News & Events > Blog >
In November we helped Shaynna and the crew from Selling Houses Australia reduce the noise in this heritage cottage on the outskirts of Sydney. Last week the show went to air and the results exceeded all of our expectations.
This was amazing. In the 14 years that I have been working at Magnetite I have never seen a house in such an awkward situation. Isolated on a grassy area it looked so serene even with train tracks next to the house. When the train came it was a different story. It truly felt like the train might come through the lounge front door before curving at the last moment and passing by the side of the house. If I put my hand out the side lounge room window it felt like I could have given the conductor a high five as he passed by.
The Selling Houses Australia team takes on some of the hardest to sell houses in Australia. They address the real issues facing the property owners and provide current and practical advice on how to sell the impossible.
The cast and owner on this project were fantastic. Shaynna, the designer, was lovely to work with, as were her support team. They all got their hands stuck in and it was amazing to see how the home transformed in such a short time.
The great news was the house sold!
Check out the series link - http://www.lifestyle.com.au/sellinghousesaustraliaextreme/
Employees at large companies work at different levels of efficiency; some employees are perfectionists, while others do the bare minimum to earn a paycheck. Homes are a lot like employees - some are more efficient than others. Some homes are hard workers; they protect their inhabitants from cold winters, harsh summers, and brutal storms. Other homes are slackers, offering little protection against the elements of nature. Hard-working homes are energy efficient. They are so well insulated they cost little to run; heating and cooling costs are low, and energy bills are affordable. Rooms are comfortable, temperature-wise, and draughts are nonexistent. Slacker homes, on the other hand, are energy burners. With little insulation and countless air leaks, these homes cost a small fortune to run. The indoor temperature follows the direction of the outdoor thermometer - if the temperature outside drops, so does the temperature inside. The heaters and air conditioner burn more energy to heat and cool a home, increasing energy bills. What should you do if your home is a slacker? Give it a performance review. A home energy audit is an inspection that measures the energy efficiency of your home. During the inspection, an auditor checks for air leaks and inadequate insulation, the main reasons a home loses heat in winter. If a home turns out to be energy inefficient - in other words, a slacker - an auditor can recommend improvements to increase its efficiency. By making these improvements, a home owner can turn their slacker home into a hard-working one, saving money on energy bills in the process. Professional auditors use specialized diagnostic tools to find air leaks and cold zones. They also have a working knowledge of building codes; for instance, they know what type of insulation you need in your roof. While you might not have the same tools as the professionals, you can perform a home energy audit of your own - here’s how. Air Leaks You pay good money to heat your home in winter. But air leaks are like thieves, stealing away all that warmth and replacing it with cold, outside air. By sealing the air leaks in your home, you can save five to 30 percent on your energy bills every year. The benefits are not just monetary - you’ll also have a more comfortable home, eliminating the need for blankets and sweaters in winter and window air conditioners in summer. Air leaks are most commonly found around windows and doors, but you could also have a draft along baseboards and around electrical outlets and switch plates. If you live in a cold weather climate, you’ll know if your home has air leaks - you can feel them. Fortunately, you can also detect drafts when the weather outside is warm. First, close all doors and windows, close your fireplace flue, and turn off the water heater, gas-burning furnace, and other combustion appliances. Next, turn on all the exhaust fans in your kitchen and bathrooms. The exhaust fans will suck the air out of your home, which draws outside air into your home through air leaks. Take a candle or an incense stick and hold it by all possible sources of drafts - windows, doors, electrical plates, and baseboards. If the smoke blows, you have an air leak. The good news is, air leaks are easy to fix - simply seal the crack with acrylic or latex caulking. Avoid silicone caulking, since it is not paintable. The exterior of your home should also be airtight. Walk around your home and check for any holes, paying close attention to areas around pipes and electrical outlets. When you find a hole or a crack, caulk it with exterior caulking. You should also run a bead of caulking around your windows and doors - but clean the area first, so the caulking will adhere. Single pane windows are not energy efficient, but replacing all of the windows in your home is rarely economical, unless you choose secondary panel retrofit windows. Insulation Next, check the insulation in your home. Newer homes are well insulated against cold winters and hot summers. But many older homes lack adequate insulation - the insulation might not be thick enough, or there might be no insulation at all. Think of insulation as a blanket wrapped around your home - just as your toes will get cold if they poke out from under a blanket, your home will get cold if a room is not blanketed in insulation. First, head for the attic. Look at the bottom side of the roof, specifically the openings around chimneys and pipes. If you see holes or gaps around these openings, seal them with expanding foam caulk. Check for a vapor barrier between the attic floor and the insulation. This polyethylene plastic sheet prevents moisture problems. If you can’t find a vapor barrier, hire a contractor to install one, or paint the ceiling under the attic with vapor barrier paint. The insulation on top of the vapor barrier should evenly cover the attic floor. If you can see any of the floor joists, you’ll need to add more insulation; in a properly insulated attic, the floor joists are hidden under layers of insulation. You can add any type of insulation to your attic – make sure you employ an approved installer as it can be dangerous doing it yourself. The overall depth of the insulation on your attic floor should be 10 to 