23Eco-friendly House

Fong Chi Fong, Stella Lee Yian Li, Norman Ong Qi Xuan, Choo Jing Hong, Ho Chun Seng,
Chu Xue Ying.
University of Nottingham, Department of Engineering, Foundation of engineering.

Abstract

In this high technology world, eco-friendly house are getting important in our lives. There are four
aspect that should be consider to make an eco-friendly house which is the building material, electric
appliances, a greenhouse and renewable resources. Building a house with eco-friendly helps to reduce
the greenhouse gases. Eco-friendly appliances are invented and modified to work in more energy-
efficient and less pollution way. Electric appliances that are label with energy Star uses the minimum
energy required to generate the power for the appliances. An environmental friendly greenhouse is a
building where plants are grown. Greenhouse help to increase oxygen level in the atmosphere, deliver
fresh and organic food and helps to controlled environment in greenhouses. Renewable Resources
such as solar energy and wind energy can generated energy without harming the environment. This
resource can generated large amount of energy and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produce.

Introduction

Nowadays, people around the world start to think green. We can frequently see campaigns with the
term of ‘Go Green’, ‘Think Green’ and ‘Eco-friendly’ are used. In recent years, people started to build
eco-friendly house. The term of Eco-friendly (Daniel Holzer,2010) means earth-friendly or not
harmful to the environment. This term most commonly refers to products that contribute to green
living or practices that help conserve resources like water and energy. Eco-friendly products also
prevent contributions to air, water and land pollution. This means that an eco-friendly house is built
by not harming the environment and uses the minimum un-renewable resources from the earth to
generated electrical energy for the house.

Base on (ecologist news,2012), if one out of ten homes uses energy star electric appliances,
the change will be equivalent to planting 1.7 million acres of tree in long term. Beside energy star
electrical appliance, ecologist news also state that if everyone install one energy saving light bulb, the
emission of the carbon dioxide can lower down nearly 2000 times the size of the Royal Albert Hall
which is located at London,UK. There are several ways to build an eco-friendly house so that the
earth is protected in such an effective ways.

