Carbon Friendly Homes

The first time building a home can be hard on the average person. There are a lot of important factors that play into what type of home to build, the one factor this blog will be focused on today is the reduction of carbon specifically relating to the home you are planning to build. The objective of this blog is to assist anyone considering building a home in a way that reduces carbon emissions the most. 

It is important to consider the effects of wood vs concrete initially. According to the model below, you can see that the effects of concrete show that laminated timber is much more sustainable opposed to reinforced concrete (Robertson et al.) As you can see, timber has more fossil fuel depletion. While many people believe that building a wooden house is better because it harbors carbon, it actually doesn't matter. This is due to the fact that no matter what that wood will decay eventually or it will go up in flames, and the carbon will go back into the air eventually (Lesson 17).


What Can We Use?

According to the article “8 Sustainable Housing Types,” the best thing to use for materials in constructing a house includes materials such as sustainable concrete. It is good to look for materials that are sourced locally, renewable, and/or recycled. They mention bamboo being a good alternative due to its high rate for being renewable (Simon). In many instances, steel, wood, and various other materials can be recycled and reused many times. This can ultimately help shrink the large carbon footprint that gets put up when you build a house.

Wood Products & Good For the Earth

In the process of processing wood, there is absolutely no wood wasted. It is important to the industry to do their best to use every splinter because it is good for the environment and good for profits. So what happens when you have a bunch of small wood chips or sawdust? You glue it together. Particle board is one example that uses mainly sawdust and other random wood scraps to create an entire board used in construction. Oriented strand board, commonly known as OSB is another common board to use in construction and it consists of small glued together wood chips. Other new technologies have been on the come up recently, especially something called cross laminated timber. Cross laminated timber is similar to plywood but uses larger lumber and when pressed together, there is no heat used. Cross laminated timber is both a great alternative to the traditional wood and is strong, stiff, and can handle large loads of weight (Lesson 15). According to Edwardo Souza, cross laminated timber is better for the environment because the process of its production doesn’t require burning any fossil fuels. The panels of cross laminated timber are very versatile and can be used for anything from floors to ceilings. There are already many cross laminated timber houses and buildings out there. I urge you to build with products that are better for the environment.







Works Cited

Cross Laminated Timber

https://www.archdaily.com/893442/cross-laminated-timber-clt-what-it-is-and-how-to-use-it


Lesson 15, Engineered Wood Products, BBE 1002, UMN


Lesson 17, Is Wood Good?, BBE 1002, UMN


8 Sustainable Housing Types

https://sustainability-success.com/sustainable-housing/

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