Straw Bale Building – Are you currently Harnessing The Power Of This Ultra Green Developing Material
The Advantages of straw bale building develop into rather staggering when compared with most classic construction approaches. Strawbale has captured the interest and passions of thousands who realized the multitude of positive aspects and decided to take action.
A number of the advantages contain, ease of construction, particularly energy-efficient, wonderful durability, non-toxic, a rapidly renewable resource, affordability, too as Beauty and Comfort. To touch on the latter, have you ever seasoned a straw bale constructed dwelling first hand? If not, as a lover of sustainability and our built atmosphere I highly encourage you to take the opportunity when you can.
As an architect strawbale delivers anything I could want out of a creating material whilst taking into consideration our scarce sources. Let’s touch on a few with the positive aspects mentioned above.
Ease of construction
Requiring pretty tiny skilled labor straw bale becomes a very construction-friendly material. Some supplies like Rammed Earth are good as well, nevertheless, the labor alone skyrockets your labor cost when dealing with rammed earth – and let’s face it, you would like maximum bang for your buck when designing or remodeling your dream home.
Energy Effective
All of us want a building envelope that is incredibly power effective and delivers quality. Strawbale building frequently measures 4-5 times larger in R-value (resistance for the transfer of heat) than a standard building, resulting in a far better insulated home also as smaller sized heating or cooling load – once more, saving you funds!
Durability – Ever picked up a bale of hay? Possibly not, as they are really heavy and will stay place when place in spot. With typical building procedures on a straw bale, the exterior is covered with an adobe-like plaster that is quite resistant to outdoor weather as it limits the number of cracks and openings for air infiltration.
Non – Toxic
In case you are at all sensitive to chemical and synthetic components you might love these kinds of homes. When you go the route of some other merchandise, for example, S.I.P. panels (Structural Insulated Panels) you run into the challenge of your foams, glues, and numerous bonding materials that go into the general component, resulting in a higher V.O.C rating, irritating your sensitive self even more. With Straw Bale rest assured that you as well as your loved ones are living inside a clean, healthier, and well-insulated residence.
Affordability
I know this is a large kicker for many people looking at building or remodeling their household. In most situations creating with straw is suitable on cue with the standard building when simultaneously delivering all of the rewards talked about above. Now that is certainly a thing to get excited about!
Beauty and Elegance
Once again, for those who have not been inside or visited a home constructed with this invaluable material I urge you to do so. As in art, buildings, music, and also other various arts, there is anything you cannot pin-point about Straw Bale Construction that will rather actually take your breath away. Check out this interior photo and see for oneself just what a final item is usually.
In conclusion, straw bale is often a far superior developing material providing you with a reasonably priced, power effective, tough, non-toxic, and gorgeous residence.
10 Tips To Make Your Home Energy Efficient
One of the manifestations of the Save The Earth Quote is saving in energy use. Now more and more people are realizing that building a dwelling, in terms of carrying out that quote, is with the concept of energy-efficient design and using renewable energy optimally.
1. A wide opening
The wide opening can optimize air circulation and natural lighting into the room, thereby reducing the use of artificial ventilation such as air conditioning and fans and reducing the use of lights in the morning and afternoon.
However, complete the glass openings with curtains to be able to adjust the intensity of the light entering the room as needed.
2. High ceilings
Creating a high ceiling in the home will provide more space for air circulation so that the airflow becomes smoother and creates a cooler atmosphere so that when the air is hot outside, the air is still cool indoors without the need for artificial ventilation.
3. Provide rainwater storage
Rainwater that is abundant in the tropics should be collected and reused, to save on the use of clean water. Rainwater can be used for closet watering, watering plants, and others.
4. Adding a garden
The existence of a garden in the home provides many advantages, including providing a lot of oxygen intake during the day, so that the air will feel cooler. Also, the presence of trees can be a barrier that blocks the home from direct sunlight.
If you have a narrow area, it can be replaced by making a vertical garden. The existence of a vertical garden will help absorb heat, making the home cooler.
5. Using solar panels
Using solar panels can help save electrical energy. Abundant sunlight, stored by solar panels and transmitted into usable electricity. The solar panel measuring 1 meter is capable of producing about 100 watts of electrical energy.
6. Using secondary skin
Secondary skin is useful to filter the sunlight into the home to avoid overheating. Also, secondary skin provides aesthetic value to the building facade.
7. Establish appropriate home plans
The layout of the plan can also help save energy by ensuring good airflow in the home. The right home plan is an elongated or slender shape. A sketch like that, able to create good air circulation by applying cross circulation, and can facilitate natural lighting.
8. Use energy-efficient electronic devices
Energy-efficient electronic devices can be found easily on the market. For example, such as LED lights (Light Emitting Diodes), LED televisions are much more efficient.
