Sustainable Materials For Custom Home Building
In our last blog we highlighted that there are many benefits to building a custom home, including: freedom to design according to your preferences, the ability to increase the resale value of your home and the chance to build with sustainable materials. The first of these points manifests itself: a custom home build is built just as described – to custom specifications. We covered the second point listed above in our last blog post: ‘interior design trends for custom homes’. In this blog post we discuss the third of these points: how custom homes can be built with sustainable materials to increase their eco-friendliness. We list and describe a range of sustainable building materials, including: reclaimed lumber, recycled steel, recycled insulation and roofing.
Reclaimed Lumber
Not only does rustic lumber provide unique aesthetic value to a custom house, it also reduces the ecological footprint of your home by saving carbon-reducing forests and eschewing monoculture tree farms. There are several ways to purchase reclaimed lumber: salvage dealers, local demolition sites, hardware stores (although, availability here might vary from store to store) or online distributors. Regardless of where you buy your reclaimed lumber from, be sure to check its age and durability to ensure that it and your house can withstand the test of time.
Recycled Steel
Using recycled steel reduces the water needed to build your house by a whopping 40% and reduces mining wastes by 97%. It also helps preserve natural resources and saves on fossil fuels. Recycled steel can be purchased from scrap metal yards, traders and distributors as well as online suppliers.
Recycled Insulation
Insulation is one of the most important factors that determines your home’s energy efficiency. Effective insulation regulates indoor temperature, minimizing drastic fluctuations which helps you conserve energy and reduce your heating and cooling bills. Recycled insulation can be bought from the same types of sources as reclaimed lumber and recycled steel: scrap yards, demolition sites, distributors and online suppliers.
Roofing
Ensuring your home is built with sustainable roofing above it can help to preserve the Earth beneath it. Sustainable roofing reduces wasted landfill real estate and minimises ‘heat island’ effects and energy costs produced when a home is located in high-activity urban areas that are hotter than their rural counterparts. Sustainable roofing distributors manufacture their products from a range of recycled materials, including: post-industrial plastics, natural fibers and elastomers. Such materials imitate the appearance of ceramic or slate and are usually mold, pest and weather resistant.
Uhomes Living is thoroughly equipped to build custom homes using sustainable materials like those listed above. If this is something you are interested in while building your custom house, please ask us about your options.
Contact Us Today
We are available to speak to you from Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 5:00pm. Contact our friendly consultants on 03 9048 5737 today or reach out via our contact page to ask about how we can help you start the process of building your custom home.