Designing an Energy Friendly, Comfortable & Element Resistant Home

Our Australian climate is one which throws a multitude of conditions our way, from extreme heat to extreme cold, with rain, hail and winds in between!

When designing your brand new home, it can be overwhelming ensuring that you are creating a home that will be as comfortable, energy efficient and element resistant as possible.

With clever design, you hold the ability to;

1. Reduce energy bills by creating less need for heating, cooling and lighting
2. Ensure that your home is as weather-proof as possible, reducing costly erosion
3. Keep you and your family as comfortable as possible, all year round

Here are a few key factors to keep in mind…

Inside this article:

• Make the most of your orientation
• Give yourself shade
• Allow for air flow
• Ensure open plan living
• Incorporate smart roofing
• Thermal efficiency
• Sustainable performance
• Create thermal mass

Make the most of your orientation

Work with your builder to maximise the attributes of your block, taking advantage of orientation.

For example, try to incorporate windows into spaces where they will be able to take advantage of sunlight, increasing natural light throughout your home.

Positioning windows (and adding extra windows) where you will get sunlight will also help natural warming in Winter.

Give yourself shade

On the flip side of the above point, don’t forget to plan for extreme heat in Summer, too. Really explore the sun’s position in relation to your home, and plan accordingly.

If you want windows in places that the sun will also hit in Summer, think about incorporating awnings, substantial eaves, privacy screens or even large, shady trees externally, to ensure that you are able to block excess heat caused by the sun during the warmer months.

TIP: Keeping windows on the east and west to a minimum will help reduce the summer heat.

Alternatively, you could use glazing with a low solar-heat gain coefficient (SHGC), particularly if your windows are large. These windows use toned glass or tinted films to reduce the amount of solar heat transmitted through them.

Allow for air flow

You will thank yourself for allowing for air flow throughout your home, when Summer hits!

Having a larger window on the side of the house that is down wind (or sheltered from the wind), and a smaller opening on the side facing the wind, will increase the breezes through your home.

This happens as the breeze in homes is generally sucked towards the area of lower pressure.

Ensure open plan living

The size of a room definitely matters in terms of your family’s comfort level.

If you can open up the most commonly used areas in your home (such as the living area) to increase the internal volume, his will help disperse the hot air throughout.

A small room will heat up quickly unless the heat can be released.

Incorporate smart roofing

Many people know that the colour of your roof can make a difference to your cooling bill. A white or lighter colour roof will reflect Summer heat best.

Thermal efficiency

Every colour (except Night Sky®) in the standard COLORBOND® steel range features Thermatech® solar reflectance technology.

Thermatech® technology is designed to reflect more of the sun’s heat on hot days, which can mean less dependence on air-conditioning (meaning smaller power bills – win!), plus reduced heat stress for your roof.

This makes COLORBOND® steel a good choice for your home, your wallet and our planet.

But, there is also another major way that COLORBOND® steel can help make your new home more energy efficient.

Sustainable performance

COLORBOND® steel is durable and resilient to Australia’s harsh climate and its long life helps conserve resources and energy that may otherwise be invested in products with a shorter life span.

All COLORBOND® steel contains recycled content and is 100% recyclable. In some cases it can be reused without reprocessing, again saving on energy and resource use.

COLORBOND® steel also strong (having undergone extensive corrosion testing, durability testing and outdoor exposure testing), which means it will help protect your home in stormy weather.

Create thermal mass

Thermal mass in a house is made up of heavy weight, natural building materials, such as bricks, concrete, stone or tiles.

This thermal mass can help store heat during the hottest part of the day, and also help keep the indoor air temperature lower.

At night time, when air temperatures drop, this heat will slowly be released from the thermal mass and can be exhausted from the house through high windows or night time cooling.

With all of this in mind, you will be taking some really important first steps towards ensuring that your new home will be enjoyable for years to come, and help to keep those power bills down!

For more tips and hints, or to talk to us about the products and brands that we use here at Mincove Homes, please contact our friendly Sales team today, on (02) 4256 0222.