An article in the Nelson Mail’s Home & Garden section profiles Little Greenie. Replicated here in full:
The House That Ingenuity Built
This eco-home could be a blueprint for the future. By Hayley Gale.
Golden Bay’s Lawrence Mclntyre has built one of “the most well-insulated, low-energy houses in New Zealand”. Called Little Greenie, the spectacular property is located high on a hill at the northern entrance to the Abel Tasman National Park in Wainui Bay.
The former Christchurch businessman says the one-bedroom low-maintenance eco-home in a simple rectangular style uses the best new technology available.
Having had a full analysis of the home’s construction through the Home Energy Rating System, Little Greenie scored nine out of 10 whereas most New Zealand homes score only three to five, Mr McIntyre says.
He moved to Golden Bay with his wife Antje and their two children in 2004, after living in Christchurch and the Marlborough Sounds.
Previously they’d lived and worked around the globe including Africa, New Guinea and Germany.
He says Germany is leading the world in passive solar design and hopes that more people in New Zealand will follow suit.
A trip to Germany in 2003 to visit Antje’s family inspired the creation of a passive solar building in the “simple house” (Bauhaus) German philosophy. Little Greenie, uses “the best of German technology mixed with Kiwi feeling and ingenuity’, Mr McIntyre says.
Passive solar design means heat is first attracted through the buildings orientation towards the sun, which in this case also happens to be angled towards the beautiful view across Wainui Bay.
From the floor to the walls, windows and roof, the insulation materials used have given the home more than double the insulation value of ordinary Kiwi homes, he says. He has endeavoured to make the home as low-maintenance and long-lasting as possible.
No concrete in the floor or foundations touches the ground and polystyrene has V- been placed under the floor. The home’s solar-water system is used for underfloor heating as well as providing hot water.
Three overlapping layers of high-density wool insulation in the walls and adobe bricks on the inside make for highly insulated walls. Similarly, the corrugated iron roof is insulated with two layers of wool batts.
Other features of the wood-framed home include compost toilets and argon-filled low-e double-glazing on doors and windows. The wooden window frames have clip-on aluminium on the outside for weather-proofing.
Mr McIntyre believes the home challenges the architectural world because of its simplicity and lack of “fashionable ornamental features”
“It’s so nice to experience the same temperature in every room instead of a hot spot in front of a fire and a freezing cold bedroom,” he said.
The McIntyres let out Little Greenie as a holiday retreat in addition to a beautifully renovated house truck on their 100-acre block of land.
