UK Unveils Zero-Emission Home

from the bbcNot to be outdone by the recycled house in Quebec, the Brits have unveiled a zero-emission home. The BBC reports that it’s the first zero-emission home in the UK and aims to be an example of new rules to be applied in 2016.

“The home generates all its own energy – and when you’re away on holiday can send electricity back to the National Grid. The company says its annual energy bill would be £31, as compared to £500 for the standard new home of this size,” he said.

Quebecers to See Sample Green Home

The Canadian province of Quebec is trying to promote small thing s that people can do in their home to lessen their impact on the environment. Part of this awareness campaign involves building a house using 100% recycled materials, including socks!

The building will be cobbled together with two boxcars, used wooden crates, old firefighting hoses and a roof made of vegetation. It will house a kitchen, living room and a garage with displays of greener lifestyles

Thermal Inertia for Free Heating and Cooling

How does not needing an air conditioner or a furnace sound? To me, it sounds great.

The Enertia home uses thermal energy to cycle cooling and warming the house. It achieves this by delaying the thermal patterns of the planet, it’s like slow motion but in real life.

Once completed, even before you move in, these new homes will have come alive with a natural atmospheric cycle, like the Earth, on which they are based. A built-in “biosphere,” in gradual but constant motion, draws energy from the sun, and geothermal stability from the ground, creating a temperate climate that buffers the primary living space.

Building a Green Home in the Land of Oil

Calgary is absolutely flush with oil and oil-related wealth, it is also the last place in Canada that you’d think you would find a green huose being built.

Well, the Ramsay House Project is a project that a family of Calgarians are undertaking to live in a sustainable way. It’s great to see that in a province that hates the Kyoto Accord that people are still caring for and about the environment. You can follow the Ramsay House Project at their site and they also include information on how to build green into your house (if you have one) too!

Bricks a la Sewage

Yesterday some work was being done on the piping where I live and I couldn’t work from home like I normally do because of the stench. Good news may come from this because that stink, combined with a few other materials, may end up in future buildings.

Imagine if you could turn old rubbish into new houses. That’s exactly what civil engineer Dr John Forth from University of Leeds wants to achieve with the invention of a building block made almost entirely of recycled glass, metal slag, sewage sludge, incinerator ash, and pulverised fuel ash from power stations.