The DIY Energy Efficient Home Project Magazine By EcoMaster

THE DIY 

ENERGY 

HOME 

EFFICIENT 

PROJECT 

AVAILABLE IN PRINT & DIGITAL 

A MUST-READ DIY GUIDE 

Learn from award-winning experts, Lyn & Maurice Beinat at 

ecoMaster on how their astronomical energy bill was the 

catalyst to two decades of research, product development 

and trial and error in the search for the most economical way 

to make their home more energy efficient on a budget. Fast 

forward to today, and their home is now a 7.6-star energy 

rated home with zero energy costs and carbon emissions. 

ecoMaster is here to show you simple, practical DIY 

projects; room by room that any DIYers can do. It was all 

filmed at the ecoMaster test home in the Macedon Ranges, 

Victoria, Australia. 

ecoMasterStore.com.au 

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AS FEATURED: 

WE’VE BEEN 

AROUND FOR 

AWHILE! 

CONT 

ENTS 

Use this code 

“DIYEEH” at 

our store for 

some great 

offers 


04 

05 

Visit Our Store 

Insider Secrets To An Energy 

Efficient Home. 

06 

Our Home Is Making A Difference 

08 

Why We Did It 

10 

Your Roadmap 

12 

What Our Clients Say 

13 

What We Did, What We Learned & 

What We Will Do Next 

14 

Outside DIY Projects 

15 

Solar Hot Water 

15 

Sun Lizard & Solar Panels 

16 

Solar Hot Water & 

Solarventi 

16 

Split Systems 

17 

Nature’s Lawn Mowers 

17 

Water System 

18 

Inside DIY Projects 

20 

Entrance 

21 

Lounge / Dining Room 

26 

Kitchen 

27 

Study 

28 

Bedrooms 

31 

Ensuite / Bathroom 

33 

The Top And Bottom 

(Building Envelope) 

ecoMasterStore.com.au 2 

The DIY Energy Efficient Home Project Magazine by ecoMaster is owned and published 

electronically by ecoMaster. Copyright 2019 ecoMaster. All rights reserved. No part 

of this electronic or printed magazine may be reproduced without the written consent of 

ecoMaster. Requests for permission should be directed to: LYN BEINAT - Co-Founder, 

ecoMaster - store@ecoMaster.com.au 

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Australia’s energy efficiency experts reveal 

the best-kept secrets to reducing your 

energy cost and improving your thermal 

comfort PERMANENTLY. The insiders 

tricks and downright “I NEVER would that 

thought of THAT” tips to make your home 

comfy, cheaper to run and better for the 

environment’. It is two decades of handson-retrofit 

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could be better than doing something 

great for your home, your family and your 

environment? The profits from Insider 

Secrets To An Energy Efficient 

Home go to the environmental and 

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Initially, we set out to make a 

difference to climate change. 

Our home was the ideal 

candidate and became the test 

bed for ecoMaster. Consequently, we 

only provide solutions that we have 

empirically tested and have proven to 

ourselves to be 100% effective. 

We think that is a pretty novel 

way to run a business these days. 

Actually, it’s not even a business, 

it’s “an obsession” that went well 

past being a “passion” many years 

ago. Our solutions are the highest 

quality available. We rarely provide an 

alternative because our testing has 

shown us which product is “best of 

breed”. So why would we offer you 

anything less? 

Our philosophy is to do a great 

job - once. Best product, best 

installation. Great outcome. 

Job done! For years we 

only worked on a personalised 

assessment and customised 

installation approach. ecoMaster 

provides that service and is a multi 

award-winning business. However, 

we understood there was a limit 

to how many homes we would be 

able to support that way. To reach a 

OUR HOME 

IS MAKING A 

DIFFERENCE 

wider audience, faster, the ecoMasterStore 

was born. Our aim is to provide the same 

high-quality solutions that ecoMaster is 

famous for, but to clients who prefer to 

take a DIY path. We obsessed with how to 

achieve the same outcomes as our bespoke 

service, so we support our DIY clients with 

the same high-quality products as well as 

full instructional videos for every solution to 

ensure a brilliant result. 

Over the years, we have learnt that most of 

our clients were sick of living in a home that is 

freezing in winter and sweltering in summer. 

They would rather spend their money on 

a pint of beer than a huge power bill, and 

ultimately they really want to do something 

about the environment. Warren Buffet does 

not see us as an acquisition target. Nor are 

we the focus of a venture capitalist. We are 

an honest, trustworthy business providing an 

ethical, values linked service in which 

we passionately believe; determined to 

ensure that every client achieves a great 

outcome. We love the fact that we are 

always learning and looking for ways 

(sometimes well outside the norm) to 

find solutions to a particular challenge. 

We believe that the built environment 

can be truly sustainable – and we work 

steadily towards that every day. 

There are not many occupations that 

you can say you made a difference every 

day. We are so fortunate to have this 

opportunity - and we would love to share 

it with you and your family. Would you 

like to join us? 

ecoMasterStore is home 

to DIYers 

who want a comfortable 

home, comfortable family. 

LYN & MAURICE BEINAT 

Founders - ecoMaster 

Macedon Ranges, Victoria, Australia. 

OTHER AWARDS WE 

HAVE WON 

Visit: ecoMaster.com.au/awards 



ABOUT THE 

ECOMASTER 

TEST HOUSE 

- WHY WE 

DID IT 

The retrofit began! A series of unique ecoMaster products 

were developed along the journey where we found the 

existing offerings were either poor quality, did not work, were 

ridiculously expensive or just plain wrong (like throwing out 

perfectly good windows that just happened to be single 

glazed). Architectural quality draught proofing, secondary 

glazing, and retrofit wall insulation were all developed over 

several years. 

That same home is now rated 7.6 stars with zero energy 

costs and carbon emissions. Even with minimal heating, it is 

a cosy warm home during winter. Summers are naturally cool 

with air-conditioning that is just not needed, even when it is 

46 degrees outside. Having retrofitted our own home to such 

an impressive standard, we understood the unique nature of 

what we had achieved. We wanted to share that knowledge. 

