Laba Residence - Dunedin Eco Home - Solar, wind etc

listed by biz

Comments on this house 

Feel free to post your questions or feedback here.

Re: Comments on this house 

Aluminium windows NOT AT ALL ECO and ugly.
Aluminium uses most energy for producing and it causes a lot of pollution. e.g. Bluff
Most likely not thermally broken??

Re: Comments on this house 

First, please read the article before commenting and note that all windows are thermally broken.

Second, If you have criticism it is helpful that you provide insight into alternatives that you feel are appropriate and better.

Window alternatives in NZ, Wood, good, but in the entire lifecycle not so reliable and require coating. PVC which is avaliable in other countries, great thermally, extremely bad for the environment and not easily recycled as aluminium is.

I dont feel there is a perfect solution for windows as yet.

Nice house, and interesting use of thermally broken concrete.

Re: Comments on this house 

I have read the article but it doesn't change my view on the windows.
All NZ made aluminium windows are more or less a thermal and environmental problem.
Even the thermally broken ones are extremly poor in detail (with many thermal bridges), not to mention the poor hardware.
From the environmental point of view timber and PVC are better than aluminium.
Aluminium uses incredible amounts of energy to produce and it is much harder to recycle than you think (especially anodized aluminium which also creates toxic waste)
PVCu is still better as it saves at lot of enegy in it's life cycle while aluminium windows act more or less as heat sinks all the time.
PVC can be recycled (if lead free)

Over all the timber is the best way for eco building
second the PVCu third aluminium.

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There is plenty of debate on the pro's and con's of thermally broken aluminum and PVC frames, I would happily use either over current industrial standard. I applaud the owners of this house for using a good quality glazing system as it will make a huge difference over inferior systems. In fact I am impressed with the quality of the whole thermal envelope.

Re: Comments on this house 

Jeff,

I agree with you if you import thermally broken aluminium windows.
NZ made thermally broken frames are not good enough yet.
The thermal envelope of this building is great by
local standards but it could be better if timber, PVCu frames or even thermally broken aluminium from Europe or North Amerika is used.

Re: Comments on this house 

Using LPG to heat the floor zones is hardly economic. The solar heating panel size will not do justice to a family > 2 persons, the 672W of pv isn't going to do much and you are paying a lot of money for what it achieves.
Sorry not impressed.

Re: Comments on this house 

The designers/builders of this project havn't done any time overseas to gain experience.
This way of building is fairly new here and the building reflects this.

Re: Comments on this house 

So what should this building have (or not have) that would reflect overseas methods?
Cam

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What about ventilation?
What about thermally efficient joinery. I know “nulook – Millennium Suite” is only partly thermally broken and not a runner for a passive house.
Concrete is not particular good to create a "healthy climate" inside.
Concrete in such amounts leaves a big carbon footprint.
A bit too much "thermal mass" to achive best efficiency
R5 is not that good for insulation.
Not sufficiant solar panels as mentioned above.

Overall not a bad start but they have done it overseas for a long time and there is a lot to learn from.
If I was building a passive/eco house I would
certainly stay away from a NZ trained architect
unless he has some years overseas experience.

Re: Comments on this house 

Interesting comments Anon. Do you know of an overseas example on the web that is worth looking at? Googling for such examples produces many results and it is difficult to sort the good from the not so good. Also this house is approaching half a million dollars in cost - thats a lot - beyond the average joe.
Cam

Re: Comments on this house 

Hi, sorry I'll be blunt here.
same problem these days: the words sustainable, eco and organic are being abused AGAIN. I did not even need to read the full article, I saw words like "aluminium, concrete slab, polyurethane, polystyrene, etc..."
It sure is an improvement from the average horrible houses out there and there is a definite willingness to go towards eco-house style but we can't classify that as eco, organic or sustainable...
Just like someone else said, NZ has some work to do to catch up with eco-building standards but I'm sure some people are working hard on it. The NZ building laws don't help for sure! Good luck to everyone!
Ron

Re: Comments on this house 

Hi Cam,

where do you want to start? the list is long!

first, I think the major problem is that the house is focused on economics and savings (which is fine!) and forgot about the ecologic side of things.
Building a new house is often the most polluting act in one's lifetime!


"the house has a 200mm concrete ground floor slab"

concrete with cement is not eco at all. cement uses toxic industrial and chemical waste. It's high content in lime makes it's a high energy consumer and CO2 emitter.


"The exterior walls are precast concrete panels (Thermomass) constructed with 150mm of concrete on the internal face, 50mm of high density polystyrene as insulation with a further 100mm of concrete to the external face."

same problem here with the concrete (concrete walls are a disgrace for "eco-housing"). Polystyrene may be the less worse of the chemical insulation, it's still chemical and polluting. It also degrades in the sense that it shrinks and doesn't keep its shape for that long (creates gaps eventually)

"All exterior aluminium joinery"

Aluminium joinery, thermally broken or not, is non breathable and will at some stage generate moisture (aluminium has a high thermic transfer property). Aluminium making is extremely energy hungry.

