#Industry News
Rules for energy saving
According to recent studies, today, when choosing their housing, Europeans consider first of all its ecological and energy-saving aspects, and only then - all other ones.
The energy is used in a house to support operation of electrical appliances, water heating and cooking, but heating of the house takes the lion's share.
Unconditional Commitment of the Architect
Construction of energy saving houses has been paid attention to only at the turn of 80-90 years of the last century. Western Europeans were the first who raised the alarm.
Having done much research, they determined that causes enormous energy costs lay not so much in insulation of the house, but more in a wrong design of the house.
Experts have come to the conclusion that, now, it's architects who are in charge to ensure rational use of energy in residential area of the house. In order to make the house energy efficient, its entire component parts must function interconnected among them, since all the components can provide energy savings for the house only in complex.
The best view from windows of the house on the infield, taking into account all energy-saving requirements, will depend on the skill and experience of the architect.
Terms for Construction of Energy-Efficient Houses from Any Building Materials
According to calculations done, the cost of houses built by all the rules of energy savings, will be more expensive than construction of a conventional house, by 20%, but operation of energy-efficient buildings will be cheaper by 60-70%. Let's give the features, which are considered to be the major for construction of energy efficient buildings in Europe:
The proper orientation of the house to the four corners of earth - even the standard deviation of the house axes by 30 degrees can be critical for its energy efficiency;
Distinct designs of underground surfaces, walls of the basement and level of the floor;
Proper insulation of the basement;
Accuracy in calculation of all the house architectural forms;
Detailed design of window elements and their link to the overall design of the house;
Systematic creation of utilities projects and solutions to be tailored to the respective house equipment;
Supply and exhaust ventilation with heat recovery.
Careful mounting and insulation of the roof are particularly important for saving energy at home, as we all know from the school physics course that the heat does not go at random but strictly upwards.
Maximum use of wooden elements in places of connections and fasteners, due to the fact that timber has the highest thermal insulation properties;
Terms for Construction of Energy-Efficient Houses Made Of Wood
Experts believe that the concept of “eco-friendly” corresponds to the concept of "energy saving", so in connection with the development of advanced production technologies and construction of wooden houses, people today prefer eco-friendly wooden buildings.
At the same time, it should be noted, that this statement can be true only in the case, if, in addition to the rules for construction of energy-efficient houses, the specific rules for construction of wooden houses are observed, that our company strictly adheres to, pursuant to the high Finnish standards, namely:
The house should be properly located on the site, and the wooden house project is implemented so that every square meter in the house should be used functionally.
The most vulnerable places of the house are floor, roof, doors, windows, component structures, joints and corners. Therefore, we are modeling exactly all details of our houses and tailor wooden parts with millimeter precision to avoid any slits or cold bridges in the house.
We figure out precisely shrinkage of every component of the wooden house and tightly butt all house details.
Our sealing and insulation materials all have the exact dimensions; we set them tightly, without gaps, with overlap at the joints. We do it especially attentively in openings of the windows, doors and roof.
We use only natural materials - Finnish timber of the higher grades A and B, environmentally friendly adhesives and other accessories made of natural materials.
We do not use any slots seals made of polymer materials - we use, instead, eco-friendly insulation based on parchment, which "breathes", i.e. passes slowly the air. It does not allow moisture to remain inside the house walls, which eventually contributes to damage of the walls and contributes to the emergence of mold, the substance very dangerous for health.
To prevent leakage of precious heat from the house through the floor, we will further insulate the foundation slab with foam-polystyrene located between ground and concrete.
We use 300-500 mm thermal insulation on the roof that meets the new European requirements.
We use only wooden windows and doors with new seals, thermal conductivity of less than 0.9 kilowatts per square meter. By customer's request, we offer a range of new generations of windows with heating / cooling between window glasses.
Compliance with those rules is essential; therefore, we recommend that you to choose a company that you could entrust construction of an energy-efficient wooden house. If you cannot carry out a project of a wooden house yourself, and you do not know any subtleties of building technologies, it will be very difficult for you to assess correctness of construction of the house.
Selection Technical Equipment for Wooden House
- In Finland, we provided the heat pump system, which uses ground or ground water as a source of energy in construction of 70% of all private houses. Antifreeze liquid (a mixture of glycol and water), which has received heat from the ground collector or ground water wells, is transmitted by pipeline to the heat pump, where its temperature decreases, and released heat is used to warm the house and water. Then, the coolant is returned down into the ground, where it can take warm again.
- We use modern lamps based on LED technology for illumination of the house. They consume electricity by 90% less than incandescent bulbs use. It is substantial savings in electricity costs.
- We use the electric counters, which can show energy consumption at the moment and therefore, we can control its consumption.
- We use the heat pumps with heat recovery from ventilation air that use warm of the air leaving the house. Energy savings are achieved up to 80%, when using the heat pump for heating of incoming air. Warm air from the premises flows out through a heat exchanger mounted in the air pump system and fresh air from outside enters the room through that heat exchanger.
- The resulting thermal energy is used to produce hot water and to heat the house. When the cycle has been completed, the air is discharged outside. Such energy recovery ensures a healthy and economical way of heating saves energy and thus, reduces your costs.
- Compared with other heating systems, heat pumps "air / water" decrease energy consumption for heating by 50%, as they use thermal energy existing in the air. Been installed in outside, those heat pumps transform radiators into economic and environmental-friendly heating system. Such pump operates in the same way as any refrigerator, i.e. it uses vapor compression cycle.
- Each room has its own control (thermostat) to control heating or cooling of the air, which saves energy consumption in each premise. To save electricity, one can control lighting in every room, and light can be switched on and off automatically in some rooms.
- Fireplace, using wood as fuel is also an environmentally friendly source of energy. In winter, it can heat the house - its gases passing through the pipe chimney, can be used as the energy for space heating. Also, the water tank can be installed in a fireplace; water in the tank is heated up during firing and further it is used to heat the house.
- Eco-friendly home appliances being a special proposition from some manufacturers, consumes significantly less power than conventional appliances.
- In windy areas, we use mini wind power plants in the form of cylindrical turbine, which are installed on roofs of the houses. The mini wind power plants charge electric batteries, which feed the lighting throughout the house.
- Solar panels. Although they are used in the Nordic countries not so often, because they are ineffective: their technology price is high, while sunny days here are few.
Carbon Footprint
Producing any things for ourselves, we leave behind us a "carbon footprint” in the atmosphere, and thus we become responsible for delivery of a certain amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which occurs during production of those things. Companies that manufacture building materials pollute the environment as well. Only manufacturers of products of wood and other natural materials are an exception.
