Browse Forums Building A New House 1 May 27, 2006 8:48 am Hi, I am new to the forum and wonder if anyone is able to help me with some insulation queries. I am building a new home, 176 sqm house, garage 40sqm, alfresco under roof 22sqm. Concrete slab, colorbond roof. I live in southern Victoria. (Gippsland)
To attain 5 star, rater has included R5 ceiling batts. I am keen to use loose fill insulation in the ceiling to fill all and any spaces however various suppliers rate this as only R3 or thereabouts. What else could I do to achieve R5 in the ceiling rather and use loose fill as compared to the insulco R5 batts.? Also querying how many packs of batts I would need for the ceiling if I end up having to use the insulco R5 product. Last question, should I ceiling insulate the garage and alfresco too, or just the living areas? All advice appreciated NoLife Re: Insulation assistance ? 2May 27, 2006 11:54 am Hi nolife,
You don't need to insulate the garage and alfresco. It is important that your insulation is airtight from the top and a vapour barrier underneath. Otherwise you won't achive the r-value written on the packaging. What kind of windows do you want to use? good luck Re: Insulation assistance ? 4May 27, 2006 8:57 pm NoLife
Aluminium windows are possibly the worst choice for an energy efficient home unless it is thermally totally broken. If not you will loose lot of heat through the frames and you will get condensation problems. A better choice is UPVC with European tilt and turn hardware. Aluminium joinery in this part of the world comes usually with third world quality hardware but if you want to stick with alumium there are some manufacturers who offer tilt and turn windows with european hardware in Victoria. Tilt and turn windows offer many advantages and with aluminium sliding windows you won't be happy for long Glazing: Go double glazed all around, apart from the garage. There is a lot of nonsens around partly double, partly single glazed, but at the end of the day it does not matter what size or direction your windows are, you get nasty condensation and heat loss during a cold night. Some manufacturers of quality European style windows in Victoria are: www.eurowindow.com.au www.everglaze.com.au www.paarhammer.com.au www.sunholder.com.au www.eurotechwindows.com.au Take a good look, nobody regrets the move away from the traditionally low quality joinery in AUS and NZ...... Re: Insulation assistance ? 5Jun 11, 2006 9:34 am I too am looking at different types of insulation for a house that we will be building on the north coast of NSW. I have recently seen on TV a spray foam that is very highly rated and gets into every nook and cranny. The only thing is I cannot seem to find any suppliers of this in Australia. Overseas places seem to be far more advanced than Australia when it comes to energy saving and other home products. Does anyone know of companies in Australia who do the spray foam? Re: Insulation assistance ? 6Jun 12, 2006 9:57 pm Nolife,
Do you have a copy of the energy raters report? Many are guided by builders as to how to achieve the minimum 5 star rating in a way that is easiest for the builder but not necessarily the most cost effective for the client. Have you explored other avenues of achieving 5 star? I say this because Energymaster Insulation have an R3.8 rated bulk blow in fibre. If there are any ways in which to reduce your ceiling insulation requirements you may be able to take advantage of this product. Does the rating specify draft seals to doors, self closing exhaust fans etc? It would be worth having a look at the report and discussing it with your builder and the rater. Good luck with it! Re: Insulation assistance ? 7Aug 07, 2006 11:59 am I am an enery rater and find it hard to believe that anyone would say that you would need R5.0 insulation in your ceiling. I have never rated a house using such a high amount of insulation aswell as the comfortplus glass.
I used to work at enviroflex insulation and they have many options on how to achieve R5.0 Re: Insulation assistance ? 8Aug 07, 2006 5:12 pm g;day australian5star
do u do ratings for local councils? how do you work ie subcontrct or is it part of your job? a building inspector friend of mine said that there will be plenty of work for someone who does the energy rating course on top of builders ticket that i am currently doing. what do you think??? cheers Re: Insulation assistance ? 9Aug 08, 2006 10:49 am Hi Micky, Builders ask me about doing the course and the time involved to do a rating and they have decided against doing the course because of the time it takes to do each rating they feel their time is better utilised. One advantage that you would have is you can choose what products you'd prefer to use but if you have a good energy rater they should give you that option anyway. My husband has also done the couse and we both went to different places to learn and got taught different techniques in entering the information using the firstrate programme. One other thing to keep in mind is the SEAV audits different energy raters from time to time to make sure everybody is doing the right thing and we got told in our couse that builders rating their own plans are watched a little closer. I hope this has answered your questions but feel free to ask away if you have any more Regards Janelle Hi, Appreciate any recommendations for town planners or advisors who can help assist to assess and draft an objection to a neighbour’s development in Northern Beaches.… 0 3631 Hey guys, We're very new to building and have got our contract back with a, btw you need a retaining wall, addition. Going by my very limited ability to read site… 0 2674 |