A House to Match My Prius

Typical suburban housing the only green element is the colour of the lawn

Re_housing the Kiwi Dream ?

Originally Published Bay Buzz issie No. 11 March 5. 2013 

Simply put, an ‘eco-house’ is an environmentally low-impact home designed and built using materials and technology that reduces its carbon footprint and lowers its energy needs, creating a legacy of environmental responsibility rather than disregard.

Sounds easy enough. Just head off to the Eco house yard and buy one. Delivered in a week saving you money on your power bill in three. Everyone should have one. Just sign on the dotted line of the recycled A4 contract.

Unfortunately the building industry is neither as clever or as sexy as the automobile industry. Henry Ford, grandfather of mass production, sent the model T down the assembly line, creating unforeseen manufacturing efficiencies, and inspiring architects of the time to imagine what if we could do the same with housing. Factory produced housing had been around for a while, the colonies were built from mail order, your Victorian villa included, but Ford’s thinking put the idea on steroids. The 20^th century is littered with well-intentioned factory produced housing schemes.

The car companies have continued to innovate. They realize to remain relevant they have to push the green envelope. Safer, faster and more economical taking advantage of all the latest in gadgetry, sensors and logic boards, shrinking carbon footprints and growing efficiency.

Meanwhile, in the housing market, technology remains very last century, treated 4 x 2 and a 24-ounce hammer … she’ll be right mate.

As a consumer I can easily procure a petrol-sipping miser, green lean and mean fresh off an optimized low-energy robotic production line from any of the big auto manufacturers. Meanwhile my house remains barely insulated, let alone with individually controlled and zoned environmental comfort like on offer in the car yards.

Our housing stock generally leaks energy like a sieve, creates masses of landfill through an antiquated construction process, causes more hospital admissions of children than monkey bars, and costs us an unaffordable portion of our incomes, as well as generally been aesthetically deficient.

Is there a ‘green’ housing option available for the average consumer looking to house their average-sized family on an average-sized income? What kind of driveway will my Prius look its most awesome in?

It all gets a bit confusing where the rubber hits the road or the mud hits the straw bale as the case maybe.

What, why and how can consumers get a grip on the options open to them if they want the same eco features as the auto industry can so easily provide?

- Eco players

A lot of research been done over the years, with various attempts to bring ideas and products to market. Unfortunately without a central clearing house of information there is no clarity for the market. So pick your advisor wisely and hope the research promoted is substantiated.

Here is a quick overview of the key players and promoters in NZ in no particular order.

Beacon Pathways

Beacon Pathways objective is to “transform New Zealand’s homes and neighbourhoods to be high performing, adaptable, resilient and affordable.” It grew out of a research consortium formed in 2004 to fulfill a six-year research contract with the Foundation for Research Science and Technology (FRST). Original shareholders were: New Zealand Steel, Waitakere City Council, Fletcher Building, BRANZ and Scion.

NZGBC

The New Zealand Green Building Council (NZGBC) is a not-for-profit organisation “dedicated to accelerating the development and adoption of market-based green building practices.”

The NZGBC was established in July 2005 and in 2006 became a member of the World Green Building Council (WGBC). The WGBC is an international not-for-profit organisation that aims to move the global property industry and built environment towards sustainability.

NZGBC promotes the idea of ratings tools to inform the consumer via a standardised measurement of energy efficiency for all building types, including residential houses, via their Home star product. Licensed “green” professionals assess and assign ratings; the organization generates its income via licensing fees.

BRANZ Incorporated Society


BRANZ is a significant investor in industry research and knowledge dissemination to the wider building and construction industry. It receives almost all its income from the Building Research Levy, and invests this to achieve benefits for the New Zealand community by “improving the knowledge base of the New Zealand building and construction sector.”

EECA

The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) encourages, supports, and promotes energy efficiency, energy conservation, and the use of renewable sources of energy in New Zealand

Department of Building and Housing DBH

Of course the government is involved via the DBH, whose influence is generated through the Building Act 2004 the national building code and standards. The latter stipulates that “each building shall achieve the performance criteria specified in the building code for the classified use of that building”. There are minimums required for insulation and weather tightness. There is a specific clause the objective of which is to facilitate the efficient use of energy.

Universities

The universities contribute via architecture schools with research initiatives on sustainable building, and sustainability and ‘green’ building practice are well-placed in the curriculum and an integrated part of a young architect’s education. It has been so at least since the 1970s. Victoria Universities success at the Solar Decathalon in Washington DC  last year a clear indication of a new generations potential.

The NZIA New Zealand Institute of Architects has a policy statement on sustainability and generally its members are aware of best practice via their university education or continuing education efforts.

Victoria university "First light" eco house world beating project.

Eco-building in Hawke’s Bay

With the building sector lcontributing 25 % of our landfill waste, and using 40- 50% of our energy what opportunities are there for innovation and lowering the energy and carbon footprint of homes in the Bay?

The Best home project – a Hastings District Council (HDC) initiative in partnership with Beacon Pathways and Hovarth Homes, a local volume-housing supplier – has recently brought a new product to market.

HDC tasked Horvath Homes to build a show home in Havelock North that would “exceed current building regulations to achieve a minimum six stars on the Homestar™ energy efficiency rating tool   for no more than 5% additional cost of a standard build.”

The Council seeks to leverage this partnership as ground breaking and innovative, creating new intellectual property and value for the local community. However, it is unclear whether the  approximately $220,000 invested thus far has actually created any knew knowledge.

