LESS IS MORE
MORE SUSTAINABILITY
Small houses – big effect
BUILD AND LIVE SUSTAINABLY
WITH TINY HOUSES
The Tiny House idea
The Tiny Houses movement originated in the USA and gained prominence after the 2007 financial crisis out of a need to create housing for small budgets. The topics of sustainability and environmental awareness were therefore still at the bottom of the agenda.
Via Canada and Australia, the idea of small houses found its way to Germany and was charged here with new, good impulses in favor of ecology.
You can find more information at our partner of the “Tiny House Alliance”:
The desire for more sustainability in life
Today, the desire to live more sustainably often comes first and the search for opportunities begins. In an environment where a lot of emissions are caused by consumption, it makes sense to first reduce what is not absolutely necessary.
And so a Tiny House offers itself as an ecological housing model: Less of everything causes a smaller ecological footprint.
- Less building material, ideally from the renewable resource wood,
- less space required,
- less sealed floor area,
- less energy demand,
- Less interior
= less CO2 emissions.
In addition, residents of a Tiny House often consciously live sustainably and generally consume less.
U.S. researcher Maria Saxton has found that in the United States, Tiny House owners have reduced their ecological footprint by an average of about 45%, not least because “downsizing can affect many parts of one’s lifestyle and reduce environmental impact in unexpected ways.”
The ZDF series TerraXpress also deals with the sustainability of Tiny Houses
You can find out interesting information about ‘Building today’ in the program “Wake up, rethink, tackle, build a house” from the ZDF series TerraXpress. Did you know, for example, that the construction of a normal single-family home alone consumes as much energy as its occupants will use in living for approximately the next 50 years?
So when assessing whether a Tiny House is ecological, the manufacturing process must also be included. For example, the production of just 1 ton of cement alone generates 600 kg of CO2, whereas wood as a building material is CO2-neutral or – depending on the wood – even has a negative CO2 balance.
Even during ongoing maintenance, more can be done for the environment – but also for your own wallet. With sustainable energy sources such as your own photovoltaic system and / or a solar thermal system, you regularly reduce CO2 emissions.
In cities, Tiny Houses can fill small gaps between buildings and thus create new – and affordable – living space without having to designate new building areas.
Even in a social context, things are happening with the Tiny House concept: for example, parents who want to downsize after the kids move out could move into a Tiny House in their own backyard, leaving their own big house to children and grandchildren. This creates multi-generational projects that score points with separate areas.
Always only as much living space as is needed – always only as much energy demand as necessary
Of course, not all Tiny Houses are the same. Thus, the models on wheels are often accused of poor energy efficiency, this is usually due to poor insulation, which is due to the regulated dimensions(see our FAQ / Tiny House on wheels).
MY ECO TINY HOUSE consists of computer-milled structural elements that can be manufactured in any size and thickness to fit together with millimeter precision. The effective insulation is made of hemp or straw, so it is also sustainable and environmentally friendly.
We at MY ECO TINY HOUSE can be proud of a current energy demand calculation according to DIN 18599, which shows a very good value of 105.7 kWh/(m2a) even for a non-residential building, built with our system building elements.
