Working towards refitting a house so that in the long term energy usage will be reduced is not always a cheap task. However, by prioritsing things to do based on the cost of the refit, return on the cost and budget available you can make a significant difference. Our brick veneer is very much a work in progress and each thing is being addressed as budget allows. And the vast majority of the work has been done ourselves, from scratch. Some of the things done to date include the following, and there are many other small things:
Double Glazing
Almost all of the windows in the house have been double glazed by ourselves (27 completed, 6 to do). Having wooden frames means that it is as simple as inserting a new glass pane into the window frame at the correct distance yourself. Doing it this way, means that can reglaze at least 6 times as many windows for the same price of a commercially available unit.
Pelmets and Curtains
Pelmets over the curtains makes a significant difference to the amount of heat gained or lost from a room. They are simply and inexpensive to construct and are one of the first items that should be addressed for this reason. Some windows require roller blinds, and these have been sealed to dramatically reduce the amount of cool / warm air that can sink/rise along the window pane, reducing the heat transfer from/to outside.
Solar Electricity Panels
One of the first things we had installed was a 1kW solar electricity system on top of the shed. This has dramatically reduced our electricity bill.
Solar Heating Panel
There are a number of commercially available units that have a panel on the roof that moves heated air into the house when there is sun. We have built our own panel around 1/3 to 1/4 of the price of a commercial unit. The panel can generate 1.1kW of heat at full sun, midday on the shortest day of the year in Winter. The heated air is ducted throughout the house as required and uses a thermostat that we built ourselves as well. These panels are very simple to construct, and when we built more of these, they will by at a lower cost from the experience gained in building this panel.
Great thing about these as well, is that they can be used to assist with cooling in Summer, moving cool air at night into the house. The thermostat built will also handle this situation too.
Sun Room
Front porch area of the house was converted into a sun room using PVC blinds. The heated air from this room can also be actively moved into the main bedroom using a ventilation fan.
Draft Proofing
Probably the thing that was done with the most bang for our buck. The house was very drafty, and with the use of some sealents and draft proofing products, the house now retains significantly more heat / cool.
Shade Cloth
North side of the house with a concrete driveway is fully exposed to the Summer sun. Two shade sails have been installed for the Summer period to keep things significantly cooler, and are removed in Winter.
Insulation
After moving in, we got the cellulose insulation that was rather poorly insulating the house vacuumed out and replaced with R4 polyester batts. Unfortunately, the company that did the insulation failed to fill all the way to the exterior walls, so there is around 40cm of the ceiling all around the exterior of the house that is just plaster.
One sneaky thing about this house design that I noticed recently is the space between the top of the window frames and the ceiling is exposed to the roof space above the eaves. This is next on the list of things to rectify, as currently the wall area that is exposed in this manner (plus insulation issue mentioned in last paragraph) is probably reducing our ceiling insulation to R2 or may be even lower.
Garden
Front garden has been filled by natives and well mulched to reduce amount of water required for maintenence. It is planned that the grey water from the bathroom will be used in the Summer for watering.
Other garden areas has been turned into vegetable gardens or fruit trees planted. To date there are 10 fruit bearing trees around the house block, with them taking up very little space as they are growing espalier along the fence lines. The trees include, apples, pears, lemon, apricot, plum, kiwi berry, cherry, and mulberry. Also two vegetable garden areas are used, predominately in Summer/Autumn for growing food, with excess freezed or preserved.
(September 2011) (
