Creating an environmentally sustainable home

In modern times, being green is a prominent factor in our society, which is largely driven by concerns over climate changes attributed to CO2 levels & other greenhouse gases. These concerns have given rise to many environmental businesses. They work to provide a way to help a company reduce their impact on the environment, while in turn, strengthening their public image and also in cost savings with the reduction in the energy costs of their day to day running.

While the actual implementations that these environmental businesses may differ, the principles remain true for many home owners who wish to reduce their own personal impact on the world, and potentially save some money while they’re at it. The Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH) provides a guideline and rating system to help people see where they might be able to improve the sustainability of their home and to rate their households based on improvements they choose to make.

Newly built houses now build must comply with at least code level 3 of the CSH. This is judged on a set of minimum criteria that must be met and judged based on a number of points that are accrued for various environmentally friendly implementations.

Such reviews are carried out based on the following factors; energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, water consumption, building materials, surface water run-off, waste disposal, pollution, health, well-being, management and ecology.

Of these, the two factors that have a minimum standard which must be met are the energy consumption and the water usage and run-off. To achieve the maximum points in energy consumption, (level 6), the net carbon dioxide emissions for the house need to be zero. The way this is achieved is by offsetting the energy you use by producing your own electricity from renewable means such as solar power, wind power or hydroelectric.

Water assessments are based on the measures in the house taken to help offset the amount of water used per person in the household. The test assumes 5 minutes of shower usage, baths 40% full with a 60:40 split on shower:bath usage, 5 minutes per day at basins and sinks, 4.8 WC flushes per day per building. If no specific appliance information is given, a default value of 49litres per washing machine cycle and 13 litres for the dishwasher will be added. Outdoor water is reviewed separately, so swimming pools, fountains, jacuzzis etcetera, will not count towards a homeowner’s daily allowance, but will mean points which could otherwise be achieved for having water butts, cannot be earned.

Assessments for such building projects and post production upgrades can be conducted by a number of agencies specialising in code for sustainable homes. For any new builds, it may be worth contacting an environmental agency who deal with more than just the code for sustainable homes to provide other required services, such as ecological surveys.