Get It Right with Undercover Architect

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Hello! This is Episode 419. This is Way #19 of the 44 Ways to Create Your Sustainable Home series, and it’s the first episode in Section Five: The Building Envelope.
We’ve spent four sections of the ‘44 Ways’ series covering a lot of information for your sustainable renovation or new build. Site, orientation, breezes, passive design, energy and water selections, renewables, and the tools that help you model and measure how your home will actually perform. All of that work is most valuable when the building envelope itself is doing its job well.
This is Way #19: Build Tight, Ventilate Right.
[For all resources mentioned in this podcast and a free, downloadable PDF transcript, head to www.undercoverarchitect.com/419]
Section Five is about creating a sustainable skin in your building envelope. The skin of your building (your floors, walls and roof) is supposed to protect and shelter you. There’s a science to how it can do this well.
And when you understand how vapour, moisture and temperature move from the inside to the outside of your home (and vice versa), you’ll learn it’s important to design and build a building envelope that suits your climate, mitigates the risk of mould growth, helps maintain comfortable indoor air temperatures, and that is durable and long-lasting.
I want to start by taking on one of the most persistent myths in residential construction. The idea that homes need to breathe. Our homes don’t need to breathe. The people inside them do. And they need to ideally breathe fresh, unpolluted air, whatever the weather or conditions outside their home.
In this episode, I take you through what the phrase ‘build tight, ventilate right’ actually means, what a ‘breathing’ home is often confused with, what building tight looks like in practice (and how tight is tight), why relying on opening windows alone often isn’t enough, and what mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) adds in a high-performance home.
As always, if you'd like to access a full transcript of this episode and links to any resources I mention, head to www.undercoverarchitect.com/419.
Now, let's dive in!
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:
For links, images and resources mentioned in this podcast, head to >>> www.undercoverarchitect.com/419
Accessing my free '44 Ways' E-Book will simplify sustainability and help you create a healthy, low tox and sustainable home. You can download your free copy here >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/ways
Access the support and guidance you need to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my signature online program >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/the-home-method/
Just a reminder: All content on this podcast is provided by Undercover Architect for reference purposes and as general guidance. It does not take into account specific circumstances and should not be relied on in that way. You should seek independent verification or advice before relying on this content in any circumstances, including but not limited to circumstances where loss or damage may result. The views and opinions of any guests on the podcast are solely their own. They may not reflect the views of Undercover Architect. Undercover Architect endeavours to publish content that is accurate at the time it is published, but does not accept responsibility for content that may or has become inaccurate over time.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello! This is Episode 418. This is Way #18 of the ‘44 Ways to Create Your Sustainable Home’ series. And this episode completes Section Four: Modelling and Measuring Your Sustainability.
Across this series, we’ve talked a lot about energy efficiency, and how, as we improve energy efficiency, we reduce energy use, which in turn reduces the carbon emissions associated with energy production.
At the same time, we’ve got better at measuring the embodied carbon in construction. Embodied carbon represents the greenhouse gas emissions associated with extracting and creating materials, and construction and deconstruction itself. This is the carbon footprint of the home, and it’s increasingly being seen as the required area of focus to reduce the impact this industry has on the climate.
Way #18 is: Measure Your Home’s Carbon Footprint.
[For all resources mentioned in this podcast and a free, downloadable PDF transcript, head to www.undercoverarchitect.com/418]
In this episode, I take you through what operational and embodied carbon mean, why embodied carbon is becoming an increasingly significant part of the picture, and, if your carbon footprint is a sustainability consideration for your renovation or building project, what you can do about it during design, and the conversations to have with your team.
As always, if you'd like to access a full transcript of this episode and links to any resources I mention, head to www.undercoverarchitect.com/418.
Now, let's dive in!
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:
For links, images and resources mentioned in this podcast, head to >>> www.undercoverarchitect.com/418
Accessing my free '44 Ways' E-Book will simplify sustainability and help you create a healthy, low tox and sustainable home. You can download your free copy here >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/ways
Access the support and guidance you need to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my signature online program >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/the-home-method/
Just a reminder: All content on this podcast is provided by Undercover Architect for reference purposes and as general guidance. It does not take into account specific circumstances and should not be relied on in that way. You should seek independent verification or advice before relying on this content in any circumstances, including but not limited to circumstances where loss or damage may result. The views and opinions of any guests on the podcast are solely their own. They may not reflect the views of Undercover Architect. Undercover Architect endeavours to publish content that is accurate at the time it is published, but does not accept responsibility for content that may or has become inaccurate over time.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello! This is Episode 417. This is Way #17 of the ‘44 Ways to Create Your Sustainable Home’ series, and we’re continuing through Section Four: Modelling and Measuring Your Sustainability.
