Why
Larger house require more money and material to build and more energy to heat and cool - a small house with just average energy performance will require significantly less energy to heat and cool than a large house that's designed for superior energy performance. It's much easier to achieve energy savings by making your house smaller than tracking down the specialized building material and techniques required to match small house energy performance in a larger house. Smaller houses are less of an impact to the neighborhood at large."
Recommendation
Consider your needs carefully before you commit to a home design. How often will you actually use those extra bedrooms and the formal dining room? The extra expense of heating and cooling, cleaning and maintaining excess rooms will continue throught the life of the building.
You can use the money you don't spend on a building a bigger house to create a better house. Consider your needs carefully before you commit to a home design. How often will you actually use those extra bedrooms and the formal dining room? The extra expense of heating and cooling, cleaning and maintaining excess rooms will continue throught the life of the building.
One factor in the nation’s soaring demand for energy is a steady increase in the average size of the homes we live in. According to the National Association of Homebuilders, in 1950 the average American family consisted of 3.6 people sharing a 1,000-square-foot house. By 1970 the average family had gotten smaller (3.1 people) and their home larger (1,500 square feet).
By 2004, the trend had become even more dramatic, with a family averaging 2.7 people living in an average home size of 2,400 square feet. That’s an increase of 240% in house size in just over half a century, while family size shrank by about 30%.
Right size House Highlights
- Right sized homes cost less to build and operate than oversized homes
- Right sized homes require less energy to heat and cool.
- By planning your house to accommodate additions easily, you can avoid building and maintaining excess space now. If future needs require more space, you can then make additions easily.
In 1950 the average American family consisted of 3.6 people sharing a 1,000-square-foot house. By 2004, the average household consisted of 2.7 people sharing a 2,400 square foot house. That’s an increase of 240% in house size in just over half a century, while family size shrank by about 30%.
Thinking Big, Thinking Small.
Here are some ideas to help you think creatively about making your smaller house into your dream home:
Think carefully about your space requirements. Observing which areas of your current home you use the most and what activities you pursue there can help you predict your future needs.
Create an open-plan kitchen-dining-living area. If your house design makes it simple to add space or modify existing space to accommodate changes in your household size, life and activities, you won’t need to build a big house “just in case.” Design spaces to be adaptable day in and day out: An office one day could become a secondary TV room the next, and a pull-down Murphy bed could make it a guest room the next. Also, movable partitions can reconfigure larger spaces into smaller ones in minutes
Use all the space creatively. You can never have too much storage, so investigate the odd corners of your home design for storage opportunities. Under stairs, window seats, and attic and crawl spaces offer numerous stowing spaces. Check out interior designs of live-aboard boats to see the ultimate in space-saving creativity.
Include indoor living spaces. Take advantage of our mild climate and invest in some beautifully designed outdoor living spaces. You’ll use your outdoor spaces more if they are easily accessible and treated as an extension of your indoor space. Use patio doors and windows to showcase your beautiful outdoor living areas and landscaping from your home’s interior. Interior spaces that are well integrated with adjacent outdoor spaces feel larger.
Avoid dedicated hallways. Old-fashioned hallways are usually too narrow to be useful for other activities, and the space they require adds up quickly. Design circulation routes through your house to serve additional functions; storage, library and laundry rooms can do double duty as passages through the house.
Cost and Cost Effectiveness
The more square feet in your building, the more it costs to build, to maintain, and to heat and cool. It’s that simple.
Code Considerations
The energy requirements of Title 24 are calculated on a per square foot basis. No distinctions are made between large or small buildings.
Resources
Small Is Beautiful: U.S. House Size, Resource Use, and the Environment
Alex Wilson, Jessica Boehland
Journal of Industrial Ecology Winter/Spring 2005, Vol. 9, No. 1-2: 277-287.
www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/jiec/9/1-2
The Small House Society:
www.resourcesforlife.com/groups/smallhousesociety/
The Not So Big House
The Not So Big House books by Sarah Susanka offer a new way of thinking about what makes a place feel like home—characteristics that many people desire of their homes and their lives, but haven’t known how to verbalize.
www.notsobighouse.com
The U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program has come up with a formula called the "home size adjuster" which penalizes a design if the home is too big. The home size adjuster compensates for the overarching effect of home size on resource consumption by adjusting the award level point threshold (for certified, silver, gold, and platinum) based on home size.
“The USGBC has said loud and clear that a larger home consumes more materials and energy during its lifecycle than a smaller one,” says local builder Reggie Wood. “This upsets many architects, designers and owners who would like to have a LEED certified home and yet still want a mansion.”
