Maximize Energy Efficiency to Slash Household Utility Bills

Fed up with watching your hard-earned cash disappear into thin air every month?

Well, your wallet isn't the only one feeling the heat, utility bills are soaring across the nation and most people don't realize they have full control of the hemorrhage. Nearly 50% of Americans are feeling anxious and stressed about the rising cost of their utility bills at this exact moment in time.

Solar passive house design, France

Aesthetically, the solar passive house design (France) is very similar to a traditional house. Design of the facades is open to the southern sun, and is closed to the energy loss to the north. The structure of the house is assembled from prefabricated wooden panels.

Design: Karawitz Architecture
Photography: Karawitz and Herve Abbadie

Beautiful cob cottage design, Oregon, USA

Environmentally friendly and affordable building material - mixture of clay, straw and sand was used to build the walls of the beautiful cob cottage (Oregon, USA). The thermal mass of cob around the wood stove allows save a comfortable warm temperature inside the house for a long time.

Cob cottage design and photography: Artisan Builders Collective

Beautiful green roof garden home, Singapore

Each floor of this beautiful green roof garden home has a separate garden, located on the landscaped roof of the lower floor. Thus achieved a feeling that each level represents a single-storey home, situated in a green garden.

Architecture: Guz Architects
Project: Meera Sky Garden House
Area: 852 кв.м.
Year: 2010
Photography: Patrick Bingham Hall

Villa Nyberg - Round Passive House, Sweden

Villa Nyberg - round passive house is the first eco friendly home designed and built as type house in Sweden. This is the first attempt to make passive house technology available for all. The house is situated near a fur forest and the kitchen and living room open up towards the superior views of the beautiful lake. The architectural plan is designed in accordance with the movement of the sun over the day and the walls have round shape to eliminate the risk of heat losses through cold bridges. Passive houses are largely heated by the energy present in the building – household equipment and people generate a lot of energy. This well-insulated house has only 25 kWh/sqm of annual energy consumption for heating.

Design and photos: Kjellgren Kaminsky Architecture
Area: 156 sqm
Year: 2010

Low energy luxury villa, Mallorca, Spain

In this luxury villa project in Mallorca (Spain) have been used such low energy, sustainable and innovative technologies as geothermal, passive cooling, photovoltaic, daylighting, super-insulated and solar water heating.

Architecture: tecDesign, Sebastian Knorr

Luxury sustainable green roof house design, Singapore

Cross ventilation and passive cooling with solar water heaters and photovoltaic cells reduce energy usage of this luxury sustainable green roof house.

Architecture: Guz Architects
Photography: Patrick Bingham Hall

LEED Platinum sustainable home, Washington, USA

Architect: Coates Design
Photos: Northernlight

The LEED Platinum–certified sustainable home in Washington, USA, was designed as an integrated environmental system rather than a collection of isolated green features. From the earliest planning stages, the project focused on dramatically reducing energy demand while maximizing on-site renewable energy generation.

Photovoltaic panels are strategically positioned to capture optimal solar exposure throughout the year, producing a substantial portion of the home’s electricity directly on site. This renewable power supply is supported by a geothermal heating and cooling system that takes advantage of stable underground temperatures to deliver efficient, low-energy climate control.

Eco-friendly house with solar panels, Madrid, Spain

Architects: IAAC

Energy producing eco-friendly houses are growing in numbers, with concerns for the environment and rising energy prices, we can see why. Fab Lab House blends sustainable features with extraordinary aesthetics and comforts. This off-the-grid home produces more energy than consumes – a house using readily accessible building materials that was designed to be applied almost anywhere in the world. The timber house plan is made using laser-cut plywood, is prefabricated and assembled on location, that minimizing site impact. Solar panels adhere to the structure’s curved roof to maximize the sun’s potential.

House with outdoor patios, green roof and clear-sided pool

This stunning green house is designed in the best tradition of eco - architecture, the most prominent elements of the building include the green roof, outdoor patios and clear-sided pool.