The Post article: Building new was the only way for a Manawatū family to get the healthy home they wanted

When Kahu Swanson talks about his family’s old house, he remembers the stifling summer nights. “It was 30C inside,” he says. “You couldn’t sleep.” Swanson, an electronics engineer, his wife Jacinda Aplin, a scientist, and their young son were living in a renovated 1940s stucco home that was cold in winter, hot in summer and expensive to run.

Both Swanson and his son, Jensen, 11, suffer from asthma and allergies, and the condensation and temperature swings made life harder than it needed to be. After years of trying to fix it with
upgrades – including a ducted heat pump – the couple realised that if they wanted a home that was warm, dry and healthy year-round, they would have to build it themselves.

Just outside Palmerston North, that’s what they’ve done. Their two-bedroom home, built with eHaus Manawatū, is deliberately compact, entirely white and designed to perform well beyond minimum building code standards.

“When looking at purchasing preexisting homes, they all suffered from the same issues,” Aplin says. “We realised if we wanted a house that was warm, dry, well-ventilated and affordable to live in, we probably had to build it ourselves.” Swanson, 43, says it was his wife’s idea to focus on energy efficiency from the outset. A constant indoor temperature was the initial drawcard. “But the more you learned, the more you realised the other benefits.”

Read the full article here.

The Post article: Building new was the only way for a Manawatū family to get the healthy home they wanted

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