How Can you use Technology to Improve your House?
If you are looking to improve your home, incorporating technology into it is likely high on your list.
Smart homes are increasingly popular, for example, because of their ability to make daily tasks easier, as well as enabling you to save you money on bills and ensuring your home is as environmentally friendly as it can be.
A smart home uses tech that allows you to control basic functions remotely and set timers. These systems can regulate your lights, heating, and water usage, as well as other electrical products like your television.
Furthermore, you can use technology to improve your house by making use of eco-tech, such as solar panels and wind turbines, to cut down your electricity bills and carbon footprint and increase your self-sufficiency.
However, your house doesn’t even have to be built to benefit from using technological tooling. For example, if you are thinking of designing a new home, you could always use digital floor plans to help you create accurate plans.
Here is how you can use technology to improve your house:
Digital site plans can help you create accurate plans quickly
If you’re looking to improve your home and the land surrounding it, then you will need to sit down and plan them at a certain point. If you want to change major parts of the property, this could be tricky because traditionally, only qualified architects can create accurate site plans.
While this is still largely the case, it has never been easier to draw up an accurate site plan using digital software. If your home improvements are extensive, you may still want to work alongside an architect, but the process can be improved by using digital site plans. The software allows you to easily view and change the site plans, allowing you to draw up the exact design you want.
Make your home eco-friendly
Creating an environmentally friendly home is one of the best ways in which you can future-proof your house. With many governments pursuing strict emission cuts, it has never been more important to ensure your house emits as few emissions as possible.
By making your home environmentally friendly, you will improve it in many ways. Firstly, if you complete basic changes like improving the wall and roof insulation, you will be able to reduce your dependence on central heating, cutting your monthly bills, and helping the planet all at the same time.
These benefits only increase if you go further by making more technological changes like fitting solar panels or fixing a wind turbine to the property. Although it is best to fit these only if your local climate suits them (fitting solar panels in a location that rarely enjoys sunlight is not particularly wise), you are likely to enjoy reduced energy bills and the security of your own self-produced energy supply.
Secondly, making your home more environmentally friendly will likely make it a more attractive proposition when you come to sell it. In an age of climate change, many alterations will soon be needed to reduce global emissions. If you have made some of these changes, the next owner will know they won’t have to take time and money fitting them themselves, thus increasing the value of your home.
You can install an underfloor heating system
An option to consider if you’re looking to use technology to improve your home is to fit an underfloor heating system. Although they are nothing new, current systems are sophisticated and can add a great deal of luxury to your home, as well as potentially increase the value of your home when you come to sell it.
It is easier to create a smart home from the ground up
Converting your property into a smart home is one of the best tech improvements you can make because you will be better able to control it remotely.
There are many ways in which you can do this. One of the most popular involves connecting your lights to an app on your phone, allowing you to check which lights are on at any one time and be able to turn them on and off on the app (or through voice recognition).
This could be particularly useful if you have gone away from the house for an extended period and you want to make sure you haven’t left a light on or when you have gone upstairs for the night and forgotten to turn a switch off.
Quite apart from making your life easier, this function can save you a great deal of money over time. You will better control how much electricity you are using (you can set timers for different lights, for instance) and cut down on your household emissions.
Of course, a smart home can incorporate far more than your lighting system. If you want to go further, consider connecting your central heating system to your phone, allowing you to keep track of how much energy you are using. This will save you money and help the environment. The same can be said for your showers, sink taps, or baths, which you can connect with your phone to ensure the water is set at the correct temperature and that your water usage is kept under control.
You can keep your home secure with security systems
An often-overlooked technological home improvement idea is to increase your level of property security. It is easy to believe that keeping your doors locked and windows shut is enough to prevent break-ins, but if you live in an area with a high crime rate, this may not be enough to keep you secure.
To combat this, you could consider fitting CCTV cameras which you can view via your smartphone. This will give you peace of mind, especially if you often spend extended periods of time away from the house.
The last thing you’ll want is to be on holiday or at a business conference unable to relax because you are fearing for your home security. Having the ability to view your home at any point via an app will help you to keep your mind clear and your property safe.
