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Downsizing the McMansion: Study gauges a sustainable size for future homes:
What might homes of the future look like if countries were really committed to meeting global calls for sustainability, such as the recommendations advanced by the Paris Agreement and the U.N.'s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development?
Much wider adoption of smart design features and renewable energy for low- to zero-carbon homes is one place to start -- the U.N. estimates households consume 29% of global energy and consequently contribute to 21% of resultant CO2 emissions, which will only rise as global population increases.
However, a new scholarly paper authored at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) assesses another big factor in the needed transformation of our living spaces toward sustainability -- the size of our homes.
The paper published in the journal Housing, Theory & Society makes the case for transitioning away from the large, single-family homes that typify suburban sprawl, offering new conceptions for what constitutes a more sustainable and sufficient average home size in high-income countries going forward.
The article surveys more than 75 years of housing history and provides estimates for the optimal spatial dimensions that would align with an "environmentally tenable and globally equitable amount of per-person living area" today. It also spotlights five emerging cases of housing innovation around the world that could serve as models for effectively adopting more space-efficient homes of the future.
"There is no question that if we are serious about embracing our expressed commitments to sustainability, we will in the future need to live more densely and wisely," said Maurie Cohen, the paper's author and professor at NJIT's Department of Humanities. "This will require a complete reversal in our understanding of what it means to enjoy a 'good life' and we will need to start with the centerpiece of the 'American Dream,' namely the location and scale of our homes.
"The notion of 'bigger is better' will need to be supplanted by the question of 'how much is enough?' Fortunately, we are beginning to see examples of this process unfolding in some countries around the world, including the United States."
Maurie J. Cohen. New Conceptions of Sufficient Home Size in High-Income Countries: Are We Approaching a Sustainable Consumption Transition? Housing, Theory and Society, 2020; 1 DOI: 10.1080/14036096.2020.1722218
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday March 10 2020, @01:02PM
Your observation is correct. Housing is calculated to bleed the homeowner dry. There are many means to mitigate, or even reverse, most of it as long as you're willing to brave the perceived risk of the neighbors thinking you're weird.
First, insulate the heck out of your house. Everyone can. It's cheap and has the quickest payback time. I rented a blower from Home Depot and insulated my father-in-law's house for $1,000; I was only going to take it up to R-38, the sweet spot, but they gave me a volume discount on bricks of cellulosic insulation that saved me $300 so I wound up taking it up to R-60. They have an oil heater which used to cost them $5,000 to heat the house every winter; now it costs them under $1,000. So the effort paid for itself in about 1 month of savings.
If you can switch your HVAC to a heat pump (homes sitting on naked rock are out of luck, but those on soil/sand/gravel/clay can) then you win all kinds of ways. You can hook up the water heater to the heat exchanger, heat your home with it in the winter, and cool it in the summer. It can be a big initial outlay, but the savings are dramatic and the payback time is fast.
Residential solar has been falling like a rock and has reached grid parity in more than 30 states. Once you have that installed, you can put in a battery bank like a Tesla Powerwall for darker periods, and a smart tie to the grid to sell excess power back to the utility (if there is net metering where you are). Solar can run your heat pump, too, so at that point you can go off-grid if you want.
Lawns are a waste of space for the most part. I ripped up a bunch and converted it to gardens, fruit-bearing shrubs like raspberries and blueberries, and garden boxes. The fresh produce we grow feeds us from spring to fall. If we were more industrious we could can stuff and live on that through the winter also. Some people go a different route and xeriscape so they don't have to water or tend to the outside at all.
YMMV may vary in the implementation. Some people have to contend with weird Home Owner Association restrictions and that sort of thing. Some people can't swing the cost of doing it all at once, in which case implementation in stages can get you there--insulate, put the savings in a short-term interest-bearing vehicle, leverage it up to tackle the next step. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Washington DC delenda est.