Browse Forums Heating, Cooling & Insulation Re: Comparison of insulation upgrades 17Oct 29, 2020 6:54 am They all look like very minimal upgrades. As you can see from the ROI, financially none of them are worth it. You haven't really said much about your double glazing. What type of frames are specified? If they are aluminium frames, then I'd be spending money upgrading these to uPVC (might be a similar price), timber or thermally broken frames. As aluminium has very high thermal conductivity, these frames become very cold in winter - leading to condensation, & possibly mould - & hot in summer. I'd be looking at low-e glass for any unshaded eastern & western windows are least. In saying that, with good design you should have very few western windows. But I'd be looking to do something that will save you a lot of money, & greatly reduce your hearing & cooling loads. Reducing the size of your home. 40SQ is more than 150% the size of the average Australian new build, already the largest homes in the world. Not only will reducing the size of the home save on building costs, heating & cooling costs, maintenance costs & shorten the time to clean the home. It will also be much better for the environment, greatly reducing the embodied energy in the home. Embodied energy is the energy (& emissions) that have gone into the build. All the energy used creating all the building products. The energy used to mine the raw materials in Australia. The energy used transporting these materials to China. The energy used converting these materials into the manufactured products. The energy transporting these materials to Australia, & to your building site. As you'd expect, the embodied energy in a home is very LARGE. On average, the embodied energy in a newly built home roughly equals about 15 years worth of operational energy! A large, energy efficient home, far more. So the GHG emissions created building your 40SQ home may equal all the energy you'll use in the home for 30 years! Not great for the environment. On top of this, large houses need large blocks. Leading to more urban sprawl. Creating longer commutes to work. Far, far worse, urban sprawl leads to elevated levels of land clearing. Australia has the highest levels of land clearing in the developed world. Even before the bushfires last year, the koala was a threatened species. Why, land clearing! It's be building smaller, & smarter. You'll save money, & be able to spend some of your funds on better design. Ditch any thought of gas in the build. Go all-electric. Install a good sized solar PV system on your roof. Hey guys building a new place through a volume builder and just wondering if i should complain to the site supervisor as we just had plasterboard installed. Looks like… 0 11273 1000000% definitely add insulation. I have in my home and it makes a big difference minimising sound transfer. Insulation is pretty cheap and definitely worth it 2 6191 |