If you’ve been following this series, you’ll know we’ve spent the last couple of episodes looking at energy modelling, and how you can use it during the design process so its data-based findings can inform your design as it develops.
Way #17 is: Get a WUFI Analysis Done on Your Floors, Walls and Roof.
[For all resources mentioned in this podcast and a free, downloadable PDF transcript, head to www.undercoverarchitect.com/417]
As well as the positive benefits of energy efficiency and thermal comfort that airtightness and well-insulated homes can bring, there can be a negative consequence of building this way that needs to be managed.
When you seal a building up tightly, and you insulate it well, moisture behaves differently than it does in a leaky home.
And if the way your walls, roof and floors are put together hasn’t been thought through carefully from a moisture perspective, you can end up with a problem that develops silently inside your building fabric over years, until it becomes very hard and expensive to fix.
If you’ve never heard the word ‘WUFI’ before, this episode will introduce you to a tool that most of the residential building industry isn’t routinely using or talking about, but that is increasingly important from a risk-management perspective as we build more airtight and better insulated homes.
As always, if you'd like to access a full transcript of this episode and links to any resources I mention, head to www.undercoverarchitect.com/417.
Now, let's dive in!
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:
For links, images and resources mentioned in this podcast, head to >>> www.undercoverarchitect.com/417
Accessing my free '44 Ways' E-Book will simplify sustainability and help you create a healthy, low tox and sustainable home. You can download your free copy here >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/ways
Access the support and guidance you need to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my signature online program >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/the-home-method/
Just a reminder: All content on this podcast is provided by Undercover Architect for reference purposes and as general guidance. It does not take into account specific circumstances and should not be relied on in that way. You should seek independent verification or advice before relying on this content in any circumstances, including but not limited to circumstances where loss or damage may result. The views and opinions of any guests on the podcast are solely their own. They may not reflect the views of Undercover Architect. Undercover Architect endeavours to publish content that is accurate at the time it is published, but does not accept responsibility for content that may or has become inaccurate over time.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello! This is Episode 416. This is Way #16 of the ‘44 Ways to Create Your Sustainable Home’ series, and we’re continuing through Section Four: Modelling and Measuring Your Sustainability.
Way #16 is: Use Other Options to Model Your Design Before You Build.
In the last episode, I talked about NatHERS energy modelling and why it can be so valuable as a design tool rather than simply using it as a late-stage compliance exercise.
In this episode, I want to explore that further, because the required modelling tool for your region may not be all that’s available to you. And for projects where you’re aiming for high performance, it may also not always be the most comprehensive one.
[For all resources mentioned in this podcast and a free, downloadable PDF transcript, head to www.undercoverarchitect.com/416]
Think of this as a set of tools that help you understand how your home will perform before you build it, so you can make better decisions with your money while change is still cheap. That’s it. Some tools are required legally, such as NatHERS in Australia. Others are optional, available as another measure, data source or audit process.
I also want to address something that comes up a lot in the Undercover Architect community: the idea that NatHERS and Passive House are in competition, and that you have to be in one camp or the other. It really doesn’t need to be that way. Think of it as a spectrum.
And so, in this episode, I take you through Passive House modelling and what you can learn from it even if you’re not pursuing Passive House certification, how this modelling approach might give you a more complete picture of your home’s performance, and how to think about the Passive House principles themselves as a design framework, separate from the question of certification.
I also share some other valuable modelling tools that may assist you in your project, whether you’re renovating or building new.
As always, if you'd like to access a full transcript of this episode and links to any resources I mention, head to www.undercoverarchitect.com/416.
Now, let's dive in!
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:
For links, images and resources mentioned in this podcast, head to >>> www.undercoverarchitect.com/416
Accessing my free '44 Ways' E-Book will simplify sustainability and help you create a healthy, low tox and sustainable home. You can download your free copy here >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/ways
Access the support and guidance you need to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my signature online program >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/the-home-method/
Just a reminder: All content on this podcast is provided by Undercover Architect for reference purposes and as general guidance. It does not take into account specific circumstances and should not be relied on in that way. You should seek independent verification or advice before relying on this content in any circumstances, including but not limited to circumstances where loss or damage may result. The views and opinions of any guests on the podcast are solely their own. They may not reflect the views of Undercover Architect. Undercover Architect endeavours to publish content that is accurate at the time it is published, but does not accept responsibility for content that may or has become inaccurate over time.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.