There’s a reason we call it the living room. Whether to gather with family, entertain friends or enjoy some down time, you probably spend more waking hours in the lounge than any other part of the house…
There’s a reason we call it the living room. Whether to gather with family, entertain friends or enjoy some down time, you probably spend more waking hours in the lounge than any other part of the house. Rebekah White discovers how to maximise this space for greater comfort and health
(Top) Invest in quality natural fabrics and classic furniture for a look that will last. Using neutral colours for walls and floors means you can switch the mood with accessories – like these bright cushions, cuddly throws and recycled silk rugs from Citta Design
The ideal lounge is warm in winter, cool in summer, cheap to heat and well-ventilated. It encourages household members to congregate and socialise. It’s warm and welcoming – and it reflects the family’s personalities and interests.
But where to start? What are the most important items to invest in? Here’s the Good guide to renovating your lounge so it truly functions as the heart of the home.
Chilly isles
The smartest thing you can do to keep your living room warm, your family healthy and your winter power bill from skyrocketing is also one of the least sexy tasks on the DIY checklist: beef up your home’s insulation.
Until recently, New Zealand building codes seemed to reflect the idea that cosy homes are for wimps. As a result, most houses constructed before 2007 have insulation better suited to balmy tropical climes than New Zealand’s often freezing winter temperatures.
Since heating is responsible for 35 percent of the average power bill, it makes sense to capture that warmth rather than let it vanish through the roof, windows and floor as fast as it’s generated. Blasting out more heat won’t fix the problem, says eco design adviser Richard Morrison, who regularly visits homes in the Kapiti area as part of the free Eco Design Advisor service. “I’ve been into homes that have perfectly adequate heating, and the people there say they’re cold. Without insulation you get so much heat loss that your heating system is simply inadequate.”
Not only is a well-insulated lounge cheaper to heat, but maintaining warmer temperatures has the added benefit of fewer winter nasties. If members of your family suffer from asthma, bronchitis or any other respiratory infection, living in cold and damp conditions will just make them worse. To ensure your family stays in tip-top health during winter, keep your living room temperature between 18 and 22°C, says the World Health Organization. Unfortunately the average Kiwi lounge clocks in at a measly 17.9°C on a typical winter’s evening. To address the woeful state of house insulation in New Zealand, the government offers grants of up to $1,300 towards installation costs. See www.eeca.govt.nz for more.
More is more
Start with the easy part: draught-proof your lounge. Check door and window frames for gaps and plug with a sealant, such as draught-excluding strips. If you have an unused chimney, block it off. Think like your grandmother and make draught stoppers for your doors from spare fabric. Replace down-lights with mounted fittings – or heat will vanish through the cavity above the light.
An uninsulated roof is to blame for up to 35 percent of a home’s heat loss. Luckily it’s also one of the easiest places to add new insulation, provided the roof cavity can be accessed. Before you start, ensure any leaks have been repaired.
Window panes are also responsible for heat loss, but fortunately there are many solutions for them too. While glass readily lets in sunshine to warm a home during the day, heat escapes just as easily. The ability of a material such as glass to stop heat passing through it is measured on the R scale, and the higher the R value, the better the material is at insulating. With good insulation you might achieve a rating of R2.8 in the ceiling, but the thermal resistance of a single pane of glass is only R0.15.
You can reduce heat loss through windows by having them double-glazed – something architect and Arhaus founder Dan Heyworth recommends. “Heat goes for the fastest escape route,” he says. “If anything, you want to spend your money on your windows.”
Conventional double-glazing is pricey, but there are cheaper options, including removable acrylic sheets produced by local company MagicSeal.
Failing that, there’s always the good ol’ soft furnishings solution – otherwise known as drapes. When it comes to keeping in heat, the more you go to town with your curtains, the better. “Curtains need to have a pelmet over them and close-fitting tracks, and they have to puddle down on the ground,” says Richard. Fabric pooling on the floor prevents cold air falling from the window pane and escaping around the curtain’s base. Ideally, curtains should have three layers: a heavy drape, an interior layer of duvet-like insulation called bumpf, and lining.
Draughty wooden floorboards can allow chilly air in from below. Deal to these with underfloor insulation, or lay a vapour barrier (a waterproof sheet) on the ground beneath your house to prevent moisture rising from the earth. Then treat your toes to a quality woollen carpet – not only is wool completely sustainable and biodegradable, but it can also fight dampness as it’s able to absorb moisture without feeling soggy. It’ll also help block any heat loss through the floor.
A breath of fresh air
It may seem counterintuitive, but as well as warmth, your home needs fresh air flowing through it. Even when it’s chilly outside, decent ventilation will stop moisture accumulating. The key is not to fill your home with damp, cold air. Dampness makes rooms very difficult to heat and encourages the spread of mould and dust mites.
Improving your ventilation can be as simple as leaving a window or door open for half an hour when you get up in the morning. Think of your grandmother regularly ‘airing out’ the house – there’s a reason she did so! Alternatively, consider keeping a window ajar overnight, attaching a security sash if it’s accessible from outside. In summer, open windows on opposite sides of the house to get a fresh breeze flowing through.
For a comprehensive solution, consider installing a ventilation system to keep air moving and heat evenly distributed. The best systems also filter the air to remove pollen and airborne chemicals, improving air quality for sufferers of asthma or allergies. Other ways to fight damp include limiting the number of house plants, never drying clothes inside and ensuring shower steam is vented with an extractor fan, as bathroom moisture can filter through an entire house.
