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What Is An “Ecological House”?
-by Philip S. Wenz
Do you want to live in an environmentally friendly house, but wonder what that really means? Does your house have to be loaded with expensive “green” gadgetry, or built with recycled tires? Is it practical to retrofit your existing house? Will your new “eco features” help the environment, or are they just more stuff to consume — trendy, but ultimately damaging to the planet?
Though there is no single, set definition of an environmentally friendly house it's good, at the outset, to think about what you're trying to accomplish. I've found the concept of the “ecological house” — new or retrofitted, big or small — useful for determining project goals.
An ecological house is modeled on the energy and material flows of natural ecosystems, and thus enhances rather than degrades the environment. Like an ecosystem, an ecological house conserves resources (energy, water, food and materials). It also produces resources, or at least gathers and stores more of them than it uses. The “extra” resources are distributed back into the larger environment to support life elsewhere
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