So we established ecoMaster to support 

other homeowners more easily down 

the same “make my home comfortable, 

lower energy costs and low carbon” 

pathway. 

Our objective was (and still is) to provide 

honest advice and effective solutions 

to enable others to retrofit their homes 

for energy efficiency as practically and 

pragmatically as possible. 

We concentrate on our core strengths: 

honesty, quality, and innovation to 

support our obsession with a low 

carbon future. 

Our journey started in 2003 as a response to 

an astronomical energy bill accompanied by an 

incredibly cold home (rated 1.5 stars) and the 

realisation that our lounge room emitted almost 

double the national average in carbon emissions. 

Thermally, financially and ethically - it was “not ok”. 

Told to ‘Suck it up princess... you live in the Macedon 

Ranges, it’s winter, you’re gunna be cold!’ by local 

builders, we were not sure where to start to fix our 

home. Clearly, it wasn’t with them! With those gruff 

words, the journey to retrofit our home for comfort, 

reduced costs and reduced carbon took its first, 

defiant step. Research to retrofit our own home was 

extensive. 

We built a heat chamber (as you do!) and hired a 

cool room (as you also must do!) and tested every 

insulation product on the market with 2-minute timing 

tests using multiple temperature probes. 

After 6 months of testing, we had our own library of 

temperature performance curves, developed from our 

own empirical testing. 

ALAN 

PEARS 

AM 

THANK YOU 

Alan Pears AM is the closest thing to “Green Royalty” in 

Australia. A dedicated environmental consultant, and a 

pioneer of energy efficiency policy in Australia since the late 

1970s. He has been an environmental consultant for decades, 

involved in energy/environmental rating and regulation of 

buildings, green building developments, and efficient appliance 

development. Often the lone sensible voice advocating “energy 

efficiency” first, he is a highly regarded analyst, consultant, and 

commentator on sustainable energy and climate policy. 

A natural thought leader, he has written or peer-reviewed 

many articles in specialist media such as The Conversation , 

Energy Policy, and ReNew magazine, as well as other academic 

journals, chapters of books and major reports. Alan was 

made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2009 for his 

contribution to environmental and energy policy. He has also 

received a number of awards from industry associations and 

RMIT media awards. Lyn and Maurice would like to take this 

opportunity to thank Alan for his mentorship of ecoMaster. We 

were deeply touched that Alan took an interest in the work we 

started nearly two decades ago and took the time to lend his 

considerable expertise to our learning journey. We salute you 

and thank you. 



THE DIY ENERGY EFFICIENT HOME PROJECT 

KNOW WHERE TO START TO GET THE BEST 

RETURN ON INVESTMENT 

7 

SOLAR PANEL 

›› 

Make your home energy efficient first, 

6 

SOLAR HOT WATER 

›› 

Eliminate gas hot water 

THEN install solar panels 

›› 

Use appliance timers to maximise the 

use of your energy when it is being made 

›› 

Check the output from your panels 

›› 

Use evacuated tube solar collectors or 

heat pumps 

›› 

Insulate your hot water pipes 

regularly to detect issues early 

2 

LIGHTING 

›› 

Have downlights? Replace them with IC4 

rated LEDs to eliminate draught and allow 

for complete ceiling insulation cover 

3 

CEILING INSULATION 

›› 

Adopt best practice rather than minimum 

building standards 

›› 

Ensure complete coverage to external 

walls 

›› 

No gaps! 

START 

HERE 

1 

DRAUGHT PROOFING 

›› 

Controls your ventilation! 

›› 

Provides the biggest bang for your 

retrofit buck 

5 

GLAZING 

›› 

Shade the windows in summer 

›› 

Secondary or double glaze 

›› 

Use good quality, long-lasting 

components 

›› 

Have thermally efficient window 

coverings/pelmets 

8 

LIFESTYLE - WASTE 

›› 

Reduce your food miles - grow your own 

4 

UNDERFLOOR 

INSULATION 

›› 

Without insulation, your floor will be the 

veggies and fruit 

outside temperature 

›› 

Chickens eat your kitchen scraps and 

provide you with eggs 

›› 

Share your garden abundance with 

*Wall insulation is important, but it has been 

excluded here, because it is generally not 

a DIY activity. 

›› 

Insulated floor means warm feet and 

cosy comfort 

›› 

Works well in summer too! 

friends and neighbours 

COPYRIGHT © 2019. ECOMASTER STORE 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 




Joel (sales) was a great help. Explained 

the process and quickly confirmed I 

could pick up the goods same day. 

The products you’re offering, especially 

the Shugg window draught excluders 

are rare and difficult to find, so your 

website was invaluable. Joel met me 

in the office, I signed out the goods 

and was on my way in minutes - great 

service. Thanks! - W.T. 

When I rang to explain what I needed, 

the gentlemen I had spoken to was 

amazing. He waited patiently while I 

logged in, and helped me navigate the 

website to place an order. Truly 

appreciated his help, thank you! - M.K. 

Hi! I installed the Draught Dodger last 

weekend. Good product - works well. 

Thanks. - G.B. 

Thanks Ken and please thank June. 

Normally I don’t order materials 

online however I couldn’t find a 

similar (let alone better) product 

locally that suits my current needs 

at an affordable price. If this benefits 

as much as I believe it will, I (or 

better yet the wife) will probably 

insist I retrofit the rest of the house! 

Thank you for your patience with 

me and look forward to an ongoing 

relationship as needs require. - S.M. 

WHAT WE DID, 

WHAT WE LEARNED 

& WHAT WE WILL 

DO NEXT 

Hello, I’m Maurice Beinat. I’m Technical Director at 

ecoMaster; and together with my wife Lyn, we started 

ecoMaster quite some years ago. I’m standing now 

on our property in the Macedon Ranges, and this 

is actually the reason that we started ecoMaster. 

When we moved into our beautiful home here, we 

discovered that it was mightily uncomfortable, 

freezing cold in the winter, almost unheatable, but 

more to the point, it was an environmental disaster 

- emitting more than twice the average household 

carbon just from the living room. 

