The sustainable material conservation and reuse of the previous masonry cottage at our East Yorkshire Eco-House site in Carnaby is continuing at a rapid rate, with thick monolithic walls of locally sourced chalk carefully harvested for reuse as the new outer skin of our proposed eco-home.
This project’s material strategy plays a crucial role in keeping the embodied carbon of the home as low as possible, saving an estimated 15 metric tons of CO2 emissions by not using new brickwork as the eco-home outer skin.
A major element of a building's environmental impact is the embodied carbon inherent in the production of new building materials. Modern bricks emit around 400 g of CO2 each which can add up quickly when a typical home uses well over 10000 bricks in its making.
As outlined in our recent annual case study on How To Build A Sustainable House, we analysed the embodied carbon and 50 years of predicted energy use of our Carnaby project against a typical house-builder 4 bedroom home.
Our East Yorkshire Eco-House has an embodied carbon of 61 metric tons and if conventional heating were used a projected heating emissions value of 127 metric tons giving a total of 188 tons, however through a sophisticated renewable energy air source heating system the home’s carbon footprint in use for heating is negated. Assuming no renewables are used for electricity would give the same value as the typical 4-bed new-build house of 71 metric tons, giving a total home carbon footprint of 132 metric tons of CO2. That is a 50-year carbon footprint saving of 297 metric tons, a whole life carbon footprint 31% of the typical house-builder home.
