The Green Building Show 2012: Sophie Barrett

[greenbuild]

Light Home Magazine: Green Building Show Episode 8
In the show this week, Carlos Martinez speaks with Sophie Barrett, a building designer who describes the process she followed to created a lightweight home that’s achieved a 9.5 star rating, for under $250,000.

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See the transcript here:

SOPHIE: Thank you for inviting me.

CARLOS: Pleasure. So you’ve, basically, you’ve just finished the design of a 9.5 star sustainable home?

SOPHIE: Yes. It’s a project based in Cairns, it’s a sustainable home, 9 and a half star, it’s got all the features, sustainable features, for $250,000 budget. So we’re really excited about bringing this kind of home to the affordable market.

CARLOS: Fantastic. And, I guess to help us answer this question we’ve had from Benjamin: How would you go about creating a sustainable home?

SOPHIE: It depends on where you’re located, but there’s some basic principles of passive design, getting the right orientation for the site, getting the right overhangs. If you’re in Queensland, for example, you would want big overhands. For the south and Victoria, you might wanna get some heat into the home to emit through the night. So it’s working with your local climate and conditions and getting that passive design right first is the most important thing.

CARLOS: Ok, so do you think there’s a growing demand for energy efficient and sustainable homes in the Queensland market?

Definitely. I think a lot of the homes that you see in Cannes are actually designed for the Melvin or Sydney markets. They’re all standard project homes. So coming up with a home that’s specific to the Queensland climate and having that lightweight construction and the good overhands and things like that, it’s really important to design for the actual environment that you’re in and make sure that the home is well designed. That sort of is the biggest part I think.

CARLOS: Ok. And how much does it differ in terms of getting the most out of the energy efficient aspects of your home state to state and climate to climate?

SOPHIE: There is quite a bit of variation. I mean, you’ve got to look at each site individually and the orientation. In Queensland particularly, and especially in Cannes, we’re not really concerned at all with keeping the home warm, we’re trying to keep it cool. So we’re really looking at keeping that heat out and that’s things like overhangs, window tinting, cross ventilation and venting the rooms and things like that. But the further south you get, the more you’re actually looking at keeping the heat in during certain times and keeping it cool at certain times. So there’s different things that they have to look at with their orientation and so forth.

CARLOS: Ok, fantastic. I guess, for someone who’s in the design stage of creating a new home and they want it to be as energy efficient as possible, what would be their first consideration in your opinion?

SOPHIE: Well, firstly, we’d be looking at doing that site analysis. So looking at the best orientation of that home for the block. So making sure… in most areas in Australia north facing is the best. So… and that’s where all your living zones go. In the south you can put the services in bedrooms, so that’s pretty much Australia wide as a principle. So when you’re buying the block in the first place, buying a block that’s got good access living area to the north, if you can. And if not, just working with what you have. So the orientation is about 90% of it.

CARLOS: So if you’ve just completed your energy efficient 9.5 star home, what’s been the market reaction?

SOPHIE: Well, we’ve actually… it’s being done as a collaboration of the Tropical Green Building Network. So it’s got the support of the council of JCU doing some testing there. It’s had a lot of publicity locally, so everyone’s really excited that this kind of home is now available on the market and it’s actually affordable. So this is the first time that something like this has actually been available for that kind of price range. So we’re really excited and people have been responding saying, “We’ve been waiting for something like this to come out.” So it’s been really positive.

CARLOS: Fantastic. And do you think there’s education leaving the market for people to really understand the benefits of an energy efficient home?

SOPHIE: Definitely, but I think in the mainstream market most people can see the benefits of having a home that, firstly, that’s comfortable to live in and also that’s affordable to run. So those kind of selling points, I think, everyone is actually really keen to have those. But the actual features, I think, people are learning a lot more about that kind of thing and there is a lot of information out there. But the home is actually an education tool so people can go in and actually have a look at those things in practice and see how they can bring them into their own homes.

CARLOS: Benjamin’s goal is to achieve a ten star rating home. Your home you just completed was 9.5 star. Can you tell me the difference between a 9.5 and 10 star rating home?

