This year’s houses on The Block are once again completely new builds. We look back at last year's designs and how you can incorporate "conscious design" into your build.
Building a brand new home provides a great opportunity to implement some important aspects. It’s all about choosing materials and design features that will affect the performance of your home – including its longevity, its need for maintenance, its energy needs, as well as its impact on its surroundings and things like that. The layout and orientation of the house also have a role to play, together with things like window size, skylights and doorway positionings.
Energy saving design
COLORBOND® steel design and colour consultant, Kaela Turgeon explains, even the colours you choose can have bigger outcomes than just the aesthetics: “What many people don't understand is that they just see colour as colour. They don't see how colour can affect the emotional state or the performance of your home. And when we say performance, it's how much energy is being used in your home”.
Darker colours absorb more of the sun’s heat, which in a cool climate can help reduce energy needed for winter warming of a home’s interior. If you’re building in warmer parts of Australia, lighter colours can have the opposite effect, reflecting the sun’s rays and heat in summer and reducing the energy needed for cooling the home. Choosing the right roof colour and roofing material can mean real savings on energy bills and help create more comfortable temperatures within a home1.
Find out more about solar absorptance, COLORBOND® steel's special Thermatech® solar reflectance technology2 and choosing the right colour for your home.
Think ahead
It’s also important to remember the very large footprint a roof provides. It is quite an important part of a home’s architecture, so making sure your roof looks beautiful is worth the effort. Of course, conscious design isn’t just about colour selection, it’s also about the qualities of the products you choose to build with. The strength and durability of COLORBOND® steel means it’s going to be around in great condition for a long time – that’s great for the owner, and the planet. And it doesn’t just save energy from not having to be repainted or replaced, it’s also easy to maintain. The occasional rain-shower helps keep it looking its best3.
Beautifully recycled
Having a roof made from COLORBOND® steel is a great way of boosting a home’s sustainability credentials. All COLORBOND® steel contains recycled content and the steel itself in COLORBOND® steel is 100% recyclable - not that anyone will be demolishing any of these Daylesford beauties in the near future.
If you’d like any further information or advice on designing a home that’s better suited for your particular part of Australia, call our support team on 1800 022 999.
Footnotes:
1. Results will depend on roof colour, level and location of insulation, type and location of building shape and function
2. Thermatech® technology is available in all Classic and Matt core colours except Night Sky®.
3. Areas not regularly washed by rain water should be hosed down at least every six months and more frequently in coastal areas.
To celebrate ten years of inspiring COLORBOND® steel transformations on The Block, we look back on some of the most memorable seasons.
We’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the skill and dedication of The Block builders who have enabled us to showcase COLORBOND® steel and highlight the attributes it can bring to a construction project like The Block.
Darren Palmer shares his advice on what to consider when selecting your exterior colour and materials.