My 5 favourite home changes

It’s the end of the month, which makes it as good a time as any to reflect on the five changes I’ve made to my house that are (currently) my favourites (for now)? Here we go:

1. The solar electricity system: This is probably obvious, not the least because I’ve talked about it more than any other change I’ve made to the house, or any projects I’ve taken on. I was thinking about this recently because of my impending review of the first twelve full months since the completed system was up and running, and it made me think about everything else I’ve done to improve the house. Still, this is definitely my favourite thing because it matches my values, long-held goals, and saves me some money operating the house. But, more about all that soon; right now I just wanted to acknowledge it’s first on my list. More to come…

2. The Solatube skylight in the kitchen: When I moved into this house, my kitchen was extremely dark. In fact, when I first saw the house, the dark kitchen was the thing I liked the least. So, in March of last year, I had a Solatube skylight sort of thing installed, and it did exactly what I wanted: It brought daylight into my kitchen. I’ve noticed that when I walk out to the living area (lounge/kitchen/dining) on a sunny morning, the area is filled with daylight (the sun is also shining on the front window at the time, and the light leaks in from there, too). The result is that it makes the place feel cheerful and welcoming, especially because I don’t need to switch on a light to make my coffee or give Leo his morning treat. On rainy mornings, it’s still brighter than it would’ve been without this change, however, in the depths of winter, when the sun is slow to rise and lazy about turning on its light, the effect isn’t nearly as dramatic or welcoming. Still, that’s only roughly 3-4 months out of the year, so most of the year I get the light first thing in the morning.

3. Window coverings: This was the first thing I did to the house after I moved in, but it, too needed revisions. In January 2020, I ordered window coverings for the living area and the bedrooms, and they were installed in February, and it turned out, I was extremely lucky: The following month, New Zealand went under its first Covid Lockdown. Maybe it was all that time sitting at home during the Lockdown, but as soon as July of that year, I realised I’d made a mistake with the window coverings in the two bedrooms, and that mistake was fixed a few weeks later. Then, March of this year, I added net curtains to the stacker doors in the living area, and that completes that project. Having said that, I still have to hang the other roller blind in the garage (due to boxes stacked in front of one window, the installer couldn’t get to one window when he fixed my error). I also want to put blinds in the windows of the toilet, bathroom, and en suite, the latter is because there are now houses on all sides of my house, and so, there’s less privacy than there was (even though the windows are frosted), The main reason I want to do this, though, is that none of those rooms are heated and they get cold in the winter, especially at night, and the cold en suite affects me every single winter morning and night (and it also gets hot in the afternoon in summer, with the sun hitting that window).

4. The ventilation system: When I bought this house, it had a split-unit (heat pump) air conditioner in the living area, and that was it. I had another one installed in the master bedroom, too (and a good thing that was, too), but I knew that wouldn’t help the other two bedrooms. If I’d had the cash before I moved in, I would’ve had ducted air conditioning installed, but I didn’t, so I concentrated on what I could do. As time passed, I realised that I had to do something, and in December 2020, I had an HRV system installed to provide some ventilation to the house. What I found out is that in summer the system switches on at night because the air in the attic is cooler than in the house (although, it didn’t switch on as much this past summer as it did last year; the nights were warmer this year, so the attic was warmer than the house). In cooler weather, it switches on in the morning, once the attic temperature gets higher that the house temperature (if the house temp is cooler than whatever I have it set for). This year, in late Autumn, I noticed that the house was quite cool in the morning when I got up (because the heat pumps were shut off; they’re on now), but when the HRV switched on, it pretty quickly heated up the house to a comfortable temperature. There are times in the year when it doesn’t help much, like in summer when the nights are too warm, or in winter when the sun doesn’t rise high enough to heat the attic until some hours after I get up. But there are other months of the year when it helps a lot, and when it does, it also equalises the temperature in the house. I still need to come up with a heating and cooling solution for the two smaller bedrooms, but that won’t be any time soon. I have a heater I can put in my office on cold days, and a fan for hot summer days. For now, anyway. However, if I could make one change, I would have insisted that a ducted vent be put in the hallway. The hallway gets very little air movement, and would definitely have benefited from a vent.

5. Data cabling: This is something I never blogged about in detail, but before I moved in to this house, and in addition to the master bedroom air conditioner, I had data cabling installed. I knew I was having my computer servers installed in the garage, so I had power points added to the spot where it was going, and also ethernet cabling run from that spot to all three bedrooms and also to the living area (there are three in that area). That’s because wired networking is faster than wifi, and the data it transmits can’t be intercepted as easily as it can be on wifi. This is something I use every single day: My computer uses the ethernet network, not the wifi, and my TV and its connected devices also use ethernet, as does the VOIP telephone system: They all benefit from the faster wired connection. I also had the same guy come back and install a UF aerial and wires leading to the jackpoints that were already in the living room (two of those) and the one in the master bedroom, and they’re still in use, of course.

Those are my current favourite changes to the house, and they’re technically the only actual changes: Everything else is mainly decorative. There will be more changes, of course, and many of them I’ll be doing myself or delaying (or both). But most of my projects this year will be more about clearing and decorating, because neither of those are done yet. And so it goes.