The Zero Carbon House is a low energy demonstration project based in Scotland. They have adopted a holistic approach to eliminating household carbon emissions that would normally result from heating and powering the home, running the family car and growing and transporting food.
The house is based on a standard design from a timber frame company and will be constructed to very high levels of energy efficiency. Heating will be provided by an air-to-water heat pump serving an underfloor heating system and providing domestic hot water via a heat store, and power will be provided by two on-site wind turbines.
Zero carbon heat from the heat pump will augment passive solar collection in a doubly-insulated greenhouse to provide suitable growing conditions for a range of fruit and vegetables grown in a hydroponics system. This project is highly replicable and addresses social economic and environmental issues that are of relevance across the whole of Scotland, the UK and beyond.
2 comments:
Many people don't know that homes are one of the greatest carbon output producers versus the cars that we drive. It's great that we are making the trend to go green with our homes as well.
You've got a lot of great information here.
Susan
Founder of Got2begreen.com
Hi Susan,
Thanks for the support.
The disappointing thing at the moment is that new housing, which is subject to all of the new green building legislation, makes up such a small percentage of our housing (less than 5%). The existing housing stock, which is the other 95%, has no enforced energy efficiency legislation. Until owners of older houses really get behind greener living it is going to be hard work to make a difference.
Darryn
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