This post is Part 3 of a Multi-Part series about creating a more sustainable future. Topics covered in the series are:
- Sustainable and eco-friendly building options
- Toxicity in your home and how to reduce it as you build
- Recycling and reducing waste, both in the building industry and in our personal lives
- Energy efficiency in your home
- Living off the grid and more in alignment with our natural environment
One Planet, One People, Please...
In this post we will discuss off-grid systems, the concept of "reduce, reuse and recycle" within the building industry, and how to build houses with heart ♥️.
Off-Grid Systems
What is it to live off-grid? Good ol' wikipedia will tell us that it's,
"a system and lifestyle designed to help people function without the support of remote infrastructure, such as an electrical grid.
"The term off-the-grid (OTG) can refer to living in a self-sufficient manner without reliance on one or more public utilities. People who adopt this lifestyle are called off-gridders.
"Off-the-grid homes are autonomous; they do not rely on municipal water supply, sewer, natural gas, electrical power grid, or similar utility services. A true off-grid house is able to operate completely independently of all traditional public utility services."
In a nutshell, an off-grid house is a house that sustains itself in line with whatever resources mother nature has to offer in abundance (e.g. sunlight, wind, rainwater).
Park Homes can be either fully connected to services, partially connected or totally off the grid. This means that the range of options available to people is quite vast, and able to suit all manners of lifestyles. The beauty is that even an on-grid Park Home can still be very economical to run and earth-friendly, and can even be created ready to be connected to your chosen off-grid systems in future if necessary.
Here's a taste of some of the semi- or fully off-grid systems that are possible with a Park Home:
- Solar electricity
- Gas or solar hot water
- Solar furnaces (for heating or cooling)
- Heat-recovery ventilation (for heating and cooling, and for maintaining an even interior temperature year round, as well as circulating fresh air to prevent condensation or moisture build up)
- Composting, gas burner or macerating toilets
- Rainwater collection and filtration
Other items that we are proud to install, to conserve our planet's resources and save costs in energy expenditure are:
- Super sustainable water-saving taps and showers (we quite like our latest additions, the Nebia shower and Altered: Nozzle for all faucets)
- Shower domes - a Kiwi invention, and our favourites are the tortoise shell style ones from bathroom direct called "steam stoppers" - these prevent heat and steam escaping from the shower, meaning you don't have to have showers as hot, nor do you need to worry about using energy to remove steam from or reduce condensation in the whole bathroom.
- High energy star-rating appliances (as used in our lived-in show homes)
Recycling
We recently learnt that, in addition to usual recycling services in our locality, that another initiative has started up whereby you can drop your soft packaging and plastics off to special bins outside participating supermarkets (soft packaging that isn't usually recyclable). These items are then turned into fence posts and park benches, things like that.
“The construction and demolition (C&D) industry is one of the largest waste producing industries in New Zealand. C&D waste may represent up to 50% of all waste generated in New Zealand, 20% of all waste going to landfill and 80% of all waste going to cleanfill.”
Because of the above initiative and our other efforts to use recyclable materials, Park Homes are almost 100% recyclable. In addition, our construction waste has reduced to a mere 2-4%, simply by systemising and exercising our recycling prowess. Looking at those stats above, we are so proud of our efforts to raise the bar in the building industry, not just in creating warmer, drier, more energy-efficient and sustainable housing at an affordable price, but also in our impact on the environment.
Houses With Heart
Lord of the Manor, Queen of the Castle...at Park Homes, we believe that your house truly is your sanctuary, and it should work in both with your own lifestyle, and with mother nature. No matter what your desires and requirements for a home, know that Park Homes are all created with passion and purpose, with our ethos at the core of every decision we make as a company, and the Park Homes Family will cherish your home as much as if it were our own, start to finish. That's a house with heart ♥️.