How to make your home more accessible and eco-friendly

The subjects of eco-consciousness and disability are not often brought cup in the same sentence as it’s often perceived that creating an eco-friendly and disabled-friendly home have to be mutually exclusive. That isn’t the case. Indeed, with the right approach, it’s surprisingly easy to accommodate a disability whilst also reducing your home’s impact on the planet.

Here, we’ll go through a few tips that will allow you to be more conscious about the environment and your disability. There are a few important  eco-friendly changes you can make at home that will also improve its disability-friendliness, making your life easier and more rewarding.For wheelchair users, it’s much easier to traverse a hardwood floor than a carpeted floor for obvious reasons. However, hardwood is not only expensive but it isn’t environmentally sound either as its cultivation damages many forests around the world every year. Bamboo flooring, however, is not only sturdy enough to support a wheelchair and more affordable but it is also easy to clean and environmentally responsible. For those with visual impairments, meanwhile, bamboo flooring is low glare by nature so could also be beneficial.

Bamboo Flooring

For wheelchair users, it’s much easier to traverse a hardwood floor than a carpeted floor for obvious reasons. However, hardwood is not only expensive. It isn’t environmentally sound either as its cultivation damages many forests around the world every year. Bamboo flooring, however, is not only sturdy enough to support a wheelchair. It is more affordable but it is also easy to clean and environmentally responsible. For those with visual impairments, meanwhile, bamboo flooring is low glare by nature so could also be beneficial.

LED lighting

For people living with a disability, it’s incredibly important to have a well-lit home. A cost-effective and relatively painless change that could be made is to replace conventional incandescent bulbs with LED alternatives. LED lightbulbs are brighter, use less energy and give off less heat. This makes them that much more eco-friendly than their traditional counterparts. An LED bulb will last around 50,000 hours. This is almost 50 times the amount of the 1,200 hours that a common bulb will typically last. They might cost a little more upfront, granted, but the savings in the long-term will be more than worth it. Your home will also be brighter, safer and more eco-friendly!

Wheelchair accessible vehicles

Of course, when leaving your home, it’s vital that you can do so safely and easily. A major aspect of that comes down to your mode of transportation. A wheelchair-accessible vehicle from a dedicated supplier like Allied Mobility will allow you to get in, out and away with minimal fuss. This drastically cuts down on the time you’ll be running the engine.

Draft Blocks

The more draft your home, the more energy you’re wasting. However, many draft blocking solutions could inhibit someone with a disability. That person will have difficulty opening those doors, particularly those that are wheelchair-bound. The best solution here is to place some long, weighted pillows underneath the gaps in your doors. This was you don’t need to modify the door itself (which will save you a pretty penny indeed). It’s a solution that can easily be moved aside when access is required.

Note that some of the solutions above also have the potential to increase the value of your home. So, if you’re living with a disability and have yet to modify your home accordingly, there is no time like the present.