Reflections four years in.

Its nearly four years since we move in... . The most significant change during this time is that there is now four people and a dog living here. This of course has had many implications, but as the house is concerned it does effect how we use it, the resources we consume (and the time I have to finish the house...).

Over the next few months I will be writing a few blog posts on lessons learnt during the building (long overdue), and how the house has been performing.

I also would like to convey how the house has ceased to be a project, a technical creation that we worked to design and build, and how it has transitioned to being a home.

Our philosophy during the design process was to use standard NZ construction methods where we could, tweaking them to improve how the house performed. Through this we hoped to demonstrate that with a bit more attention to detail and a little bit more up front cost we could improve how comfortable and healthy our home was, while reducing the overall costs.

The topics of future blog posts are intended to be:

• Year 3 performance (comfort, energy and water).
• Data. At Evident we have been working on a new data system which we'll be using to display live and historic data on the ZEH website.
• Timber framing. Our timber framing solution is one of the areas we get the most question about.
• Joinery. The issues we have had with our joinery material selection and paint work.
• Landscaping. It was all about the building, but the garden has really made it.
• Consenting. Issues with the resource and building consent process.
• Energy. We're still zero energy, but why has our energy use increased?
• What next. What would we do differently, what might we add in the future.