Choosing Sustainable Materials For Your Custom Home
The use of sustainable building materials can add to the environmentally friendly nature of your custom home. Renewable construction materials such as bamboo, recycled steel, thatch, and cork offer expert style without compromising on quality. Here are the top sustainable building materials to incorporate into your custom project.
Bamboo
Forever growing in popularity, bamboo is an incredibly versatile building material that contains a high level of tensile strength. Bamboo can be used behind the scenes like underneath flooring or behind wall screens. Solid bamboo poles are widely used in housing projects for their natural beauty and strength. These poles are used indoors or outdoors and come in various finishes.
Woven bamboo plywood is another versatile product in which strips of bamboo are pressed together to produce thin sheets of plywood. The herringbone pattern of the bamboo plywood creates a stylish covering for walls and ceilings. Bamboo is incredibly sustainable because it grows quickly and so it can be effectively reforested in many locations throughout the world. Bamboo also requires no pesticides or chemicals which add to its environmentally friendly properties. Bamboo is just one of many custom home trends to look out for.
Recycled Steel
The process of producing and smelting steel requires a lot of energy. It’s for this reason that recycled steel has become an extremely popular green building material.
Steel reclaimed from junkyard cars can be used to build the entire structure of a house including the beams and girders. By using recycled steel, you are saving 75% of the energy costs that are required to make steel. Reclaimed steel is far kinder to the environment than newly produced steel.
Precast Concrete
As a natural material, concrete can be recycled. Precast concrete turns out to be more eco-friendly than concrete that is poured on-site. Precast concrete is poured into molds over the rebar, otherwise known as wire, which is then cured. Once this concrete has hardened it can be placed into multiple structures. This way, precast concrete can achieve increased economy of scale, which concrete that’s poured on-site can’t achieve.
Cork
Cork is a great flooring material for you to consider in your custom home build for many reasons.
It’s an excellent insulator that embodies very little energy in its formulation. The process of turning cork bits in insulation blocks was discovered accidentally and contains virtually no chemicals or additives. Cork is fire resistant and is also extremely water-resistant. It is a completely natural material that lasts practically forever. Cork is also a great sound absorber and contains antibacterial properties.
Thatch Roofing
Thatch roofing is not only environmentally friendly but it also requires very little maintenance. Thatch adds an effective decorative feature in your home and adds to an overall relaxed feel. Treated with fire retardant, thatch is thermally efficient and provides protection as well as ventilation. Thatch acts as a natural insulator which eliminates the need to install additional insulation into your home. It requires the use of less energy to keep your house cool during the hot summer months.
Reclaimed Wood
Reclaimed or recycled wood has a much lower environmental impact that the harvesting of new timber. When using new timber for your custom home construction, you’re essentially cutting down trees. This not only requires energy but also removes trees from the environment. Salvaged or reclaimed wood bypasses the need for trees to be cut down which in turn has a much lower environmental impact. Reclaimed wood can be used to make unique floors as well as exposed antique beams.
There is no reason not to make use of some sustainable materials on your custom home project. At Miller Construction & Design, our team of home improvement contractors is ready to advise you on an integrated approach when it comes to using sustainable building materials for your custom home. Play your role in minimizing environmental impact for using sustainable building products.
