Want to know which home retrofit options result in lowering your energy bill and carbon footprint? Check out the Guide to Low Carbon Residential Buildings – retrofit to find out what options are available to suit your home and climate. This guide is a research effort between Cooperative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living and
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How many solar panels should I install?
Posted onI regularly get asked “how many solar panels should I install?” The answer is simple: As many as you possibly can. Here’s why. Solar panels are now incredibility cheap, costing about $1 per Watt or $5,000 for a 5kW system. Over the warranted 25 year life of the system, the electricity generated costs only about
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Are you installing solar batteries?
Posted onWhen talking about solar energy or efficient houses I often get asked whether I am installing batteries. At this stage, though my house and solar system are battery ready, I’m not installing batteries as they are of neither cost or environmental benefit to me. This doesn’t however mean they don’t suit others and I wanted
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Often I’m asked why builders make certain decisions, where occasionally there are more cost-effective, or better quality measures. To these types of questions, I always explain that the decision made is based on the motivation of the builder within the particular contract – I’ll give some examples within this post.
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Apartment Extension
Posted onWhitehouse Concepts recently completed an extension with a twist; being that is was actually an apartment! That’s right, extensions aren’t just for houses and if the building structure is right, you can also do extensions to apartments. The process in which you go about these extensions is quite different to a house because there is a body corporation involved, but the rewards outweigh the extra hassle as apartments are typically smaller with limited outside area and any extension work adds immediate value.
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To Reno or to Demo
Posted onWith any old house there is always the age old question of whether to Reno or Demo. Having recently just demolished an older house, I thought I’d share my thoughts on why we chose to do what we did, but also the situations where a good renovation would also do the trick.
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Whether you’re making a new year goal to buy or build a house, just got into a new house, or were one of the unfortunate ones that was sure you’d be in before Christmas but missed out – we look at how the timeframes involved in buying or building a house are often under estimated.
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Coastal Living and Flooding
Posted onFlooding is one of the most devastating phenonmenons in the world, and is the most frequent hazard compared to other natural hazards such as droughts, fires, and earthquakes. With most Australians living on the coast, and about 40% of NSW’s coastline vulnerable to recession under sea level rise [1] – we look at how flooding (exacerbated by climate change) affects the Illawarra and housing.
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So as of yesterday, the sale of our home is official and I’m able to go over the complete numbers and journey from start to finish. The project was conceived over 3 years ago now, but it only feels like yesterday when I started researching.
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There was a recent article in the Illawarra Mercury¹ about a proposed development in the Thirroul area (not my design), that stirred a community uproar as they feared the effects of coastal erosion and impact the development could have on access and views from the neighbouring public reserve.
Examining this house provides a good opportunity to explain the role of designers in residential design, and the magnitude of policies and regulations that we need to be aware of and conform to for every house.