14 inches. Since loose-fill insulation requires the use of a blowing machine, you should hire a professional for the job. And don’t forget to insulate your attic hatch door. Tape insulation to the topside of the hatch door, and weatherstrip the door’s edges to prevent cold air from leaking into your warm home. For determining the R value of the insulation in your walls, you will need the help of a professional home energy auditor. A professional auditor takes a thermographic scan of the walls in your home, which shows him the warm zones and cold zones. He can see which areas of your home need more insulation without ever cutting a hole in the drywall. If your home’s exterior walls do need additional insulation, you don’t necessarily have to rip apart the drywall. A contractor can help you find alternative ways to insulate your home. You can apply an insulating foam system to the exterior walls, or you can have insulation blown into the cavities between the wall’s wood studs. Lighting Lastly, check all the light bulbs in your house. Have you made the switch to CFL, or are you still using incandescent? Heating and Cooling Your furnace and air conditioner play important roles in your home’s energy efficiency, but you cannot inspect either one - you’ll need to schedule yearly inspections for both your furnace and your air conditioner. A qualified service technician will make sure your HVAC system is operating properly and efficiently. But you can do your part to maintain these expensive machines. Change your furnace’s filter regularly - at least once every two months. In winter months, protect your air conditioner from the wind and the snow with a specially designed, breathable air conditioner cover. If your furnace is 15 years old, it might be time to buy a new one. You will soon recoup the cost of a new, energy efficient furnace through the money you save on your monthly energy bills. A home energy audit lets you know if you’re living in a hard-working home or a slacker home. Slacker homes are bad for your wallet, but they are also bad for the environment. Energy inefficient homes draw more electricity from an overburdened energy grid. And if that electricity comes from coal-fired power plants, it adds to the problem of global warming. By performing a home energy audit, you can help save the planet.
As a homeowner and consumer, you make many decisions when it comes to purchasing products for your home. If you’ve already explored buying green products from the grocery store, perhaps now you can consider turning your house into a green home. Homeowners can make gradual improvements that reduce energy costs and benefit the natural environment. From heating to flooring, you can use these ideas to make a green home:
Window coverings provide privacy as well as protection for our possessions inside our homes from the damages that the sun can bring. There are many kinds of curtains and window coverings on the market of today. You can find many options according to your needs and preferences for window coverings in discount stores and specialty shops all around. Most people look for window covering that will protect the interior of their homes from the damage of the suns UV rays. There are still others who choose to use window coverings in order to protect and maintain their privacy. There are still others who prefer window coverings that absorb sounds from the outside and prevent them from coming into their homes. The last type of curtains or window coverings mentioned will require special accessories known as soundproof window covering. These materials are different from other coverings in that they have sound dampening materials imbedded into them in order to block out the noise entering your home. Similar materials can be used in the process of sound-proofing ceilings, walls, and doors. If your wish is to have soundproof windows in your home you do not have to go to the process of removing your windows and installing new windows. What you really need is a sound dampening material that will be applied to each window. This does not physically alter your windows or the functionality of them either. They may still be opened or closes as the need arises but now have sound dampening capabilities. Even more importantly, you may still clean your windows as the need for this arises as well.
Anyone who owns a home or rents an apartment comes to the realization that no matter how good the windows are the U-value is not enough to prevent energy loss. Glass is just not a good insulator, which is why they invented double pane windows. They operate on the theory that a trapped air cavity acts as a great insulator. if you can't keep the heat or cold out, maybe it can be trapped! But the truth is you can significantly improve the U-value of your windows by installing retrofit window panels. Retrofit window insulation serve several purposes:
Given the huge demand for fuel and power, energy rates are expected to surge in the near future. To save on energy expenses, there is a significant push towards deploying green methods in building construction. Fitting a secondary glazing panel to an existing window (retrofit double glazing) is one of the easiest methods for curbing energy consumption. Magnetite retrofit double glazing is specially manufactured to enhance the thermal properties of the building without reducing the visible light passing through the windows. However, in order to buy good quality secondary windows and to fit them properly into the building structure, it is essential to gain some knowledge of window insulation systems. Prior to retrofitting a secondary window system, it is essential to test their thermal insulation properties. The insulation testing standards used for windows are different from those used for general building material. Usually, the resistance of a material against heat loss is defined by its R-value. This value is considered as the benchmark in determining the insulation properties of building materials used to construct walls and roofs. However, it is not the perfect standard to judge the insulation properties of materials used in the construction of windows. This is due to the fact that unlike walls and roofs, windows have to allow solar light to pass through them. Thus, for windows, one should consider the U-value as the standard unit to test thermal characteristics. It measures the rate of transfer of heat through a solid material. Thus, while buying a window, look for a low U-value. Other properties that help in the selection of energy-efficient secondary panel windows are: