We’re all becoming more aware of the need to be more eco-friendly. And since the homes we live in are responsible for a huge chunk of our carbon footprints, they’re also an area in which there’s huge scope for improvement.
There are many reasons why you might want to build a home that’s more sustainable, from doing your part during a climate crisis to making it easier to cope with heating bills during winter.
So, where should you start?
In this article, we’ll share three ways to build a more sustainable home.
1. Optimise insulation
Preventing energy from escaping is arguably the most important aspect of improving energy efficiency. You can cut down on energy loss by insulating the following areas:
- Roof – Fitting roof joists with rolls of insulating mineral wool can help prevent up to one-quarter of heat loss from a home.
- Walls – Cavity walls in particular let a huge amount of heat escape, so injecting special insulation material and using expanding foam to fill any smaller cracks or holes is a great way to cut down on energy loss.
- Windows – Cut down on heat loss through windows by investing in double- or triple-glazing and using sealant to eliminate gaps in window frames.
2. Utilise energy modelling
Building energy efficient homes used to involve a certain amount of guesswork. But nowadays, you can use energy modelling to help you simulate and understand a home’s energy usage before you even build it.
Energy modelling is the virtual simulation of the energy consumption, utility bills and life cycle costs of a building. A mock-up or replica of a building is built on a computer and a simulation ran to understand its performance over the course of an average year.
This technology can help you test for and optimise different aspects of the home in order to find the most energy efficient scheme possible.
3. Use sustainable materials
Sustainable materials are manufactured, used and disposed of in an eco-friendly way. Examples of sustainable materials include treated timber, stone, glass, hemp, straw and wool.
Using sustainable materials doesn’t deplete non-renewable resources or disturb the equilibrium of the environment they’re harvested from. They also tend to be more durable, meaning that they last longer and need less maintenance over their lifetime.
The bottom line
Whether you’re building a new home from scratch or simply undertaking some renovations, there are plenty of things you can do to make your home more eco-friendly. Building a more sustainable home to live in gives you an easy way to lower your carbon footprint and help create a more promising future for generations to come. It isn’t necessarily easy to do. But if you implement the three methods above, you’ll have made great progress towards more sustainable living.
