When we have to think about energy, it goes without saying that any savings are important, from turning off unnecessary lights, to using efficient appliances. But there are much deeper issues than the previous ones, and one is, for example, that, when designing a new home, we have the enormous opportunity to continue working in this regard from two fundamental aspects: on the materials involved in the construction and on the energy efficiency of the house. during its useful life.
In the first case, it is important to consider and know the energy embedded in the materials that will make up the future home, in order to use materials that produce less impact. One means is to use products with Environmental Product Declarations (EPD), which is a report made under ISO 14.025 and which provides information about the product, such as its carbon footprint, pollutant emissions during manufacturing and shelf life, among others.
At the same time, the incidence of embedded energy per unit area of the dwelling must also be taken into account and compared. In this case, the Steel Frame, being a lightweight system and having an average mass per square meter of 20% of the wet construction, has a much lower embedded energy per m2 and so does the carbon footprint. This system has been one of the most popular in our country, being in 2019 the third country in South America for penetration of this method, with plasterboard consumption — the main indicator — of 0.8 m2/inhab. per year, only below Chile with 3.0 and Uruguay with 1.1, according to the Dry Construction Institute (INCOSE).
On the other hand, the second aspect is to consider energy consumption during the operation of the house, taking into account its useful life. In this case, the Steel Frame also contributes to reducing energy consumption, as it is a system that reduces on average 60% in heating and air conditioning energy consumption compared to wet construction. This reduction means not only savings for the owner, but also at the national level of energy generation, and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions produced by gas or fuel oil-fired power plants. This will represent a significant reduction in the environmental impact of construction, which we cannot ignore today.
With regard to existing constructions, we can find that there are numerous strategies to improve their performance and reduce energy consumption, such as adding external thermal insulation, and when this is not possible, doing it indoors with dry construction systems that allow adding thermal insulation. In addition, the replacement of openings with high-efficiency ones also contributes to the reduction of energy consumption.
Energy efficiency is leading to a 360° change in the way the construction sector develops, because energy saving is not only an economic issue, but should also be central to society as it directly impacts the mitigation of climate change and therefore on the future of our planet.
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