Why Eco?

We lived in Amsterdam, Holland for nearly 10 years and had amazing bakery next door baking organic bread and pastries. After our first child was born it felt natural to offer her food cooked using  "biologisch" ingredients and fruits. Holland had wide variety of bio-grocery stores, bakeries, second-hand shops, restaurants, kindergartens... you just name it! At the same time we got to know many families with green values. After visiting an eco-village in Culemborg we thought how good it would be to heat houses with pollution free solar energy and live in a community. In a first place we were looking to buy or build in Linnaniittu eco-village in Vihti but getting to work would have been difficult and distances no so optimal for us. We wanted to be able to catch train on foot or at least by bike and have schools close by.

Since we are not experienced in building nor fixing old houses it felt more safe to arrange a company to build the house for us. Stone houses (4-6 rooms) are too expensive for our budget so we decided to go for a wooden building. After all there is plenty of wood available in Finland! After long research of companies, we found out there are three(3) types of wooden houses:

1. (Laminated) Log-houses
2. Wooden panel-houses insulated with glass/ mineral wool that are made airtight with plastic all around
3. Wooden panel-houses insulated with natural (recycled) wood fiber and made "airtight" with cardboard instead of plastic 

And we thought that since they're "so called" wooden houses, our future house should be fully from wood and free of plastic. Wood is old and natural building material, fully recyclable and comfortable to live in. Wooden  house " is breathing" and as such the air quality is better and less humid. So then we were left with option 1 and 3 above.

And we choose option 3 as the wooden fiber insulated wall looses a lot less heat (almost 3 times less) compared to solid wood.

Without claiming that we are going to be build the ultimate eco house, we will try to build an affordable eco home including:

- ground-source based heating system

- electricity planning designed for energy saving i.e. with possibility to switch off sleeping appliances when not needed, etc

- prefer to buy the materials for the house/ appliances etc manufactured close to home ( "Why would we buy a freezer made in (and transported from) Korea?") In interior we prefer local, long-lasting, natural and non-plastic materials, design and solutions. I will write later more about the interior.

- recycle separately all the household waste

- have a little organic garden for veggies, herbs, berries and fruits

- have watersaving taps and showers

Later we would like to be albe to use solar energy (electricity)

To be continued...