The first home to achieve a 10 Homestar Built rating in New Zealand has opened its doors in Christchurch and features a number of sustainable and eco-friendly products.

It includes

• A Dual Hydronic underfloor central heating system that is integrated into the fully insulated slab and also heats the domestic hot water with power provided by PV solar panels .
• European style PVC windows.
• Passive solar design is achieved with thicker floor and interior black floor tiles aid solar gain.
• Exterior cladding consists of blonded larch and black aluminium Ultraclad for ‘Solar Walls that prewarm fresh air supplied a ERV (energy recovery ventilation system.
• Innovative energy drains (with copper coil heat exchangers) pre-warm water supplied to the showers by extracting heat from the waste water before it reaches the grey water treatment systems.
• Treated grey water is added to the rain water tank and pumped back in for use in toilets and the washing machine and tub.

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The Axiom house in Kansas City, US, is a new venture from Acre Designs.

“We see no reason why architect-designed, highly efficient housing should not be attainable at a reasonable price point. To do that, we are treating this more like a car than a house. With cars, the design effort goes in at the front end, and at the purchase end, the customers do not get a custom product, but they get access to high-end finishes and their choice of features. We think we can leverage buying power by providing a set of well-designed packages.”

It includes Passive Geothermal (glycol ground loops). A grid of pipes buried in the ground deliver water at near 55°F to a heat exchanger built into the Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV) that is required in a house that is so tight. “So one gets all the benefits of an earth tube, preheating or precooling the air, without the problems and at a lot lower cost than a fancy ground source heat pump”

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“I often shake my head looking at the typical North American house, thinking that they have been consciously designed to maximize jogs, surface area, potential leak locations and of course, heat loss. That if it doesn’t look good, just add another gable. Every time you make one of these jogs and gables, it adds what are called thermal bridges. They are pretty much a fact of life; turning a corner means more wood studs and less insulation.”

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This US article compares “deep energy retrofits” with less expensive, more incremental approaches to saving energy.

Particularly when energy use behaviour is taken into account, it says the energy saved from smaller retrofits (such as weatherisation, efficient heat source, lighting, efficient water heater and low flow fixtures)  might equal or even exceed full energy retrofits.

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