"Ceiling/roof space has polyester “poly+” insulation with an R3.2 value and “Air-Cell” (R2.7) between the roofing iron and roof support beams instead of the standard building paper."

well, I think I'd rather have the building paper (breathable one) than this nasty petro-chemical, non breathable film used in modern campervans.
Not eco at all.

"(LPG) boiler “Ariston - Ecosystem”"

LPG might be cheap and better than fuel, it's still a fossil fuel used for heating, not that great. Wood would be a better option for a truly environmentally friendly home.

ETC ETC ETC...

Ron

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LPG isnt cheap. Same running costs as electric emements nowdays. And elements use mostly hydro power.

Re: Comments on this house 

Hi Anonymous,
last time I looked at LPG it was still cheaper but it might have changed recently... I guess the point I was making is that you can't use LPG heating and call it environmental or sustainable. Yes, elements use mostly hydro power, however putting dams everywhere is not a solution. They are still running coal and gas power stations and big pylons generate magnetic pollution. Maintenance and cables are also a big cost and increases use of petro-chemicals and conductor metals are unsustainably harvested.
So it's not as simple as "And elements use mostly hydro power".

Reference: Copper
"Some countries, such as Chile and the United States, still have sizable reserves of the metal which are extracted through large open pit mines. However, like tin, there may be insufficient reserves to sustain current rates of consumption.[1] High demand relative to supply caused a price spike in the 2000s.[2]"

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Knockers and whiners out in force today.

Read the article and attachments. The house uses 50% energy of your average house - plus it is more comfortable.

The real problem is we have too many people consuming too much stuff.

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I agree with the above comments.
This house looks fantastic and I really like the way the thermal envelope has been designed. The inside of the house has a fab look and the use of concrete is beautifully done. Have checked the designers website and really like there approach. Well done

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Well RonEco, I see that you have rejected concrete as an unsound building material without checking its impressive 3.3 eco-rating, rejected aluminium as costing too much energy to produce but I bet you wouldn’t fly in an aircraft made of iron, rejected copper as we have too little natural reserves but you will want a solar panel made from it, don’t want an electricity grid, but will purchase a vehicle that can only be manufactured by industry using this grid as it is impossible to manufacture one using only solar/wind power – shall I go on?

Your best choice, is to live in a cave, cut your own wood, build a smoky fire emitting plenty of 1.5 and 10 micro cancer producing particulates and don’t preach to the rest of mankind who prefer to live in a little more comfort.

Your problem can be summarized as a guilt complex for being a polluting human being belching out more CO2 by walking to the corner shop than if you had driven your car.

Now it seems your belief is that man’s 0.8% controllable contribution of the trace gas CO2 is causing ‘global warming’ and this must be stopped by the futile exercise of eliminating anything that produces the stuff – you seem to forget about natures 180,000 billion tons per annum and the undersea volcanoes belching billions of additional tons, these don’t count?

I prefer to eliminate waste and control real pollution and thereby practice being a practical ecologist rather than a dreamer.

Incidentally, in the next 10.6 years when solar cycle 24 finally shows its expected downturn in Solar Irradiance and earth’s temperature naturally cycles back to another Maunder minimum ice age, I wish you well in your frozen cave while the Owners of this well designed home stay alive in a thermally efficient environment.

Rex
(We have truth – just know that we do not have all the truth)

Re: Comments on this house 

@sceptics

Your are not seriously suggesting that those ali windows are thermally efficient??
The Millenium suite is only partly thermally broken
and not up to 21st century standards of thermal efficiency.

Re: Comments on this house 

Hello anon,

My claim is that every building design is a balance of economics, site limitations, availability of materials, labour, and technical expertise, all linked to comfort and aesthetics.

The only dwelling that is truly natural and not a construction, is a cave and so no particular building material natural or processed should be removed from the mix with the naive claim that one is better than another.
Such a claim is stupid politics and not an answer to practical design.

Now for these windows, we should acknowledge that EVERY building material has advantages and disadvantages, and this Owner might claim that the downside of the high thermal conductivity of aluminium might be balanced by the upside of the tight sealed argon thermal break and low E film along with economic considerations.

Personally, I prefer timber joinery but am more than happy to use aluminium for certain design criteria such as a high rise commercial office block where timber would be a liability.

Rex
(We have truth – just know that we do not have all the truth)

Re: Comments on this house 

PVCu is the better choice than aluminium (at least in domestic application.) It is not just better insulating but also more cost efficient compared to a quality thermally broken ali system with similar
multipoint locking hardware.
If I was to use ali windows I would certainly import them.

Re: Comments on this house 

Finding a good supplier of PVCu is a problem, here in Wellington anyway, the one supplier in Wellington is hopeless at even getting out a quote for work. I have been waiting for 6 months for a quote on a conservatory after they did the initial measure up.

Can anyone suggest a reliable supplier of PVCu components ?

Re: Comments on this house 

NK Christchurch
Euro windows Thames

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Concrete is actually the most eco friendly solution as it out lasts every opther material. The Romans used it and it is still standing!

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Actually, concrete has very high embodied energy due to it's method of production and causes a large amount of CO2. It, like the majority of the science community you believe there is a high chance that man made CO2 could cause catastrophic global warming, then you would no consider concrete to be an environmentally friendly building product.