Energy Efficient House Designs
To help our clients achieve cost effective, energy efficient house designs, we draw upon our extensive knowledge gained over years of experience in designing energy efficient residential and commercial complex buildings.
To produce results we are very proud of, some of the energy assessment tools we use in our work are…
• Greenstar
• NABERS
• NatHERS with BERS software
Working with your Architect, Builder or direct with yourself. The goal is to make sure your house achieves the highest practical level of energy efficiency available inside your budget and guidelines. Areas we specifically focus on are…
1. Natural ventilation (free Cooling):
We provide industry leading designs to ensure your house captures prevailing breezes and allows hot air to escape. At the same time ensuring your house retains heat in winter. There are a lot of different ventilation principles that can be introduced into your house design to improve air flow and not degrade the appearance of your house.
2. Insulation:
Insulation is a very important and valuable feature in designing an energy efficient house. Coming up with a design that suits the style and shape of your house is part of our first considerations. That’s because there isn’t a standard form that can be applied to all houses, even though a lot of installers go down this path.
Every house has a different roof profile, wall construction, and is often located in different settings. That means there are vastly different considerations for each home insulation to perform successfully. We take all our years of energy efficiency design and experience to advise you on the insulation type and size required for your house.
Because insulation will have a large impact on reducing electricity costs, particularly if you are planning to install air conditioning. It’s wise to get the right information and advice before you start construction or alterations.
With the introduction of strict energy efficient requirements in the Australian Building Code, the cost of high performing insulation has been considerably reduced and is now very cost effective for residential, commercial, retail and industrial buildings.
3. Window and glass design:
Windows are great for letting in natural light and breezes, but if they are installed with standard glass, and not thermal glass they let in a lot of heat in summer and cold during winter. The thermal properties of standard glass are very poor. We always advise on the right type of glass to improve thermal performance inside your budget.
In a lot of cases, not all glass requires upgrading. It’s mainly locations that are exposed to direct sunlight or are facing west that require this consideration.
4. Building Materials:
To improve the comfort levels inside relevant spaces in your home, we advise on the many benefits of using different building materials.
Particular focus on the use of a mixture of high thermal mass building elements for retaining heat during winter and providing a light-weight structure to achieve cooling in summer, is always welcomed by the builders and architects we speak to.
