Category: Sustainability
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102: The Technical Side of Building Green
Matthew Vande and partner Amy Musser created VandeMussser Design to help with ‘the technical side of building green’. They found a great problem when they moved to North Carolina – builders who wanted to do right thing, but didn’t know what the right thing was. Matt, Amy and their team now help builders and their…
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101: Vernacular Construction
Episode Foundations (the bottom line at the top) Invest up front in a good designer and you’ll save during construction. Vernacular construction is about designing and building appropriately for the local conditions. For a sustainable home, focus on insulation and ventilation.
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Prefab, Passive House and Passion
As a founding member of PassivHaus Maine, I should have guessed that Chris Corson would be pretty passionate about why and how we should build better homes. A quick look at EcoCor’s website suggests they are a good place to start for achieving a practical solution to a sustainable home. I caught up with Chris to talk…
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Sustainable Building with Logs
Three years ago, John Donovan built a demonstration log house on his property in Waitakere, Auckland. 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… Te Huia Log Homes…
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Homestar Mandatory Minimums
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? What are @HomestarNZ mandatory minimums…
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Where do you start a sustainable house?
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? Start with ‘Why?’ In episode 91, Glenn Murdoch spoke about…
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Designing Environmentally Functional Homes
Duncan Firth feels ‘compelled’ to do what he does – designing environmentally functional homes. He’s very conscious of humans taking more than giving from our environment and he sees the potential for architecture to be a positive influence in correcting this balance. Responding to the Environment Many architects (and people writing about houses) talk about buildings…
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How Much Does Homestar Cost?
I read an article in Stuff yesterday that got my heart rate up. I strongly believe that tools like Homestar are needed to help make houses better. And I’m anxious to correct some misconceptions and to address the question of ‘how much does Homestar cost?’ What is Homestar? Homestar is New Zealand’s comprehensive environmental rating tool…
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Q & A
Something a little different this week. I’ve had some excellent questions sitting in my inbox for a while and I thought that many could benefit from them. Here’s just a sample. Got similar questions? Please get in touch and if I can’t help, we’ll put the word out to find someone who can. Got a…