May, 2008
In a recent online poll of 100 people, 10 of them said they would be prepared to pay up to 25% more for a ‘green’ home. But what should buyers of green or eco-friendly homes be looking for?
Green homes minimise their impact on the environment in their location, design, materials, construction and use. They should be beautiful, healthy places to live in, which are long lasting, cheap to run and easy to maintain. Moving home takes energy, disrupts communities and makes it difficult to establish environmentally friendly landscapes and gardens, so ideally you will be looking for somewhere to nest for the foreseeable future.
Eco-luxury is more than skin deep. Oceanic scale spa baths, jet-washing power showers, lawns like Mount Eden Park, television screens which should come with their own usherette, triple garages, lofty entrance halls and chandeliers will pretty soon seem as dated as the episodes of Dynasty which made us want them in the first place. As an eco-house buyer you will be looking past the gadgets, gizmos and status symbols for the true luxury of a well designed home that works beautifully and efficiently.
The assessment starts on the drive in. These days it’s not so impressive for your home to dominate the surroundings like a medieval monarch. You are looking for a home that’s carefully sited to take into account the wind direction, sheltered areas and water flows. This will make living in and around it as pleasant as possible. Also, environmentally speaking, there’s no point buying a super-efficient eco-retreat on the side of a mountain if you have to drive your gas guzzler for two hours to get to work or buy groceries. So check out the local facilities when popping in and out of the estate agents.
What about the neighbours? New Zealand is still blessed with more green open spaces than most westernised nations. But this won’t last if everybody wants a quarter-acre or more with a detached home in the middle of it. Shared walls reduce the energy needed to heat your new home. Shared gardens, preferably vegetable growing, save resources and help generate a positive community atmosphere. Failing that, are the people over the fence of a similar mind, or will they blight your organic veggie patch with sprays on the boundary, overshadow your orchard with pines and complain about the chickens?
Is this investment insulated? Cold, damp, leaky homes are not good for the environment, outside or inside. Although some green homes are designed to ‘breathe’, this should not be through leaky roofs, doors or windows. Hot water tanks and pipes should also be properly insulated to avoid wasting energy. Bring your torch and check.
Be a sun seeker. Look out for north facing windows which capture the days’ free energy. Combined with exposed dark coloured concrete, rammed earth or adobe flooring, they can create a highly efficient ‘passive solar’ air conditioning system – especially effective if the home is partially buried. The sunny areas are also great greenhouses for food plants and flowers. But check the window design, includes adequate shading, otherwise you could spend summer feeling like an ant under a magnifying glass.
Solar water heating is one readily available green option which can heat between half and three-quarters of your hot water in the right conditions. But check it has building consent and how long it has been there – they only have a life expectancy of about 20 years. There also needs to be sufficient alternative means of heating water and yourself to make up the shortfall in winter. Your ideal may be a super-efficient wood burner with wet back and a local sustainable wood supply, but see what’s there and what could be changed. And keep in mind, the bigger the space, the more energy it takes to heat it.
Solar power generation may look super-green but is still on the borderline in terms of saving money. You can think of it as paying your power bills up front and investing in a brighter future for the planet. Similarly wind turbines offer great green cred, but the power they generate can be marginal unless carefully sited and there is the possibility of damage to the building if they are attached to it. These may also need resource and/or planning consent. Again, check the paper work.
Rammed earth, straw bale, recycled building materials, adobe, cordwood, logs and timber frames are all in use by New Zealand’s more adventurous home builders, and some create fantastic living environments. But before purchasing someone else’s experiment, find the builder and have an expert quiz them thoroughly on its construction and on any problems they had. Remember that as much as you may love their individualistic vision, you will have to maintain it and may have to sell it again sometime.
Keeping rain out is obviously vital, but green homes also store it for use, at the very least for the garden. Keep an eye out for rainwater storage tanks (they may be under the floor), and/or a system for using recycled or ‘grey water’ for the garden or for flushing the toilet. These can add value, but grey water systems particularly need to be checked and preferably tested to ensure they are hygienic and working properly. Anything looking ‘home made’ should be checked by an expert and its paperwork seen.