Energy efficiency and sustainability vital to an ecohome, magazine claims

People planning an ecohome should consider energy efficiency and sustainability, according to Ideal Home Magazine.

Whether you are embarking on a self build or making your existing home a little greener, energy efficiency and sustainability are the two biggest factors to consider, Isobel McKenzie-Price, editorial director of Ideal Home Magazine, has claimed.

Ms McKenzie-Price advised that even simple measures such as switching off lights in empty rooms and turning appliances off instead of leaving them on standby will aid the reduction of energy consumption.

Larger measures such as insulating doors, roofs and windows can also help "cut energy consumption and bills".

"If you can, buy pieces for your home that are made locally, from sustainable materials and which will last," she advised.

Despite Gordon Brown's pledge that by 2016 all new homes will be carbon neutral, only a small number of genuinely carbon neutral homes have been built, according to the Telegraph.