New Energy Thinking

Before you start designing

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rkeech

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If you’re starting out on a journey to build a house, before even thinking specifically about what to include in the design here are some things to think about.

By Richard Keech, 2023-07-05

Photo by Ivan Bertolazzi on Pexels.com

Many people who want to build a new home find themselves in a display home of a volume builder and sign up for a design/build contract. This might seem enticing. However, before you even think about land, floor plans and builders, here are some important things to think about.

Don’t rush

Take your time on the design. It took me two years on my design and engaging a builder, and one year to build.

I’ve blogged about my new-build journey, starting here.

Read read read

Read and absorb all you can about efficient homes. Here are some good resources:

  • ENERGY FREEDOM HOME
    • This is the book I wrote for Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE);
  • LIGHT HOUSE ARCHITECTURE AND SCIENCE (ACT and beyond)
    • Jenny Edwards’ Light House Architecture and Science journal;
  • ECOMASTER
    • Everything by Lyn and Maurice Beinat at EcoMaster including their excellent video library: https://www.ecomaster.com.au/video-library/
  • EFFICIENCY MATRIX
    • Everything pertaining to residential at John Konstan’s Efficiency Matrix, especially the videos!
  • GREEN-IT-YOURSELF (ACT)
    • With Fish Lejer, as seen on the ABC TV show “Carbon Cops”!
    • https://www.greenityourself.com.au
  • SOLAR QUOTES
    • Finn Peacock’s blog. https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/
  • THE CAPE
    • This eco village has made available sustainable home designs. These ten designs are free to use and rated at minimum of 7.5 stars in Victoria (coastal).
  • SUNNYSHIRE (NSW)
    • Posts by Jonathan Prendergast and Jay Banyer.
  • HOWARD ELSTON (VIC)
    • Howard Elston’s Green Home Building adventure: http://greenhomebuildaustralia.com
  • SOPHIE MACRAE
    • Sophia MacRae’s “Affordable Sustainable Home” project facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/AffordableSustainableHouse/
  • YOUR HOME
    • The federal government’s (encyclopaedic) guide to sustainable homes http://www.yourhome.gov.au. Free to download, or buy a hard copy.
  • POSITIVE ENERGY HOMES
    • Great book about the principles of passive-house design in an Australian/NZ context. Good to read even if you aren’t going all the way to full Passive House.
  • ONLINE COURSE: Net Zero Homes – Skills Training
    • Jeremy Spencer has created this excellent online course.

Experience high performance

Long before I set out on the journey to build my own house, I had a light-bulb moment when I visited an 8-star home of a friend on a cold winter’s morning. We had just come from a cold stone B&B to find my friend comfortable in a T-shirt. Until you experience great passive thermal comfort first-hand, it’s all a bit theoretical.

So, go and spend time inside high-performance homes to really understand how they work. There’s a high-performance display home as well as three short-stay rentals at The Cape estate where I live. I know of a Passive House short-stay rental. See inside as many homes as you can during Sustainable House Day.

This certified passive house is available for short-stay rental on AirBNB

No to design/build package

Do not let the builder do the design. Be prepared to pay for good design from someone with a good track record in high-performance homes.

A sign that volume builders do not really understand passive solar design can be seen from their set of standard plans. You are unlikely to see a symbol indicating North direction on these plans. The implication being that the plans work fine in any orientation. This is a red flag. Orientation of living spaces toward the North is key, and if they are not telling you this, then that’s a problem.

Note that you might find a high-performance existing design that suits your needs such as the sustainable home designs from The Cape. There are also good, free designs on Your Home site.

Get help

Engage a consultant to assist with the design process. I do this professionally if you need. This would typically involve discussions with clients about goals, specifications, plans etc. Help with getting you up the learning curve.

Set a performance target

Set yourself a performance target in terms of a star rating. There’s a trade off between performance and construction cost. However, all-electric high-performance homes with solar win on operating affordability. Higher performance means paying slightly more money up front, but potentially having significantly lower running costs.

I suggest ~8 stars is a sweet spot.

Don’t go big

Too often people build homes that are bigger than they really need, and size works against the goal of good energy performance. Remember, every square meter you build has to be paid for three times:

  • once when you build;
  • again for the energy to heat, cool and light it; and
  • once more to maintain it over the life of the building.

Other problems come with larger homes, including:

  • Natural light. The bigger the house, the harder it is to get good natural light into the center of the house;
  • Poor passive solar. The bigger the footprint of the house, the more likely it is to have difficulty being able to make use of the north light because of proximity to fences and neighbours.

Keeping a home a bit smaller can let you focus on quality, not quantity.

On to doing the design

Once you’ve got these big-picture things sorted out, start thinking about the specifics of the design, which I’ve blogged about here.

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