Content

Materials the material. After the mixture is mixed,

There are many types of eco friendly
materials for construction, one of them are
mud bricks. Mud bricks are one of the
oldest building materials. Mud bricks are
made by mixing clay earth and water
together, sometimes straw are introduced
into the mixture to prevent the mixture
from cracking and enhance the quality of
the mixture are poured into moulds and is
left to dry under the sun. Mud bricks are
said to be an environmental friendly
material due to its process in making the
material. The process only require the
mixing earth clay, water, and straw, than
let to dry under the sunlight, which all
these are of natural materials. Mud bricks
are also durable and strong. The only
disadvantage of mud bricks is that they are
not a good insulator.
Another eco friendly material is
rammed earth. Rammed earth is the
mixture of sand, slit and clay. Sometimes
the cement is also introduced into the
rammed earth mixture to stabilize the
mixture. Rammed earth is also a good
insulator, especially towards sound. This is
due to the thick wall that the rammed earth
posses. The thick wall is able to keep
unwanted sound out. Rammed earth is also
strong and durable, according to the
CSIRO. This make rammed earth an ideal
building blocks in construction. Rammed
earth is also non toxic and none polluting,
which makes it environmental and people
friendly.
Furthermore, there is also straw bale.
Straw bale is a material where straw is
bounded by mud. Straws are used as a
construction material to reduce the
wastage of straw. According to the U.S
Department of energy, there are about 200
million ton of straw wasted each year.
Straw is also a good thermal insulator,
where cooling and heating bills can be
reduced. The making process of straw bale
is also environmental friendly. The
process does not require fire and cement.
As a result, there will be no emission of
green house gases into the atmosphere.
Straw bale are also biodegradable. So it
will not pollute the environment.
Other than straw bale, another eco
friendly building material is timber.
Timber is an eco friendly material because
it has the ability to reduce the emission of
greenhouse gases. Where 𝐶𝑂2 (carbon
dioxide), are absorbed and stored inside
the timber. Timber is also a light form of
construction, where it can be use as
foundation in areas with poor ground.
Timber is also use as frame for house
building, none as timber framing. Timber
is a good thermal insulator, where it has a
fast respond to the change in temperature.
Timber also has a low embodied energy.
Embodied energy, is the amount of energy
used in the exact and the process of raw
materials in a building component. Some
species of timber also has the ability to
withstand decay and termite attack. For
example, the Massaranduba ( manikara
bidentata), the Mahogony (khaya
ivonrensis), and the Meranti( cholorophora
excelsa).
Lastly, steel is also considered an eco
friendly building material. Steel is a
material that can be recycle and reuse.
Steel is also light, which make it ideal for
construction. The production of steel used
up a lot of energy, which brings to the
high emission of carbon dioxide ( 𝐶𝑂2 ).
However, this problem is solved by using
the system expansion method, by the
ISO14040 series of environmental
standard. By using this method, gasses
which are produced during the making
process is used to run generators to
generate electricity.
Appliances
The old generation appliances use
more energy which will bring harm to
environment. In order to solve this problem,
the eco-friendly appliances are invented, they
are modified to work in more energy-efficient
and less pollution way. For example, as United
States residents are heavy users of water and
energy, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency and the Department of Energy have
created Energy Star marked appliances. An
Energy Star marked appliance have med the
minimum requirement of energy set by the US
government and the Canadian government. An
Energy Star-qualified washing machine uses
less than 30 gallons of water for a load of
laundry, compared to a normal washing
machine which uses 40 gallons of water; a
huge reduction of almost 25% of water usage.
In addition to that, not only does this high-
efficiency washing machine use less hot water,
the number of wash and rinse cycles are cut
down due to the capacity of the machine to
launder a bigger load. Therefore both of
energy and water used for a load of laundry is
reduced.
There are also many more examples of
appliance that can be geared towards a more
eco-friendly home. Refrigerators are highest
consumers of energy as they operate for 24
hours a day, seven days a week, without rest.
Hence it is always vital to choose an energy-
saving model that can not only reduce your
carbon footprint but at the same time also cut
down your bills. One modern refrigerator
energy saving technique is the multi-drawer
design. By creating multiple compartments,
the unnecessary leakage of cold air can be
minimize when we open the fridge to take
something. An innovative spin-off from this
theory is the Oceania fridge, designed by Tev
Patel. %This fridge epitomizes the concept of
eco-friendliness into your kitchen. Other than
being built using biodegradable materials and
does not use CFC as a coolant, the concept to
the ingenuity of this fridge is that the whole
fridge does not necessarily have to be in
operation at the same time. *Sections that have
not been filled is automatically turned off,
hence reducing the energy consumption.
*There are also other model of refrigerators
out in the market with high energy efficiency.
One such model, MayTag Ice20
MF12670XEM, utilizes less energy thamn a
60-watt light bulb due to its flexible storage
space and compartments with temperature
controls.
An incandescent light bulb only uses about
ten percent of consumed energy in generating
light and the remaining 90 percent of it wastes
into heat. To avoid further waste of energy, the
researchers have invented a more energy-
efficient light bulb, known as Compact
Fluorescent lamps (CFLs). These green bulbs
can saved energy up to 80-90% and can avoid
unnecessary energy consumed into heat energy
by 80 percent. The CFL light bulbs’ life span
is 6 to 7 times longer compared to the
incandescent light bulbs. Other than CFL light
bulbs, the newly invented LED (Light
Emitting Diodes) light bulbs have a higher
ability to save the environment as it modified
into a better light bulb. It has longer life span
for 60,000 to 10,000 hours and with much
lower energy consumption.
Greenhouse
A greenhouse, which is also known as a
glasshouse, is a building where plants are
grown. Most of the greenhouse is made up
with different types of covering materials,
such as glass or plastic. Greenhouses have a
wide variety of shapes and sizes. It can be
divided into glass greenhouses and plastic
greenhouses. Plastics mostly used in plastic
greenhouses are PEfilm and multiwall sheet in
PC or PMMA. Commercial glass greenhouses
are often high-tech production facilities for
vegetables or flowers.
Incoming visible solar radiation from the sun
will heats up the greenhouse because it is