Personal space
A warm, dry house will be a comfortable place to live during winter, but transforming a house into a home involves something more. The most appealing homes reflect the style of their inhabitants – their personalities, hobbies and experiences. Take a look at your lounge’s soft furnishings. Do they represent you? Create frames for photos or the kids’ art, or renovate a second-hand bookcase to display your favourite novels and collectables.
Lounges should also encourage social engagement. Position furniture around a focal point other than the television to make it easy for people to gather and talk. If possible, conceal the TV in a cupboard or behind a panel when not in use.
Changing the wall colour is a really effective way to change a room’s mood. Choose paint that’s low in VOCs (volatile organic compounds) – these cause the ‘paint smell’ and can make you feel ill. A good rule of thumb is to check whether paint has the Environmental Choice tick.
When buying furniture, especially if it’s a new piece, look out for quality materials and consider its life cycle. If your item has a long lifespan, you’ll have the option of renovating or selling it if you remodel your lounge in the future. If the piece is wooden, check it has Forest Stewardship Council certification (meaning it’s sourced from sustainable forests). Alternatively, give second-hand furniture a new lease of life by sanding it down and applying a new coat of oil, or low-VOC and water-based paints.
Hot and smart
Four of the most efficient and environmentally friendly home heating systems are pellet burners, low-emission woodburners, flued gas heaters and heat pumps. If you don’t already have a home heating system, the government offers grants of up to $500 towards installing one of these.
Woodburners are inexpensive to run – especially if you can get firewood for free. Choosing the right type of burner will make a huge difference to its clean-burning efficiency as well as the amount of heat it delivers, so it really pays to do bit of research before you buy. Using dry wood is also essential for a decent fire. Make a note in your diary to stock up before the winter rain sets in!
By comparison, pellet burners cost slightly more to operate as you’ll need to purchase bags of pellets (made of compressed wood shavings and sawdust). However, they’re very clean-burning and deliver heat at an easy flick of a switch.
Heat pumps are easy to install, but then you have the ongoing cost of running them. You can use heat pumps for the whole house or just one room. They work best when located at floor level so the warmth rises and spreads throughout the room.
For a short-term, single-room heating option, choose a radiant electric heater or a small fan heater. Oil column heaters are a good option for bedrooms as their lower surface temperature makes them safer for children. Connect electric heaters to a timer switch to ensure they’re not running longer than necessary. The Consumer Institute (www.consumer.org.nz) has a free tool to calculate how big a heater your room needs.
Avoid unflued gas heaters at all costs. Not only are they expensive to run, but they also release potentially harmful gases and between half a litre and a litre of moisture per hour into your home.
Seizing power
As the days get shorter and the nights longer, our electricity use grows. One of the nasty chills of winter is opening the mail to find a power bill that’s much higher than you expected. You can stock up on dry wood for the winter – here’s how you can do the same thing with electricity
Until the bill arrives, we never know how much we’ve used!
Heating and cooling accounts for almost 35 percent of a typical household’s energy use – and most of this occurs over winter. You can stock up on all the dry wood you need and predict how much you’ll use, but until recently Kiwis haven’t been able to do the same with electricity.
What if I could buy electricity like I buy my groceries?
Only one New Zealand electricity company lets you see how much power you’re using before the bill arrives. Online electricity retailer Powershop lets you buy power just like you might do at an online grocery shop. To avoid any nasty winter surprises, you can choose to buy bundles of power ahead of time. Purchasing electricity in advance is the equivalent of stacking up your wood supply before the cold snap.
Do power companies deliberately make their bills confusing? There’s almost no information linking our bill to how much power has been used.
Powershop lets you track your power consumption. A weekly email charts what you’ve used, how it compares with the previous week and how much it costs. One Wellington family noticed their winter power use tripled to over 85 units a day. They realised their oil heaters were being left on all day, even when they were out. Last winter, their power bills dropped 20 percent because they were more aware of their everyday habits.
Now I know what we’re using – what else can I do?
Some Powershop customers on day and night meters choose to shower before 7am because it’s cheaper. You can also work out the cheapest time to put on the washing machine or the dishwasher. Either let Powershop do the buying for you, choosing the cheapest power available, or you can shop for different products, including special deals, carbon offsets or even power that comes with a free $10 bar tab.
Tips for renters
• Ask your landlord to purchase top-quality bumpf or thermal lining for the curtains and offer to attach it. Alternatively, buy new curtains – you can always take them with you. See page 100 for a simple curtain revamp.
• Treat yourself to a thick woollen floor rug and add an extra insulating layer of thermal underlay underneath. Like decent curtains, it will instantly cosy up the room and you can take it with you when you leave!
• House plants purify the air by removing common household chemicals. Try a peace lily, rubber plant or bamboo palm. Just don’t go overboard – plants also add moisture to the air.
On a budget
• Trim trees on the north side of your house to allow sunlight to flood in. Close windows and curtains as soon as the sun sets to capture any warmth from the day.
• Browse your local op shops for curtains and other soft furnishings. A more expensive but more efficient heater will cost you less in the long run than a model that’s cheap to buy but more costly to run.
• Only heat the room you’re in. Encourage your family to gather in the lounge in the evening and don’t warm bedrooms until just before bedtime. Rediscover the retro comfort of hotties!
Ask the experts
The Eco Design Advisor service is free and offered by nine councils nationwide. If you’re outside one of the council areas, you can call the service for advice by phone. www.ecodesignadvisor.org.nz
Look out for the next issue of Good, where we show you how to eco-renovate your laundry
