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Nature and Society Making housing more self reliant - June-July 2006 edition On 17 May, NSF members and guests enjoyed a stimulating presentation by Derek Wrigley who explained for us recent developments in domestic solar planning and solar energy for a climate like Canberra’s, with very hot summers and frosty winters. Derek related house design and urban design to climate change and peak oil. Here Derek discusses affordable, comfortable and energy-efficient housing options. There are many dire predictions about global climate changes – and there is now more than sufficient evidence to show that the continuing use of fossil fuels (and their emission of greenhouse gases) is a major cause of some of these changes. Australians per capita are the greatest generators of greenhouse gases in the world. This is largely because about 85 per cent of our electricity is generated from coal. The designs of our houses have also been based and are continuing to be based on the assumption that fossil fuels (electricity and natural gas) will always provide for our comfort and convenience. This is a very short sighted assumption, particularly as we all seem to have lost sight of the fact that natural energies can contribute a great deal to our comfort more quietly and in a significantly cheaper way than energy consumptive technology. Existing houses usually represent about 95 per cent of the domestic building stock at any one time and almost all of them are ill-equipped for a changing climate. If we are to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions then retrofitting (modifying) existing houses is where we can make significant reductions. Something can be done to every existing house by way of conservation and the use of new technology—it just needs the realisation that it is possible to retrofit economically if we adjust our set of values, but it is unlikely to happen on a big enough scale unless the various levels of government provide the right incentives. Almost all of us have access to abundant natural energy all around us – sun, wind, rain, gardens – but the techniques of using them effectively are insufficiently recognised by most home owners and builders. Houses and apartments being built today show few signs that modern building science or proven technologies are utilised in their design. They will be almost unliveable in the Canberra winter when natural gas becomes too expensive and starts to run out. Over the last fifty years a lot of Australian research has shown that free solar heat and psychologically beneficial sunshine can warm our houses in winter. Australia has even developed a way of reflecting the radiance of the sun into southern rooms - once thought to be impossible. We can take advantage of internal mass, effective glazing and good insulation to significantly reduce our need for artificial heating. In summer we can use improved natural ventilation methods instead of relying on air conditioners and use internal skylights to reduce the need for artificial lighting. The housing industry has shown itself to be very slow to adopt proven, new ideas. Solar water heaters, pioneered in Australia in the 1950s have been installed on only 5 per cent of our houses. Why? Even cold and cloudy Denmark has more on show. Australia is currently a leader in photovoltaic research, in which silicon is used to convert sunlight into non-polluting electricity. Yet current housing designs show no evidence of this environmentally beneficial approach that could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and owners’ electricity bills. Worse still, many contemporary hipped roofs are so broken up as to make it almost impossible to add photovoltaic systems later on. In contrast, the use of photovoltaic cells is expanding at a rapid rate in many overseas countries that have far less sunlight. Why are we not learning? In Australia, the housing industry appears to be looking backward to meaningless Victorianism - of porticos, pediments, featurism and fancy balustrades, instead of investing in thoughtful design that can reduce running costs and provide better quality living. Houses have grown larger (despite smaller family sizes) and there is little internal mass to keep houses warmer in winter and cooler in summer. Natural, vertical ventilation is almost unheard of and air conditioning is installed to make up for the design inadequacies at much greater capital expense. Why? And why are we seeing so many narrow blocks, oriented so badly as to make it impossible to fit solar houses on them? They will be the slums of the future. Large houses cost more to build, more to furnish, more to heat and to insure. Environmentally sensitive (eco-logical) houses, on the other hand, reduce most of these costs. Further, they are more self-reliant and sustainable in the long term. Today’s housing will be seen by future citizens as pompous, consumptive, illogical and not in the interests of buyers or the environment - leading to the inevitable question of whose interest do they really serve? Society’s attitudes can, and must, change if our children are to have a future that is sustainable. It can be done. Witness the way in which smoking has come to be regarded with public disfavour in recent years. The housing industry, if it is to be regarded as responsible, has to change toward a state of sustainability. Just suppose you are a potential house buyer with a choice of two houses - one has a grand entrance with columns and steps at the front, giving an impression of opulence to the street. It has ducted heating, carpet throughout, lots of space, an impressive kitchen with all the gadgets, requiring a mortgage you can’t really afford, plus running costs to keep you poor. Further, it will be a freezing house when the gas runs out or simply gets too expensive to use, hot in summer (no external sunshades and no natural ventilation) and the final straw – a house you will find hard to sell in the future. That is your first and (usually) only option in the current market. Your second option might be effectively oriented to the sun, having ample solar windows with adjustable sunshades to keep out the summer sun, but allowing all the winter sun to warm the house. It has enough internal mass and natural, vertical ventilation to keep the house cool in summer, needing no electricity to make it work. It has smaller but adequate rooms (easier to heat), no dishwasher, air conditioner, or clothes dryer, very low running costs, and photovoltaic panels (on a simple pitched roof) that supply most, if not all, of your electricity. Tanks will save the rainwater for all household uses and all the greywater will water the garden. A reflecting system will provide warming sunshine in the southern rooms in winter which will be much more comfortable to use. At the end of your stay (if you ever want to leave) you will have a very attractive, readily saleable house in a future, energy-hungry market. These are comparable, feasible options – which would you choose? And more to the point – why is it that you can’t find such an effective house for sale today? (Thanks to Dr Murray May for concise and constructive criticism.) Derek Wrigley Derek F. Wrigley, OAM, is a retired architect and NSF member. He lives in a medium density Canberra house built in 1984. He has retrofitted it to achieve very comfortable living conditions with sunlight in all rooms and extremely low running costs. He is the author of the book Making your home sustainable (2004). Derek can be contacted through the NSF office. June-July 2006 edition accessible here
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