As temperatures sink and heating bills rise, wouldn't you like to live in one of New Zealand's most sustainable homes - Jeanne Gray's off-the-grid country log home in the South Island.
"It's about 18 or 19 degrees inside right now, a bit hot for me," said Gray, a farmer near Oamaru where temperatures have dropped sharply lately.
Walls were built of thick Douglas Fir logs.
Asked how it felt not to get electricity bills, she said: "It's lovely. It's just ticking over by itself. I built it because I had dreams about living a more natural life. But it was a major undertaking because the builders had to live here."
Laine Hellmrich of High Country Carpentry said the house had energy-efficient features backed up with LPG generators for use in times of extremely low sunlight.
"It has solar hot water-heated radiators, an AGA wood-burning stove which heats the concrete floor slab, a log burner and solar hot water. Around 60 per cent of the water is heated like that. It has backup solar system batteries. The house is completely off-grid. The entire house has no power bill," Hellmrich said.
"The only thing that's required to run the house is occasionally big LPG generators. They kick in and charge the batteries. This house could be in a mountain valley all by itself and survive for the next 50 years," the Fairlie builder said.
Getting power to the rural site was expensive so the solar option became an obvious choice.
Geraldine's Natural Log Homes supplied the Douglas fir logs which Hellmrich said were up to half a metre thick and formed internal/external walls.
"They're New Zealand-grown Douglas fir. Some of the logs are 400 to 500ml thick. Insulating properties of logs can be up to 10 times the insulation value of a standard timber framed house," Hellmrich said.
Bathroom with a view in the sustainable house.
A spokeswoman for Registered Master Builders said people could learn from Gray's home.
"Central heating is non-existent in more than 95 per cent of New Zealand homes. It is considered a luxury and out of reach financially for most Kiwis. Finding other ways to incorporate sustainability into our homes is vital to keep New Zealanders' warm and healthy throughout the winter months and the extreme temperatures we are currently experiencing," she said.
A blast of red makes the kitchen even more distinctive.
"The house contains a Rayburn cooker with wetback which heats water for under floor heating, an upstairs radiator, and uses stacked-log construction which provides a major gain in the insulation factor," she said.
Upstairs bedrooms have extensive country views.
"This would be a fantastic house to be living in right now, as New Zealand's temperatures plummet into the negatives," she said.
Andrew Eagles, Green Building Council chief executive, said off-grid houses were often very energy efficient.
"It sounds good. It would be good to know at what level it performs. It would be good to understand the detail including insulation levels, ventilation and moisture control mechanisms in place," Eagles said of the log house.
"It is nice the wetback supplies under-floor heating and it has been constructed with untreated [Forest Certified management] timber, so that's good," he said, although he said he could find no information about its sustainability measures.
Developers, architects and other leaders had developed a system for rating the sustainability of homes with Homestar, he said.
He cited a Papamoa house at 85 Palm Springs Boulevard which had been independently verified as sustainable on energy, water, materials and construction waste, using that Homestar standard.
KEEPING WARM THIS WINTER: The Government's Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority advises: • Heat is expensive, so save money by keeping the cold air out and the warm air in.
• Draw curtains at dusk to keep the day's heat in.
• The best curtains have a separate lining and are fitted close to the window, wide enough to generously overlap the window frames at the sides and long enough to touch the floor.
•A pelmet at the top is even better.
• Consider DIY window insulation kits which can cut heat loss through windows by half and are a fraction of the cost of double-glazing.
Stop draughts: ensure windows and doors fit their frames. Use draught stopping tape around windows and doors and draught excluders or door snakes along the bottom of doors.