9. Use solar control window film
Solar control window film can help reduce the intensity and heat of the sun entering the room, so the room will not feel hot. This glass appearance looks darker from the outside.
10. Presenting a fish pond
The presence of a pool at home, both inside and outside the home can give the impression of cool air in the room. The air that blows carrying water vapor from the pool will give a cool impression in the surrounding area. Therefore, keep the pool clean, the gurgling of water in the pool also makes the atmosphere more relaxed. Fish in ponds can also reduce the presence of mosquitoes in the home.
Does Working with Green Building Materials Increase the Value of Your Residence?
With many solutions to make a house eco-friendlier or greener, many prospective property buyers are asking regardless of whether the use of green building materials can raise the value of a residence. This article attempts to answer the question by giving you various benefits of working with such sort of materials in building a house.
Wellness Positive Aspects
About 95% of our instances are spent inside the home which implies that our indoors need to be safer than the setting provided by the outdoors. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are often largely present inside the house because of the sorts of paint utilized to splash color on surfaces. Using the use of zero-VOC paints, you’re sparing your household from many respiratory challenges.
Power Conservation Advantages
The usual challenge of numerous households lies in how they could make each end meet although nonetheless allotting fragment of revenue to savings. This cannot be carried out effectively when utility bills are consuming up substantial amounts. Save up on your power bill by choosing a house that is far more power effective. New building residences are readily available with pre-installed lighting fixtures which might be certified power-savers. The style of windows also permits organic light to possess improved passage and illuminate the indoor spaces much more naturally. Pre-installed solar panels also award much more savings due to the fact the government provides rebates to household owners simply because they contribute to the power conservation efforts.
Environmental Effect
Accurate to its essence, the usage of green building materials increases the household’s worth whilst decreasing the carbon footprint of a distinct home. The usage of recycled construction materials for example floor tiles and wall panels lessen the use of raw materials in their manufacture. This suggests extra trees and other natural resources are protected from depletion.
Enhanced House Worth
Summing up the wellness, conservation, and environmental effect positive aspects of Applying Green Building Materials give a specific home an upgraded selling worth. Mainly because a lot of residence purchasers are looking for readily out there green residences, their sales have become more rapidly to as significantly as 15%. This implies that the eco-friendlier a house is, the shorter it might keep around the selling marketplace shall the owner decides to tag it as a for-sale property. The demand for eco-friendly properties hits higher volume pushing quite a few dwelling owners to implement green redesign and remodel solutions to their current properties. Following home authorities and economists, the operating costs of an eco-friendly house may be decreased to as a lot as 75%. This is anchored on the less time the house owner needs to run heating and cooling systems and also other dwelling appliances and devices.
Green alternatives normally exist in practically every single aspect of home remodeling and improvement. When you have an existing property that you wish to create a greener, it is possible to always resort to DIY procedures. Far better but, you may tap the services of specialist greenhouse designers and let their knowledge upscale your home’s marketplace worth. If you are seeking an eco-friendly new construction property, your regional true estate agent is often prepared to help you.
6 Important Characteristics of Eco-Friendly Home
The construction of homes with environmentally friendly designs must continue to be promoted intensively, to reduce the impact of environmental damage such as global warming and climate change. If this is not done, people will build their dream home without environmentally friendly principles, as long as it looks nice and beautiful. What is the fate of the next generation who will not enjoy a natural and healthy environment?
Therefore, some of the principles that need to be known, became an important feature of a dwelling to be categorized as an environmentally friendly home. Check out the following discussion.
Being in the Right Location
A home may not be built in an area that is regulated by the local government as an industrial area, protected forest area, or in a green open area belonging to a city. Apart from that, its development must also pay attention to the prevailing land-use plan. The home must be in an area that is regulated as residential land. Therefore, environmentally friendly homes must first be ascertained to have a valid construction permit.
Making an environmentally friendly home must begin with the selection of the right construction location. Eco-friendly homes are not suitable if they are built-in locations such as riverbanks, water catchment areas, or in locations that are too close to waste disposal areas.
Residential development in the area of riverbanks and water catchment areas will interrupt the cycle of the water cycle that could result in a natural disaster – flooding. While the construction of homes near the area of waste disposal will result in occupancy is potent with air pollution and groundwater contamination.
Choosing an Efficient Location
Another characteristic is in choosing a location to build an environmentally friendly home is the distance from the location of the home to certain places that are needed by the residents of the home almost every day, such as shopping centers, schools, and offices. The closer the location of the home with these places, the carbon footprint generated by the activities of the residents will be smaller.
Carbon footprint is the number of carbon emissions produced by an organization, product, or individual from a variety of daily activities, from the use of electrical devices, diet, and ways of traveling. High carbon emissions will increase the risk of global warming as well.
Had Green Open Area
An important feature of eco-friendly homes which in turn is the presence of green open space in the home area. To meet the standards of eco-friendly homes, at least 30% of the total area of land to be used as open space, incorporating a variety of herbs.
