Green Building & Sustainability
Green building is the practice of increasing the efficiency with which buildings and their sites use and harvest energy, water, and materials, and reducing building impacts on human health and the environment, through better siting, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and removal — the complete building life cycle.
Green building is also sometimes known as sustainable building or environmental building, although there are slight differences in the definitions. The practice of green building can lead to benefits including:
- Reduced operating costs by increasing productivity and using less energy and water
- Improved public and occupant health (improved indoor air quality)
- Reduced environmental impacts (lessening storm water runoff and the heat island effect)
Green Fuel Technologies seeks to achieve not only ecological but aesthetic harmony between a structure and its surrounding natural and built environment. The appearance and style of sustainable home and commercial buildings can be nearly indistinguishable from a standard built home or commercial structure. As general contractors, retailers, and installers Green Fuel can provide you with all the services needed to build your custom green building. Combining green building with renewable energy systems, can give a home or commercial building a zero carbon foot print.
Sustainable Wall Systems
We use our very own SWS Block when construction green buildings because of the many benefits it has over typical cement block (CMU block). It has environmental, ecological, time and savings benefits over CMU block that make it beneficial not only during the construction process but over the complete building life cycle.
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COMPARE & CONTRAST
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CMU Block
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VS.
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SWS Block
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Benefits |
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Requires mortar packing
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vs.
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No mortar required
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Savings of the cost of mortar |
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Requires high skilled mason
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vs.
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Unskilled laborers
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Save on high-cost of skilled laborers |
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15 cm wide x 20 cm high x 40 cm long
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vs.
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30.5 cm wide x 30.5 cm high x 122 cm long
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Less trips to carry block and less time to stack it |
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Heavy
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vs.
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Lightweight (34 lbs)
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Reduced lost hours and medical costs by lowering rate of back, hand, finger and foot injuries |
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R3 insulating factor
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vs.
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R47 insulating factor
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- Saves on heating and cooling-lower utility bills
- no additional insulation required
- lowers pollution/carbon released from fuel based electric production
- reduces size of PV system needed to power heating and cooling
- creates extremely quiet environment
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100 % Cement
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vs.
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Less than 15% Cement
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Cement block requires sand and gravel to be excavated from the earth and often resullts in dangerous craters that remain long after the area has been abondoned |
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0% Recycled content
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vs.
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92% Recycled Content
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Made of recycled, ground polystyrene pellets which reduces over-filling of landfills |
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Mortared and stacked to 4′-5′
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vs.
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Dry-stacked one story high
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Only one conrete fll per story which saves on time, concrete costs and fussil fuel costs for the ready mix trucks needed in pumping/delivering the concrete |
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Water for block production
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vs.
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66% Less water in production
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Ecological savings by reducing the water needed for the block production |
For information on a Green Building Solution for your next project call 1.877.BLDGREEN or email info@greenfuelaz.com
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