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Description: This report is an update of Life Cycle Assessment of an Concrete Masonry House Compared to a Wood Frame House (Marceau and VanGeem 2002). It presents the results of an assessment of the environmental attributes of concrete construction compared to wood-framed construction. A life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted on a house modeled with two types of exterior walls: a wood-framed wall and a CMU wall. The LCA was carried out according to the guidelines in International Standard ISO 14044, Environmental Management - Life Cycle Assessment - Requirements and Guidelines. The house was modeled in five cities, representing a range of U.S. climates: Lake Charles, Tucson, St. Louis, Denver, and Minneapolis.
The 228-square meter (2450-square foot), two-story, single family house has four bedrooms and a two-car garage. The system boundary includes the inputs and outputs of energy, materials, and emissions to air, soil, and water from extraction of raw materials though construction, maintenance, and occupancy. The house energy use was modeled using DOE-2.1E and the life cycle impact assessment was modeled using SimaPro.
The results show that for a given climate, the life cycle environmental impacts are similar for the wood and CMU houses. The most significant environmental impacts are not from construction materials but from the production of electricity and natural gas and the use of electricity and natural gas in the houses by the occupants.
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