Green Matters

House Design

Construction

Your Site

Nine Reasons

Building a new home is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

At Prebuilt we believe it is vital to approach new house design with an awareness of how to minimize the impact to the environment during construction and then beyond.

We understand the importance of good design, and engage architects to work collaboratively with us to ensure our houses provide an efficient spatial approach to contemporary living requirements. Unlike the McMansions on the urban fringes, Prebuilt homes are designed with efficient floor plans that avoid under utilized spaces and encourage engagement with the outdoors. Better designed plans mean that you spend less on heating and cooling, and reduce the environmental impact of your house.

Whether you are looking for a small or a large home, Prebuilt will be able to offer you a house designed to reduce running costs and emissions. We work with you in the design phase to take your site into consideration, ensuring that we maximize the potential for natural temperature control in the house through window type, placement and size, cross ventilation, good insulation, and a range of timber and steel shading options designed especially for Prebuilt. Minimising solar gain and maximizing ventilation helps your house run better in summer; passive solar and minimizing heat loss keep in the warmth in winter.

We adopt a green approach to all areas of our construction,  using plantation and recycled timber, water saving plumbing fittings and energy efficient appliances, with options for our clients to also include low VOC emitting paints and stains, solar hot water and solar power panels, grey water recycling systems, reed beds and composting toilets.

Many of our clients have requested houses which are completely self sufficient, running entirely off the grid.

Prebuilt’s factory based construction itself offers significant environmental advantages over traditional building, reducing travel emissions, using standardized components to reduce material waste, and removing the possibility of material loss due to weather damage. This means our houses have a far lower embodied energy than most traditionally built houses.

Your site is also better off with a Prebuilt house, remaining untouched while the construction takes place in our factory. Our footing system means that most sites will not require any excavation, as slopes can remain as they are, and vegetation is spared the months of constant traffic of normal building sites.