Category: Energy Efficiency

Living Green - House Design Ideas, Tips & Tricks! Part 2

4/11/2015

Motion Sensor Lighting
A heavy consumer of energy in a home is it's lighting. If you have a family, no matter how many times you tell your children to turn the lights off when they leave the room, they will inevitably leave the lights on!

Clipsal's Infrascan motion sensor lighting negates the need to remember to turn the lights off when you leave a room. The system will turn the lights on when motion is detected in the room, and turn off after a certain pre-set timed period of inactivity in the room.

Double/Triple Glazed Windows
Standard single glazed windows offer very little thermal and sound insulating qualities. Heat and cold pass almost unobstructed, in to and out of your living areas through single glazed windows. Thankfully though, there are energy efficient alternatives such as double or triple glazed windows.

How it works: Air or gas is trapped in a thermal pocket between two or three layers of glass in order to create a thermal and sound deadening barrier. This can reduce heat/cold transfer, while still allowing sunlight into your home. It also can reduce noise transfer by up to 80%!

If building or designing a new home, this is one consideration that you will never regret. (Photo resource: http://australiandoubleglazing.com.au/tech-centre/window-gallery/another-sub-page/)

Sam,
QDH Director

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Living Green - Home Design. Ideas, Tips & Tricks! Part 1

4/11/2015

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Transportable homes
Woah! Hold on a second! A design company suggesting a transportable home? Yes that's right. Why? A transportable or pre-built home will take less resources and energy to construct. Your site will remain unmolested by months of building work too.

Combine this with good orientation and landscaping, solar energy, adequate insulation and ventilation and even materials developed from recycled materials, and you will have a comfy, affordable home to be proud of with a minimal environmental impact. And the best part... it will save you $$$'s.

Build Smaller
Really? When we live in a world where everyone needs more than they need? Believe it or not, smaller homes can be beneficial not only to your pocket, but also to the environment.

Do you really need a whole room dedicated to your home gym? Do you really need a home theater room? If you do, then go for it! But if you don't, consider this.

The biggest issue to the climate is your energy consumption. Homes use energy to heat and cool to create a comfortable living environment. A smaller home needs less energy to heat and cool each room and therefore is much more energy efficient than a large home with unused rooms and unnecessary building footprint. Combining this with energy conscious building materials and renewable resources, and you have the makings of a very self-sufficient home with a lot less energy consumption.

Give precedence to self-sufficiency
When designing your home to have minimal environmental impact, considering being completely self-sufficient should never be off the table. Consider never needing mains power, water or sewerage services. And think of the money you will save!

What will you need to be completely self-sufficient? You will need a waste-water treatment plant such as a Biolytix system. This will allow you to treat and reuse your waste water for landscaping etc.

You will need a means of generating electricity. One of the most cost-effective and practical ways of getting power is installing solar powered electrical system. The number of panels you will need depends on the size of your home and your energy consumption.

And finally, you will need sufficient rainwater tank(s) for your drinking water. All of this combined with an environmentally smart home design will set you up for life.

Passive heating
Significant energy is required in order to give you a hot shower, bath or just to wash the dishes. We have a marvelous heat source at our fingertips but we rarely consider it. The sun! Ever wondered what those things on house rooftops were? Well now you know.

With a solar hot water system, water is stored in a a tank above the solar collector panel(s). Through a very simple, naturally occurring process called a thermosiphon flow, cold water leaves the bottom of the tank and goes to the bottom of the collectors. Once the water heats up from the sunlight , it rises back up through the collectors heating up further, and then goes into the top of the tank and voila, hot water! No pumps, no electricity. Though in bad weather or winter, they may use a supplementary heating source such as gas or electricity.

In order to heat the floor in your home, and in turn the home itself, you can use a hydronic in-slab heating system. A hydronic heating system uses hot water running through pipes beneath your feet to heat the floor and as the heat rises, the room as well.

Both of these are great ways to maximize on your desire for true energy efficiency.

This concludes Part 1 of our Living Green series of articles. Stay tuned for part 2 or 'LIKE' us on Facebook or 'FOLLOW' us on Twitter (links at the top of this page) to get updated with tons of new home design ideas!

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Energy Efficient Design! Insulation...

4/11/2015

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THE PURPOSE of insulation is simple. Insulation is a barrier between you and the outside environment to keep heat in, or out.It's as simple as that. So let's examine how insulation can do this, the types of insulation available to you, and how it is essential to an energy efficient home.

Australian summers are hot. In some parts of the country, regular temperatures above 40degC is common during the hot months of the year. During winter, in cooler parts of the country, temperatures below 0degC are common especially at night.

Insulation is absolutely essential for any Australian home. It creates a temperature barrier by absorbing heat and improves the energy efficiency of any heating or cooling appliances being used, therefore saving the environment any extra nasty greenhouse gasses.

