Our Green Process

While building a home, you can easily order a truck load of lumber today & it is there tomorrow. But before you make that call, consider this: a typical 4000 square-foot home requires about 80 to 100 trees, about two acre's worth, to build with wood.

How do these living things get replaced? Does the lumber company replant 100 trees? Will you do it? Is the world left with 100 less trees? One of life's basic living requirements is oxygen. Humans and animals take in oxygen and produce carbon dioxide. Trees take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, thus the cycle of life. Trees have been "Green," by recycling, from the very beginning.

Please consider the wood cycle. In order to produce a wood product, you must first kill a living organism, one that has been alive and maturing for over a century. Once the product is created, it must be finished. The finish process will produce volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs are gas or vapor emissions that cause adverse health effects & smog. This finishing process will contribute to the second largest source of VOCs (the largest contributor of VOCs is automotive emissions) on our planet. Wood doors require far more maintenance than steel doors. Every time a wood door is resealed, harmful VOCs are emitted. Trees also provide nutrition and shelter for different species of animals and insects during the different stages of its life cycle. The removal of trees will have an impact on animal and insect populations. As you can see, other than the beauty of wood, there is not much to feel good about.

With steel, only the equivalent of twelve scrapped automobiles are needed to build the same 4000 square foot home. Your old car may now be your new door. Using these inanimate cars will conserve the following natural resources: 80 - 100 trees, 15 tons of iron ore, 8 tons of coal & almost 1 ton of limestone. At the end of the home's useful life, the steel can be recycled over and over again. Wood cannot. It is easy to turn a blind eye towards environmental issues when it comes down to our personal choices. Our small lifestyle changes culminate into large ecological improvements.

Rustic Elegance has chosen the most environmentally responsible material available to make our doors. We utilize steel that is 97.5% recycled steel. Unlike wood, steel is nearly entirely made of recycled material. Rustic Elegance is proud to manufacture steel doors that leave a very small ecological footprint. Help conserve our planet and make the choice to use steel doors & save a tree.