Eco-friendly houses
With Quackels builders
(The Guardian, 2019)
Wood for building eco-friendly
Insane amount of advantages
What is a high value resource we receive from nature. The output of CO2 is almost incomparable to other types of building materials. And that’s why the consensus is already very clear: A clean future is built on wood. Thanks to the natural prevelance of wood in nature, there is no need for heavy and very poluting indutrial proceses. And through sustainable harvesting we can, make building residential houses a lot cleaner. Wood has a lot of other big advantages. Read about all of them here.
Photosynthesis against CO2 emissions
Trees grow thanks to the process we all learned about in primary school: Photosynthesis. But how did that work again?
A tree grows by converting CO2 (carbon dioxide), thanks to energy from sunlight, into glucose and O2 (oxygen gas). This oxygen is released back into our atmosphere and the glucose is stored in the roots, leaves and seeds of the tree.
CO2 absorption and CO2 storage
Thanks to the (almost magical) process of photosynthesis, trees remove enormous amounts of CO2 from the air. But trees not only absorb CO2, they also store it. Wooden tables, chairs and yes, even houses, ensure that enormous amounts of CO2 do not end up in the atmosphere.
The sum is therefore not that difficult. Wood construction is ten, even hundreds of times better than working with cement. There has been a consensus on this for a long time.
Of course, this does not mean we can cut down trees without thinking. Sustainable forest management is essential for a balanced solution!
Less intensive production processes
Since wood is naturally available, the production processes are also a lot less intensive. No sand needs to be pumped up, no chemicals need to be used and the transport is also much easier (wood can be stacked, does not harden, can be stored for a long time,…). That is why CO2 emissions and the impact on the climate from top to bottom are incredibly much lower than with classic building forms.
The insulating qualities of wood
Even after the construction of your house, the (environmental) invoice of traditional construction continues to count. Classic building materials do not store CO2 and, apart from their strength, have no added value to your home. Wood, on the other hand, does have this. Wood stores CO2, but is also extremely insulating. A simple comparison can be made via www.lambda.be, where it can be seen that wood is up to 6 times more insulating than brick, up to 13 times more insulating than concrete and up to 384 times more insulating than steel.
Wood really is ‘the gift that keeps on giving’ in terms of sustainability and thrift.
No harmful chemicals, additives or chemical processes
If you make the right choices, no chemicals are used in the production and processing of wood. There are also natural methods that can be used to ensure that wood does not settle, does not contain insects and hardens. Obviously this is not possible with cement, steel, ytong,… We have consciously made these right choices at Quackels Woningbouw.
Building with Quackels Housing is
Sustainable for nature and for your wallet
Your energy consumption is noticeably lower
The CO2 emissions (and also your bills) continue to tick, even after the acquisition and processing of the raw materials. At Quackels Woningbouw, economy and ecology go hand in hand.
The less you use, the less you pay and the less CO2 emissions. Everyone wants that, right? At Quackels we go for a radical new way of living and we call it “Low Cost Living”. The cost of your home, but also the monthly bills afterwards, must be noticeably lower than with other construction companies. That is our mission.
Sustainable forest management
The materials used by Quackels Woningbouw are also carefully chosen. This means that our suppliers must also focus on the sustainable development of our raw materials. What else are we doing!? Our suppliers do this. They have certifications for sustainable forest management, good energy management solutions, and so on. You can see some of the many certifications that our suppliers have above.
Minimizing waste and surpluses
Sustainable construction implies more than just the use of sustainable raw materials. Thanks to our unique construction system and the use of industrial processes, Quackels can ensure the minimization of waste and surpluses like no other construction company.
Thanks to our industrial system, all different parts of our home are tailor-made. This offers two major advantages. Unparalleled accuracy and no excess waste. That is truly sustainable construction.
Water consumption in our production
One of the latest investments we made at Quackels is an investment to reduce water consumption. Thanks to our new purification plant, we estimate that water consumption in certain processes has been reduced by up to 90%.
Rainwater in your home
Every home built by Quackels Woningbouw has a large rainwater well (long before the new legal provisions). This water can be used for many different purposes, such as flushing toilets, watering the garden, washing the car, and so on. In this way you extend sustainable construction to all areas of the home. Thanks to the reuse of rainwater through the rainwater well, you can save “up to 50% on your water use”, writes www.bisbeurs.be.
Would you like to read more about the reuse of rainwater in Quackels Housing? Then view our post about the new obligations from 2023 here.
How polluting is cement? Extreme!
Top 4 most polluting raw materials
In terms of materials, there are only 3 other raw materials that are even more polluting than cement. These raw materials are coal, oil and gas. Cement is in 4th place (Source: The Guardian, 2019), yet this is hardly looked at. In the meantime, there are much better materials and methods for building. These materials are also much more suitable for sustainable construction.
The most destructive material on earth (The Guardian, 2019)
How extreme is the problem with cement? “If cement were a country, it would be the third largest CO2 emitter on Earth… Only China and America emit more CO2.” (Source: The Guardian, 2019).
CO2 emissions from cement
Many people understand the problem of plastic packaging, loose caps on bottles, plastic bags and so on. This is very evident as we see them everywhere on the streets, on the beach and in our parks. So something must definitely be done about this, if only for our street scene and our quality of life. But what about cement? The consequences of this are less visual and therefore more often fade into the background.
However, the cement industry is one of the largest polluters on earth. Take, for example, the major polluter plastic… “All the plastic produced over the past 60 years amounts to 8bn tonnes. The cement industry pumps out more than that every two years” (Source: The Guardian, 2019).
Of course we need cement for some works, such as roads, bridges, skyscrapers, etc. But this is absolutely not the case when building homes. There are much better alternatives.
Extremely high water consumption
The problem is bigger than CO2 emissions. Almost 1/10 of the total water consumption of industry is consumed by the cement industry. Larger rainwater wells, green roofs and green zones will of course not solve this problem! A new and better way of housing construction!
Degradation of nature and consumption of natural resources
Many other natural raw materials are of course used in the production of cement. A very large part of cement is sand. Collecting and processing this sand has an enormous ecological and biological impact. Unfortunately, this sand does not come from some desert far away. Most of the sand used for cement production (approx. 60%) is pumped from rivers. It goes without saying that the ecological and biological impact of this is enormous (Source: Open Journal of Civil Engineering, 2023).
In addition to sand, many other raw materials are also used in the production of cement, such as calcium, silicone (oil), aluminum, iron and other metals, lime and silica.