Earth Day provides a great reminder as to what we can do to help our planet.

While Earth Day is a time more and more people reflect on and act on their desire to live a more sustainable, greener life, figuring out how to reduce our impact on the environment should definitely be an on-going process.

Environmental discussion often focuses on small actions we can take, but construction makes a significant impact on the environment. But it doesn’t have to have the impact it currently has today.

The modular home building process is a more sustainable construction approach than traditional stick-built homes and also provides a more energy efficient building when construction is complete.

Here’s four key ways building modular provides a greener construction process for more sustainable home building and increased energy efficiency.

Why Building Modular is Green Construction and a Sustainable Home Building Process

– Reduced Building Time

By comparison, building a modular home can cut the time to occupancy by as much as half. The biggest advantage to building a modular home compared to a site-built home is the fact that site preparation and foundation work can take place simultaneously as the factory construction. While that speeds overall construction time significantly, factory construction also eliminates weather delays to reduce the construction time even more.

This reduces the construction loan costs and also limits the fuel costs to get materials and construction workers to and from a construction site.

Since the majority of the construction of the home takes place in a factory, fuel use over the course of the construction project is significantly reduced.

– Less Material Waste

With site-built construction comes unnecessary waste. According to constructionwaste.sustainablesources.com 8,000 pounds of material waste from a 2,000 square foot site-built home end up in a landfill. When the construction process takes place in a factory, material can be recycled and reused and materials are never scraped as a result of weather damage.

Factories like Irontown Homes also use materials on several homes rather than scraping leftover materials upon completion of a construction project.

Steven Winter, Chairman of the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED For Homes program said, “Because [systems-built homes] are built in a factory and much of the lumber is pre-cut, there is less scrap and waste; the cut-off pieces are often ground up and recycled; the central location of a factory means no wasted transportation to get workers to an isolated job site, so there’s savings in fuel and energy. So, in a whole array of material savings, time savings, and energy savings attributes, systems built homes go a long way toward achieving green objectives.”

– Less Impact on the Site

Traditional site-built construction brings noise pollution to a neighborhood, reduces the air quality and increases emissions considerably over the course of the construction project. By building in a factory, where materials can be centrally located, and site-work significantly reduced, building a modular home reduces the environmental impact on the site location.

Whether the home is being built in an urban or remote location, the modular home building process helps limit the construction’s impact on the actual site where the home is going to be located.

– More Energy Efficient Homes

Modular homes are inherently built to be more energy efficient. While added features can improve any homes’ energy efficiency, modular homebuilders can address more specific issues to increase the homes’ efficiency. Modular homes are often built with two-by-six framing to increase the amount of insulation that can be placed in the home.

Modular homebuilders can also reduce air infiltration to prevent a loss of heat by increasing the amount of sealant where traditional builders can’t access. Modular homebuilders can provide better seals around electrical outlets and fixtures with better access behind, above and underneath the home’s walls.

Modular construction is inherently a green building process that helps increase the sustainability of the home. Construction in a controlled environment reduces material waste, limits on-site impact and activity and promotes sustainability.

And when a homeowner moves in to a modular home, they can live more comfortably while limiting their energy consumption for a more sustainable lifestyle.

Irontown Homes works with each customer to provide a variety of sustainable features in each home it builds. Irontown offers options to help each homeowner leave as small of an impact on the environment as possible.