South Australians Embrace Sustainable Living in an Effort to Combat Rising Energy Costs

GREEN housing is more front of mind than ever in South Australia, driven largely by our state’s exorbitant electricity prices.

South Australian representative of the Australian Passive House Association, architect Brett Aylen, said green practices were more commonplace in SA housing.

“One of the main drivers is that the cost of electricity and energy has increased so dramatically,” he said.

“People’s level of awareness has increased too – people travel to Europe and the US and experience how comfortable houses can be in the middle of winter and then they get back here and realise there is a better way.

Inside former environment minster John Hill’s inner-southern sustainable home.

“We’ve got a huge building stock of existing houses and it makes good sense to be retrofitting those intelligently, so upgrading the insulation and looking at shading, energy-efficient appliances and solar systems.”

Mr Aylen said one of the easiest ways people could make a difference to their energy bills was to look at draught sealing their homes.

He also said a home’s geographical location should dictate the type of home that should be built there, rather than people building homes that were not right for their environment.

“I call that climate-responsive design,” he says.

“I think it’s very important to be designing homes for their climate, and by that I mean specifically their local climate conditions.”

Among those South Australians embracing green housing is former Environment Minister John Hill, who built a sustainable and future-proof home in Adelaide’s inner south in 2014.

“We wanted to have a house that we could continue to live in as we got older, which was as environmentally sustainable as possible and aesthetically pleasing, which had a garden,” Mr Hill said.

“If you can build something which doesn’t need to use a lot of power, or a lot of water or is refreshed that frequently, that’s the most sustainable thing you can do.

And that’s good design.”

Source: realestate