Energy efficiency when choosing the brick and roof colour???

We just went through this situation last week. We failed our NatHERS as we have dark walls (dark grey Moroka finish) yet a shale grey colorbond roof. We have lots of north and west facing windows and were basically told we either have to have toned windows, change to solid wooden flooring or change our external colours.

In the end we ended up toning our windows. It turned out much cheaper than what we anticipated and we had worked for months on our external colours and really didn't want to go lighter.

So I guess assuming there is a better option I would take preference on external colours. Though my husband and I are very design orientated so it was very important to us.

we went with "driftwood" rooftiles and some light greyish browny olivey colour for outside with blackish fascia and guttering to minimise the solars.

Hi I am almost at lockup and am happy with how things are looking but did have second thoughts after I had done my colour selections and went to look at a house with my bricks. They had the lighter colour roof tile and I have the black. After I had seen the other house I wondered why I had chosen the black as I liked the look of the other house and thought it was probably just what the colour consultant first suggested (the dark tiles) and didn't give me a different perspective to think about.

After I had seen the other house it then hit me about the energy efficiency and what other choices I had made without taking any of this into account. As this is the first time I have built and I am divorced with no kids I didn't really have any body prodding me as my family/friends just all say how fantastic everything is that I have chosen (whether they really like it or not).

Take the time now to investigate your choices/decisions before it is too late and down the track you think you should have thought more about it. You may find you can still have the look you want with very little cost to your hip pocket and the environment at the end of the day.

I dont think liveing near the beach makes any difference but Adelaide can get hot so might be worth thinking about this.

PS: can I suggest you put your location in your profile?