That was a motivating factor for us to start making 

some changes. So I’d like to take you now on a tour of 

our home, but more than that, I’d like to take you on 

a journey of testing, trial and error, development and 

just everything that we went through to making our 

home from a 1.5 star home into a 7.6 star home. 

I very much hope that in this journey, you might find 

some things that you can implement in your own 

home. So let’s get started now. 


OUTSIDE 

DIY 

PROJECTS 

›› 


›› 

Sun Lizard & Solar Panels 

›› 

Solar Hot Water & Solarventi 

›› 

Split Systems 

›› 

Nature’s Lawn Mowers 

›› 

Water System 


“One of the first things that we did here was to put both solar 

heating and also wood fire heating into the main hot water 

system. 

The main hot water system is in the roof behind me. It 

already had the connections for solar panels and it also had 

connections for what’s called a “wetback” on a wood fire, 

although neither of those things were in place. 

So the first thing that we did is we actually got evacuated 

tubes, as you can see on the roof behind me. We wanted 40 

tubes. Unfortunately at the time 30 tubes was the biggest 

panel so we got another 10 to put beside it, and hence that’s 

why it’s in two pieces. But those are connected up to a lowpressure 

400-litre water tank in the roof behind them. 

You might notice that the tubes are on a bit of a slope. 

That’s because there is no pump on this system, its just a 

thermo-syphon. As the water in the header of the evacuated 

Sun Lizard & 

Solar Panels 

“This is the family cat, Vodka. On the roof behind me you’ll 

see a device called a Sun Lizard. The Sun Lizard is another 

box that seeks to heat up air and pump it into the home in 

the winter time and in the summer time seeks to extract 

hot air. 

Now it’s slightly different to the Solarventi’s that we saw at 

the other end. The Solarventi always brings in fresh warmed 

air whereas the Sun Lizard actually recirculates air, so it 

seeks to keep adding heat as it goes. So it draws in the air 

from inside, heats it and pumps it back in. 

By and large it works pretty well. It has a control system, 

a powered control system in the roof, and a panel inside 

from which to control the device. So you can switch it from 

heating to cooling. It’s not as automatic as such. 

tubes heats up, it gets less dense. The water goes “uphill” 

into the tank and the cooler water comes into the lower level 

of the header from a lower outlet in the tank. So that’s how 

our water is heated - just from the sun. 

We’ll see inside the wet flue that connects to the same tank. 

In the first year that this system was connected to the tank, 

we had zero boosting. That means all 100% of our hot water 

was from the sun and the wood fire. 

The other thing you can see on the roof here is just a very 

common solar panel system. It’s a 2.7 kilowatt system and 

it just sits there. When the sun’s on there, it generates power 

and sometimes it gets fed into the grid and sometimes it 

gets used in the home. We certainly try to maximise the use 

of that energy within the home when we possibly can.” 



Solar Hot Water & 

Solarventi 

“You can see behind me quite a lot of stuff on the roof. 

Originally it did have a solar panel inside the box. When the sun 

hit the box it heated up the air and excited the solar panel. The 

panel drove a fan that pumped the air from the Solarventi down 

into our home. 

It draws new air from the back that gets heated up and the cycle 

just continues. So, when there is a nice winter sun, it actually 

works really well, and we’ll have a look at an outlet a little bit later 

inside. We have actually ducted it down and provided a means 

of directing the hot air either into the ensuite, which is a dead air 

space, or into the bedroom to warm the bedroom. As I say, when 

the winter sun is nice and bright, it actually works brilliantly well. 

Of course, when there is no sun, nothing happens! But one of 

the issues with this particular box is that because the summer 

sun here is so strong, it actually cooked the solar panel inside the 

box. There is a fix for that now. But we just decided to put an 

external solar panel on to drive it, and maybe you can see that on 

the roof just below it. 

A fair bit later, we added a second Solarventi. That one actually 

exhausts into the living room to heat it in the wintertime. In the 

summertime, these can work kind of in reverse so that it still 

uses the solar panel to drive a fan, but instead of pumping hot air 

in, because obviously that’s not very useful in the summertime, it 

actually drives a fan to extract air through a ceiling outlet, which 

is kind of just marginally useful. But the main purpose of these 

is winter heating. The other thing you’ll see on the roof 

behind me are another 40 evacuated tube solar panel 

for hot water. So, because this house is so very long, it 

actually has two hot water systems in the roof. For a time 

we were just using the one down the west end. It was 

being piped up here, but of course the bathroom up this 

end, there’s a lot of pipe work in between, and so there 

was quite a lot of water wastage waiting for the hot water 

to get through. 

So, we did decide to again split the two systems apart. At 

this time, of course, we were able to get 40 tubes in one 

header. Again, you’ll notice that it’s not straight across the 

roof, it’s on a slant. Of course, that’s because it’s thermo 

syphoned. Okay? 

So, really great in the winter time, providing you a lot of 

your hot water. In the summertime, the hot water can 

get quite hot because there’s no control over how much 

heat the evacuated tubes are adding to the water. So, in 

the summertime, yeah, you have to be a bit more careful 

about adjusting the hot water.” 

Nature’s Lawn 

Mowers! 

“One of the things we have here are great lawnmowers and 

behind me, you can see lawnmower one, two, and three!” 

Water System 

“You’ll see the two pipes? They are risers that come up and 

carry water into the tank. One pipe comes from each side of 

the house. Whatever water falls on the roof ends up in the 

tank. This arrangement is called “loaded lines” and these 

pipes are always full of water. 

That’s assuming it hasn’t been a really, really long time since 

rain, but generally, those are full of water and whatever falls 

on the roof is added to the pipes and pushes all the water 

that’s in the pipe into the tank, so we have never, ever run 

out of water here. 

The other thing that happens here is that there is a pump 

below us - an electric pump. One of the things that I’ve never 

got around to is to replacing that with a solar-driven pump, 

but it’s still on the list of things to do. 

on the hill. That makes room in this tank, should there be a 

nice shower of rain. 

