Building Energy Efficient Houses? 3 Facts You Need To Know

By Author: carina coronel
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Energy Efficient Houses

There are many advantages of building your own home, one of which is making sure that it is as energy efficient as possible. Here are three tips to think about when building energy efficient houses.

Talk to an Architect with Experience in Building Energy Efficient Houses

An experienced architect will prove to be greatly beneficial to your self build project. They can easily assist you in the decision making process to ensure that your house as energy effective as it can be. It is also a good idea to not only inform your architect of your energy efficiency plans, but your builders too, and it is even better if you can hire builders who already have experience in building energy efficient houses - the combination of the two will help your self build project become successful. Keep an eye out for how your tradespeople operate, as it has been known for many of them to do only what is required in order to meet the minimum regulation standards, and this is often not energy effective.

Try to Minimise Heat Loss

A simple and economical house plan is a good way to minimise heat ...
... loss within your home. A compact design, can help to reduce heat loss as there are less external walls, and there will be a smaller surface area of roof. A two or three storey house loses less heat than a one storey house, because as the heat within your house rises, it permeates through the different levels before eventually reaching the roof. This is another thing to keep in mind when designing energy efficient houses. Insulation is an important component in minimising heat loss within your house, and so it is important for your external walls to have a high level of insulation within them. Ensuring that you have suitable insulation at the building stage of your self build project, is an easy and money savvy way of improving how energy effective your homes is. This will keep your house considerably warmer in the winter and should save you money too! Your architect should also be able to use energy calculations in order to predict your expected fuel bills in your energy efficient home, which should prove to you just how beneficial trying to minimise heat loss is on the purse strings.

Choose a Heating System that will Heat Your Home Effectively

As the earlier tip concerning heat lost suggests, energy efficient houses are well insulated, and as such they require less heating than that of house, which is a similar size but is poorly insulated. There are several points to take into account when choosing the heating system that is right for you and your home. For instance, which fuel source would you prefer, and how available is it, have you chosen one that is practical? How much time are you planning to spend at home, is it a holiday home that you only visit twice a year, or is it the family home and is permanently occupied? Do you think that you would like a quick response or slow response system, and which is best suited to your requirements? These are some of the questions you should be trying to answer when it comes to finding a heating system that suits you. One choice when looking at heating that is energy efficient is Hydronic underfloor heating, which usually used along with radiators. Another energy efficient choice would be a condensing boiler; as it is comparatively better in terms of energy efficiency to conventional boilers.

Keep these three tips in mind when approaching your building project, and be sure to contact an architect who has had experience in building energy efficient houses to ensure that your project is successful.

Kenneth Martin is the owner of Block Architects, a reputable architecture firm which operates throughout the whole of Scotland and is based in Lanarkshire. Kenneth has accumulated over seven years of experience in self build home projects and is well-accustomed to creating energy efficient houses.