Size IS Important in Green Building

A Small Home is Green

The environment is stretched to the breaking point. People marry and have children later, or forego having children at all. Budgets are tight and getting tighter. More and more people live alone or with one other person. 

Yet home size is growing. 

In that same period of time, the average household shrunk to 2.6 persons.

Why as occupants get fewer and energy costs skyrocket, are homes getting larger?

Fear of Smallness

As a nation, we are not only enamored of large, many Americans are actually afraid of small.

Sarah Susanka in her book Creating the Not So Big House writes, "One of the most important Not So Big concepts is what I call fear of 'too smallness.' We're so afraid of feeling cramped that we've gone to the opposite extreme and made spaces that are too big to find a spot to settle in."

She continues, "Meanwhile, the cozy corners--often unplanned, leftover spaces--are our favorite spots."

Potential homeowners also express another fear--a fear that a small home will not be easy to sell. Lenders also think about resale value and fear financing what they consider to be too-small single-family homes, townhouses, or condos. 

In many municipalities, homes under a certain size are prohibited, often out of fear that small homes will lower tax values and even attract "undesirable residents."

Smaller is greener.

One of the best ways to reduce a house’s energy consumption is to  decrease its size.

Large homes consume more resources than small ones. They use more concrete, more wood, more carpet, more drywall, and more paint. They consume more land, generate more construction debris, cause more pollution, and use more energy during the building process.

Green builder Vickie Anderson quips about energy use, "Think of dozens of construction workers driving their pick-ups to work for months while that large home is being built."

The size of a home has a greater impact on energy and resource use than any other factor, including the efficiency of the home's equipment, the R-factor of insulation, and the type of windows used.

A small house built to only moderate energy performance standards uses substantially less energy for heating and cooling than a large house built to very high energy performance standards. 

And more than anything else, a large home will always require more energy and resources to heat, cool, clean, maintain, and operate than a small home. 

Small Ideas for green building.