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Building your home with bricks made of recycled plastic is great. However, to cope with global warming impacts, you'll also have to arm your house with climate-proofing technologies and solutions. Before digging into these, let’s see why you should bother implementing a climate resilience strategy.
Why is building climate resilience important for your home?
A climate-proof home has never been more vital. If you don’t believe me, you might believe the World Health Organization, who has provided some extremely worrying statistics:
Heatwaves, wildfires, floods, and hurricanes are all increasing in both frequency and intensity;
3.6 billion people in the world live in areas susceptible to extreme weather events;
Between 2030 and 2050, climate change could claim the lives of 250,000 people per year - that’s on top of the lives already lost due to climate catastrophes;
By 2030, the health cost of climate change is expected to be $2-4 billion.
In short, the dangers of climate change are real and rising. But that’s enough with bad news, here are several climate adaptation techniques you can tap into for protecting your home against extreme weather events.
Resilience against heatwaves
Heat-resistant homes have become cool (if you pardon the pun), especially in areas like India affected by the so-called heat poverty. Let me warm you up with these techniques.
Radiant Barriers
Why not install radiant barriers in your attic to reflect heat away from your home? Radiant barriers can also assist with conservatory insulation; aluminium foil or other reflective materials are usually the best choice.
Air Sealing
Make sure to seal any air leaks to keep cool air inside your home. Caulking windows and doors is an easy, affordable way to make your home more efficient at cooling your home. And that’s crucial now that cooling poverty is getting hot! Switching to double-glazed windows will also help keep outside hot air at bay.
Exterior Insulation and Finish System (EIFS)
Externally, there are a few things you can also do to make your home climate-proof. Most notably, you’ll want to use an exterior insulation and finish system (EIFS), which involves adding layers of insulation to your exterior walls.
Shade
Global warming is turning the pleasant sunshine into a shady affair. If you’re more and more into vampire summers, you better plan for some serious shade. For instance, those lucky ones to have a garden could plant trees to provide their home with some welcome relief from the sun.
Resilience against droughts
Droughts are most common in the Middle East and parts of North Africa, but can also occur in other parts of the world. This includes the US, where western and southwestern parts of the country are particularly affected, and the Mediterrenean region.
If you’re a resident of these locations or any other that experiences droughts, there are a few tactics you can opt for to make it through dry spells.
Rainwater Harvesting
This is a common technique used to build up a water reserve. Storage tanks and water butts are essential for this, while you may also want to invest in a harvesting filter device.
For a more advanced harvesting system, a first flush diverter will separate the most contaminated rainwater from the water in your tank. This flushes out pollutants, dirt and other unwanted contaminants.
Greywater System
This is a recycling system that reuses water from sinks, showers, baths and dishwashers for flushing toilets and other applications. This reduces the need for fresh water which, during a drought, is of a premium.
Resilience against floods
One in six homes in England are at risk of flooding. Standard methods for winterproofing your home won’t cut it against climate-driven flash floods. On the other hand, recent developments have unveiled some new ways to reduce this risk.
Flood-resistant building design
Elevating your home is the most obvious way to avoid rising waters. In poorer countries, this is often done by building homes on wooden stilts while more advanced homes may be built on top of concrete pillars.
Smart Drainage Systems
Surrounding your home with a smart drainage system (SDS) will also mitigate the risk of flooding. By combining technology with real-time data, smart drains can monitor water levels and current weather conditions to predict the risk of floods.
In towns and villages, SDS can be linked to flood-control mechanisms such as floodgates, and SMS notifications can timely warn residents about any predicted incoming flood.
Floating homes
While they may have become a symbol of the super-rich in recent years, floating homes did start as a solution to rising sea levels and the threats that come with them.
In areas where severe flooding is common, the previous solutions might not be enough to protect homeowners and their homes. In such regions, transforming your home into a boat (kind of) is becoming an increasingly common route. Homes built on water and anchored to a fixed point rise with sea levels in the same way a boat would.
Amphibious buildings are an alternative to floating homes. These are designed to sit on land with the capability of floating on water in the event of a flood as opposed to floating homes that are permanently in the water.
Conclusions
AI, google tools, and other climate tech are providing us with more weapons to fight against climate change. As outlined in this article, these include smart ways to improve the climate resilience of your home.
If you’re living in an area susceptible to extreme weather events, I’d recommend checking with your local authorities & solution providers to stay safe.
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