Australian Modular Company Producing Carbon Positive House

ArchiBlox, an Australian architecture company has designed and built a modular home that produces more energy than it consumes and sends the excess back to the grid.

These are not big homes, only ranging from 570 to 947 sq ft but feature in-ground cool tubes for cooling, solar panels, green roofs for thermal insulation, and edible garden walls that block out sun. A sunroom will act as a heat-trapping buffer zone that keeps the interior warm. The building is also airtight, to conserve energy.

Based on an assessment comparing the Carbon Positive House (CPH) with a benchmark Australian home, ArchiBlox says that over its expected lifetime of 105 years, the house will emit 1,120 fewer tons of CO2 equivalent. One downside is the houses need to be placed where there is consistent access to sunlight.

The houses are priced from $203,000-$317,000 FOB, and have one to three bedrooms, with sunrooms and laundry rooms. This is more expensive than some other prefabs, but there would be ongoing energy cost savings. They take five weeks to build and one day to install, though planning and engineering can extend the process to 28 weeks. 

Will they ever catch on here? Probably not but we should be able to use some of their concepts to help improve our modular homes even more.