In the wintertime, usually both tanks are full or almost full 

and in the summertime, of course, there’s a bit less rain. 

We do get down a little bit, but unless there’s been a water 

leak somewhere, really we’ve never had less than one and a 

quarter tanks of water, so that’s still loads of water and we’re 

not miserly about it. 

We don’t particularly worry about flushing the toilets, 

having baths or having long showers. That’s all great. It’s an 

enormous amount of water and it’s great infrastructure that 

we were the beneficiaries of. So that’s the water 

system here.” 

What happens is that the water is pumped up to another 

Split Systems 

tank on the hill. That second tank provides the water 

pressure for our home. Every couple of weeks, usually on 

a weekend, we’ll put the pump on and it tops up the tank 

“In more recent years, we added a couple of highefficiency 

split systems. These are Mitsubishi Heavy, 

hyper inverter. I don’t really know what hyper means, 

but really, they are fantastically good because they are 

so convenient. Of course, you just hit the remote and 

within a couple of minutes, you’ve got really great heat 

coming out of them. And of course, if you need to, you 

can use them for cooling as well. So they have been really 

fantastic units.” 

Don’t forget to sign up to 

‘Insider Secrets To An Energy 

Efficient Home’. $25 - All proceeds go to charity 


INSIDE 

DIY 

PROJECTS 

›› 

Entrance 

- Draught proofing the front door 

- Air lock 

- Entrance landing 

›› 

Lounge / Dining 

- Introduction 

- Draught proofing 

- Stainless flue hot water heating 

- Window treatments 

- Big Ass fan 

- Acoustics - 3D wall tiles 

- Acoustics - suspended circles 

›› 

Kitchen 

- Windows - Testing and more draught proofing 

- Replacement cooktop (future project) 

- Lighting evolution 

›› 

Bedroom 


• Lighting 

• Seal up heating outlets 

• Double insulated heavy drapes and pelmets 

• Improved air circulation - external door 

• Draught proofed cavity slider 

›› 

Top And Bottom (Building Envelope) 


- Testing ceiling insulation 

- Attic 

• Insulate the manhole 

• Insulation, smoke alarm, insulated hot water pipes 

• Insulating the cathedral ceiling 

• Draft stoppa 

- Underfloor Insulation 

›› 

Study 

- Draught proofed awning window 

- Heavy drapes & pelmets 

- Personal heating 

- Retrofit wall insulation 

›› 

Ensuite /Bathroom 

- The Bathroom Evolution 

• Exhaust fans 

• Draft Stoppa 

• Timer switch 

• Heated towel rail 

• Showerdome look-a-like 

- Zoning 

- Solarventi Outlet 



ENTRANCE 

Draught Proofing 

The Front Door 

This is our front door. Because this is the ecoMaster test 

house, this door has over the years had lots of different 

treatments; door perimeter seals and door bottom 

treatments. We have learnt lots about things that don’t work 

and how to design things that do work. 

as thorough as the draught-proofing that we would do today. 

Nonetheless, it reduced our heating bill by 50% just doing 

that. So, doing this kind of work has real dividends behind it. 

Entrance Landing 

In the entrance down into our living room, there’s a couple of 

steps. When we first came here, there were a few little steps 

with really sharp edges, making it a little tricky to navigate. One 

of the things that we did was to make this a larger entrance. 

The platform is made from bamboo. We chose bamboo for 

two reasons. One is it looks great, but also it’s a reasonably 

sustainable material to use and we’re really happy with the way 

it’s turned out. 

One of the things that we were concerned about with making 

this kind of structure, is the amount of noise that it might 

generate from just walking across it. For that reason, we 

actually filled it underneath with acoustic blanket and so it 

hasn’t been an issue. 

For example, originally for the perimeter seals, we started 

with typical weather stripping but soon found that to be not 

very satisfactory. We tried other seals, including ones that 

had bulb seals on them which had some promise, but there 

are issues with bulb seals particularly getting jammed in 

the hinge side of the door. This led to the development of 

Draught Dodgers, which you see on these doors at 

the moment. 

We came to use this bottom treatment (RP35), which, in 

all the years that we have installed this device in various 

places, have not had one failure. We’ve hit upon a formula 

that’s really good. Our initial draught-proofing was not 

very thorough. It didn’t involve the doors - just a little bit of 

caulking and treating the light fittings. It was by no means 

See our Product Feature for Draught 

Dodgers for Doors + RP35 

https://ecomasterstore.com.au/collections/ 

perimeter-seals/products/draughtdodgers-for-doors 


draught-proofing-door-bottom-draught-excluder/ 

products/door-draught-proofing-rp3-automaticdrop-down-draught-excluder 

LOUNGE / DINING ROOM 

Introduction 

Our family room is quite a big space, with a living area on one side, a 

dining area on the other, a kitchen, and a great big cathedral ceiling. 

It is a big space, and there’s quite a lot happening here to talk about. 

There’s a drying rack, a ceiling fan, the lighting upgrade, an acoustic 

upgrade and there’s also hot water heating happening here. And 

there’s the heating systems themselves. There is quite a lot of 

draught-proofing to talk about. And of course, there’s a ceiling and 

underfloor installation as well. So, let’s make a start. 

Air Lock 

Draught-proofing a front door is one thing, but when people 

are coming and going, if this is your main heated area, 

you’re definitely losing a lot of heat every time the door 

opens. And of course, if you’ve got kids you can expect the 

door to be left open. That’s just a fact of life. To take energy 

efficiency to the next level, an airlock is a great idea so 

you can certainly come and go without losing a lot of your 

winter heating. 


The journey really started with draught-proofing. In the living room, 

it turned out that there were a lot of draughts. We didn’t really think 

that it was a draughty place, but when you look carefully, there 

was quite a lot to do. Because this is a cathedral ceiling, there are 

loads of gaps where the rafters meet the wall, where the rafters 

meet the external wall, the architraves around the glazing, but 

also the aluminium sliding doors were not very good. As well as 

that, of course, the external hinge doors and the awning windows 

were also draughty. So all those have been treated. And initially 

we didn’t do it all, but in the first year we actually saved 50% of our 

heating just by doing the draught-proofing. 