Types of insulation
There are two main types of insulation. Bulk insulation, and reflective insulation. Sometimes a combination of both is necessary to achieve the desired environment. Bulk insualation is usually made of fiberglass mineral wool or rockwool, synthetic fibre or sheep's wool. These come in pre-cut batts or a roll to cut to size. Insulation batts are the most popular form of insulation used especially if the space to be insulated is easily accessible.

Another form is loose fill insulation. It is made of cellulose fibre or mineral wool This is pumped into the roof/wall space and is made of recycled and treated paper waste. Rigid insulation are pre-cut boards to insulate roof/wall/floor spaces where rigid insulation is the only option such as in cathedral ceilings etc. Reflective foil insulation does just that. It reflects heat. Often double bonded with batts or material so that it works in both directions.

Insulation R-values
R-value is a measure of thermal heat transfer resistance. R-values usually range from 0.5 - 5. The higher the R-value, the greater thermal resistance (or insulative) quality the material has. All new buildings must meet specific minimum R-value requirements for the building's roof, walls and flooring systems. This is set out in the National Construction Code of Australia. These requirements are mandatory, but are minimumratings for your specific environment.

Insulation is important consideration for any new or renovated home. Make sure you are well informed. If you can go above and beyond minimum requirements this is highly recommended. The better resistance to heat transfer, the more controllable and comfortable your internal environment will be year round!

For more information visit http://yourhome.gov.au/technical/fs47.html

Sam,
QDH Director

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2 Rules for Energy Efficient Home Design - Orientation & Climate

4/11/2015

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"SUSTAINABILITY" is the big word around the building design industry and has been ever since energy efficiency requirements were gradually introduced into the Building Code of Australia back in 2003-2006.

The purpose of 'green' and 'energy efficient' building practices and design is to simply reduce the environmental impact of buildings and best utilize natural heating, cooling and lighting elements of the NATURAL local climate.

With so much emphasis on "going green", (and rightly so if we are to reduce our impact on the planet), energy efficiency is an important consideration when making decisions in regard to your home design, whether it be a renovation or a completely new home.

In this article we will talk a little about how to best utilize your building site with energy efficiency in mind via orientation and also taking into account your local climate.

Rule #1: Orientate your home to create 'zones' within your home. Living areas should face NORTH. By positioning your living areas and the areas you will be spending most of your time in during the day with a northerly perspective, you will maximize the amount of sunlight these areas attract right throughout the day as the sun travels across the sky. Remember that in Australia the sun does not travel directly overhead, but is slightly north due to Australia's lower sub-equatorial location on the planet.

Variations from true north that are relatively acceptable are 20deg west or 30deg east. In either of these cases, extra shading in the form of overhang or even a patio roof, may need to be considered for summer.

Living areas that utilize 'open plan' design are desirable as it allows the best use of space available, it allows sunlight to enter the largest area home resulting in heating and lighting, and allows air to circulate freely around the home contributing to multiple ventilation flow paths through to other rooms.

Bedrooms and utility rooms should face SOUTH so as to stay cooler day and night. These may also be able to be located with a northerly perspective, but obviously will encourage more lingering heat into the evening and nighttime hours.

Zone your living areas so that they can be closed off from the rest of the building, therefore reducing the area that needs to be heated of cooled. The smaller the room size the less energy required to heat or cool.

Natural cooling using cool breezes. Each climate area has prevailing winds. Locate your windows towards areas where you will receive the cooler breezes. If you are new to the area, simply asking neighbours where the best breezes come from will help you in deciding window details on your design.

Rule #2: Adequate distance from neighboring buildings. If the site allows for this, you can ensure that other buildings do not encroach on your 'energy efficiency' planning and you have total control over your home's climate design. To minimize overshadowing of other buildings during the day, minimum distance should be 6 meters from a neighboring single storey home, and 11 meters from a double storey home.

This is not always possible of course due to the nature of most city and town blocks, so to compensate for this, height is your friend. If overshadowing from other buildings will be an issue due to your particular site, lifting your building to a height that eliminates this problem is the next consideration so as to minimize the impact of surrounding buildings on your home.

Another option is to utilize "clearstory" windows located above your main window/door joinery. These are high windows often located high on a wall in a 'raked' ceiling design between a lower and higher roof. These allow more light in during the day, helping to overcome the overshadowing issues. Though during summer, you may need additional shading for these windows.

So in this brief look at energy efficiency through home orientation, we have examined just one important aspect of energy efficient design. Check back soon for more articles on sustainable living and home design.

Sam,
QDH Director

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Living Green - House Design Ideas, Tips & Tricks! Part 2

Living Green - Home Design. Ideas, Tips & Tricks! Part 1

Energy Efficient Design! Insulation...

2 Rules for Energy Efficient Home Design - Orientation & Climate

Sam Davies

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