Warmer and cheaper

If this looks like your dream home and you’re anything like me, your first thought is probably ‘how much does it cost’ – and the answer is ‘$60,000 less than you think’.

That’s because the ultra-energy efficient home, by Climate House in Queenstown, costs the same as a conventional house to build, yet uses 95 per cent less power.

The house is built using Structured Insulating Panels (you can read them about on page 48 of the April-May 2015 issue of Green Ideas magazine), which keep the house snug while needing very little money for electricity. And by paying those savings into your mortgage, you can pay it off four years earlier, says Michael Sly of Climate House, resulting in a $60,000 saving on compounded interest, compared to an average home.

More impressively, that saving leaps to $100,000 when you use solar panels and an electric car. Powering your home and vehicle with solar electricity saves you $10,000 a year, says Michael, allowing you to shave a cool $100k off your debt (based on the same assumption that you use the savings to pay off the mortgage earlier).

Michael hopes to offer a home / financing / transport package soon – and is already building a number of efficient houses for clients around New Zealand.