See our Product Feature Section for 

Draught Proofing - Ultraclear 

https://ecomasterstore.com.au/products/ 

draughtproofing-gaps-fullers-ultraclear 


Stainless Flue Hot 

Water Heating 

In the early days here, one of the first things that we did was we 

decommissioned the two central gas-fired heating systems. 

Now, because we live in the countryside, it was LPG. It was really 

expensive to run and not very helpful because the heating simply 

came out from the ceiling outlets, which is not ideal. 

We got rid of the LPG tank and we stopped using the heating 

systems. The wood-fire became our main heating source. Now if 

you’re going to use a wood fire to heat hot water, normally there’s 

a water jacket built into the wood-fire, but this one was new and 

it didn’t have water jackets. We decided to add a wet flue. The 

bottom section of flue here is a stainless steel jacket and the 

pipes at the back lead up into the hot water tank, which is just 

above it. 

You run the fire to heat the living room. The fire heats up the flue, 

the flue heats the water up and it’s a simple thermosyphon. Again, 

it goes around and heats up the water in the hot water tank. 

If you are thinking of doing this, there’s just one little fault we 

didn’t do. The pipes are nicely curved going up, but in fact, what 

that leads to is when the hot water system gets pretty hot, you 

can have the thermosyphon stagnate and this starts sounding 

like it’s going to be a bomb that blows up, but eventually it boils, 

ecoGlaze 

One of the things that were paramount in improving the overall 

thermal performance of this home was to do something with the 

glazing. Because it’s such a big place, it’s got so much glass, and 

especially here in the living room, it was really where we had to 

do something. 

Way back when we started looking at this, we got some pricing 

for replacement double glazing and it was just astronomical. We 

just weren’t going to devote that amount of resources and also 

trash perfectly good joinery and glass. That’s where the idea for 

ecoGlaze (secondary glazing) came from - how to figure out 

has a bit of a hissy fit and it starts again. This can be 

prevented if the pipe at the back here actually went down 

before it went up and that would circumvent that little 

issue. It’s not really a problem, but it just sounds a bit 

ominous when it happens. 

That’s it. Earlier, we saw that we’ve got the 40 evacuated 

tubes on the roof in a set of 30 in a set of 10 that feed into 

the same tank. When the sun’s out, it heats up the hot 

water. When we’ve got the wood-fire on, which is less so 

now that we’ve got a couple of really good split systems 

(they’re just so convenient), and of course wood fire, not 

really very good environmentally. We use it at a minimum 

now. So, the wet flue doesn’t actually do very much for us 

these days, but when we put it in, it was the main source 

of heating and did a fantastic job of providing hot water 

as well. 

what we can do to make existing glazing effectively 

double-glazed. 

In this home, there are lots of experiments along those 

lines as we were developing ideas, and they still kind of 

work, and I’m glad we didn’t go with some of them, but 

eventually we developed ecoGlaze. 

Behind me, now you can see the real McCoy. We kept the 

living room in reserve to install the actual product that we 

could supply to everybody, which is ecoGlaze. I think it 

looks especially great when it’s colour-matched with 

the existing. 

Renshade 

Roller Blinds 

The blind that you see behind me is a Renshade chain pull blind. 

Renshade is this material that you see. It’s reflective on both 

sides, it’s got little holes in it, and it’s amazing at stopping the 

heat. In particular, it’s great for western facing windows, where 

you’ve got the blistering sun. Here it’s on the north side of our 

home because in full summer we can get a lot of heat coming in 

through these windows. We’ve made it into chain pull blinds so 

it could be pulled up and we can get the full benefit of the winter 

sun. These have been really, really good. 

They did operate in conjunction with heavy line drapes and a 

box pelmet. Unfortunately, those drapes became, well worn, not 

helped by a couple of our dogs. So, the drapes have gone, which 

has left us only with the Renshade roller blinds. The next project 

in hand is actually to replace both of those window coverings 

with one. What we’re planning to do here is to take out these 

Renshade chain pull blinds and replace them with cellular blinds 

otherwise called honeycomb blinds as you might know them. 

The advantage of fitting this on existing windows with 

ecoGlaze, is the cost and less material going to waste. 

We’re still using the same joinery, it’s still just as good as 

it was all those years ago and we’ve kept it and just added 

the ecoGlaze components. It’s really made a massive 

difference to the overall thermal performance of our 

home at a very reasonable cost. So, that’s it. That’s how 

ecoGlaze came about, and here it is. 

We’re hoping that those are going to perform most of the 

function of the Renshade in the summertime. I don’t think 

they’re going to be quite as good, but because here we’re 

at 500 metres of elevation, it’s more of a winter issue 

here, and the cellular blinds should perform quite well in 

that respect. 


Renshade 


renshade-reflective-foils 

Suspended 

Drying Rack 

One of the things that’s reasonably challenging here in the 

Macedon Ranges in the wintertime is how to dry your washing. 

We don’t like to use the dryer, so here’s something that we 

really love. A drying rack! Now because we’ve got a really high 

cathedral ceiling, this is ideal. You can just put your drying on 

there and hoik it up out of the way. Whatever heating you use, 

whether it’s a split system or the wood fire, the washing gets the 

most of the heat and, and dries off brilliantly. 


Panel LED & 

Painted Ceiling & 

Solarventi Outlet 

Sometimes things are done for aesthetic reasons and 

others are done for energy reasons. So above us, we’ve 

got these LED panels which we use to replace the previous 

energy-intensive lighting. 

When these panels came, they were a really harsh daylight 

colour and there were a lot of complaints. So rather than 

replace the panels, we got a roll of Change to Orange 

film. It’s a translucent film that’s actually used in the 

photographic industry. We pulled the panels apart and we 

put the film in it. It’s transformed what was a really harsh 

light into quite a mellow, yellow light, and there was peace. 

