New house build - orientation for sun

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#2607454 20-Nov-2020 11:29

Paul1977:

Sorry to hijack the thread, but do blackout curtains do much more than dim-out ones for stopping solar heat gain?

I'm a huge fan of blackout for controlling light, but the missus prefers dim-out so she can pull them during the day and it's not pitch black.

We compromised with blackout in the master bedroom and media room, and dim-out in the living/dining. But as far as heat goes, if we find the living/dining still gets too hot are we likely to notice much difference by changing to blackout?

Did you look into the combination of sunscreen blinds and blockout curtains? I think this provides the best of both worlds in that the blinds can control sun during the day (so help with brightness, heat and UV), leaving the curtains to block out as much light as possible at night.

We had sunscreen blinds installed in our lounge this week, after we have gone through two sets of couches due to UV damage (and since then essentially keeping the curtains closed 24/7!), and they’ve made a massive difference. Would be better in a new build as one can select windows and catches that ensure a better fit (so smaller gaps on the sides) than in our old place.

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Paul1977

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#2607466 20-Nov-2020 12:16

jonathan18:

Did you look into the combination of sunscreen blinds and blockout curtains? I think this provides the best of both worlds in that the blinds can control sun during the day (so help with brightness, heat and UV), leaving the curtains to block out as much light as possible at night.

We had sunscreen blinds installed in our lounge this week, after we have gone through two sets of couches due to UV damage (and since then essentially keeping the curtains closed 24/7!), and they’ve made a massive difference. Would be better in a new build as one can select windows and catches that ensure a better fit (so smaller gaps on the sides) than in our old place.

It's always a compromise between practicality and aesthetics. I'm big on practicality and my better half is big on aesthetics - usually a compromise strikes a pretty good balance.

But to be honest, we never even considered issues with keeping the heat down. We were so concerned with making sure the house would be warm.

Most of our windows have double tracks that will have either blackout or dim-out lining (depending on the room) on the back track (nearest the glass) and a shear on the front track. I'm actually thinking the dim-out in the living/dining might end up better than blackout as the missus is more likely to pull them during the day since they won't block all the light like a blackout would (i.e. something 50% effective used 80% of the time is better than something 100% effective used 20% of the time).

I think a concern for us is that having blinds as well as linings and shears on the same window would be a bit busy.

UV is of course a whole other issue. The shears might do a little to help, and we went with laminated glass which I think reduces the UV by about half. Carpet is Nylon so shouldn't fade, and went with a very light off-white couch so hoping we'll be OK in that regard.

Master bedroom has a large eave over the exterior slider (and I only just twigged that will be why we haven't had an issue in there), and other bedrooms are on the south side so haven't been a problem. Thinking about it now though, we have a gable end on the north side of the living/dining which means no eave providing any shade so the large window there is probably the worst culprit. If we still have issues after all the blinds and curtains are installed, that would be the one to look at first I guess (maybe add a blind, or change dim-out to blackout).

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#2607484 20-Nov-2020 12:49

Paul1977:

Hopefully the dim-outs along with the ducted heatpump and HRV moving the air around will be enough. I'm fine using aircon on an unusually hot day, but would like to avoid using it every day in summer - those bills add up!

I used air conditioning a lot last summer, which I hadn't much before. I found the power bills were still a lot lower than winter. I guess that's because we try to reflect away the sun where we can so we're trying to get rid of a bit of extra radiated heat and some conducted heat, whereas winter you can be trying to heat up 20 - 25 degrees from the outside temp.

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#2607486 20-Nov-2020 12:57

timmmay:

Paul1977:

Hopefully the dim-outs along with the ducted heatpump and HRV moving the air around will be enough. I'm fine using aircon on an unusually hot day, but would like to avoid using it every day in summer - those bills add up!

I used air conditioning a lot last summer, which I hadn't much before. I found the power bills were still a lot lower than winter. I guess that's because we try to reflect away the sun where we can so we're trying to get rid of a bit of extra radiated heat and some conducted heat, whereas winter you can be trying to heat up 20 - 25 degrees from the outside temp.

That's what we aren't doing yet, and what we're hoping will make a difference once all the blinds and curtains are in.

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#2622757 16-Dec-2020 14:41

Thanks for all the previous feedback, we've decided to reduce the overall size to free up some $ for other parts of the build (ducted heat pump for bedrooms (not shown on the plan yet), some additional landscaping, attic storage, tiled flooring in kitchen/bathrooms etc).

Here is our current plan:

Any other feedback appreciated. Currently considering our options to battle the west sun facing into the living areas.

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#2622771 16-Dec-2020 15:06

This is our floor plan - the 'living' side isn't too different from yours.

timmmay

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#2622779 16-Dec-2020 15:27

Having put tiles in our bathroom a few years back I'm not sure I'd do it again. If you do underfloor heating is mandatory as otherwise they feel like icicles in winter, which increases install and running cost. A couple of our tiles are loose, and when you replace a tile you have to have plenty of spares because taking a tile out can break tiles around them. The grout always gets dirty. Lino flooring tiles are meant to be better.

Attic storage and ducted heat pump sounds like great changes. HRV are about the best value around for ducted heating.

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#2622848 16-Dec-2020 16:16

Some good positives to your design and orientation -

Actual useable patio (assuming that the 65sqm outside the living area is concrete / paved patio?)

