Tag: prefabricated homes

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Design RENO ADDICT

4 ways to renovate for the environment

We often hear about renovating for profit, but how about renovating for the environment? You may have chosen a block which doesn’t face north or have constructed your home out of brick, but that doesn’t mean there are no options for those looking to make their home more sustainable.

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Housing efficiency is one of the biggest impacts we can have on the environment and a more efficient home is often kinder on your household bills. Below are my top tips for renovating to reduce your carbon footprint and your bills.

  1. It’s all about energy

One of the first things to look at when considering how efficient your home is to look at your current insulation. Insulation is one of the best ways to save on cooling and heating costs and a properly insulated home could save you 50% on your power bills.

The Australian Government has produced a useful guide about insulating your home based on your home design and climate. Also look at taking advantage of this sunburnt country and all that free solar energy by installing solar panels and a solar hot water system. You can take this further by buying appliances with the maximum energy star rating.

  1. Replace your windows

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Consider replacing your windows with double-glazed ones with a high WERS (Window Energy Rating Scheme), this means you will lose less heat from your home.

The WERS scale ranges from zero to ten stars, at Ecoliv we use five-star WERS glass because not only is the ten-star WERS glass incredibly expensive but it is also only appropriate for high temperature industrial settings. In other words, totally inappropriate for a residential building! By choosing the five-star rating this will give you the optimal balance of cost, thermal performance and efficiency.

  1. Be smart with water 

Installing a water tank will reduce your reliance on the mains water and coupled with a high WELS (Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards) rated plumbing fittings will further reduce your water consumption.

When landscaping consider indigenous water saving or drought resistant plants, so that when an inevitable dry summer hits, you won’t have to worry about the lack of water to sustain them.

  1. Re-paint with environmentally friendly paints

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If you’re looking to repaint a room or your entire house make sure the walls are kept free from any nasties by using low VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) paints. VOC paints are not only harmful to the environment, but to humans as well. Chemicals found in VOC paints such as Formaldehyde and Benzene, emit vapours that are harmful if inhaled. Paint with less than 250 grams of VOCs per litre are considered low VOC paints.

Even if you are only able to implement a few of these strategies, you will be able to create a more sustainable, more environmentally friendly and above all, economical home.

— Ashley Beaumont is the director of Ecoliv and is passionate about sustainability in the construction industry. His eco prefab homes achieve an eight-star energy rating and have won numerous industry awards with the BDAV, NBDA and HIA.

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Architecture Design RENO ADDICT Shopping

World’s first carbon positive prefab house

The world’s first carbon positive prefabricated house has been installed in Melbourne’s City Square as part of the Sustainable Living Festival and The New Joneses Project.

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Developed by ArchiBlox, the Archi+ Carbon Positive House addresses the increasing levels of carbon emissions and the high levels of embodied energy that come with the construction of a standard home. Moving beyond carbon zero, the house makes additional positive contributions by producing more energy on site than the building requires.

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External shading devices are used to filter the harsh solar radiation in summer and then can be retracted in winter to keep the house warmer. Cross flow ventilation is enhanced with in-ground cool tubes that will pull air in from the floor in the south side of the house and purge through the clerestory (high) windows to the north.

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Floor to ceiling glass sliding doors are installed to create not only a clean visual interaction between internal and external but also allowing full sun penetration in wintertime. During the summer months these openings will be blocked off by sliding edible garden walls. This green feature will wrap up over the roof of the house to create a green roof, which will add to the R6 wool insulation within the roof’s cavities.

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Also a feature is the buffer zone, or conservatory, which separates the external environment from the internal, giving its occupants more control. This space, designed to face north, blocks the harsh summer sun and captures the winter sun. ArchiBlox describes this zone both as the “lungs of the house” and the house “food basket”, where garden beds are established to grow an assortment of vegetables within this conservatory.

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The home becomes healthier by sourcing only high-grade sustainably sourced building materials and formaldehyde and VOC-free finishes. Further to this the windows are double glazed, the appliances’ fixtures and fittings are of high sustainable and green energy ratings, there are drying cupboards for laundry use, solar power for energy minimisation and water recycling.

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The overall size of the house is kept to a minimum, guaranteeing the usage of less electricity and power. This does not mean the functionality of the space has been compromised, with clever uses of joinery and the use of full height openings allowing a free-flowing space and generous area.

For more information.

Photography by Tom Ross | Illustrations by Franky Walker

Categories
Design RENO ADDICT

Prefab homes: the advantages and misconceptions

Ask many Australians to describe prefabricated homes and they’d come up with just two ideas: kit homes and log cabins. Back in the 1970s, both of these concepts seemed like fine ideas, particularly for a weekender, but not the type of abode most would choose to build as their primary residence.

Clovelly prebuilt reno addict
A Prebuilt home

Thankfully, there have been major improvements, and prefabricated housing is the building industry’s next generation. At the moment, about $4.6 billion per annum is spent on the prefab housing sector, with this figure expected to rise by about five percent each year for the next decade.

The reason why this is occurring is clear! “Whether you’re building a one-bedroom shack or a large, high-end primary residence, the process is very simple,” says architect Ramon Pleysier, of architecture and interior design firm Pleysier Perkins. For the past eight years, his firm has worked alongside us at Prebuilt. As a Melbourne-based company, we have built and installed more than 300 homes. “Since working with Prebuilt we’ve been able to formulate the most efficient working model possible,” explains Ramon. “We now have a very logical way of working with projects of any size.”

Eve interior prebuilt reno addict
A Prebuilt home

For a client, the steps are simple. First, they collaborate with the architect on design. Prebuilt has four pre-designed styles that can be individualised or used as a starting point; alternatively, there’s the option of a customised solution. Once a design is agreed upon, the house is modelled, right down to the cladding types and paint colours.

For the average person looking to build a home, this is where the benefits of prefabrication become obvious. It’s a really precise approach to delivering a product. Full approval at the modelling stage means an accurate budget can be presented and, with all homes built in the Melbourne factory, there are no delays due to bad weather or overextended tradesmen.

Inverloch prebuilt reno addict
A Prebuilt home

A lot of the houses we’re delivering across Australia are constructed in the factory in 12 weeks, but would take roughly a year to build on site. That also helps with budget because you’re not having to finance the project for extended lengths of time when you can’t live in it.

As far as cost goes, the worst-case scenario is the budget would be the same as that for a house built completely on site. Though normally the higher quality or more complex the project, the more cost savings can be obtained.

– Rob Colquhoun is the managing director of Prebuilt, a Melbourne-based company responsible for building and installing more than 300 homes – with budgets ranging from $200,000 to $3 million ­– since 2002.