News Details

June 18, 2019

How your eco-home saves energy during winter

Modular eco-homes are gaining popularity with New Zealanders for many reasons, and as we move into the colder, winter months of the year, both the energy-saving and heat-retention features of these homes are placed in the spotlight.

In our latest blog, we look at some of the important features in Greenhaven Homes’ building design, and how our specific design choices help keep your home warm, dry, and affordable to live in.

Modular design makes the best use of natural light

Although heating may account for much of your power bill in winter, one of the core considerations in our eco-friendly home design is to maximise available lighting – both to improve the interior appearance of your home and to reduce your power bill.

Greenhaven Homes use designs that take advantage of sunlight for lighting and heating, placing large windows in areas where sunlight can naturally heat the home and retain this warmth throughout the day to provide passive heating into the evening.

Where artificial lighting is required, eco-homes switch from traditional incandescent bulbs to LED bulbs to further reduce your energy usage—LEDs require a fraction of the energy that traditional incandescent bulbs use and last longer far longer.

Eco-homes are cheaper to heat and designed to retain warmth

Designing homes with an emphasis on natural light also influences the materials and construction of our eco-homes. The floor of your eco-home is designed to absorb natural light and retain it throughout the day, while the high-quality insulation we use in construction ensures that any heat released through your home doesn’t escape.

This is one of the main reasons modular eco-homes are seeing a surge in popularity beyond their kitset-home competition, and why major New Zealand organisations like ANZ are launching new schemes to encourage homeowners to adopt healthier living standards. While the build time of these homes is similarly short, modular eco-homes are built with premium, sustainable products, including FSC-rated timbers, solar panels, and low-VOC (volatile organic compound) paints.

One of the New Zealand homeowners currently living in a Greenhaven home recently provided feedback on their experience throughout autumn, measuring an interior temperature of up to 28 degrees Celsius during the early evening and a low of 21 C in the morning, despite an exterior temperature of 3 C.

While this passive heating throughout the day is fantastic for keeping the home warm and dry, it also means no additional energy is spent heating your space.

Speak to Greenhaven Homes today

Greenhaven Homes is a NZ-owned and operated business working across the Wellington, Horowhenua, Kapiti, Manawatu and Hawkes Bay areas, and our team bring their years of expertise in designing environmentally friendly, sustainable, energy-efficient housing to every project.

To learn more about our modular eco-homes, you can request our plans online or contact Greenhaven Homes today to speak with one of our team. If you’d like to view one of the homes for yourself, you can visit our newly unveiled three-bedroom show home and see how you could be living the Greenhaven way – warm, dry, eco-friendly homes for every New Zealander.