In conjunction with this, we got rid of a lot of “brown”. So the 

cathedral ceiling above me, as so many cathedral ceilings 

are, were just clear finished timber, so it was brown, brown, 

brown. The wall behind me also was a brown feature brick 

wall. We also have brown slate on the floor. It’s a typical 

1980s arrangement. So we painted the ceiling white and we 

plastered and painted the wall. 

While that’s changed the aesthetic quite a bit, it’s has also 

improved the light quality in the whole room. We are really 

pleased with the results. 

On the back wall here, there is also an old heating outlet in the 

wall. It’s no longer a heating outlet because we discontinued 

the heating system, but we have made use of it to be the 

actual port that brings in the warm air from the Solarventi. 

Better Acoustics - 

3D Wall Tiles 

Here’s something that we’ve done quite recently to this home. 

You can see behind me in these red tiles. These are called 

Quietspace 3D tiles, and we’ve put them up in conjunction with 

a hanging feature above me. That’s called a “Horizon Circle”. 

Why have we done this? Well, it’s about sound quality in the 

room. As you get older, you get less tolerant of reflected 

sound. That is, sound coming at you from multiple directions. 

That makes it really difficult to understand speech. So what 

we were finding was that we’d be sitting here watching the TV, 

and we’d be having this conversation over and over again,“Did 

you hear what they said?” “No. Did you hear what they said?” 

“Hmm, Not sure.” It was very irritating, and you can put the 

volume up, and make a lot more noise, but it doesn’t improve 

your understanding of speech. 

So, the idea of this arrangement is that it absorbs sound, and 

it eliminates some of the reflected sound, so that you just hear 

the direct sound. And I have to say, it’s made an astonishing 

difference. We don’t have those conversations anymore. 

It’s a great thing. If you’re getting older and you’re finding 

difficulty with understanding dialogue, then that’s a great 

thing, and also, if you’ve got a home theatre, I would suggest 

that it’s a fantastic thing to use for that. 


Quietspace 3D Tiles 

https://ecomasterstore.com.au/collections/soundinsulation 

Big Ass Fan 

“What you see above me is the Haiku Big Ass Fan. Now this 

is a pretty big room so we thought we’d need a pretty big fan. 

We did in the past have just a regular fan, and the quality was 

not very good, so we thought we’d go with this. 

I have to say that this fan, it’s an amazing piece of engineering. 

It’s brilliantly well-made. You get a remote control to operate it 

with. It actually has a light in it as well that you can dim. It’s a 

brilliant product. The one thing that I don’t like about it is that 

it doesn’t have a reverse function. It won’t run backwards, like 

most fans where you can actually physically flip the reverse 

switch on the side of the fan. This one just doesn’t have that 

function, and so it can only actually blow 

air down. 

In the wintertime, its actually more pleasant if the air is blown 

upwards. That distributes the heating in the room better as 

the heating comes down around the edges of the room at a 

lower velocity. 

If you stand under this, even though the air is warm because 

of the air velocity, it actually feels cool, and that’s kind of 

disappointing.” 

Acoustics - 

Suspended Circle 

Being of Italian extraction, when we get together we can get 

quite boisterous, and we’ve got a lot less soft furnishings in 

this room than we used to have. So again, lots of reflected 

sound. And so that’s why we’ve added another Horizon Circle 

over the table. 





Horizon Circle 

https://ecomasterstore.com.au/collections/soundinsulation 


Lighting Upgrade 

LED downlights, and so we have replaced the compact 

fluorescents with those. The LEDs are completely sealed 

units with an amazing light output. 

KITCHEN 

Awning Window 

Treatments 

Well as you can see, these are the kitchen window. We 

have a few things going on here. Firstly, as well as 

developing ecoGlaze (secondary glazing) in this home, we 

do continually test other things, and on this window, we’re 

testing one of the heat shrink films. You can probably see 

that it’s got a bit of misting around the centre that’s on the 

inside of the external glass. 

How does it perform? I think from a thermal performance 

point of view, pretty good because it’s trapping about 20 

millimetres of air. Aesthetically, well, it doesn’t look all that 

great. It’s pretty hard to trim nicely and keep looking nice 

over time. It’s pretty hard to clean - you have to be ever so 

gentle trying to clean it. But, thermally and cost-wise, I think 

it’s pretty good. It would be particularly good if you are 

renting. 

is that it’s very long-lasting. Maintenance wise, it’s pretty 

good, but it does tend to warp over time. What generally 

happens with these sashes in that they bow and leave 

quite substantial gaps. So, in these awning windows, we’ve 

replaced the original beads with Draught Dodgers for 

Awning Windows. It’s a great seal around the whole window 

- no more draught! 


Draught Dodgers For Awning Windows 

One of the things that we did really early on was dealing with 

the lighting. We had about 40 of these halogens downlights 

fitted in a gimbaled fitting (that is they had the ability to tilt). 

But they were all 100% flat on the ceiling, and there was an 

enormous gap around each. So there was lots of draught into 

the roof, lots of electrical energy used in the halogen lamps, 

and lots of ceiling insulation missing as well because you’ve 

got to leave a big spice around the hot lamps. 

What did we do? We took the lamps out and took the centre 

out of each fitting. That just left the space that actually fits 

the hole in the ceiling, and then we installed 11-watt compact 

fluorescent lamps into that existing ring. 

So that effectively sealed the draught, greatly reduced the 

electrical energy for lighting. And of course, we can fix up the 

ceiling installation pretty closely to these. The downside of that 

was compact fluorescents take about 30 seconds to come up 

to reasonable light and about a minute to come up to full light. 

That’s pretty irritating. We put up with that for a very long time 

because that’s all there was. But now there are these amazing 

STUDY 

These particular ones have got a switch that enables you 

to change the colour of the light. We like the warm light, so 

that’s what we use. They’ve got a regular plug on the end so 

that they can plug easily into what’s called plugged bases 

in the ceiling. So if you’ve got plug bases, then it’s a DIY 

installation. You can just take out the existing inefficient 

lights and plug that into the plug base, then pop that into 

the ceiling and the job’s done. The result is just amazingly 

different - it’s a really amazing light and surprisingly cheap. 

