Home Buyers and Downsizers

Before you buy a home or downsize, it’s worth considering what your options are.

The typical brick veneer house that people buy has not changed much since the post war boom apart from getting bigger. There has been no fundamental shift in volume housing design for decades. Energy efficiencies are add on’s rather than incorporated.

Yes they have gone from suspended floors to slab on ground, timber windows to aluminium windows, a choice of coloured steel roofing or a tiled roof, and the façade of the day to finish it off. But these construction changes are about cost efficiencies not energy efficiencies, and the way land is subdivided very often limits good design, yet is still as dominant today as it ever has been.

There are significant benefits to be had for home buyers choosing different ways of constructing their houses compared to a volume or basic built house. A true energy efficient home doesn’t have to be that much different either. It just needs to incorporate specific design principles. There are options too.

You may have heard of Passive Solar Design. This system incorporates and maximises the use of what the natural environment offers freely. It relies on judicious orientation in relation to its surroundings, shape and placement of different materials and components for optimum performance.

Passive House is another type of highly energy efficient home. Simply, it’s an environmentally impervious bubble requiring minimal heating/cooling, built with a filtered ventilation system that is highly suited to cooler and less healthy environments, but can be adjusted to suit all environments.

Either choice is fine and will typically yield lower running costs which also makes them a more sustainable choice of housing in the long run. Do they cost more to build? On average a Passive house home will cost around 10% more to construct, depending, but over time, like solar panels, will start to pay for it self but continue doing so. It’s actually a great consideration for retiring downsizers who don’t want to be burdened with high running costs in their golden years.

Passive solar design is a more ‘interactive’ type of construction, not so much excluding the environment but rather working with it. Costs would be relative to other types of construction, however, there will be more design input required in the planning stage to harness and specify for the particular location. A well designed passive solar design for the home buyer will provide lower running costs and naturally higher levels of comfort than a typical volume or bog-standard type home.

Can you mix and match? You could apply different features to each though their core principle are unique - if you lived in an unhealthy environment and built a Passive House, you would not want to open your windows to catch those summer breezes. If you built in a temperate country climate, most days you would be opening the windows to absorb that fresh country air.

The more home buyers become aware of their housing choices and push for better quality in this regard, the more industry will be pressured to shift (by more educated consumer demands and not by lagging regulations), and provide better quality homes that provide lower running costs, are more sustainable, naturally more comfortable and better value for money.

If you’re thinking of building a more energy efficient home and are looking for a builder who can deliver that, check us out at Built for Living, we’re passionate about this stuff.