How much material does it take to build a home? Externalities and sustainability explained

Externality - a side effect or consequence of an industrial or commercial activity that affects other parties without this being reflected in the cost of the goods or services involved

The housing demand is soaring. 1.5 million new homes are being built each year. What sort of environmental impact does this have?

It takes more than 64 trees to supply the wood for one home.

That is around 14,000 feet of lumber; enough to span the Brooklyn bridge and back. 

There is enough siding to cover 4 tennis courts. 

The house will need 17 tons of concrete. 

There is 5,500 square feet of insulation. 

The whole house has to be painted, too! It takes roughly 30 gallons of paint to complete the job. 

Now we have to stock the house with couches, carpet, curtains, tables, beds, toilets, cabinets and much more. 

The true cost of a house is only realized when it is broken down.

Let's take a look at just the lumber for now:

• The trees are cut, stripped, and loaded by heavy machinery. This equipment uses fossil fuel and therefore emits C02. 
• The trees are then hauled by truck and trailer to a mill. The truck is burning more fossil fuels and emitting C02.
• Once the lumber arrives at the mill, things go down hill fast. Methanol, phenol, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, propionaldehyde and acrolein are all surrogates of wood dryers and presses. (We haven't even broke ground on the house yet.)
• After processing, the lumber is loaded back up onto a truck and trailer and taken to a lumber yard. More and more C02 emissions... (seeing a pattern here?)

When building your dream home, did the contractor disclose any of these externalities to you? Of course not, because that would be bad for business. This principal can be applied to every single product that we purchase. Have you ever noticed that some items will say "Made in China, Assembled in U.S.A."? Imagine how many parts had to be shipped and processed in the same fashion that lumber is. The externalities that come along with every product are staggering.

Ask yourself this question every single time you buy something new.

Was someone negatively affected by the manufacturing of this product who will not benefit from it's use?

#ThinkB4YouBuy