How to Create a Superhome... Your Build or Renovation

We’ve brought together some of the Superhome Movement’s innovative experts to share their advice and clever ideas for creating a better quality living environment – your home.
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Learn about how your home works as a system, and the importance of good design.
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Understand the benefits and savings in lower power bills and better health for your family:
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Steady consistent temperatures through the whole home (all year round)
Energy efficiency and resilience
Fresh clean air circulating continuously
Windows that don’t weep condensation
Avoiding the winter chill and summer overheating
Higher resale value

Our team of experts bring decades of experience and specialist knowledge to give you their insights, guidance and practical tips.

There are a range of options to suit your household needs, your site, and your budget.

Additional costs are often only minimal – some methods are actually cheaper than conventional builds – and will soon pay for themselves over the life of the home. There are a range of options to suit your household needs, your site, and your budget.

A Superhome is the sum of many parts - a combination of different inter-connecting systems.
We have focused it down to six key elements that will make a real difference to your home or renovation:
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● GETTING STARTED – DESIGN
● HEATING & COOLING‍
● WINDOWS & DOOR
● ENERGY & SOLAR
● SUSTAINABILITY
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Our experts take you through the essentials – why these matter, what you can do, and how to get great results for least cost. And there is flexibility for you to prioritise what suits YOUR requirements and YOUR budget.
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Click through to check out all the supporting technical detail on the links through each of these sections.

When you are getting started, the first person you’ll probably be talking with is the builder. Getting a great builder is critically important for the process you will go through for your new build or renovation – and for the end result in a healthier, more efficient, more comfortable home for you and your family.

The builders and their teams are at the centre of a broader network of professionals with specialist knowledge and experience that will help ensure a successful project.
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Bob Burnett: “Teamwork makes the dream work”

Your builder will connect with a range of other experts with clever techniques, smart products, and practical ways to save costs and improve your home.
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Dan Saunders: “As the main contractors, builders have to know a little about everything – ventilation, underfloor heating, windows – all of that information, and how they all work together.”

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‍There’s an enormous amount of practical knowledge, efficiencies, and innovations now available that your builder can integrate into your project with the input of these experts – and their commitment to improving the quality and performance of New Zealand homes.
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Renovating or Retrofitting?

‍Too many Kiwi homes have problems, including dampness, mould, draughts, poor materials and poor air flow – and are cold in winter and increasingly now overheat in summer. Research shows significant impacts on our health, with high levels of childhood asthma and respiratory disease.

The New Zealand Building Code standards are at least 20 years behind international best practice.

If it’s time to upgrade your existing home, our Renovation Design Guide has advice and information on how to get the most out of your renovation, showing the most common house types and explaining the challenges and solutions for each.

Bob, the pix below are positional for now, I have included SANG, but can you maybe advise re a good mix???

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BESPOKE CONSIDERATIONS
“Aesthetics, proportions, the relation to the environment, your neighbourhood, all that really fits in – who lives in that house, what is the lifestyle of my clients, what are their needs?”

Susanne Schade: Architectural Designer and Director, Architecta

SOLVE THE MOULD
‍“Mould is really under-rated as an issue in NZ homes – BRANZ data, Asthma Foundation information on moisture in homes, how it causes mould, what it does to our health? It’s something that CAN be solved.”

Marcus South: Regional Manager, Moisture Master

WHAT COST IS YOUR HEALTH?
“Biggest misconception with building a high performance home is the COST. We need to look at it as a holistic approach. It may cost you more in the outset... but what is your health worth?”

Dan Saunders: Director, Dan Saunders Construction and Director, Ecopanel

KNOW WHAT YOU WANT
‍“Sometimes people don’t even know what they want, I need to find out what they mean – or ideas that they don’t understand.”

Julie Villard: Architect and Eco-Design Advisor, Christchurch City Council

SEEING THE INVISIBLES
‍“Building a house is not easy – what can be overwhelming for home owners is you don’t know which is the most important part... you can change the colour of the kitchen later, but you cannot change what goes into your walls, into your structure – those are the fundamental parts of your house that needs to be decided at the get go.”

Hanshu Li: Managing Director, WarmthNZ

UNIQUE QUIRKS
“Each client is different, unique quirks, different shapes and sizes, different budgets & working with clients who see things, who are after more of a long term base in their design outcome, what their brief requirements are.”

Duncan Firth: Solarei Architecture

BUILDING BETTER DOEN'T HAVE TO COST MORE
“This perception that building better is putting more money into every project, is actually a fallacy when the design is done right from the beginning.”

Candice Smith: National Specification Manager, Kingspan Thermakraft

BIG DOESN'T ALWAYS MEAN BEST
“The trade-off between ‘Size’ and ‘Performance’ of a build... Designs well thought out in use of space. You can reduce space and increase the specifications, think more carefully about how you use every square metre, you can afford the good stuff whether it’s the windows or the insulation.”

Martin Ball: Director, NK Windows