When you’re building your own home, you’re likely to be keenly aware of the impact of building on the environment. At Scandinavian Homes, we’re keen to help our customers reduce their carbon footprint in as many ways as possible (and of course save money over the long term as well).
First of all, we source our log buildings from Finland. The timber used is sustainably forested, as all forestry in Finland is regulated by the country’s Forest Act. If you’d like to find out more about this, have a look at the English language version of the Act here.
In Finland, around 70 million cubic metres of timber is harvested annually and more trees are replanted than felled. Additionally, natural regeneration is encouraged by keeping small stands of timber, to increase biodiversity.
Timber absorbs carbon and locks it up during its life cycle, only releasing it at the end of its useful life. Often it can then be reused as woodchip for fuel, reducing the demand for new timber. As log homes can last for several hundred years, carbon is locked in for an extended period. Every tonne of wood locks up almost 2 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and a medium-sized log house uses about 30 tonnes of wood. So a log home can lock up the same amount of carbon dioxide as you would generate from driving a car for approximately 400,000 km (nearly 250,000 miles!). Processing and transporting timber is much less energy intensive than other building materials, and any waste timber is used to provide heating and energy in the processing plants.