Rooms
The location of each room in your house will influence its energy efficiency, and comfort levels.
Recent home design trends are towards more open plan living. This creates large areas that have to be heated at once, even if you are only using a small area.
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Plan your room requirements
When planning your home, talk to your architect or designer about room requirements. Consider the following design tips when deciding on room placement.
Checklist for room design
1. Create zones
- Create zones by grouping rooms with similar uses and closing off unheated rooms from heated rooms. Grouping rooms that use hot water close together also makes your hot water system more efficient.
2. Separate areas
- Use doors to separate formal living areas from other living areas, and heated from unheated areas.
- Use bathrooms, laundries and toilets as buffer zones on the cooler and windier sides of the house.
3. Know your local climate
- Locate garages and carports on the sides of the building exposed to prevailing winds. This will help protect the rest of the house.
- Try to face your living areas north so they are warm and bright during winter.
4. Consider room height
- Stairwells and high ceilings can increase your home heating requirement by more than 40%. They allow heat to rise, leaving cooler air at floor level. Avoid ceiling heights of more than 4 metres. (See Fig. 1.)
5. Encourage ventilation
- Place windows and doors with some distances between them to encourage cross-ventilation and help cool the house in summer. (See Fig. 2.)
Fig. 1. Separate stairwells from heated areas and keep ceilings low to avoid heating problems
Fig. 2. Cross-ventilation can provide most of your summer cooling needs
More information:
- Refer to the Department of Building and Housing’s comprehensive guide, Room by room. [Smarter Homes website.]