When drawing up your modern house plans it is now vital to consider energy efficiency. This is imperative not only to comply with more and more regulations, but also, and very importantly, this can save you lots of money! Just think about your annual fuel bills for heating your house – they come to what? $1200 annually? Perhaps more? Well, if you make your house more energy efficient, you can save 20% on your fuel bills (which is very achievable), and for our example above you would save yourself $240 each and every year. That is effectively saying you don’t have to pay a penny for your fuel every fifth year!
So it clearly makes sense to design your new house with energy efficiency in mind, not only for economic reasons, but also when thinking of the impact our use of energy may have on the world for our children.
So, how do you create your new home to be energy efficient? It really isn’t that hard.
First of all, get some great plans for your house. There are a number of excellent, value for money plans which I’ve found online - these a brilliant place to start (see links to these below). Have a look at the plans, choose one which is closest to what you want, and you are on your way!
Once you have your plans, it is time to consider energy efficiency. So, the technical part: it really is simple. There are 2 main factors to consider:
1. Heat loss and insulation.
2. Lighting.
If you can cut heat loss through good insulation and increase natural lighting you are well on your way to saving 20 to 50% of your fuel bills, each year!
Heat Retention
- Insulate your roof effectively (I’d recommend about 6 inches of insulation as an absolute minimum. The more, the better, generally!)
- Insulate your walls. – brick and cavity walls can easily be insulated, and this is so cheap if you incorporate it in your house plan.
- Minimise your use of single glazed windows. Windows are brilliant, but make sure that where you have windows, these are double or triple glazed. Argon filled windows don’t transfer so much heat, so are an excellent choice when building your new home. Put these in on your modern house plan, and they will save you so much money later on.
Maximise natural lighting
- Lighting affects our mental state; our moods, effectiveness and even our health. It is vital that your new home makes the best use of natural light.
- There are so many new ways to capture natural light. Obviously windows, but what about a glass roof, light well or roof lights?
- For those dark hallways, there are some brilliant tubelights which collect light on the roof and, with a tubular mirror, reflect 98% of it down into the house. These are excellent ways to accent light or add daylight to internal en-suite bathrooms, hallways or cupboards. Fitting these lights after your build can be expensive, but if you plan them in from the start, your overall build cost will hardly notice. (And you’ll save oodles on electricity over the years.)
So, in summary, approach this sensibly!
- get your plans (here are a few good sites to look through)
- think how you can adapt them to
- achieve better heat retention
- increase natural lighting
- Use the money you have saved by being energy efficient to really bless someone you love! (Think flowers, new clothes, a special meal out once a month…. use your imagination!)
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