As an eco home builder in Queensland, we are often asked the question: “Can my house be designed to capture natural cooling breezes?”
As you’ll discover when you read our eBook: “10 Tips For Energy Efficient Home Design“, the answer is yes — with careful planning, it can!
With good home design, the key to getting breeze optimisation (and other liveability issues) right, is to give them a high priority from the start — THEN make the aesthetics work to support your liveability goals.
Designing your new property with liveability and breeze optimisation in mind will set the stage for the air to flow naturally throughout your space, creating an airy, well-ventilated home.
It’s useful to keep the following advice in mind when designing your new sustainable home…
Home builder tip 1: Know your microclimate
You’re probably familiar with the climate of your town or city, but what about the microclimate of the small area in which you live?
For example, what is the prevailing wind direction? How many millimetres of precipitation can you expect per month? What’s the topography of your area like — do you have any obstacles (such as a large land formations or other buildings) blocking your sun?
These are all incredibly important factors to discuss with your builder.
Home builder tip 2: Encourage cross flow ventilation
Where possible, your eco builder should design your home to be one room-wide. This encourages cross flow ventilation, which in turn prevents you from trying to unnaturally ‘force’ the air to flow through the convoluted layout of your house.
To enable the best possible ventilation, ask your home builder to ensure that each room has at least one entry and exit point for the natural breeze. As a rule, when standing with your back to a window, you should ALWAYS be able to see another window or door in that room. Because remember — breezes flow best in straight lines.
Home builder tip 3: Embrace the inconsistency of breezes
A light summer breeze is a completely different to a howling winter gale. And as the seasons change, you may want to adapt the amount of wind that gets into your home. Strategically placed doors, windows, louvres and awnings will help you to control the breeze flowing through your home — leaving you with the optimum natural ventilation for every season.
As an eco home builder, we’re passionate about helping you create the perfect house for your needs. If you’d like to speak to us about natural ventilation, eco friendly house design, or any aspect of the home design process, call our friendly team today on (07) 3714 5900.