Patio area shielded from the chch nor easter (to a large extent) which will make the outdoors useable

Not sure if you have children, but I would be inclined to put sound batts in the internal walls at least on the southern end of living area (where the ensuite is on the other side) and around all bedrooms. We put gib noiseline in our house expecting it to be sufficient, but even with an ensuite / walk in robe between us and our sons bedroom, we can still hear him talking online at night and vice versa he is likely to hear any noise from our bedroom ;) and in our media room (next to master), volumes have to be particularly low for sound not to travel through. Gib noiseline seems marketing stuff, noiseline + batts would be the way to go in my view.

There is no "entrance" as such at the front door, just straight into the kitchen area. As this is north facing, may not be such an issue as you won't be dealing with a cold southerly

I'd respectfully disagree about tiles "needing" underfloor heating. We do have it in our ensuite, but haven't bothered to turn it on even during winter, nothing a bath mat doesn't solve for the 2-5 mins you are standing infront of the vanity mirror for. Underfloor heating may be more necessary in a kitchen / living area situation, but again, solved with some nice woolly slippers :)

D.W

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#2622986 16-Dec-2020 18:50

We've had tiles in our last two houses in the bathroom, so keen to keep them. Never had underfloor heating and suspect we wouldn't make use of it. If the floor were cold we'd probably just wear socks. I found after 10 years in our last house our vinyl plank flooring in the kitchen started to degrade to the point it looked like it could do with replacing (scratching, bit of shrinking, bubbling, adhesive reducing in strength), so prefer to go with tiles throughout.

@rogercruse, I saw you mention previously that you installed a solatube, how do you find it? We'd be open to one above our kitchen also if its going to get some more natural light into that area in the mornings. A quick google suggests they cost around $1500, which seems reasonable.

I'll do some investigation re: cost for sound batts, it sounds like a good idea.

Having no "entrance" was always something I wasn't 100% sure on, but we're keen to minimize the amount of "unused" area, and overall it seems like it will work OK for us they way it is on the plan.

Yep that area outside the living area is all concrete. We make good use of a similar space now, and there is still plenty of grass area in the backyard.

rogercruse

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#2623049 16-Dec-2020 21:43

D.W:... @rogercruse, I saw you mention previously that you installed a solatube, how do you find it? We'd be open to one above our kitchen also if its going to get some more natural light into that area in the mornings. A quick google suggests they cost around $1500, which seems reasonable....

We had solatubes installed in the Pantry and in the Kitchen. The natural light can be much brighter than artificial light and simply feels better. Your suggested price sounds about right. Just make such that your preferred location for yours is possible as the roof structure above our Pantry caused a few problems with the installation.

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#2624293 19-Dec-2020 12:59

OK I think I'll go with the solatube over the kitchen island if its going to be able to be installed there without issues.

We've still got a few decisions to make, if anybody has any advice around this (whether we should prioritise some over others if we can't do everything) would be great:

- Go from 2.4 to 2.55m stud height

- Thermally broken window frames

- Low E glass (just on west side of house perhaps to keep cost down? Would like a way of battling the sun coming into living areas during summer)

- We've got pricing for a ducted heat pump which we're keen on, with an optional upgrade to include HRV. We're not sure if this is worth it or not

- Concrete brick vs clay brick. We like some of the concrete brick colours more than the clay brick, from what I can see otherwise they're comparable price-wise, concrete is stronger, but doesn't last as long (still 60+ years)

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#2624372 19-Dec-2020 15:47

stud height is about aesthetics you get not tangible performance benefits out of it, just a nice feeling.

I would do low E glass before being thermally broken.

and i would put a HRV in with the heat pump, it keeps costs down in heating/cooling and the house fresh if its closed up for periods of time.

D.W

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#2624642 20-Dec-2020 16:54

Thanks, yes aware stud height is just aesthetics, but I do prefer it. We had 2.7m in our last house, but I'm happy to go to 2.55 if we can justify the cost.

I don't know much about windows/framing (but I've certainly learnt a lot in the last week), am I right that I can go either thermally broken aluminium or uPVC? And both will have thermal benefits and no (hopefully) condensation? If so is one typically cheaper than the other. Condensation is probably my biggest gripe.

We've opted for concrete brick for cladding, the manufacturer's specifications say a raked out joint is not recommended for external use, however our build specs specify raked joint. I've queried this and pointed them to the specs, so hopefully we can do something else there without any further cost.

Also any thoughts on noise control gib vs sound reducing insulation in internal walls?

timmmay

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#2624676 20-Dec-2020 18:44

If you have double glazing that's thermally broken you should get very little condensation. Of course you need decent ventilation to take away the moist air, double glazing isn't magic, it just reduces heat transfer. We have a ventilation system with only two outlets that was here when we bought the house (we replaced the motor and filter), outlets living area and kitchen, that works fine with double glazing. In the middle of winter we might get a little bit of condensation on the windows, but before double glazing and we improved the ventilation we could have to wipe each window with a towel.

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#2624724 20-Dec-2020 22:24

timmmay:

If you have double glazing that's thermally broken you should get very little condensation. Of course you need decent ventilation to take away the moist air, double glazing isn't magic, it just reduces heat transfer. We have a ventilation system with only two outlets that was here when we bought the house (we replaced the motor and filter), outlets living area and kitchen, that works fine with double glazing. In the middle of winter we might get a little bit of condensation on the windows, but before double glazing and we improved the ventilation we could have to wipe each window with a towel.

My question is more around thermally broken alum vs uPVC, and if one is cheaper than the other. Also, if I have sufficient ventilation (such as HRV) is that going to significantly reduce condensation if I just had standard aluminium frames with double glazing?

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