Top 5 Alternative Housing Ideas - An Eco-Friendly Option!

This writing will share with you the information about some alternative housing ideas which are unique and eco-friendly

 

Along with the development of society, increasing population puts pressure on many people to have a house. In addition, environmental factors are increasingly concerned when a person wants to build a house. Therefore, more and more people choose green construction as an economical way as well as protect the environment and protect their health. With low-impact or recycled components, green builders can create energy-efficient homes. This article will share with you some eco-friendly, unique alternative housing ideas that can help you choose for yourself the suitable house to build.

Alternative Housing Ideas

1. Green Roof

Green roof is well known with a cool architectural feature. But more than that, green roof can provide you with a permeable surface which will help you manage the storm water runoff. Moreover, green roof can help you offset the urban heat island  (UHI) effect. Unlike a regular roof which absorbs and stores heat, a green roof reflects the heat. Plus, green roof can help you lower the costs for a building's cooling. Green roof is one of the great alternative housing ideas which are insulators and can help you reduce both noise and air pollution.

Extensive roof is the most practical type of green roof on a home because it can support a plenty of small plants. You also do not need to require much maintenance because green roof is designed to support just a few inches of soil, and you will enjoy a new kind of eco-friendly garden.

2. Wood-Pallet House

Wood-pallet house is one of the alternative housing ideas that is created as an eco-friendly and affordable solution for disaster relief housing. Wood-pallet house is firstly designed as an entry in the contest which has the target to solve housing problems in post-war Kosovo for refugees. More than that, you can build for yourself a great house with wood pallets. With this very cheap and available building material, you can combine and reconfigure to form an energy-efficient and unique home. Further, all the building materials of this house are very easy for you to recycle if one day you do not like this building anymore and decide to remove it.

3. Shipping-Crate Home

One of the great alternative housing ideas is shipping-container home. This kind of home is more and more popular and favorite due to its advantages. Shipping-container home can be cheaper to build than a conventional home. Moreover, you can use fewer raw materials to get a shipping-container home with industrial and modern look. In general, green builders can use one or several shipping crates to create houses from small, single-family dwelling to larger or even bigger houses like schools and apartment buildings. For example, in 2001, London has built a Container City which turned twenty shipping containers into fifteen eco-friendly live-and-work spaces.

The efficient size of shipping container makes shipping-container homes inherently green. Many enthusiasts even make them become more eco-friendly by using rainwater-harvesting systems, solar panels, radiant heating and green insulation.

You can read the Build A Container Home review to know more about the way to build a shipping-container home effectively.

4. Straw-Bale Construction

Building a house with straw bales is also an inexpensive and natural way on alternative housing ideas. Additionally, the bales of straw also provide your house with excellent insulation. This is really a great economical green-building method because you can reuse the byproduct of grain farming - straw which often goes to waste. Besides, straw-bale construction is also a versatile green-building method. You can design your house with the look you want by using straw bales to construct conjunct with wooden frame to make insulation or construct the frame. You also can use bamboo rods or recycled steel beams to support the straw bales in your house.

5. Cob House

The cobs  mentioned here are not corn cobs. The last idea among 5 alternative housing ideas in this writing is using the cobs made by mixing straw and earth to build your green house. This versatile and inexpensive building material will enable you to shape the walls of your house any way you want. To form the structure, cobs are often applied in the large handfuls. Typical cob homes have rounded and unique features and look like the houses made from clay. You may like to build a cob house more when it is the fact that some cob homes which are built in the 19th century in England are still around today.

Are you interested in these houses? Do you decide to choose for yourself one among these top alternative housing ideas to create your house? Or you may have more alternative housing ideas, so share your ideas with us by leaving your words in the comment box below.

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