Beacon

We believe that we need to focus on the whole of the house in order to really get a fundamental change in our homes and their effect on the natural environment and on our quality of life.
 
The reason for this?  Our houses are a web of interdependent features and building systems.  We cannot fix one area only without compromises and under-performance in other aspects of the home.  For example: 

• We could use less energy by under-heating the home, but this would mean unhealthy temperatures.  
• We could install heat pumps or pellet burners to heat a home, but without sealing draughts and insulating ceiling, walls and floor, this would be like driving a car with the heater on and the windows open. 
• We could install a wonderful super-energy-efficient product, but if it has toxic by-products, we’d compromise our indoor environment.
• We could insulate and use energy efficient heating, appliances and lighting but if we still use a lot of hot water, overall energy use will still be high - approximately 30% of typical New Zealand household energy consumption is spent heating water. 
• And even if a home’s energy use was as efficient as possible, but we used a huge amount of reticulated water, we would have to consider the energy used to collect, purify, and transport that water to our door. 

So here at Beacon we take a ‘whole of house’ approach to sustainable homes, focusing on energy, water, indoor environment, waste and materials.