT HOME

New home construction can be dogged by "off-gassing" materials, such as carpet adhesives and solvent-based varnishes and paints. Avoid such problems by electing to use natural, low-VOC paints. Ask that carpet be tacked rather than glued.

Town Houses As Investment Properties

If you are considering an investment property then this is a great move that can help you to earn a large amount of money over a short amount of time. It's a very secure investment that's highly unlikely to drop in value, and it's an investment that can have great practical use while you wait to sell giving you somewhere to live, a holiday home, or just generally a property (unlike owning an old painting or stock which you can't do much with in the interim).

Town houses are ideal investment properties as they are something that will always be in demand thanks to their highly practical locations and the surrounding industry and amenities.

That said though not all town houses were made equal, and while any town house will be a good way to make money there are some things that can help you make our investment even more successful and profitable. Here we will look at some tips when buying town houses as investment properties that can help you to make more money more quickly.

Choose Your Area: First of all, choose your location well. You want to find somewhere that is currently good value and in demand, but even more importantly you want it to be somewhere that is increasing in value. It needs to be somewhere that is going to be worth more than it is now when you come to sell it - otherwise you are just making your money back. The more that the area goes up in value and in demand, the more money you will make on your purchase.

How do you choose a property that is going to go up in value? Well first of all you should choose somewhere that is going to have a lot of money spent on it in the near future. Areas marked for development are ideal investments. Likewise look for places that are having particular new installations in the region whether those are tourist attractions or amenities.

Develop: Next you want to invest in a property that you will be able to develop and spend money on. In other words you want somewhere that isn't in perfect repair and that has room for improvement. This is another way to raise the value past the amount that you paid for it. For instance if you retile the bathroom, relandscape the garden, replaster the walls, or redecorate the rooms then you will find it increases the value of the property. And the value of the property will increase to such a degree that you earn back more than you paid for the developments.

Use: You can also make money from an investment townhouse by using it in the interim while you wait for it to sell. This can mean simply that you rent it out, or that you lease it for use as a holiday home. Either way you will make money in the short term and then make more money again on top of that when you sell the building.