Home Style Green

So, you've decided you'd like a really good home. One that's comfortable, healthy and energy efficient. That's great, but unfortunately it's not (yet) standard practice. Hopefully you can find a good designer to help (try this list if you like). But you'll also need some good, non-standard products. This week I spoke with Ken Levenson about how 475 can help you achieve a high performance home.

Three years ago, John Donovan built a demonstration log house on his property in Waitakere. The images in a recent newspaper article caught my attention, as did the mention of 'eco' and 'efficient'. So I tracked John down to get his thoughts on sustainable building with logs. And we talked about pyramids...

Phase change materials and how to add thermal mass to light weight buildings.

After learning to build cob houses, Chris Brookman now supplies some very cool, modern clay and timber material products to building industry.

The Homestar Mandatory minimums are a series of benchmarks that have to be achieved in order to progress up the Homestar scale. They're important because if they are are not achieved, your score will be held back. So what are the Homestar mandatory minimums, and how can you achieve them?

There are eco labelled paints, and then there are eco paints. What's the difference?

So, you know you want a sustainable (healthy, efficient, affordable and desirable) home, but where do you start? I've covered the fundamentals of what makes a good energy efficient home, but these are details. What's the big picture? Where do you start a sustainable house?

http://homestylegreen.com/93

Group or volume builders get a bad rap sometimes for perpetuating bad building practise. But it is possible to get a good home from a group builder. This week I talk with someone who's doing just that and her explains how.

Glenn Murdoch was a regular house designer until he watched Simon Sinek's TED talk. Then Glenn asked 'why'? In this week's show we talk Passive House and how to architecture can create a better society.

Duncan Firth feels 'compelled' to do what he does - designing environmentally functional homes. How can architecture truly respond to the environment?

Homestar is New Zealand's comprehensive environmental rating tool for homes. It's Green Star for the residential sector and is not some crazy Kiwi start up idea. It's very closely related to successful international precedents such as LEED and Code for Sustainable Homes. But how much does it add to the cost of building a home?

There are some inaccuracies out there that I think need addressing.