Australian Passive Solar Home

Over the last few years, as I have been building our house and writing the book, I have been struck time and time again by something I find really hard to put my finger on. But maybe I now have a clue.

The issue is this.

When I first became interested in passive solar design, about 50 years ago, some brilliant books on the subject were being published. All came out of the US, and all were full of intriguing house designs that were unlike anything I’d ever seen. There were houses with ‘water walls’ (walls of recycled 44-gallon drums located behind tall glass windows), Trombe walls (masonry walls behind glass), movable shading devices (including pumping polystyrene balls into the space between two glass sheets, insulating the window at night) – and so on.

People thought nothing of using gravel in an insulated tank beneath the house to store solar heat; and greenhouses that abutted the northern walls (southern for us in Australia) were common. Self-built flat-plate solar water heaters were widely used, and natural and recycled materials dominated house construction.

Most of the houses were owner built, and while at times there was technical input from experts, the experts themselves were often learning about as fast as the home owner/builder!

Not everything was perfect. Some ideas were misplaced, and no doubt some of the houses performed poorly – and that was a risk owners were prepared to embrace. But many houses performed very well.

It was a grassroots movement – ordinary people believing that housing should work with the sun, not despite it. Ordinary people getting their hands dirty, building homes to live in.

Today, much energy efficient housing is dominated by a completely different approach. More than anything else, I think it is driven by avarice. Experts in energy efficient housing are everywhere, and most seem to sing from the same expensive song sheet.

These are the expensive, imported windows you must have. These are the expensive, imported exterior doors you need. Here is the special sealing membrane you must have – oh no, you cannot use the ordinary stuff. These are the super high insulating walls you need – and have you seen this special new material you’d best buy? Oh yes, of course you need this heat recovery mechanical ventilator.

In Australia we have associations (aka lobby groups) sponsored by companies importing these expensive products – products that are then promoted by those same associations in their energy efficiency training courses!

To build an energy efficient home, apparently specialists are needed – specialist companies, specialist advisors, specialist architects. Ordinary people had best leave all this to the experts who do it for a living.

Energy efficient housing has become an expensive, directed, top-down endeavour. A billion dollar industry where the focus on, especially, achievable building cost has been completely lost.

Energy efficient housing is now being sold as the province of the rich. Simply go to the website of any company promoting energy efficient housing in Australia to see the multi-million dollar homes. You will never see any depictions of houses the average Australian can afford… and never, ever anything that might be described as grassroots endeavour.

In some aspects, energy efficient housing has changed for the better e.g. in the use of house modelling software. But in a lot of other ways, things have gone downhill a long way. From grassroots efforts affordable by anyone… to being promoted as luxury goods.