Sustainable Home Expo 2007
I went to the Sustainable Home Expo on 10th June 2007, in Upper Hutt, which had a hall of displays and 2 streams of talks.
Insulation: Keeping Warm
The best talk I went to was by Grant Dunford of Negawatt Ltd. Here's my notes from his talk:
- Three main priorities for a healthy efficient home; (1) Insulation, (2) Heating, and (3) Ventilation.
- First priority is underfloor insulation, stop damp coming up through the ground.
- Distributed heating (or heaters) is better than a single heat pump with all the doors open.
- Have windows open 5-10mm to remove CO2.
- Bathroom extractor fan should run 5-7mins after switching it off.
- Heat recovery system (they sell "CleanAir" $5-6K). Pull fresh air from outside - not "filtered" roof air.
- NZ homes tend to leak 10-20 times more air than is needed
Action priorities are (in order):
- Droughts
- Underfloor insulation (must be refective - don't use polystyrene blocks only)
- Ground moister barrier
- Ceiling insulation
- Wall insulation
- Bath & kitchen extractor fans
- heat recovery ventilation
- distributed heating
- double glazing (south and maybe east side)