Are smaller homes better for the environment? How big is yours?

How you do it is at least as important as how big. I am a big fan of Malcolm Wells, author of Gentle Architecture, though my dream home will probably never get built.

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My home is a 2-storey detached home on a 55x100' lot built in 1994.
2200 sq foot inside, 8 rooms, garage. Considered medium-large.

Would a smaller home be better? Depends on use and human-to-room ration.
1:1 isn't good, in our case it's 1:2. A couple living in a 5 & 1/2 is 2:5.
So which is really better?

My two kids will be leaving soon - 1-2 yrs and the younger perhaps 3-4 yrs.
(Then again, apparently, they never leave. Stop cooking with cheese.)

When just my wife & I, we plan on downsizing to half. IOW, maintain a 1:2 room-to-human ratio.

 

1911 Craftsman Style(3600 sq ft) with a less than perfect addition from the 60's(1500 sq ft). The original home is built of Terra-cota bricks(1ft by 1ft)and is remarkably efficient. The addition is not so efficient, but will be completely remodeled soon.

 

The answer to the OP question depends on what aspect of the environment one considers important. For instance a 4,500 sq ft. house with a green roof would be much better for our watersheds than an 1,800 sq. ft. house without one. The same could be said about carbon emissions if the larger house is oriented with passive solar in mind and is insulated soundly while the smaller house is not.

My house is almost half the size as my sister's, but uses twice as many therms to heat. I'm working on this. This is my one nemesis. It's a hard one to beat. Interestingly, the more I work to defeat this, the more cracks I find to caulk. It's truly a work in progress.

All of this said, I personally appreciate small footprints and recognize the inherent value for the environment. The less land we use for our sustenance, the better I feel.

 

1929 single story 1000 sq ft. Spanish colonial. Block Construction and lots of shade good, 80 y/o leaky windows bad. Not too bad w/ family of 3, now that number 4 is on the way its going to start getting a little tight.

Rob

 

Evan,

You might find this site interesting in your desire to build a energy efficient house. Solar Electric Discussion Forum - Powered by vBulletin

It is a forum, not unlike this one that is dedicated to Solar design, application, hardware etc. I am a frequent contributer to it.

Icarus

 

We live in ~1900 farmhouse, that we have extensivly rebuild. 1200sq. ft Passive solar green house, extra insulation, all compact cfl lighting, HiEf, low emission wood heat, demand hot water.

Part of the year we live in 3 rooms, 500 sq ft. All off grid remote site on an Island in Northern Canada. Solar electric, wood heat.

I have been a custom builder most of my life, and people should consider the complete life cycle environmental cost of their lifestyles. Prius' in front of monster houses make no sense.

Icarus

 

Of course a smaller, energy-friendly house would be better for the environment.

The house I am in I bought 24 years ago. The heating bills when I moved in mid-winter were extremely expensive, somewhere around $300/month for natural gas. The walls were uninsulated, the "furnace," was a converted coal stove with a 180,000 btu gas ring-burner, with no blower, just "gravity" hot air, and an efficiency somewhere south of 40 percent.

I had the walls insulated, had the furnace replaced with a 96 percent efficiency forced-air natural gas unit, doubled the insulation in the attic, weather-stripped throughout the house all before the next winter. The heating bills dropped to one third what they were. The steps I took were the best investment I ever made. Besides saving $$'s, the house was much more comfortable, with fewer drafts.

It's insane to live in a poorly insulated house with a low-efficiency heating unit in a cold climate. It's bad for the environment and it just throws money down a rat hole.

Harry

 

Thanks.

I'm exploring things I might do after I retire. Building an energy efficient house, or converting an existing house interests me, and might give me something interesting to do.

harry

 

wow. we're in ~740 sf and are downsizing a little this weekend.

 

The vast majority of home space is always unused. The winner of the 2007 Solar Home Decathlon from T.U. Darmstadt had a small home with a really neat arrangement where the big master bed recessed into the floor and table that came out making the room quite useable for day and night. The bathroom was also expandable (via clever doors) to be big while in use but small when not. This is the untapped area of new home design. Making total use of limited space would result in a "bigger" living area with a smaller home.

Bigger is not better. Is it me, or do most new big homes (on miniscule lots) look like an out of control child's block set as the reference design?

 

I live in a 1917 (or 1923 depending on what records you use) wood siding house, single story with 10 ft ceilings and a detached garage. 1275 square feet.

