What is a Tiny Home and How Does it Impact The Environment?
A new trend in home building is the tiny house movement. There are many homeowners and prospective home buyers who do not entirely understand what a tiny house is. However, these active homes can be a great way to save money on your mortgage payments while also building an eco-friendly home. Just like a bigger car takes up more resources and spews more emissions into the atmosphere, a large home makes a more significant impact on the environment every day. When you heat and cool a tiny home, you are using fewer resources than when you heat and cool a mansion. The same is true for powering a tiny home.
A smaller size equals a smaller eco-footprint
The average size of a modern-day home is right around 2,500 square feet. However, the average size of a tiny home is right around 200 square feet. It takes around seven logging trucks worth of lumber to build an average home while it only takes around a half of one logging truck worth of lumber to construct a tiny home. The average home has around 45 light bulbs while a tiny home as right around 6. The amount of energy it takes to keep these lights on is much more considerable in an average sized home.
Tiny homes create tiny carbon outputs
While many individuals think the main culprits of global warming are trucks and SUVs, large homes have a big part to play in the problem. Each year, an average sized home produces 4,000 pounds per year of CO2 for cooling alone. When you tack on the 8,000 pounds per year for heating and, 16,000 pounds per year due to electricity, your average sized home will have an output of 28,000 pounds of CO2 per year. However, a tiny home creates just a fraction of that carbon footprint at only 300 pounds per year for cooling the home, 500 pounds a year for heating the home, and 1,000 pounds for the electricity usage in the home. This results in a carbon output that is just under 2,000 pounds per year for a tiny home.
If you are considering ways in which you can help the environment, you should look into tiny home living. You will be using fewer resources each year with a smaller home. You will be able to create a much lower output as well if you invest in solar panels and natural ways of heating and cooling your home.