Green open space not only be created in the area around the home, but the roof of the home could also be used as the site of the open green spaces such as rooftop gardens that of skyscraper buildings.
Eco-friendly homes are fitted with green open space will be instrumental improve air quality in the surrounding environment. This is because the plants will suck carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.
To further increase the function of improving air quality while making the home cooler, some environmentally friendly homes also arrange plants vertically on the fence or outside wall of the home to form a vertical garden (vertical garden).
Green open spaces around environmentally friendly home buildings can also function as water catchment areas. Soil that is overgrown with plants will certainly absorb more water. To maximize water absorption function, land on the green open spaces in the area of the environmentally friendly home can also be provided with holes biopori.
Good Air Exchange
Eco-friendly homes must possess the characteristics of a healthy home, which is good air circulation patterns in it. The exchange of fresh air from outside the home with air from inside the home should always be conducted smoothly. One characteristic of Eco-friendly homes with good air exchange is the presence of sufficient ventilation and windows. Ventilation has many benefits for a home.
Eco-friendly homes usually also have a few bulkheads in them. This is so that as much as possible the air circulation is evenly distributed throughout the home. So that an environmentally friendly home can certainly not have a stuffy room in it.
Energy saving
Feature eco-friendly homes are no less important is energy efficient. The step to save energy consumption in environmentally friendly homes is to maximize renewable energy such as sunlight. Eco-friendly home designs are made in such a way that sunlight can be a sufficient source of the main lighting for all parts of the home.
On the roof of the Eco-friendly home, there are solar panels installed that absorb energy from the sun to be converted into electrical energy. The use of glass that produces electrical energy in the windows, aka solar windows, has also been applied to several Eco-friendly homes.
Sun exposure can also have the effect of increasing the room temperature to become hot. Eco-friendly homes usually get around this by installing an insulating layer on the roof. This insulator layer functions to reduce heat.
Roofing materials such as zinc or asbestos, which are at risk of making the home even hotter, are not used in Eco-friendly homes. By choosing the right roofing material and installing insulators to reduce heat, an Eco-friendly home certainly does not require air conditioning which is wasteful of energy and instead produces gases that destroy the ozone layer.
Eco-friendly homes also use homehold appliances that are efficient in energy use, for example, stoves with low gas consumption, LED lights that are more energy-efficient, to bathrooms that use showers that tend to be more water-efficient.
Good Waste Management
Eco-friendly homes must also have a good waste management system. One of the simple things that are usually applied to Eco-friendly homes in managing waste is the availability of a closed temporary storage place so that it minimizes the risk of air pollution from odors produced by homehold waste. Garbage collection bins are also usually made into at least two parts to separate the placement, namely organic and inorganic waste. For organic waste, you can use it again as a way to make organic compost.
In Eco-friendly homes, water waste from bathing and washing activities is usually channeled to infiltration wells, which are a layer of palm fiber, a layer of gravel, and a layer of sand as a natural water purifier. Wastewater that has been purified through infiltration wells will then be absorbed by the soil around the home so that it is not wasted.
Minimalist and Efficient Workspace Design to Increase Work Productivity
What is a minimalist workspace like? The answer may be different for each person. However, to be sure, get rid of things you don’t need on your desk. This is a pre-condition that you must do if you want a minimalist area and workspace.
The first step you have to do is, determine and sort out which items you need, and which are not. Minimizing your workspace does not mean eliminating the function of the work area itself. On the contrary, it is part of the efficient use of space so that you are more productive.
Here are some tips and tricks for creating a comfortable minimalist workspace in your home.
Get rid of unnecessary items
Decide what items you need on your desk.
Do you need paper? Do you need a variety of pens? If you don’t use these items often, they should be stored and secured somewhere else.
Arrange as neat as possible
Continuing the above, store items that you rarely use in a special box or drawer. Try not to scatter the tools you keep on the table. The papers do not get scattered, put them in a folder. Likewise, for pens or your device cables, make your own storage space.
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Give the Best Color Choices
In a minimalist interior, white or pastel colors are the best choice to get the impression of a large area. While the walls are black or gray, you can try to use them if you want a more elegant look or atmosphere.
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Window Workbench
Use the area near the window as your best workspace. The area near the window is the most ideal place for a workspace. Besides, you will get natural lighting from outside the room, the workspace will also feel fresher.
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Minimalist Accessory
Even though the minimalist style emphasizes function more than decoration, you can still enhance the appearance of a minimalist workspace in your home.
Choose accessories that are not too crowded and arrange them in a way that looks neat and elegant.
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So, those are some tips on how to design a minimalist-style workspace in your home. One important thing that you must always remember, minimalism does not mean you are required to prioritize function rather than style, but it also looks elegant if you can decorate it properly.