Quickscrews
Quickscrews Cabinet Install Screws
Built for strength and precision, Quickscrews Cabinet Install Screws are the go-to choice for professional cabinet installers. Designed specifically for cabi...
$169
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What Are Some Sustainable Home Building Strategies for a Healthy Home?
The air in our homes is often up to 100 times more contaminated than the outside air. Because we spend so much time inside our homes, finding ways to improve our indoor air quality should be a priority for every homeowner. You can read Rise's complete guide to improving indoor air quality here. For new home construction, however, there are a few choices that you can make at the outset that will help to ensure healthier interior air. Strategies to ensure optimum indoor air quality generally center around two main strategies: eliminating individual sources of pollution and emissions reductions. You can reduce these sources and emissions through the following strategies, which we will expand on below:
- all-electric homes
- a balanced ventilation system, and
- designing for natural ventilation.
Are All-Electric Homes More Sustainable?
Natural gas continues to be the most popular heating option for the majority of homes. Millions of households also rely on natural gas for their cooking needs. According to the Rocky Mountain Institute, around 70 million American families and businesses burn natural gas, oil, or propane for heating. This choice generates 560 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year, which amounts to one-tenth of the nation's total emissions. Relying on natural gas for your heating or cooking needs not only increases your carbon footprint but also ensures that your home won't be able to achieve net-zero energy status.
Another critical factor is that natural gas use in the home can produce dangerous indoor air contaminants such as particulate matter (PM2.5), a hazardous air pollutant. Studies have found that gas stoves create about twice as much PM2.5 as electric stoves. Add to this, when gas stoves and furnaces malfunction, there is a risk of releasing nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, and other dangerous air contaminants into the air. Switching from gas to electricity for your home's heating, cooling, and power can be a costly retrofit. For this reason, new homeowners who want to optimize their indoor air quality should opt for an all-electric home.
What Are Some Sustainable Home Building Strategies to Lower Your Environmental Footprint?
Many homeowners will also want to design new home construction that minimizes the overall environmental impact. However, it is essential to state that the embodied energy footprint that comes with new home construction tends to "outweigh" the operational efficiency advantages of new home construction. Some estimates find that the increased energy efficiency of new home construction might take upwards of 80 years to offset the emissions and environmental impact of sourcing materials for a new house. Thus, retrofits and renovations of existing building stock tend to be more environmentally friendly options. However, that said, there are ways to reduce the embodied energy footprint of new home construction, which we will outline below.
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Earthen Construction Techniques
Earthen construction techniques such as cob, wattle and daub, straw bale homes, and rammed earth are other innovative alternatives for homeowners looking for the most environmentally friendly new home construction techniques. You can often find the raw material for these types of homes directly on the building site. You can use earthen building techniques for walls, natural floors, and interior plasters. Not only are these techniques beautiful, functional, and healthy, but they can also act as a thermal mass to help improve the energy efficiency of your home.
Rise Writer
Expert. Practical. Sustainable.
Article by
Tobias Roberts
Tobias runs an agroecology farm and a natural building collective in the mountains of El Salvador. He specializes in earthen construction methods and uses permaculture design methods to integrate structures into the sustainability of the landscape.
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