The other thing about this window is that we’ve draught 

proofed it and others like it. So in this home, we’ve got 

hardwood joinery. And what tends to happen with hardwood 


windows/products/draughtdodgers-for-awningwindows 

Replacement 

Cooktop 

When we came here, this was an electric cooktop. We did 

change it for a gas one that runs on LPG. This has been here quite 

a long time now, and it is slated for replacement. LPG or piped 

gas is not sustainable and not great in terms of greenhouse gas 

emissions. This is particulary true in the production stage. We’re 

going to change this for an induction cooktop. This has all the 

really great control features that gas has, and in fact, is better than 

gas but without the emission issues. 

Introduction 

Working in a study can be a reasonably uncomfortable 

experience. For a start, you’re just sitting sedentary. If space 

is cool, you’re soon going to be feeling frozen. There are a few 

things that have been done here to try and alleviate that. Firstly, 

on the window side. We have draught-proofed the opening 

window, added ecoGlaze (secondary glazing) to reduce the 

conducted heat through the glazing and added the Renshade 

roller blinds as well to reduce the incoming summer heat. 

There’s also heavy lined drapes with the box pelmet. So the 

windows in this room are pretty well taken care of. Of course, 

during the day, we don’t really want to use the drapes. 

We’ve also fitted a quite a good LED light to the ceiling to 

provide a good level of lighting. And finally, the thing to make 

you really comfortable is to create your own little personal heat 

bubble. And how do you do that? Well, you might notice that 

I’m wearing a jacket, but it’s a special jacket. This is a heated 

jacket and we put a battery in it, push the button, and hey, 

presto, in a few minutes you get a nice, warm feeling all over. 

The other thing is, of course, a heated floor mat. Here it is! 

This particular one uses 75 watts of electricity, which is not 

a huge amount, but certainly, if your feet are warm and your 

body’s warm, then it’s going to be a fair bit more pleasant 

sitting here doing your work. 

See our Product Feature Section for Draught 

Dodgers For Awning Windows 

https://ecomasterstore.com.au/collections/windows/ 

products/draughtdodgers-for-awning-windows 


Retrofit Wall 

Insulation 

One of the questions that we had was, “What exactly is in 

the walls of this home?” When we looked, we discovered a 

high-quality reflective house wrap. And while it was really 

good quality, it was not very well installed. It was not fixed to 

the bottom of the walls (so it was just flapping in the breeze) 

and lapped in the middle. But it only came to 2.4 metre 

high. As most of this house has 2.7-metre ceilings, the top 

300mm of the walls were actually just open to the elements. 

In effect, the reflective nature of the wrap became completely 

pointless, because there was absolutely no chance of still 

air space. So the next question is what to do about it? We 

decided to remove the plasterboard, treat the walls and then 

put the plasterboard back on. We cut the plasterboard about 

a 100mm from the corners of the room, 100mm in from 

architraves, skirts and corners so that we didn’t have to disturb 

those. Then we took the plasterboard off. We got material like 

this - RetroShield - and cut it into sections that would fit into 

a stud noggin space. We installed that, made little hospital 

corners and stapled it in all the way around. So the idea is to 

BEDROOMS 

make a still air space. Next, we glued some battens to it. The 

purpose of that was to hold the bulk material off the reflective 

surface. We put the polyester wall batts in. Then we installed 

new plasterboard and jointed it. Then, of course, you have to 

redecorate. So that’s how we retrofitted wall insulation. It made 

a massive difference. We left this little piece open here just so 

we could show people what we actually did in the walls. 

Introduction 

I’m standing in the main bedroom. There are quite a few 

energy efficient features to see. Starting with the drapes, the 

lighting treatment, an example of sealing up heating outlets, 

improving cross-flow ventilation and draught proofing a walkin 

robe. 

See Our Product Feature Section For 

Autex Wall Insulation 

sealing-kit 

https://ecomasterstore.com.au/collections/polyesterwall-insulation 

Sealing Up 

Heating Outlets 

About a year after we stopped using the central heating 

system, we decided to have a go at blocking up the outlets. 

What you see here, is a typical ceiling outlet of a heating 

system. You might see a silvery part inside, or if I open these 

louvres, we can see inside. 

We got a piece of polyester insulation and pushed it just up 

into the ducting. Then we cut a piece of Foilboard and pushed 

it in nice and airtight and put the louvres back on. Normally 

the louvres are closed. But the point of doing this was that it 

made a massive difference because the heating system is a 

closed-loop. It wasn’t really draughty, but any heating in the 

room was drifting up into the ducting. The ducting is insulated 

a tiny bit, but not as insulated as a ceiling should be. A lot of 

heat loss occurs in the ducting. The air in the ducting then 

gap). And these about 13 Watts. So it reduced the power 

consumption of the lighting quite a lot. The downside of 

compact fluorescence, apart from having some mercury in 

them, is that they take a long time to come up to full light, 

and that’s kind of irritating. But once they are in full light, 

they’re okay. It’s a nice warm light as well. And that’s why 

we’ve kind of persevered with this and left them to the last 

for replacing. 

cools and comes down, so it was a continuous cooling cycle 

in the wintertime. Sealing up the vents made a surprising 

amount of difference. 


Goodbye Heating Vents 

https://ecomasterstore.com.au/products/duct- 

Lighting 

When we first moved into this home, it was absolutely full of 

50 watt halogen downlights. They were fitted into gimballed 

fittings (the ones that can tilt) which have an amazing gap 

around each one. 

Very early on we decided we had to do something about 

those halogens. While many of our lighting upgrades have 

been superseded, this particular one was lasted. It is now 

slated for replacment with IC rated LED downlights, but it was 

pretty good at the time. Even today it is still working well. 

