An Eco-house (or Eco-home) is an environmentally low-impact home designed and built using materials and technology that reduces its carbon footprint and lowers its energy needs. Eco-homes are measured in multiple ways meeting sustainability needs such as water conservation, reducing wastes through reusing and recycling materials, controlling pollution to limit global warming, energy generation and conservation, and decreasing CO2 emissions.
An Eco-house could include some or all of the following:
- Higher than normal levels of thermal insulation
- Better than normal air-tightness
- Good level of daylight
- Passive solar orientation — glazing oriented south for light and heat
- Thermal mass to absorb that solar heat
- Minimum north-facing glazing — to reduce heat loss
- Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) system
- Heating from renewable resources (such as solar, heat pump or biomass)
- Photovoltaic panels, small wind turbine or electricity from a 'green' supplier
- Natural materials — avoidance of PVCu and other plastics
- Rainwater harvesting
- Grey-water collection
- Composting toilet
- Glass that has two or three layers with a vacuum in between to prevent heat loss (double or triple-glazed windows)
- Solar panels or wind turbines
- Geothermal heating and growing plants on the roof to regulate temperature, quiet the house, and produce oxygen
- A vegetable patch outside the house for some food