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How are builders building modern day homes environmentally friendly?

How can a builder build a modern day home environmentally friendly and sustainable

Public Comments

1. Insulated Concrete Forms
2. What do you mean, "modern day homes"? We've been building environmentally-friendly homes for centuries. For example, compare the houses in New England with those in the American Southwest. In the first, houses are compact to retain heat (more floor area per exterior wall area); in the second, the ranchers are sprawling because heating is less of a problem. New England rooms are low-ceilinged, retaining the heat down where the people are. SW houses are high-ceilinged, so that heat goes up above your head where it can leak to the attic. Sometimes there are ceiling fans to move the hot air up and away during the summer or send the hot air down during the winter. New England houses are often dark to absorb heat; SW houses are more often paler to reflect it. There are more windows in the SW than in the NE. If you check the housing in any part of the world, the traditional house is nicely adapted to the climate, from the igloo to the grass hut.
3. OMG in so many ways! Yes we have always built ecologically sustainable homes but there is so much more talk and technology around it in recent years. Try searching for Ecologically Sustainable Design (ESD) as there are so many elements that would take a lot of space to answer here. It's a little bit about lifestyle choice as well, research 'carbon footprint' or 'eco footprint' for more on this.