What can you do to make cost saving decisions in your project?

This HOME Method member saved $80,000 with the right data and help in their project, as the team at Powerhaus Engineering share in our conversation.

Listen to the episode now.

Hello! This is Episode 316, and in it, I’m continuing my conversation with Hannah and Andy from Powerhaus Engineering about their app and its ability to help you make data driven decisions to improve the energy efficiency of your future home.

If you haven’t listened to the first part of my conversation with them, be sure to head back to Episode 315. You’ll hear more about how the app works, what kind of information you need to use it, and how you can interact with it to access incredibly useful, climate and location specific data and intel to improve your design.

Of course, one of the benefits of having access to this type of information, especially during the design phase, is that it can help you save serious money, and totally optimise WHAT you are spending your budget on in your project.

And that’s how we kick off this episode. You’ll hear how the app helped a HOME Method member identify $80,000 worth of savings in their future home through understanding the data and making a value assessment for their project.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE NOW

Before we continue my conversation with Hannah and Andy, let me remind you about Powerhaus Engineering.

Powerhaus Engineering is dedicated to creating homes that power themselves. Their passion is in using data and innovation to build smarter and with bigger impact. 

Powerhaus empowers their clients with the tools and levers to balance cost, comfort and carbon. They want to help you build better, and for comfortable, safe, healthy and fossil-fuel-free homes to be available to everyone.

The team at Powerhaus have a huge and varied range of experience and expertise in energy efficiency consultancy, thermal performance and home energy assessment.

I know from my work with homeowners that, as you wrap your heads around all of the decisions you need to make for their project, and all the things you need to invest your money in, that it can be difficult to determine exactly what will be beneficial. 

You can get competing advice from professionals who have their own interests, priorities and what they believe is important or valuable in any project.

And you can feel it’s challenging to get to the bottom of exactly what is improving your home. Making it more comfortable to live in. 

And given the fact that any building is a system and everything is interconnected and interrelated, if you delete or change one item, it can have a domino effect that’s detrimental to your home and its comfort … and mean money is actually WASTED overall.

There is so much data available in any project, when you know what to look for, and how to use the information. Unfortunately lots of professionals don’t utilise this, and homeowners I know are definitely not aware of it, until they’re educated otherwise.

It’s why I’m so passionate about teaching homeowners about this inside HOME Method, and about bringing people like Hannah and Andy to the podcast to share with you.

Because the simpler, and more informed your decision-making can be, the simpler it can be to access the true drivers of energy efficiency in your new build or renovation, and the simpler it can be to know what’s worthwhile to invest your money in. Whoever you’re working with, and whatever your dreams, your location or your budget.

You’ll hear Hannah and Andy from Powerhaus discuss the idea of Daily Net Zero. Of remembering that your home and its energy use changes over the days and months of any year. Thinking of your home’s requirements for energy efficiency in Winter and resilience in Summer based on its varying ability to power itself through available solar energy, is a really valuable way to think about it.

And I love this idea of considering our homes, our neighbourhoods, as their own power grids, and what that might mean for our energy use overall as a community. 

That’s incredibly uplifting to think about as a solution to the issues we have around climate and energy use.

RESOURCES:

Find Powerhaus Engineering here >>> https://powerhausengineering.com.au/

Instagram >>> https://www.instagram.com/powerhausengineering/ 

Here’s some resources to review …

• Episode 291 ‘Building Science 101 with Jesse Clarke, Pro Clima’ >>>  https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-building-science-101-jesse-clarke-pro-clima/ 
• Episode 292 ‘Building Membranes and Condensation Managment with Jesse Clarke, Pro Clima’ >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-building-membranes-condensation-management-jesse-clarke-pro-clima/ 
• Episode 293 ‘7 Star Homes with Jeremy Spencer, Positive Footprints’ >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-7-star-homes-jeremy-spencer-positive-footprints/ 
• Episode 294 ‘The ‘Whole of Home’ Rating Scheme with Jeremy Spencer, Positive Footprints’ >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-whole-of-home-rating-scheme-jeremy-spencer-positive-footprints/ 
• Episode 295 ‘Does Size Matter in Achieving 7 Stars with Jeremy Spencer, Positive Footprints’ >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-does-size-matter-achieving-7-stars-jeremy-spencer-positive-footprints/ 
• Episode 296 ‘Air Tightness and Blower Door Tests with Jessica Allen, Climasure’ >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-blower-door-tests-jessica-allen-climasure/ 
• Episode 297 ‘What’s a WUFI Analysis with Jessica Allen, Climasure’ >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-wufi-analysis-jessica-allen-climasure/ 
• Episode 208 ‘Roof Colour: Dark vs Light (and your home’s energy efficiency) | with Sid Thoo’ >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-roof-colour-dark-vs-light-energy-efficiency-sid-thoo/ 

Access the support and guidance you need (like Clare did) to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my flagship online program, HOME METHOD >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/the-home-method/ 

Learn more about how to interview and select the right builder with the Choose Your Builder mini-course >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/choose-your-builder 

Access my free online workshop “Your Project Plan” >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/projectplan