My client's, Tim and Lee Lewis, requested a Passive Solar ecologically friendly contemporary home in a new subdivision at eastern Tawa in order to 'buck the trend' of standard housing around them. Cladding is painted textured ply with
horizontal cover battens over
douglas fir framing (not common in Wellington)
and Latitude wool
insulation (what? - more trend bucking...).
Main Kitchen/Dining/family room, Master Bedroom and west
facing Gallery area all have exposed Tung Oil sealed
insulated concrete slab floors for solar gain retention. A
precast concrete kitchen bench top to add to thermal mass
levels. The home has a heat transfer kit to transfer excess
warm air from solar heated spaces to cooler bedroom areas
and a Thermocell Modline
NZ made Solar Panel completes the package.
Colourcrete Coffee surface colour hardener with owner applied Tung nut oil sealer; application now finished apart from the usual touching up of dry spots as they develop. Here's what the client reports: Here are a couple of pics of what the concrete looks like. Some bits are done, some bits are dry and some are really dry. Guess it's going to be a work in progress for a while. All in all we are happy with it so far. Lots of character! ;-) It is beautiful to walk on, so warm under foot, like underfloor heating :-) And yet there is no underfloor heating! - just a well insulated surface-coloured concrete floor slab in full exposure to the sunshine. Simple direct gain passive solar design which costs virtually the same as not having it and provides wonderful quality comfort and low energy bills at the same time, why wouldn't you?!
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