There are a lot of ways to save energy especially in one’s household and being environment friendly can be easier than you think.

Here are a few suggestions on how to make your holiday home environmentally friendly and still allow for a great vacation rental opportunity:

Make a list of eco-friendly “house rules” for your guests to follow once they are in your vacation home:

- Ask your holiday home guests to make sure air conditioners are off if doors are open or they are going out.

- Ask holiday guests to turn down (in colder environments) the heating thermostat by at least a degree Celsius, this will help save energy and decrease harmful emissions such as carbon dioxide.

- Ask holiday guests to turn off lights and switch appliances off when they are going out or not using a room.

- Advise guests to take advantage of the holiday sunshine when washing their clothes instead of using machine dryers – provide a clothes line so that clothes can be dried outside.

- Tell guests to use any recycling bins provided so they can separate biodegradable and non-biodegradable wastes.

- Rainwater is better for garden plants than tap water, and can easily be collected and stored – provide your
vacation home with some method of collection of rainwater, water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource.

- As appealing as they can sometimes appear, try not to provide a gas patio heater as they use a huge amount of energy.

- For the swimming pool area, use eco-friendly products for the swimming pool, as much as possible buy products with fewer chemicals.

- Be sure your holiday home is well insulated; many state or local building codes include minimum requirements for home insulation. Be sure your new home or home addition meets those codes. It will save you money in the long run.

- Replace old appliances as they can consume a lot of energy; these days many appliances are efficiency tested – try to invest in energy efficient appliances.

- If the holiday property is empty make sure appliances are unplugged – many home electronics still consume energy even when they are turned off. Many devices on “standby mode” will continue to draw down power and help increase your electricity bill. Also, chargers and power adapters continue to draw power from the wall socket even if the device is not attached. Unplug these devices or use a power strip to turn off multiple units, when they aren’t being used to make sure that you are not wasting energy.

- Replace conventional incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). They cost a little more, but last up to 10 times longer, use two-thirds less energy and give off 70 percent less heat.