After dealing with food in yesterday’s post, we can move on to the next major component of our individual ecological footprints: our homes.

There are many aspects to your home’s ecological impact. But, as always, there are some elements that are much more important than others. So, let’s try to identify the top priorities. 

Utilities

Your utility bill is generally a good indication of the environmental impact of your home. If you consume a lot of electricity (or gas in some places), your home is probably highly unsustainable. 

Luckily there are many ways to reduce the environmental impact of your home. Here are the most important ones:

Size and type

In general, a smaller apartment is much more environmentally friendly than a larger free-standing home. Apartments are cheaper to heat or cool and less environmentally destructive to build. 

Type of electricity

If most of your electricity comes from renewable sources, your footprint shrinks. But this is highly location-specific and is not always as green as promised. 

If you live in a hot and sunny country that requires plenty of air conditioning in summer, home solar panels can help shrink your footprint. Try to run your air conditioner for a few hours around noon when your solar panels are generating lots of power. For those in cooler climates, however, home solar is not the best solution.

Heating and cooling

Thermal management is generally the largest energy consumer in a home. There are at least six ways to approach this issue.

1. Better insulation. Modern homes generally keep their temperature for longer. Insulation retrofits are also possible with better windows and attic insulation being low-hanging fruits. 
2. Use efficient heat pump or boiler technology. The challenge is that more efficient systems cost more and the payback time depends strongly on location. 
3. A smart thermostat can save some electricity by heating or cooling only at the right times. This brings some security concerns though. 
4. For cooling in hot and sunny countries, solar panels offer a good solution as discussed above. 
5. Improve the heat management of your home by learning to control ventilation. 
6. Tolerate a wider temperature range.

Personally, I’m a big fan of the last two options. As an engineer, option 6 appeals to me because it’s just so much more efficient to heat and cool yourself than to heat and cool your whole house. Besides, it’s lovely to work under a cozy duvet on a cold winter’s day 🙂

Recently, I also capitalized on my nerdiness by purchasing an indoor air quality monitor to fully capitalize on option 5. Thanks to these two measures alone, my electricity consumption is literally 4x lower than normal.  

Appliances

Large appliances like washing machines and fridges use a significant amount of energy. As always, more efficient appliances will cost more, so there’s a trade-off. 

If you live in a hot country, efficient appliances will pay back faster than in a cold country. This is because the electricity consumed by these appliances gets released as heat in your home, which imposes extra air conditioning load in hot countries but saves heating costs in cold countries. An efficient fridge and freezer are particularly important in hot countries.

An 80/20 approach

When applying Pareto’s principle to home ecological footprint, the best solution is to live in a large apartment building, preferably one with good insulation. 

Optimization of heating and cooling is the next step. If your town regularly gets hot or cold, applying some smarts here can easily slash your utility bill in half. 

Efficient appliances come next, carrying greater importance in hot countries.

Be sure to concentrate your initiative in the most influential areas to do the most planet-saving for the least effort and cost.