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Zero carbon house hard to argue with

Oct 28, 2013
The Zero Carbon House

The Zero Carbon House

It’s hard to argue with the ingenuity of an architecturally designed house that costs just over $350,000 and promises zero energy bills.

Architect Paul Hendy recently gave Radio Adelaide’s The Plan a tour of this newly completed and award-winning zero-carbon home in Lochiel Park (listen to the podcast at the end of this story).

Hendy is a director of TS4 Living – a sustainable housing developer which grew out of the team that won last year’s Zero Carbon Challenge competition run by the State Government.  Its design for the Lochiel Park home also picked up the People’s Choice Award, and on first inspection, it is easy to see why.

The three-bedroom, ultra-energy-efficient house meets all the relevant zero-carbon criteria and then some – and it’s achieved through bespoke architectural design tailored for the site and client.

The project will offset its carbon footprint in around 10 years, Hendy says.

The innovation in design and construction across the whole project is inspiring. The house boasts a 7.5 star-energy rating and features solar power, state-of-the-art indirect evaporative cooling, bio-fuel heating and energy-efficient appliances. It is oriented and landscaped to maximise solar-passive strategies (so it gets lots of sun in the winter and not too much in the summer).

The design also incorporates high-performance insulated wall panels. These are fabricated off site, which dramatically cut construction time.

“It was important not to alienate trades,” Hendy told The Plan. Instead, he sought to work “within the collaborative strength of the whole team”.

The speed of construction and overall project efficiencies are being refined further as TS4 Living uses the same delivery model for the upcoming Zero Carbon House MKII (also being built at Lochiel Park). As the developer refines the construction process and delivery systems, the energy efficiency of the project can be expected to increase while the overall cost comes down.

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