Sustainable Building Practices
From a sustainability standpoint, building or remodeling a home will be one of the largest “footprints” your family will have in its lifetime. From the materials you choose to the decisions you make about how to heat and power your home, there’s no getting around it –– your project will have an impact.
Yes––the choices that go into building your single-family residential home are relatively minor when it comes to causing global change. But for many of us, making active choices for sustainability is about creating and cultivating an environment for our dream home that aligns with our personal values.
If facing these choices feels daunting (or makes you want to run for the hills) we encourage you to take it a step at a time. And know this––you do not need to ship in top-of-the-line eco materials from Europe in order to build a responsible home. There are many ways to make mindful choices that are reasonable and economical, all while matching the aesthetic of a contemporary home in western Montana.
At Confluence, we encourage our clients to think about making sustainable choices in 3 buckets:
The chemical load of the house (i.e., chemicals embedded in materials, paints, and glues)
The carbon footprint of the home (the embedded energy of the project itself)
The energy footprint of the home (how much energy it will take to heat and cool it in its lifetime)
First, avoid a heavy load
When it comes to building a home, the first “environment” we like to turn our attention to is the human one––how our choices of materials may impact our own bodies and health.
Building a home requires a LOT of finish materials: paints, primers, glues, laminates, wood finishes, stains, plastics, and more. Many of these materials contain what are called “VOCs” (volatile organic compounds). These VOCs, especially when first applied, let off chemical gasses that can be very harmful to human health. In fact, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, "studies have found that levels of several organics average two to five times higher indoors than outdoors" (“Volatile Organic Compounds Impact on Indoor Air Quality” - EPA).
At Confluence we handle this 100% on our end as a matter of protocol, taking any worry out of the equation. When possible, our glues and paints are low-VOC or no-VOC. We also use water-based floor finishes and wood finishes.
Next, think about ‘cutting carbs’
Unless you’re making very unique (and let’s face it, expensive) choices, then your new or remodeled home will have a carbon footprint. When it comes to reducing a home’s footprint, one of the most impactful things a homeowner can do is to either use second hand materials or purchase materials made out of reused or recycled products.
Why is this? Simply put, there is less embodied energy in the product when it is not made brand-new, from scratch, for your project.
However (ironically) sometimes sourcing recycled or reused materials is a more expensive choice. There are a myriad of reasons for this, but typically it’s because a supplier had to go through extra steps and more customized labor to reuse a material rather than simply produce something new in the typical “cookie-cutter” approach. We work hand-in-hand with homeowners to understand their sustainability priorities and help them make the right decisions for their materials and product.
Another way to reduce the embodied energy of the materials that you’re using is to source your items from local suppliers. It takes a lot less carbon to move materials from 10 miles away than from overseas. As an example, it’s a beautiful intention for a homeowner to want to source the most energy-efficient windows possible, but if those windows are hypothetically coming from somewhere in Eastern Europe, to ship them to Montana leaves a fairly massive footprint indeed.
Finally––everything is energy
How you elect to heat and cool your home is likely the place where you can have the most impact from a sustainability perspective.
We’re excited when a homeowner wants to focus on this aspect of sustainability, because there is so much “low-hanging fruit”––we can do so much with planning and design to help conserve energy.
As an example, we always try to use “double walls” in our building projects if they are feasible for the homeowner. A double wall is just that: one “structural” wall with a second wall around it. The double wall allows for more insulation, meaning the home retains more heat in the winter and less heat in the summertime.
We always lay out these easier decisions first and may also encourage a client to site a home in a particular way to take advantage of passive solar.
And although it’s not always popular, we do encourage clients to consider the impact of adding extra bedrooms or multiple offices or playrooms––rooms that may only be used once or twice a year, for just a few years. When you consider the cost and footprint to heat and cool a home over a lifetime, the extra space in the home begins to matter a lot more from a sustainability perspective.
Check out our residential builds from our Portfolio, where we helped our clients make some of the most important decisions for their homes from the matrix of sustainability, functionality, and aesthetic.