Australian Passive Solar Home

Despite having been a professional writer on technical topics for about 40 years, my degree major is actually in sociology…. so I have been interested in society and how it works for a long time.

One societal thing that intrigues me is the increasing disconnect between those who own homes in Australia, and those – usually young people – who would like to own a home but realise that it is now likely to be impossible in their lifetimes. (It’s no surprise that overwhelmingly, young people in Australia no longer believe that they will have a better life than their parents.)

One way that disconnect can be seen is in the advice that green building companies, consultants and architects give prospective home builders. What do they say? Well, fit much better quality windows, wrap the house for high airtightness, fit better insulation and improve the ventilation (e.g. by a mechanical system) – that was one list I saw a few days ago. In the abstract, sure – they’re all fine.

But in the market reality of the cost of building a house in Australia, they’re pie in the sky stuff. (That is, unless you’re rich or saving a lot by owner building – the latter I highly recommend.)

These building advisors – often middle aged home owners, I think – need to take a long hard look at themselves. If you’re making recommendations that will even further increase home building cost, often by a considerable amount (just add up the above list!), you’re entrenching societal inequality of outcome. The rich will get better homes; the rest of us will have no advice we can act upon.

So what advice could have been given? I can think of at least five major points that will result in an energy efficient home and are cost-neutral (or so close to being cost neutral that even the tiniest trade-off elsewhere will pay for them).

(1) Orientation (2) thermal mass (3) shade (4) interior thermal zoning (5) privately funded professional inspections during the build.

Energy-efficiency building advisors and consultants? They should forget the shopping list suitable only for the rich… and instead get real with the advice.