Building Healthy homes
Designing and Constructing Health Enhancing Homes.
Have you ever heard the term a “healthy home?” you probably have but even still you may be scratching your head and thinking well yes, but what does it really mean?
Designing and building a new family home is a wonderful opportunity to consider what makes a home “healthy” and the types of choices you can make to achieve it.
Here at Geelong Built we are obsessed with the client experience. So much so that our drive for an amazing experience for our clients goes well beyond the day we hand over the keys to their dream home. We ensure that each home we build uniquely enhances the lives of the people who will live within the walls, and one way of doing this is to consider the “health” of the homes we build.
Healthy homes have come a long way and we are fortunate that technology and product advancements now make it easier to achieve a healthy home with optimum air quality and minimal toxin levels. Brilliantly, what works for a healthy home is often also a more environmentally friendly choice.
Below we explore just some of the areas that contribute to a healthier home.
DESIGN
A Healthy Home provides you a superior living environment for better health and wellbeing across the life of the home. The site, orientation, and weather considerations such as prevailing wind direction and temperature variability will guide the design of the home. Cross ventilation, natural light and traffic flow in the home are a great place to start from a design perspective. Other essential elements to consider are space, form, and feel. Team up with the right designer and you can optimize your site to make the most of the natural features available to you and achieve a beautiful, cohesively designed home.
In the design phase it is also important to consider the life cycle of the home. A home that is designed with universal design features such as wider hallways, zero threshold entries and slip resistant flooring acknowledges the diversity of our needs at various stages of our lives including childhood, pregnancy, injury, disability, and old age. It ensures that your home is a home for life and that you and your family can enjoy the home no matter what life throws at you.
CONSTRUCTION METHODS
When considering your healthy home build, you may like to consider alternatives to the traditional brick veneer construction method. Options such as Structurally Insulated Panels (SIPs), which are a composite panels comprising two rigid skins (such as ply) bonded to an insulating core, and Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) panels offer reduced site wastage, faster build times and advanced thermal efficiencies with enhanced airtightness and moisture management. CLT is also sustainably sourced, giving a green tick to any project.
WINDOWS & DOORS
Placement, size and type of windows and doors have an enormous impact on the overall enjoyment and health of a home. The amount of natural light, the quality of light from both natural and artificial lighting sources, glare and our access to outdoor views play a key role in our well-being, physical capacities, focus and health.
The glass that is used is incredibly important and is something that is commonly over-looked. Choosing the most energy efficient windows for your home will also heavily influence the amount and type of heating and cooling required.
HEATING & COOLING
Healthy homes should be thermally comfortable at all times. Varying internal temperatures results in varying relative humidity which can lead to an environment in which organisms such as dust mites, mould and bacteria thrive. Due to this the aim of heating and cooling in a home should be to keep the home at a consistent temperature, somewhere between 18-22 degrees, with as little energy output as possible. Whilst there are many options that can achieve this the healthiest of these are hydronic, geothermal and heat exchange heating and cooling systems.
Hydronic systems heat or cool water at the source via energy efficient gas boilers or electric heat pumps. Panel radiators or in floor hydronic pipes emit the desired temperature into the home creating a radiant temperature which spreads evenly.
Geothermal systems harness the abundant free renewable energy in the earth via a ground loop heat exchanger to deliver highly efficient heating and cooling to your home. Both options allow you to set a consistent comfortable temperature and maintain this in your home with reduced energy consumption in comparison to the more traditional gas ducted or reverse cycle systems on offer.
Heat Exchange systems pull in air from the outside and heat the air through an electric coil. In turn they pull recycled air from the house and expels it to the outside. The house is always using clean purified air that is heated to the set temperature. If the house is well designed and constructed with a focus on energy efficiency the system is then very efficient and will only kick in with the heat element when necessary
Whilst we have touched on some of the elements of a healthy home above there is a world more to explore including foundations, cladding, insulation, acoustics, solar options, paint products and other low VOC elements to name a few. It is an evolving landscape, and we are constantly learning about new products and technologies as they become available. We will continue to share some insights with you over the coming months on other elements of a healthy home.
If you align with our core values of Transparency, Honesty, Respect, Innovation and Passion please get in touch to chat further about how we can help you achieve your healthy and beautiful dream home.
‘Home is Here’