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This is a good one! In the first episode of 2022, we sat down with Ben O'Brien from SolarPro Bendigo to talk about solar energy. Ben is a sustainable systems engineer and very passionate about solar energy, especially for residential homes. He explained to us how solar panels work, how much they cost to install, and what current government loans are available for homeowners. On top of that, he had to answer a couple of very spicy questions to help our listeners determine once and for all: Is solar energy really worth it?

In the last episode of 2021, we discuss the environmental pros and cons for renovating vs rebuilding a home. Then we go into a little reflection of what the year has been like for us, and we make some very exciting announcements to look out for in 2022. Happy Holidays and happy new year!

In the last episode, we spoke about our approach to designing efficient homes and mentioned the term hybrid home. So, we decided to elaborate a bit on what that means to us, and how these high performance homes are different to conventional builds as well as passive houses. It is a brief talk, but we managed to touch on what high performance means to us, why it is so important and why we believe this is the way to go in the future.

People love the idea of energy efficient houses, but are afraid of the potentially high extra building cost. Building designer Anthony and builder David explain how much it really costs to build a high-performing house in Australia and clean up some of the myths surrounding passive houses.