Looking for information on kit home companies

We are just finishing a house with Nu-Steel (we * and got a builder to do the hard work for us) at Cedar Creek, past Samford. (near Brisbane).
Haven't had any major problems, and the couple of small things that cropped up were dealt with easily and efficiently.
I've never heard of Affordable and (gossip only) I've heard the odd bad tale about Valley.

HIH!

Hi Windowexpert,

What style of design(s) would you be recomend for a concrete house in a tropical climate?

I am doing some research on good use of thermal mass and natural air flow for energy efficient housing, and am always interested in what ideas are out there.
We are in QLD and a lot of the housing here is quite poorly designed in terms of energy efficiency.

Cheers,

Earl

I have built Kitome Kits for a few years and they are located on the gold coast and can supply aust wide. I have only dealt with NSW and find them good to deal with, but they are all owned by the same person

And my apologies also to 'off to fnq' but i would be interested 'strumer' in your obvious delving into 'thermal mass and regulating of air flow' and its incorporation in current building methods. Possibly the first question - is it cost effective against turning on the air conditioner switch ?

Just a quick reply while i digest your post
the stumbling block i encounter is, on your example the cost of an extra 1000mm of concrete to a perimeter beam on say an 18 square home would be in the vicinity of $8 to $9 thousand dollars ( i know this example was hypothetical) but many - most - people building are looking at the short term & $8000 buys a lot of drapes. !
- If i'm building for a short term return, drapes are good. 50 meters of extra concrete needs justification.

Without knowing anything about the design of the concrete homes you lived in it is a bit difficult to make comparisons, but by no means am I suggesting that simply because a building is made of concrete that it will be thermally efficient.

I too have lived in concrete structures that were difficult to keep hot or cool. These houses were badly designed and badly built (especially that prefab monocrete bungalow in Canberra...).

Concrete is particularly useful as a building material not only because it is strong, flexible, relatively cheap and easy to use but also because it has very useful thermal properties. If a large mass of concrete gets hot it stays hot for a long time - if it gets cold it stays cold for a long time.

So if the concrete houses you lived in in Darwin shared some of the seemingly well applied principles of your steel home, i.e. Shade the walls from direct sunlight in hot times of year, provide a flexible/ adjustable series of air flow opportunities (don't forget about openable skylights to let out rising heat!) they too could have been cool and comfortable with little need to use additional cooling.

Trying to artificially cool a thermally poor house is wasted energy. It can be like trying to cool down an oven with a bowl of ice cubes. I have personal experience with a short eaved weatherboard bungalow in Brisbane. In summer the house receives direct sunlight to the roof and walls from sunrise (04.30) to sunset (18.00). In the evenings one can still feel the heat radiating from the internal walls. Cooling this house down with an air conditioner would consume an enormous amount of energy. The power problems we are having in SEQ are not coincidental to the climate here. It is far easier to spend less on building a house with thermal efficiency in mind and install artificial climate control to compensate.

You note that the drier periods can get cold. This could be because the house you are in was designed primarily with keeping cool in mind.
As stated, it can be worth a short period of less comfortable climate for greater enjoyment of the dominant climate.
An alternative is to increase the capital outlay during construction through incorporating effectively wider reaching sytems - this can be more difficult to financially justify when balancing short term/long term needs, costs and returns - but the trade offs can be longer term stability, affordability and sustainability; which really does affect us all - especially those of you with children.

Respect, all,

Earl