Well we had our Ecomaster assessment two days after moving into the new House of B and the results have been interesting. On moving in, one of the first things we noticed is that new house is surprisingly cool on very hot days. It’s a good 12 degrees cooler on the inside (which I very much appreciated when it hit 39 degrees one day after moving in). We assumed (incorrectly) that this must mean the house did have some form of insulation.
But the Ecomaster assessment has shown us that the house has neither roof nor underfloor insulation. It also has no wall insulation, so it will be a nightmare during winter, and we will have to get cracking on fixing some of the problems. We’ve had a few cool nights here so far and it’s absolutely freezing!! Drawback also is the ducted heating doesn’t come on/work until its about 9 degrees in the house….brrrr….I have become very friendly with our warm snugly blankets we keep on our lounges just for that purpose.
It’s also quite a draughty house (though not to feel). Due to our window frames, the windows have an R0 rating (cant get much worse than that LOL). We also have a few draughty exhaust fans in bathroom and kitchen that let in heaps of heat and cold.
Finally, our fabulous skylights let in too much heat (and will obviously let in the cold during winter). These are the first things we are going to fix. Using Rennshade should make a big difference but we will hopefully only lose approx 20% of the light. I love the fact that I don’t have to turn on any lights here until about 9pm.
All in all it was great to get such a detailed assessment on moving into a new house. It has let us think about which areas we want to tackle first and those that will have the greatest impact on making the house sustainable.
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