Eco Solutions In Luxury Homes

Eco solutions in luxury homes are becoming a common occurrence through emerging markets that share a passion for elite living in the home whilst also housing a conscience.

Flooring is a good place to start and the clearest sustainable choice for the home would be wooden floors. Ensure it is from sustainable sources and only buy wood with the FSC / PEFC certificate. With this documentation, homeowners can be assured that the wood has been sourced from responsibly managed forests from around the world.

When choosing paints and decorative products like varnish make sure you look at a selection of environmentally friendly options. Many solvents and acrylics found in most conventional paints contain VOC’s and acrylic softners, which are dangerous to customers and the environment.

When planning to renovate your kitchen, look into countertops made of recyclable or composite materials as an interesting and eco alternatives. Choose from exciting combinations of recycled paper and resins form a surface that’s hard yet warmer than stone, also other options are made from recycled glass held together with either resin or cement.

TIP: Junkyards are surprising eco havens to those who understand design and can use someone else’s rubbish to create a decoration or piece of furniture for the home.

You can live a life of luxury without compromising on your home and the services available. Constant advances in the technology behind household appliances mean that you can still obtain these high standards of living and reduce your carbon footprint. Seek out the most energy-efficient models when looking for new appliances in the home.

Perhaps one of the most important points when living a life of eco-chic is to ensure your home is set up to carry on your sustainable lifestyle.

New KNX technology allows home owners to sync their heating, lighting, security, audio and every other electrically controlled system within the home under one system. This can save one over 50% on heating and electricity bills and offers luxury living throughout the home. Installing occupancy and vacancy sensors that control the heating and lighting in the home is a way of saving on energy.

A home run by renewable energies is the ultimate luxury in our eyes. To know that you are creating your own energy through a means that is not harming the environment or people around you, now or in the future, is something we aspire to. Despite encouraging this, it is unfortunately not always commercially viable and depending on which renewable technology is installed, it can take years before a return on investment.

Being environmentally friendly at home has become a popular trend recently, however we must not lose sight of what ‘going green’ actually means to us, the future and the environment we live in. Homes are an extension of the people that own them and merging beautiful design with ethical production with energy saving systems is at the forefront of our thinking.

Words Ryan Kohn
Living In Space – www.living-inspace.co.uk – 0207 722 3131

• Eco Versus Ethical Design
• Stay Green – Guilt-Free Travel with Style from Design Hotels
• The Home Eco-Warrior
• Fisker Presents The Karma
• Miles Owen of Ecotopia.co.uk