I have PV on my roof and a tankless water heater. I have no lawn. I have drip irrigation on timers in my hard. I use compact fluorescents. I've insulated the attic. I just bought a wormtopia and they are turning my kitchen waste to lovely compost. I recycle using my blue bins or taking to the recycler. I'm putting in four espaliered fruit trees this weekend across the south of the detached garage: royal apricot, mexican lime, satsuma tangerine, valencia orange. I already have a eureka lemon. I'll also be turning the ground this weekend to put in a garden in the flowerbed wrapping the corner of the house. I have a floor furnace (no forced air) and ceiling fans. I use the dog to heat my bedroom during the winter nights. Considering getting a second dog for more heat. I may be adding gutters and rain barrels at some point in the future.

I strongly believe in buying and renovating existing homes rather than tearing down and building new. But if you're going to build new, I believe in building the greenest you can.

 

I have 135 square metres of living space in a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom brick veneer bungalow.

There is an L shaped lounge dinning room in front with a main bedroom a familyroom/kitchen in the middle and 2 bedrooms at the back. The whole home is insulate in external walls and ceilings, home faces North (to the sun in the southern hemisphere) and there are 3 6'x6' windows on that north face. A 1.2 metre wide verandah keeps the sun off the glass in summer but allows the sun onto the glass in winter.
I have wide verandahs on east and west with only 2 small windows that get a couple of hours of sun in the morning on the east, none on the west due to verandahs. I have 1 small natural gas heater in the lounge room and ducted evaporative air conditioning throughout. A big energy user is the rather small 3.6 metre by 5 metre unheated swimming pool with filter pump running 2.5 hours a day through summer and 1 hour a day in winter.

In addition there is a carport under the main roof which houses 2 cars and a steel garage which is 40' x 16' and currently houses 2 cars, a motorbike, lawn mower (Push around 2 stroke petrol used 4 times a year) and all the crap one accumulates. Oh it also has the pool filter and pump in it.

My block is 22 metres by 43 metres deep or about 1/4 acre, there are 2 large native trees growing in the front yard with lots of shrubs and 10 or 11 tall native trees in the back yard with shrubs. I planted all the trees and shrubs when we first moved in about 17 years ago. This was a new home built to my design on a bare block.

 

I admit that I feel guilty rattling around in a 1963 wood frame/partial cream city brick-faced ranch, 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1400 square feet with attached 2-car garage and screened sun porch. The house sits on a 1/2 acre lot with 17 30-foot spruce trees and 35 7-foot arbor vitae in a chain link fenced back yard. There is also a "garden shed" which turned out to be a detached one-car garage at the rear of the property - apparently used by the previous owner for his riding lawn mower. The house has a full basement (which I don't use - arthritic knees when I bought the house made me opt for the ranch & even the laundry is on the main floor.) The new (2006) furnace & hot water heater live in solitary splendor with their own 1/2 bath on that lower level.
I am the 3rd owner of the house - I believe it was custom-built by people down-sizing who wanted to entertain as it is a great party house- good circulation pattern & a fireplace with hearths in both the living room & den (TV room, family room, hallway from kitchen to bedrooms - don't know what that room is.)
The 3 bedroom house where we raised our family had a master suite on the second floor which we built, since the house was only 2 bedrooms (900 sq ft) when we bought it & we had 2 kids of opposite sexes so needed that 3rd bedroom. After my husband died & the kids were in college, I bought a 1000 sq ft condo in downtown Milwaukee, but when I retired 4 years ago I bought this house. It was bigger than I wanted (and more $$$), but I love this house & I think it was (and still is) a good investment - as long as I don't sell it for a few years. It is in a landlocked subdivision that used to be a dairy farm along the Milwaukee river, but I don't live near the river. Many people living in this area have lived in several houses in the subdivision - houses for sale seem to go quickly, even now.
As I said living alone in a house this size does give me pause - maybe I bought Fiona partly to atone for my wasteful ways.

 

Ours is 10,000 square feet of living space, a 48' shop, an unfinished heated basement, and a bit of unheated space here and there such as the attic, plus assorted utility areas. That doesn't include the garage, which is not attached, but does have living space above it. As for utilities, we have two forced air gas furnaces, one forced air oil fired furnace, 20 or so built-in electric heaters for outlying zones, four electric water heaters, and eight bathrooms.

Before I'm ceremoniously drummed out of PriusChat for being an energy hog, I do have a small defense. Our building is combined use residential/commercial property in the commercial section of the village. We live in part of the building, my parents have an apartment in the back, and the rest is used for our various family businesses. I'll see if I can find a nice photo to post.

Tom