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Introduction to Sustainable Living

Sustainability is one of today's buzzwords. We hear it often but not all of us are really sure what it actually means.

When it relates to home design, it is about putting thought into our homes. Making them fit to their local area. Making them liveable and healthy through all seasons and all stages of our family's life. It is about minimising our impact on each other, on the area around us and on the environment. It is about reducing the everyday costs of running our homes while making them more liveable.

Sustainable design can occur at all stages of our home's life - pre purchase, construction and renovation.

Pre purchase involves selecting the right block of land to capture the sun and desirable breezes at the right times of the day and year.

The next step is designing our homes to suit the block and choosing sensible materials and products that create energy efficient building shells. This is called passive design and done correctly it can eliminate the need for mechanical heating and cooling systems.

Important things to consider to help make our homes sustainable include colour choices, roof and room ventilation, shading, landscaping, insulation, efficient water storage, heating and reuse, low toxic materials and choosing and locating windows to capture cross ventilation and light while maintaining heat control.

Each month, we will provide tips and information on sustainable home design. We will include information on products and services and investigate practical ways to make our homes efficient, economic, environmentally friendly, healthy and suitable for our families from cradle to grave.

Bronwyn Elliott is a sustainability consultant offering simple, creative and common sense approaches to doing every day things. Bronwyn is GreenSmart accredited and her company Solutions-in-Store operates from Birkdale on 0407 678779 providing advice on sustainable building design as well as sustainable business and marketing strategies to consumers, companies and government.