Green Technology

Concrete Building Materials

Concrete is one of the greenest building materials there is. One of the primary reasons is that it’s energy efficient. Concrete has high thermal mass, meaning it slows the passage of heat or cold, and the amount of heat it can store is high. Thick concrete walls help to keep your house warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. And, with better insulation in your walls, you can increase your natural light with more windows, which saves on energy costs with lighting.

Concrete is also considered sustainable because it is highly durable. Your concrete home isn’t going to blow down or burn down or get eaten by termites or some other pest. Your house is going to be around far longer than you will.

Concrete is also recyclable and creates less construction waste. It’s made up of water, an aggregate such as sand, stone or gavel, and cement. It can be 100% recycled and used in new concrete as aggregate. What’s more, concrete is made to order—you only buy what you’ll use.

Unless your concrete has some accelerators, plasticizers or retarders that may off-gass, it’s an ideal building material for chemically-sensitive people because it is inert and non-toxic. It’s naturally water repellant so it doesn’t need volatile organic compound (VOC) sealants.

But concrete isn’t the perfect green product. The stone used to make concrete isn’t renewable—it’s not like lumber. There are issues with its production, with water use and Co2 and dust emissions. Concrete also has a great deal of embodied energy in its production—it takes a lot of energy to make it. But perhaps its durability evens things out. You won’t need to rebuild any time soon.

As a homeowner, concrete can reduce your energy bills, your home insurance premiums and your maintenance fees. In combination with other environmental technologies such as solar heating, green roofs, water cisterns, concrete can amount to huge savings.