Homestar already provides a rating tool why do we need another one? Doesn’t it just add confusion to an already messy market place?

Aren’t financial incentives via tax rebates, as well as a streamlined building consent process and clarity of strategy across the board the way to go? It works in other countries.

The show home incorporates the basics of sustainable building practice such as passive solar design, water recycling and onsite power generation.

The key elements of passive design are:

• Building orientation to sun;
• Insulation over and above the building code minimum;
• Double-glazing as minimum;
• Allowance of natural heating and cooling via controlled seasonal access to direct solar radiation;
• Provision of thermal mass. (Thermal Mass is is the capacity of a material to store heat energy)
• Have glazing correctly placed and sized to aid with passive heating and cooling and natural ventilation;
• Include appropriate shading provided by overhangs and screens;

The house is standard fare to look at – 187 sqm, 2 bathrooms, 2-car garaging, 4 bedrooms. Its $500,000 price tag takes it out of the league of the majority of the district’s population – affordable by Auckland standards, but still on the wrong side of the equation relative to local incomes.

Is a house of this size, 185m2 and type, suburban standalone on generous section, sustainable in the first place?

The trend in NZ, Australia and US over the last 25 years has been towards a general obesity of home size. A super sizing not dissimilar to the fast food products made famous in the documentary of the same name. Do we need to be building large or do we need to put our homes on a diet to achieve the first principle in sustainability – economy. We need to be thinking smart, not necessarily big.

The innovation the Besthome project provides is then not in product but in process – when it comes to gaining a building consent, the ‘green tape’  route proposed rather than red tape is a welcome relief for anyone requiring a building consent .

The Hovarth model is been further tested in partnership with the council on the site of the former HDC Nursery on Fitzroy Street in Hastings which is being touted as a model medium density development. It will be interesting to see what a higher density model will mean for the Best home.

It seems the new green is really the old green with some marketing speak around it but not a lot of design. Perhaps the development of green building should be left to the experts and the market to sort out. Best practice examples and data are a mouse click away, no point reinventing the wheel.

Best practice for an Eco house in Hawke’s Bay

• Each project is site dependent;
• Be design lead so key sustainable principles can be incorporated at the front end.
• Be aligned with principles of passive solar design outlined above.
• Provide rainwater harvesting and storage capacity;
• Use a grey water recycling system;
• Generate power via photovoltaic or wind, with ability to feed back to grid;
• Heat hot water via solar roof top installation
• Be built to an efficient module that doesn’t create excessive waste;
• Be flexible in use to accommodate variable patterns of occupation over time;
• Use local sustainably-forested timber;
• Have the capacity to collect and monitor environmental and energy use data; 
• Use 21^st century technology where it can, including off-site fabrication technology.
• Be of a size and form related to comfort, efficiency and economics. 

From the various eco strategies available the simplest and most cost effective measures  are the ones that align with a ‘passive solar” strategy as outlined above. There is no additional cost to orientating a building to the sun very little cost in additional insulation. It is eco through design and careful consideration at the front end. It is the hard engineering technology where additional cost lies. If the project is designed correctly in the first place then eco technology can be aligned to a customized upgrade program as capital becomes available.

The ratio of capital cost to payback in energy savings and carbon reduction is where the feasibility lies. Obviously the paybacks get greater as energy costs increase and the initial capital costs required decline..

The good news is a global push towards future proofing against energy cost spikes in a post peak oil world is driving research and consumer demand for greener buildings as well as cars. The  trickle down has already started.

Photovoltaics have experienced massive efficiencies in generation capacity as well as cost cutting as a result of manufacturing efficiencies and technology. Payback times are decreasing rapidly. The future in this sense is the capacity of every house to be a micro generator feeding the grid. For the bay a golden opportunity. Subsidies via tax rebates and low interest loans have been useful ways to stimulate the market elsewhere and could be replicated here.

Kiwibank have made moves in this direction by offering Sustainable Energy Loans  as a top up to Home Loans where they will contribute $4000 dollars over 4 years towards cost of a system. Home insulation Funding has been available through EECA up to $1300 for some time and has been widely used.

Straw bales and mud bricks?

Eco-building has been talked about at least since the 60’s when the hippies brought ideas into popular cultures with long beards and diy muddy fingers. Current developments are an outgrowth of that culture of growing environmental awareness. The market perception is still mindful that eco equals hippy dippy but its not actually like that. There are some great examples of the more traditional methods of eco building like strawbales and mudbricks for custom and individual projects but the opportunity we need to consider is the wider housing market and the greening of our housing stock and building industry more generally.

Technology continues to accelerate our understanding of the possibilities, in terms of energy conservation, manufacturing and globalization, but we have yet to download the full value of that knowledge into our home building culture. As the traditional suburban standalone house becomes less a sustainable dream, building our housing on smaller more affordable lots, closer to community infrastructure, transportation and places of business, is the trend we need to be most conscious of … a trend that can create inherently more sustainable housing infrastructure in our cities without installing one mud brick or solar panel. To be successful it needs to be design lead.

Outside of the economic benefits gained by individual home owners the benefit of stimulating the “green economy” which is widely considered to be the next tech induced economic boom is where NZ inc and Hawkes Bay needs to be investing, one roof top at a time. There is a massive market out there looking for innovation no reason why the Bay couldn’t have a piece of that pie.