Typical House Emissions http://www.organicbuilding.com/index.mvc?

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Home Typical House Emissions

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Contact Typical 93 square metre house with concrete floor, concrete block cladding, timber frame,
Printer Friendly aluminium window frames and iron roof. The following table shows the embodied energy and the
CO2 emissions for all the building materials.

Weight Energy Kg C Kg C
Materials Kgs Mj released stored
Wood Materials
Framing 1,990 5,254 97 995
Other Timber 300 204 4 150
Wood Products 1,170 3,197 59 586
Paper Products 159 5,430 99 57
Non Wood Materials
Plaster 2,310 18,150 347 0
Glass 500 17,325 336 0
Concrete 54,000 105,492 3,152 0
Clay Products 540 4,057 76 0
Plastics 271 44,884 823 0
Paints 96 15,752 294 0
Plumbing Steel 519 19,236 342 1
Other Steel 1,881 69,902 1,282 4
Aluminium 251 36,544 638 0
Copper/Alloys 102 4,867 89 0
Fibreglass Batts 100 15,010 287 0
Earthwork 16,000 6,982 134 0
Site Energy 23,752 475 0

Total 80,189 396,038 8,534 1,793

Total Wood 3,619 14,085 259 1,788

Wood %Total 4.5 3.6 3.0 99.7

From study of "Environmental Impacts of the New Zealand Building Industry" by Brian Honey and
Andrew Buchanan, Canterbury University 1992.

Note how little energy is required to make all the wood materials. This is less than the individual
totals for the fibreglass batts, the aluminium window frames, the glass, the paints and the plaster
board linings. By far the greatest amounts of energy are needed for the concrete and the steel.

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