ENERGY EFFICIENT, HEALTHY HOMES

Investing in an energy efficient, healthy home will save you money in the long run and conserve both the environment and energy.

It can also yield a higher return on investment when sold on the market as people are starting to realise their huge benefits.

Owning a green home is becoming very attractive.

With all builds we recommend incorporating strategies to minimise year round energy consumption within your home to create an energy efficient home, also known as a high performing home. An energy efficient home is one that requires minimal running costs to have a comfortable home in either summer or winter. Putting more money in your pocket and causing less harm to the environment by consuming less resources. Here are a couple of strategies that we recommend to help you design your energy efficient healthy home.

SMART DESIGN

The easiest way to minimize resources and environmental impact when building is to design a smaller sized home. A smaller footprint requires less building materials and less heating/cooling to achieve a comfortable environment in your home all year round. Bigger is not always better, and this mantra is most important when applied to an eco-friendly and energy efficient home, so think hard about what your spaces will be used for and design them according to their function.

Make sure you orientate your home to take full advantage of the natural sun and wind. Utilising free heating and cooling will reduce overall costs considerably.

It’s easy to forget sometimes living in Christchurch that our summers get really hot, and a lot of energy is consumed in cooling our homes. Especially when the nights are hot, it is very inefficient to have each room cooled by appliances. We need rooms that stay at a consistent comfortable temperature all day and night, all year round. This is achieved through installing sufficient insulation, keeping the outside temperature out and the inside temperature in.

During the summer months it is also good to have strategies to block out the heat from the sun reducing overheating and the use of cooling appliances. Movable louvers, shade sails and retractable awnings are good options for this. Eaves on buildings give some shade in the summer months due to the sun’s high angle in the sky and allows the low winter sun in. But unfortunately eaves are not the best option as hot summer sun will become low in the afternoon causing overheating inside the house. In this case it is good to have other options such as deciduous trees to block out the low angled afternoon sun. Deciduous trees are perfect as they then let the sun in when they loss their leaves in the winter months when low sun is very much appreciated coming in through your windows, heating your home.

There are other considerations when orientating your house other than harnessing the sun’s warmth and taking advantage of breezes for cooling. Things such as the view, functionality, topography, layout, gardens, street access and noise.

It is all about striking a nice healthy balance between all of these contributing factors to make your dream home a realisation.

INSULATION

Insulation not only keeps spaces warm in winter by keeping the cold out, but it keeps spaces cool in summer by keeping the heat out also. A well insulated home makes the internal temperature more stable. Making it more energy efficient by requiring less artificial heating or cooling. There are various types of insulation available in New Zealand. We would recommend using a New Zealand made products which support local industries and consumes less resources associated with its transportation.

For a truly eco-friendly, energy efficient, healthy insulation you cannot go past wool insulation. Not only is it a natural biodegradable material, which emits little to no toxins, but it is fire retardant too. Wools natural keratin prevents mold and mildew from forming and it is also great at absorbing noise. Wool is also nice for us to handle and it has little to no crimping when installed, making a better fill of the walls than fibreglass alternatives. Lets just say, we are very much fans of the stuff! New Zealand made fibreglass insulation is fine to use for the insulating properties, but it does consume a huge amount of energy to be produced. Other negative attributes of using fibreglass insulation is it leaches toxins, produces micro waste, is rarely reused and unfortunately recycling it just doesn’t happen. It will basically contribute to more landfill. Fibreglass is cheap though.

VENTILATION

If a home doesn’t have adequate ventilation it will fill with stale air, moisture and pollutants. These contributing factors, which aids in mold and mildew to grow, cause major health problems in people.

Modern buildings these days are completely sealed, which is good for insulative reasons, but problems associated with inadequate ventilation have become more common with this practice. Sealed homes require mechanical ventilation to help fresh air circulate through all the spaces and allow moisture and pollutants to be expelled from the house. If your house is fully sealed, mechanical ventilation is essential for a healthy home. Mechanical ventilation is where you have fans pushing air into and out of the building.

It may be beneficial to have heat recovery ventilation in your home to save on energy consumption. This type of ventilation takes the heat from the outgoing air and adds it to the incoming air, keeping the rooms at a consistent temperature, reducing the need for artificial heating.

We can suggest a variety of solutions depending on which ventilation is best suited to your situation.

ENERGY EFFICIENT WINDOWS

Double and Triple glazed windows purpose is to reduce the heat transfer from inside a building to outside. The gaps inbetween the panes acts like insulation for your windows. Triple glazed windows out perform double glazing in all areas but there are a few things to keep in mind. Triple glazing is heavier and the frames are more bulky, putting strain on hinges and corner points. Triple glazing is also more expensive to purchase and repair. But keep in mind frames are just as important as panes. If you are selecting your window frames, consider paying a little extra for thermally broken or high performance frames. This will increase the energy efficiency of your windows considerably.

A thermally broken frame means that the window has a reinforced polyamide strip fixed between the inside and outside aluminium profiles. Aluminum is a great conductor, transferring heat and cold easily. Polyamide strips act as an insulator, separating the internal frame from the external frame minimising transfer of heat and cold, resulting in improved energy efficiency. Having thermally broken frames will have a huge impact on the transfer of heat and cold than standard aluminium frames. Thermally broken is to aluminium window frames, what double/triple glazing is to glass.

ENERGY EFFICENT LIGHTING
AND APPLIANCES

A good way to further reduce your homes carbon footprint is to include energy efficient lighting and appliances in your build.

We recommend LED lighting as they are energy-saving and are also sealed units. This prevents any heat escaping into your ceiling.

Make sure to choose efficient water usage appliances, toilets and taps which will reduce a houses consumption of water conserving the environment.

SOLAR

Utilising Solar power is a great way to reduce your household’s over-all carbon footprint. And switching to a more sustainable source of energy is good for the environment.

When your house has solar panels installed on your roof or property, sunlight hits the solar panels and gets converted into usable electricity for your home. When you use plug-in devices or run your heating and lighting, you use the ‘free’ energy that your panels generate first. Then, if you need more power, you can seamlessly draw from the utility grid. You may even be able to generate excess energy which will be stored in the national grid, this excess can be used later when you are not producing enough. If needed you can sell the excess power back to your local electricity supplier in exchange for credits.

Solar water heating is also a great way to reduce your homes energy consumption. Solar water heating transfers the heat from the sun into a buffer storage tank, reducing how much electricity is needed to keep the hot water cylinder at a desired temperature. Water from the buffer storage tank can also be circulated through under floor heating or heat a swimming pool. A well installed solar water system can generate up to 75% of the required heat for your hot water cylinder, which is a considerable saving, but this percentage will drop in the winter months due to there being less sun light hours in a day.

Both of these methods give big savings on electricity bills month-to-month. Using less resources converts to less impact on the environment and thus a smaller carbon footprint. It has also been shown that in recent times houses that have solar power units installed yield a high return on investment when sold on the market. People are starting to realise the huge benefits in having solar power for not only the green image it portrays but the savings it can accumulate be reducing your homes energy consumption.

An energy efficient home is one that requires minimal running costs to have a comfortable home in either summer or winter.