absorbed by the plants, soil and other things
inside the building. Heat from the hot interior
surfaces will warm the air and retained in the
building. Then the plants benefit from the light
and warmth of the greenhouse. The heat
remains inside the greenhouse overnight,
continuing warm the plants and helping them
grow without fighting frost or cold dew. Most
greenhouses also include opening window or
fan to prevent the heat becoming too
excessive. There are also some irrigation
systems that use drip tubes to water the plants.
Temperature, humidity and fan operating can
also be control by monitor.
A successful greenhouse must have the most
important components which is the ventilation.
Greenhouses and the plants will become prone
to problems if there is no proper ventilation.
The main purposes of ventilation are to
regulate the temperature to the optimal level. It
is also used to ensure the air movement and
thus prevent the build-up of plant pathogens.
Ventilation can be achieved via use of vents
and recirculation fans.
The first modern greenhouses were built in
Italy in the 13th century. It was used to house
the exotic plants brought back from the
tropics. Giardini botanici which is also known
as botanical garden was the original name.
This concept soon spread to Netherlands,
England and throughout the whole Europe.
Today, the largest greenhouses in the world
that able to produce millions of vegetables
every year was in Netherlands. In the year
2000, greenhouses occupied 10,526 hectares
or 0.25% of the total land area of Netherlands.
Since 2000, technical innovations include the
‘closed greenhouse’, a completely closed
system that allowed completely control over
the growing process and using less energy.
While floating greenhouses are used in watery
areas of the country. The Netherlands has
around 9,000 greenhouse enterprises that
operate over 10,000 hectares of greenhouses
and employ over 150,000 workers. This
provide a better chances of working
opportunity to the country and efficiently
producing €4.5 billion worth of vegetables,
fruits, plants and flowers and 80% of them is
exported.
There are more benefits to a greenhouse than
just the beauty of a fresh bloom or the first bite
of homegrown food. Greenhouses do a great
job at keeping out the majority of garden pests,
such as raccoons and opossums that often
cause trouble digging up and eating the plants.
This is because they simply cannot get into the
compound. Larger animals like deer are even
less likely to get in. It could also prevent the
plant diseases. Many people now also have the
opportunity to grow organically and eat
healthier food without any chemical on it that
could bring side effects to us.
Furthermore, environmental benefit of
greenhouses is premium grade fruits and
vegetables can be produced 365 days of the
year. Greenhouses deliver fresh food that has
no food miles. The term food miles refer to the
distance of food travels before it gets to your
table. Most of the foods that available at most
stores must have travelled a vast number of
food miles, which leads to unnecessary carbon
costs. These costs can be reduced by buying
local produce. However, food miles are
unrelated to other production costs, which
include manufacturing and packaging
methods, water usage and other methods.
Plants grown in greenhouses was also grown
using 20 times less land and 10 times less
water. It caused no agricultural run-off and
was grown in a greenhouse that operate with
ultra-low no carbon emissions by using
renewable and recaptured energy.
Another benefit under such controlled
environment in greenhouses, seeds planting
can be start earlier in the season without fear
of losing a whole crop because the risk of
something happen unexpectedly can be reduce.
Even the unpredictable weather can also
affects the growth of the plants. If the
greenhouse becomes over productive, the
product is able to sell as an additional source
of income, creating a tidy profit. Special
greenhouse varieties of certain crops, such as
tomatoes, are generally used for commercial
production. In addition, a quality greenhouse
may also increase the home’s value.
Renewable-Resources
In the modern days, people are concern about
the constantly worsen of the environment.
Therefore, an alternative source of power
which is greener and cheaper is used in
different countries based on their geological
location. For instance, India has emerges as
the second largest country in the world in the
application of wind turbines. As in Malaysia,
there are plenty of wind energy to be harvested
since it is located in the straits of Malacca.
Northeast Monsoon winds is blown from
November to March and Southwest monsoon
wind is blown from June to September. These
proved that a small turbine is applicable in
Malaysia as the wind could be harvested every
day. The small wind turbines could charge
itself during windy weather and supplies
eletric to minor home appliances such as light
bulbs and fans. In India, some of the rural area
does not have eletrical supplies from the
power station. However, people in the rural
area managed to harvest wind energy for home
appliances. This shows that wind energy
harvesting by small wind turbines cheap.
Besides that, small wind turbines will helps to
reduce the carbon footprint. In London, a well-
maintained and sited 6kW turbine generator
can generate around 10000kWh per year
which helps to reduce 5.2 tonnes of carbon
dioxide a year.i
Besides wind harvesting, Malaysia has always
been a potential country in the using and the
developing in solar energy. Malaysia is
situated nearby to the equatorial. Thus,
Malaysia receives sunlight for 6 hours per day
on average and it generates a annual average
solar energy for Peninsular Malaysia is around
24 mega joules per square metre ii . Solar
harvesting is environmental friendly as it
absorb heat from the sunlight and converts the
heat energy into electrical energy. Although in
short term, solar panel is expensive. However,
in long term, solar panel is money saving and
environmental friendly as it recharges during
sunny days and discharge when in use. This
solar energy panel supplies energy to home
appliances.
In the four-seasoned countries, the housing
estate was planned and built according to the
sun rise and set, for example in China, the
house was built facing the South. However in
Malaysia, housing estate should be built either
facing West or East to prevent heat from
entering the house. This could helps saves the
money from the extra expenses by switching
on the air conditioner.
Conclusion:
References
Materials
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Appliances

http://1st-ecofriendlyplanet.com/08/eco-
friendly-electric-bulb/

http://greenliving.nationalgeographic.com/envi
ronmentally-friendly-appliances-2270.html

http://www.oprah.com/world/17-Ways-to-
Green-Your-House

http://www.livestrong.com/article/135237-list-
eco-friendly-home-appliances/

http://www.the-eco-market.com/eco-friendly-
refrigerators.html

%http://www.igreenspot.com/oceania-eco-
friendly-fridge-with-chic-design/21.10.2012

*http://www.ecofriend.com/10-eco-friendly-
fridge-designs-save-energy.html21.10.2012

greenhouse