Many students using our footprint calculator said that they could not pledge to reduce their home footprints because they were not making the decisions for the household. Here is your chance to design your own sustainable virtual household!
If you had your own home, what would you do to make it more energy efficient? Where would you get your electricity from? Where would your house be? Would you live near to your school or work or local transit options? Where would you get your food from?
MY Family Footprint >
My Ideal Home
If I could design an efficient house for myself I would start with heating. The average home in moderate climats use between 5,000 kWh and 30,000 kWh of energy per year to heat the home. (http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-much … do-you-use) I would try to reduce that use of energy by installing three pained windows to keep heat in and have extra insulation in my attic in order to have more heat in my house during the winter and allow me to not have to resort to turning on my heating system as much. I would also install solar panels on my roof in order to rely on energy from the sun as much as possible rather than my home’s generator. I would also attempt to make my house as much like a passive home as possible. A passive house design attempts to “maximize the gains” of the house and “minimize it’s losses.” http://www.phius.org/what-is-passive-bu … principles One of the passive building tactics that I would gladly implement into my own home w ould be to build a home that is extremely air tight in order to prevent conditioned air inside from escaping outside and visa versa.