Why My Eco-House is Environmentally Friendly

My Eco-house has a lower impact on the natural environment and thus helps to protect all of God’s creations, animals, plants and us. My design materials are from sustainable sources and I have included various features that help to save electricity, water and leftover food. All this goes towards reducing its carbon footprint and lowering its energy needs.

Exterior

A very obvious difference to my house is the extra-insulated roof, which is flat with a slight slope, so rainwater can run off it into pipes where it flows to a water tank to be caught.

The roof is made of EPDM, a type of rubber. They are like reflective cool roofs and lower roof surface temperatures, which limits heat transfer, so your home requires less electrical cooling. My house is heated and cooled by the walls which are insulated on the exterior with grass, which helps to improve a building’s thermal insulation and absorb heat, so less heat is transmitted inside and there is less dependence on air conditioning.

I have rainwater tanks, to collect water runoff from the roof and pump this away for watering my lawn or garden. I have included solar panels on top of the roof as well, which help by using sunlight to generate electricity which I can then use to power my eco-home. Along with solar panels, I have added a natural light source to the home, especially during the day, by installing skylights in the roof, so there is less need to use any electrical lightbulbs.

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We have recycling bins to be environmentally friendly and save scrap paper, cardboard, plastic bottles and other recyclable items that might otherwise have been chucked away to a garbage dump and wasted as well as compost bins to hold organic matter, such as leaves, garden clippings and kitchen leftovers, for it to decompose to a nutrient-rich soil for my garden. My fruit and vegetable garden is there to grow fresh produce for me to eat. By growing my own food, I can eliminate some of the emissions that come from the transportation of goods to grocery stores. Near the garden is a clothesline for hanging up clothing to dry as my house will not contain a clothes dryer.

Interior

My house has LED lights which are more energy efficient for lighting up rooms in the house. Inside, there is a smart thermostat, so I can better monitor temperatures indoors and stop wasting extra heating and cooling. My attic is insulated in the interior, because heat rises and our roofs are usually dark coloured and so absorb the sun’s heat, attics are usually warmer than the rest of the house and so if insulated properly can tightly seal and keep in that warm air. I also have an attic fan to push out that warm air in the summer and keep it from entering my rooms.

In the bathroom, to save water, there is a low flow shower head and toilet and also a automatic faucet which is also in the kitchen. We have quartz countertops there, because it is considered more sustainable than granite and has less impact than the mining required for granite. It is also easy to maintain and durable, so it will last a long time. Quartz is also produced using materials that would normally be wasted, so they are recycled. All my kitchen appliances are energy efficient types and I have a self cleaning oven, because they have more insulation, and as long as you don’t clean it too often, you can save energy because less heat will escape from the oven every time you cook. The paints used for the walls in my rooms are all no-VOC paints, as they are better for your environment and health. VOCs(Volatile Organic Compounds) are evaporated as gases from materials and include a variety of chemicals. This can irritate the eyes and respiratory tract, and may affect the central nervous system. In the hallway, I have a glass back door and large triple glazed windows in my kitchen and living room to let in more solar light. I have a natural latex mattress, because it is a renewable, eco-friendly material. My bedsheets are also made of organic cotton, so the cotton is grown without the use of harmful chemicals. My kitchen, bathroom and bedroom have bamboo flooring, which grows quickly, making it extremely renewable, while my living room has wool carpet. It is biodegradable, recyclable and energy efficient, as it takes a very small amount of energy to produce and prevents heat loss and stops heat from rising up from the floor. Some of my furniture is used, such as my living room chairs and couch, because it’s a good to reuse old furniture and make sure more materials aren’t being consumed for your rooms. Many of my wooden furniture, like the bookshelf in the living room and the bench in the kitchen, is made from recycled timber as well and my living room tabletop is from recycled glass.

Heating and Cooling

My house is heated and cooled with a geothermal system, where it transfers heat to or from underground in the Earth, where temperatures stay relatively constant throughout the year, via a heat pump and doesn’t burn fossil fuel to generate heat like ordinary heating and cooling systems. They only use 1 unit of electricity to move up to 5 units of heating and cooling from the Earth. Geothermal systems require little maintenance and the indoor parts can last for 25 years, while outdoor components can last for more than 50 years. It is a clean and efficient renewable energy technology.

Water System

My house also has a grey water system, where water from household activities (not including toilet wastewater), eg. washing your clothes or showering or bathing, is piped away to be filtered and removed of anything unwanted, then the treated water is collected, before being piped back for uses of watering plants, flushing the toilet or in a washing machine.

All this would go towards preserving and protecting our surroundings for our lands and the living things that live on it, like us, now and in the years to come, which is exactly the very reason the Lord created us, to look after our Earth.