Browse Forums Heating, Cooling & Insulation 1 Jan 18, 2020 2:54 pm Hi folks, I am thinking of using a modular house builder for my build at Bicheno, Tasmania. It will be north facing living area. The design could be similar to this but with more north windows: http://systembuilt.com.au/assets/Produc ... uxford.pdf One thing I wonder is how to plan for heating needs. Having lived in a very old, energy inefficient house, I don’t know what to expect. Questions like: do 6 star houses with good solar gain even need much heating, particularly in bedrooms. Looking at Nathers heat load stats for Tasmania, 6 stars requires 160MJ/square meter per annum. I looked at this page as to how to calculate heating costs: https://andersonenergy.com.au/can-you-c ... o-dollars/ I wondered if people have experience with this. Is it realistic to think for a 100sq.m house like this that you calculate say 80% of the floor area needing heating. So multiply that by 160MJ, divide by 3.6 for kWh, divided by heat pump efficiency of 3.5, to get about 1000kwh required per annum? And in terms of distributing that heat for this design, a central living area heat pump would probably be enough, with enough residual flow into the bedrooms (which don’t have to be as warm as living areas)? I know this is a very broad question, but appreciate any tips Cheers, B Re: Assessing heating needs for this 6 star modular house 2Jan 26, 2020 4:35 am Sorry, I can't answer your questions. All I'll say it's 6 star is the bare minimum standard allowable in Australia's already lax building standards. Why not build to a higher standard, you'll recoup the extra cost quite quickly with lower heating/cooling costs. The environment will also thank you. I'm not sure what is possible in a modular house, but generally ceiling & wall insulation is cheap to upgrade (while upgrading wall insulation is very difficult at a later time). Australian homes are particularly leaky, leading to increased heating/cooling costs. I'd be investigating using a vapour permeable wall wrap, & ensuring care is taken to keep the build as leak free as possible. I'd also builds with a timer frame, not a steel frame, as this can create thermal bridging issues, compromising your insulation. Good to see you're thinking about orientation & passive solar design. This will greatly reduce heating & cooling costs. Hopefully you have appropriate length eaves on your build, especially over your northern windows. Best of luck with the build. Hi We have a road close to our place and only an old flimsy wooden fence between us and the Neighbour closest to the road. Any ideas on a sound proof modular fence. Like… 0 7458 Hi everyone, Looking for some advise. We are about to build an above ground pool in our backyard. There is a private sewer line running under the pool at 1.6m… 0 11731 Well these guys are not looking good... I sent them a written enquiry last week and they have not yet replied. If they cannot respond to a simple… 4 10624 |