Bigger May be Better But Smaller Is Smart

By Edward Olivera

How does the size of your home impact the environment?

Whether we like to admit it or not, our burgeoning consumption of natural resources has had a devastating impact on the environment, a trend that appears to have accelerated in recent decades. Heavy industry and larger automobiles are often blamed as the chief culprits in energy waste, but what about our homes?

Our penchant for bigness has led to the McMansion – that behemoth of construction on the rise in many upscale communities. The burden of accommodating limited natural resources to increasing demand is going to be placed smack on the backs of you and me.

Between 1970 and 2000, the average single-family home in the US increased in size from 1,500 square feet to 2,200 square feet. This occurred despite the reduction of the average number of people occupying these homes. This reflects a decline from 3.14 people per household in 1970, to 2.62 people per household in 2000, according to US Census Bureau statistics. This means that we occupy nearly double the amount of space today than we did 30 years ago.

The problem is not simply one of adhering to the belief that “bigger is better,” it also reflects a serious indifference to our participation and complicity in leaving a more depleted and polluted planet for our children and grandchildren. It does not require a rocket scientist to calculate that the amount of energy it takes to run a 4,000 square foot house exceeds the amount of energy it takes to run a 1,500 to 2,000 square foot house.

In our favor, it seems that at the same time, small house construction is becoming a vital industry with many resources available for the consumer. A recent New York Times article featured several innovative home designs that were genuinely miniscule (as small as 65 square feet), and addressed the question of how much – or how little – personal space is truly necessary. While the Times article’s emphasis was on second homes, a trend towards small homes (although not necessarily “miniscule” homes) is catching on among designers and consumers.

The Small House Society (www.smallhousesociety.org), of Iowa City, sets no guidelines for what constitutes a small house, but rather advocates a size of home that fits the individual’s “life and comfort level.” One of its founders, Jay Shafer, is a designer who runs the Tumbleweed House Company (www.tumbleweedhouses.com), producing elegant designs that are energy efficient. And it is ultimately in energy efficiency that innovative small houses may finally force us to look at our lifestyle.

A study by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for example, conducted in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity, the Department of Energy’s Building America Project and others, investigated whole-house construction technologies that could produce small, near-zero-energy houses. Four houses were built for the study ranging in area size from 1,056 to 1,200 square feet equipped with a rooftop solar photovoltaic power system (hence the zero-energy consumption). Through a combination of materials (e.g., structural insulation panels and high efficiency heating/cooling systems), EnergyStar appliances and other design criteria, small and affordable homes were produced that maximized energy efficiency and reduced average consumption from 40 percent up to 60 percent.

When Henry David Thoreau built his small cabin on the edge of Walden Pond in 1850, he mused on the necessary amount of energy needed to accommodate one man. Since then, we’ve had our Levittowns, our Corbusier-inspired vertical urban ghettos, even Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonia, as examples of our continuing struggle to come to terms with the American Dream – home ownership for all. The reduction of energy consumption, environmental disturbance, maintenance costs and other efficiencies available in the design of small homes prompt yet another, more realistic look.