The first green, affordable home designed by an Israeli company has just come off the production line in the Negev town of Yeruham.
Following years of planning and design by REAL Housing, the 190 m2 house was inaugurated by Mayor of Yeruham and former Labour Party leader, Amram Mitzna.
The three-room, NIS 785,000 house (about $200,000 USD) is partly constructed from recycled materials and includes solar electricity panels and energy-efficient insulation as standard features.
The company, set up by World Trade Centre engineer, Prof Chaim Brown, also aims to be economically sustainable by providing employment in the sparsely-populated Negev desert. REAL Housing predicts that their new assembly plant and structural insulated panel (SIP) factory in Yeruham will create 120 new jobs in the next year.
Last year, Green Prophet visited REAL Housing’s pilot house in the nearby village of Ashalim.
The Yeruham plant can construct individual homes in 12 weeks and the company aims to build them for people in Israel’s peripheral regions: the Negev, Galilee and Golan Heights. The first house off the production line is on its way to its new owners, Hillel and Chana Grossman, 150 km away in the Golan Heights.
The company says that the housing design meets green building standards, however, Green Prophet could not confirm whether this refers to the official Israeli green building standard (Israeli Standard 5281 for buildings with reduced environmental impact).
:: A REAL viable solution, Jerusalem Post
:: REAL Housing
Author: Michael Green
Born into a family of auto mechanics and engineers in east London’s urban sprawl, Michael bucked the trend and chose a bicycle instead of a car. A relative newcomer to Jerusalem, he works as a freelance journalist writing for the Jerusalem Post and other publications. Before moving to Israel, he worked for an environmental NGO in England where he developed a healthy obsession with organic vegetables and an aversion to pesticides and GMOs. Michael’s surname is pure coincidence. Michael can be reached at michael (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
Solar Panel in the desert? not bad for as we all know the sun shines so bright in this place, good to hear that there are some Engineers that pursues using green construction methods to their projects, good thing there are some establishments like http://www.cleanedison.com that can give you enough information and teach you about green construction
Israel is recognised as a pioneer in the solar energy field. In western Europe, Germany is the biggest supporter of this renewable energy. However, the UK is home to SolarUK, the designers of the LaZer2 solar hot water system used in a number of countries. The UK’s solar sector – initially the photovoltaic side – could well receive a boost in 2010 when the new feed-in tariff is introduced. Small-scale energy producers will be offered a fixed, premium rate for renewable energy fed-in to the grid. (
Where are the real green homes? Today’s homes, even when designed to be “green” are much larger than earlier homes and have a much smaller household. Even with efficiency improvements, they are much more wasteful and generate more emissions than the smaller homes of the 50s.
http://www.selfdestructivebastards.com/2009/11/real-green-houses.html