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I've heard the argument on City Data that when a home is built properly (or retrofitted to be more "green") that the size is not that important (when it comes to green living). Now I always thought that smaller homes were better environmentally speaking (less resources used, less land used, less energy consumption) BUT I could be wrong.
Opinions?
Houses | Tumbleweed Tiny House Company
I don't live in one of these homes but I'd seriously consider it if I were single. The guy who created this company believed that smaller was less taxing on the environment.
The smaller the footprint, the fewer materials used to make it, the less waste, the lower the operating costs to run it.
Also, in my smaller house, I was able to use top quality materials for the floors, counters and walls, because I needed less. $6 a tile for 400 sf (the tiled great room) versus my neighbor's 1,200 sf great room. Around $2400 versus $7,400.
It seems to make sense that a smaller house would be more efficient. That said, a larger house with more people living together would be more efficient than one or two people living in a small house, right? That seems to be the theory behind communal or shared living spaces.
So I guess it comes down to having the right size house for the number of people living together. If one does have a larger house, do everything to make that house as efficient as possible.
Of course they are. We intentionally bought a 900 SF house. We intentionally wanted 10X10 bedroom so we could use a special European heater that runs on, literally, pennies per day (they can't be used in rooms much beyond 10X10) and large windows to capture heat in the winter. We have an open floor plan and people are amazed it's only 900 SF. We use less electricity, gas & water and less materials when we have to do maintenance. We have a modest yard, but a good front yard, backyard with plenty of flower beds, a garden and I use a motorless lawnmower.
Heating and cooling has a factor as well. Lees space, less energy.
not necessarily. We are noticing a trend when trying to get our HERS and energy star ratings on some of our designs, the larger homes start out at a MUCH better energy rating than the smaller ones, the large homes are also easier to get numbers down in terms of HERS rating to achieve a 5 star energy rated home. the smaller homes are VERY hard to get the points to get it down enough.
our 4500 sqft. homes are much cheaper to get down to a HERS rating of 10 which is very close to a NET Zero home than our 1700 sqft. homes.
I live in an apartment about a 3rd bigger than my last one yet my energy bill is a lot less.
Things that make a difference are the windows and doors seal better and there are shade trees. Plus our indows face north where in our old apartment they faced south and heated the heck out of the apartment, even in the winter is got too hot sometimes.
With 2 equally built houses, one larger than the other (not talking extremes), the only environmental factor would be the amount of materials used in the bigger house and the heating and cooling aspects of it which in my opinion are not very significant in a well built house.
I live in an apartment about a 3rd bigger than my last one yet my energy bill is a lot less.
Things that make a difference are the windows and doors seal better and there are shade trees. Plus our indows face north where in our old apartment they faced south and heated the heck out of the apartment, even in the winter is got too hot sometimes.
With 2 equally built houses, one larger than the other (not talking extremes), the only environmental factor would be the amount of materials used in the bigger house and the heating and cooling aspects of it which in my opinion are not very significant in a well built house.
the heating and cooling have a HUGE amount to do with the energy performance of a house. Installing a Geothermal pump has some drastic differences in the energy rating of the house when it comes to energy star and HERS rating systems. Going with a whole house fan does better than an evaporative cooler or an AC system, on demand water heating helps as well. Placing the furnace and the AC in unconditioned spaces (crawl or garage) has a big impact on the heating load of the houses as well (yes AC does produce heat)
Boulder Colorado just went to a HERS rating system for all new designs built within the county and city. We are finding that it is actually easier to do homes at 2200-4500 sqft compared to 5000-10000 sqft homes, and much easier than doing 1500-2200 sqft homes.
I guess you missed the part where I said "with 2 equally built houses".
The subject was which one is more energy efficent, not ins and outs of making one more efficient.
I don't give a rats ass about any rating system, I need to look at one thing, KW.
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The guy who created this company believed that smaller was less taxing on the environment.
