6500+ visitors, 23 workshops and 4 days later – its hard to believe that the State of Design Festival is behind us!
Thank you to everyone who stopped by and said hello – we loved that you felt just as passionately as we did about environmentally sustainable Design + Build!
In this post:
- We announce the winner of our Door Prize, and
- Compile the top 5 questions you asked us during the festival!
State of Design 2010: Door Prize winner + your Top 5 Questions answered
1. The winner of our Door Prize is…
First things first – the winner of our Door Prize of two barista standard, environmentally sustainable Keep Cups is…
Ms Judith Bennett of Enterprise Connect!
Congratulations Judith – now you can drink twice as much coffee *and* do the environment a favour!
2. The top 5 questions you asked us
We fielded so many questions over the 4 days of the festival and thought we would compile the Top 5 Questions as asked by you – our visitors:
#5: How can we make an existing house more energy efficient without spending a lot of money?
Every little gap causes unwanted heat losses and heat gains so:
- Close off wall and ceiling vents
- Replace existing exhaust fans with self-closing ones
- Weather-stripe existing windows and doors
- Don’t use standard down lights in the ceiling as they leave gaps/holes in the insulation
- Introduce air-locks for main entry doors
#4: How should we insulate/retrofit an existing house?
- Insulate the sub floor using waterproof rigid insulation and ensure there are no gaps around the insulation – for example, use expandable foam.
- Update roof/ceiling insulation using both reflective and bulk insulation, the higher the R-value the better. Aim for a combined R-value for the roof and the ceiling insulation of R.5.0
- Insulating the walls is a bit more tricky. Taking off the plasterboard to install bulk insulation might be the most obvious thing to do but if this proves too tricky, you can also bore holes in between studs and pump in cellulose fibre (if you do this ensure that the walls are closed at the bottom and that the insulation can’t fall through).
- Another way to improve the performance of an existing brick veneer or double brick home can be to add insulation to the outside of the wall and apply a render finish.
#3: How can we add external mass to an existing building/extension?
- Particularly for brick veneer and weatherboard extensions and renovations that have timber sub floor construction, it’s advisable to add as much thermal mass as possible. Thermal Mass could take the form of a concrete slab, reverse brick veneer walls or a brick cavity construction (the thermal mass needs to be separated from the external brick via insulation).
- Other ways to add thermal mass are to introduce internal brick, or mud brick walls and or dark coloured stone tiles, preferably positioned so that the winter sun can penetrate them.
- Another little trick might be to use concrete bench tops for kitchens and bathrooms.
#2: What’s the best/most efficient/sustainable way to heat an existing or a new home?
- Generally speaking, radiant heat is always more pleasant and comfortable than convective heat.
- Hydronic heaters are radiant heaters that use water or other liquids and need less energy than typical ducted heating systems or split systems.
- Hydronic heating is available in the form of underfloor heating for slab construction and can also be retrofitted into existing timber floors.
- Hydronic wall panel heaters are another efficient way of adding radiant heat to a building.
#1: Whats the best way to make a new building more energy efficient and sustainable without spending a lot of money?
- The easiest and cheapest way is to reduce the footprint.
- A smaller footprint means less materials, less wastage, less off-cuts, less surface area for potential unwanted heat gain or loss, less volume that needs to be heated up or cooled and ultimately less construction cost.
- Avoid corridors and hallways, create multi-functional/flexible rooms, use folding doors, screens and walls to separate or combine rooms if needed.
- Zone habitable rooms together to create heating/cooling efficiencies and create an air-lock at the entry of the house.
Leave a comment!
Do you have:
- Additional answers to the Top 5 questions?
- Thoughts/comments/links from the State of Design Festival 2010?
- Experiences from your Workshop you’d like to share?
- Further questions about sustainable Design + Build?
Please ‘Leave a comment‘ in the box provided below – we’d love to hear from you!
CONSIDERING SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE?Have your sustainability questions answered!
Engage our sustainable Design + Build services today.
Subscribe via RSS
Follow us on Twitter