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Green building houses to be more energy efficient and even energy independent is something that has really grown in popularity these days as more and more people realize the impact our energy consumption has on the planet from rising costs energy, and even where we get energy and fuel. There are several ways to approach energy efficiency and, frankly, considering all of them is the best, most effective way to achieve this goal. What are some of these approaches?
The many ways to ecologically build your home towards energy efficiency and even energy independence can be seen as coming mainly from four main areas – Sun, Earth, Water, and Wind. It almost brings to mind the philosophical elements of alchemists, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water – not really too far into the alchemy of conservation of energy. Of course, when dealing with the sun, we have solar energy, be it active or passive. Earth would be geothermal energy and the other two are even more obvious. Let’s look at geothermal …
When building a house ecologically to use geothermal energy, a great way to use geothermal energy is also to include water. Sending simple water lines a few meters underground for circulation to the house and back underground and back again is an excellent way to heat and cool the house and water at the same time. Former US President Bush’s house in Texas has been using the same technology for years – many houses in the north of Canada do as well. This is a great example of “green construction”. Homes with this type of technology installed can in fact operate off-grid when it comes to heating and cooling air and water.
Solar energy, as I mentioned earlier, can be both active and passive. The active form uses solar panels, which nowadays are much more efficient than decades ago, and also much cheaper, and the passive form is usually built into the green building of the house itself – its overall shape, which way faces, window exposure, application of envelope patterns convection in the structure of the house itself using the “double hull” design and so on. Green houses designed for these projects have a much smaller impact on our environment and also help in the necessary erasure of our huge “carbon footprint” that we have left on the Earth.
Wind and water are different approach angles, whether you use windmills or water wheels to generate electricity, or maybe even both in tandem. These systems often use a multi-cell battery, such as those used in cars, or single cells, such as those used in forklifts, to store energy generated for continuous use. Using all of these points of view, we can see how green houses where they are all used can create a completely energy-efficient and even energy-independent home to live in.
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Source by Bryan Kenny