SOPHIE: Well, every extra star you get costs a bit more. It doesn’t cost a lot to go from say a 6 star to an 8 star, we did one recently that cost only $1,000 to upgrade from a 6 to 8 star and that was things like light colours, window tinting, vented roof space, and larger fans. But once you get up to the 9 and a half to 10, there is a bit more cost associated there. And that’s… a lot of that’s about zoning areas, but it can be just getting the right orientation, the right colours, and you have to look at each one individually. But there’s definitely ways to achieve that 10 star depending on your location.

CARLOS: And I suppose when you’re talking additional costs to increase the energy efficiency of your home, what kind of payback period are people looking at?

SOPHIE: At that $250,000 budget, it does pay itself back very quickly, and we’re finding that that kind of budget. If you actually spend $250,000 on a home and you’ve got no ongoing running costs, well then you might be paying an extra, say, 30 or 40,000 for that home compared to a standard home. But that actually pays itself back probably over 10 years or so.

CARLOS: So tell us, how did this project come about?

SOPHIE: Well, we have a network called the Tropical Green Building Network in Cannes and that’s a network of builders, designers, and product supplies and community groups and we all get together and we look at what’s missing in the market and we discovered that there was a need for a sustainable home in the market that was actually affordable. So everyone kind of got together and donated certain parts of the home. Kenick Constructions built the home and I designed the home and we had people providing solar panels and so forth. So it was a real collaboration of the community group and everyone felt real ownership of the project.

CARLOS: Is the skill set different to an average building?

SOPHIE: I think they could all do it. Some of them aren’t really interested in doing it, but, yeah. I mean, I guess it’s more that they’re sort of… they’ve seen the benefit of it. But it’s not that it’s built any differently. It’s still standard construction. The other thing about this home is that it’s actually a safe… it’s been designed for work, health, and safety and also access for aging populations as well.

CARLOS: Oh, ok.

SOPHIE: So as well as having a home that’s sustainable, not only sort of environmentally but also as all the paints and everything have been selected to make it safe as a workplace for workers building on the site. And all the widths of the hallways and the level changes have been designed for future access, so it’s sort of a lifestyle.

CARLOS: And who’s this home aimed at? What part of the market?

SOPHIE: It’s aimed to basically take people through all different stages of the market. That’s why it’s got these wider hallways so if you’re older and you end up in a wheelchair or something, you can actually adapt the home. So it’s a very adaptable home for all stages of your life.

CARLOS: Sophie, what are the core features that make this home so energy efficient?

SOPHIE: Well, firstly, you’ve got the passive design, as I mentioned before. That’s the most important thing, getting the right orientation, the cross ventilation, open planning, good overhangs. And then you’ve got light coloured walls and roof and then lightweight materials in the walls and well insulated wall and roof. You’ve got a passive ventilated roof with vented eaves and it’s actually got a solar roof vent. And then there’s also solar power, solar water, and then all your water saving features such as rainwater tanks, water saving devices. There’s a new product called The Collector on the showers that actually keeps the water that you run at the start as the water is heating up and then returns it to the system so you’re not wasting that water at the start. And there’s a special sink where you wash your hands above the cistern and that water runs into the toilet and use that to flush. So it’s lots of water saving features as well, so… and also, native gardens and composting and so forth.

CARLOS: Very cool. And what about cross ventilation?

SOPHIE: Yes, there’s breezeways throughout the home and triple sliding doors. So everything opens right up and it’s real indoor-outdoor connection.

CARLOS: Energy efficient lighting?

SOPHIE: Yeah, it’s LED lighting throughout so 100% LED lighting which is really low energy use and that adds to the benefits and the energy savings I mentioned before.

CARLOS: Sophie Barrett, thank you so much for your time today.

SOPHIE: Thanks for having me.




COMMENTS POSTED:

This is very misleading to say the home is 9.5 star. It would only be 7.5 star in NSW or Vic as attitional stars are achieved in QLD for ceiling fans and PV systems.
Dave Young 06-Nov-2012 08:27 AM

HI,
Thanks for your comment.

This is not the case. In QLD the PV System and Ceiling fan/outdoor area are concessions available to achieve an extra 1-1.5 stars only if you are 4.5 to 5 stars to achieve the 6 star minimum. They cannot be added on if the house is over 6 stars. The home was 9.5 stars, if the PV and outdoor are with fan were added on it would have been 11/10 (but of course you cant do this).

Sophie Barrett
Green at Heart
http://www.greenatheart.com.au
Sophie 10-Jan-2013 04:11 PM