These particular lamps were fitted onto the exterior rim of the 

gimballed fitting. We just kept the rim in the ceiling, took out 

the halogen centres and fitted the new lamps. These are GX53 

compact fluroescent lamps. You can probably see the little 

fluoro going across it. So it’s sealed up the light fitting (no 

Double Insulated 

Heavy Drapes & 

Pelmets 

We’re probably all aware that amongst the most thermally 

effective window coverings are heavy lined drapes and box 

pelmets. The pelmet is very important because they eliminate 

the airflow going down behind the drapes. One way to 

rejuvenate all drapes is to simply sew the new material onto 

the old. That way you get a new look, you get added insulation, 

and you don’t trash the old drapes and linings. Bear in mind 

though you’re probably going to need a curtain maker to 

help you do that. 


Improved Air 

Circulation 

I’m standing at the east end of the home. One of the things 

that we did was to improve the cross-flow ventilation of the 

home. There use to be a regular awning window here, which 

are really poor for ventilation purposes. We took out the 

whole awning window unit and replaced it with this doubleglazed 

door. On those few really scorching hot summer days, 

in the evening, we can open this door and get a rush of air 

straight through the home. This resets the home at a lower 

temperature for the next day and we have a more pleasant 

evening. As you can see, it’s got a blind tilt and very easy 

to operate. You can also pull up the blind with this other 

control. It’s been a really great thing. 

Draught Proofed 

Cavity Sliding Door 

So the next thing that we did is we got an electric towel rail. 

We figured, “Well, we’ve got damp towels all day long. That’s 

not really good, so let’s get an electric towel rail and have nice 

warm and dry towels.” It is connected to a timer, so it comes 

on in the morning and dries the towels, and a little bit at night. 

Again, it helped a little bit, and we did have nice, toasty, warm 

towels, which is great but still not really fantastic. We did install 

the Solaventi, which did help a lot. And finally, the thing that 

really made a really big difference is that we fitted on top of our 

shower our own version of Showerdome. I’m a big fan of the 

Showerdome product, and I would have bought the real McCoy if 

our shower had been a standard size, but it’s not. 

So what we’ve done is made our own effective shower dome, 

making the shower a booth rather than just an enclosure. 

Having done that, there actually is almost never a reason to run 

the exhaust fan, because all the steam from the shower actually 

condenses on the glass in the shower, and none of it comes in 

the room at all. Our shower’s big enough, that you can towel dry 

in there in a nice, warm space rather than out here, so it actually 

has worked fantastically well. After showering, we leave the 

shower door open, and the Solarventi actually just dries 

out the shower during the day, so makes everything dry. 

And there certainly is no tendency towards any mould 

issue here at all anymore. 

See our Product Feature Section for Draft 

Stoppas 


draughtproofing-exhaust-fans-draftstoppa 

As is usually the case with master bedrooms, there’s often a walkin 

robe. In this case, we’ve got a cavity sliding door that slides into 

an external wall, so almost always causes a draught issue. In this 

case, we fitted the Draught Dodgers for Cavity Sliding Door, so that 

we can shut the door and have it draught-proofed on this side. 

Zoning 


Draught Dodgers - Cavity Sliding Door Kit 

ENSUITE / BATHROOM 

Introduction 

There is a longish story of evolution in here. There’s a little bit 

of an echo in here because there is no external opening to this 

room. You can see behind me that we can see straight out the 

back, but that’s because there’s a glass wall on the other side of 

the shower enclosure. So it looks very nice, but the problem was 

that it was always damp in here. We’ve progressed over time, 

and done various things to try and address that dampness, and 

there was also the tendency towards mould on the ceiling. 

The original fan was choked with dust and it wasn’t really 

a great fan, so we replaced it. But replacing it didn’t really 

make a lot of difference. 

As we used to accidentally leave the fan on for a long 

time, we put a pneumatic push button on the fan. We 

would push the button and it would run the fan just for a 

number of minutes rather than all day long. That kind of 

helped a little bit - but not very much really. 

See our Product Feature Section for RP2A, 

Draft Stoppa 

internal_door 



https://ecomasterstore.com.au/products/door-draughtproofing-draught-dodgers-cavity-sliding-doors-set 

https://ecomasterstore.com.au/products/doordraught-proofing-rp2a-19mm-door-brush-seal_ 

https://ecomasterstore.com.au/collections/perimeter- 

seals/products/door-draught-proofing-emv-one-door- 

set-effective-low-cost-door-perimeter-seal 

When we heat our home, it’s a good idea, not to heat areas 

that you don’t really need to heat. And for us, it’s the wet 

areas. It’s the laundry, toilet and bathrooms. 

We treat the doors (as in draught-proof them) and keep them 

closed. Now here’s an interesting thing - if you’ve got little 

kids, it’s pretty hard to keep them closed!. But we don’t have 

little kids. So this door has been treated with an experimental 

perimeter seal and just a regular brush on the bottom. 

So when we close it, it’s pretty well draught proofed. We can 

leave the window open if we wish to ventilate the bathroom. 

It’s not going to affect the rest of the home. Another thing 

that’s in this bathroom, is that we’ve treated the exhaust fan 

with a draught stopper, and we’ll have a look at that when we 

get in the roof. 


Solarventi Outlet 

This is the outlet for the Solarventi that we first saw on the 

roof. It’s a simple MDF box that leads from the ceiling down to 

the floor. The Solarventi has a flexible duct that adapts to the 

top of the box. So, the warm air comes down here, and maybe 

you can hear it going? I can certainly feel quite a nice warm 

airflow on my hand, even though there’s not really very much 

sun at the moment. 

One of the things that we did was to organise this so we 

could direct this airflow into two rooms. At the moment 

we’re in the ensuite, which is a dead air space. It has no 

opening window and so, usually, the warm air is directed in 

here to dry out the shower. But we can direct the airflow into 

the other room which is the master bedroom. It’s quite a 

simple arrangement that just works brilliantly well. 

The other part of the Solarventi is the control system. I was 

explaining earlier that the box on the roof that draws air from 

outside through the backplate, heats it up, passes it down 

the shoot into the ensuite or the master bedroom. The last 

part of the puzzle is actually the controls. The bottom control 

here is a speed controller for the fan so you can slow the fan 

down if you wish. It’s a solar-powered fan, so I just leave it on 

full. The other part is the thermostat. It’s just a really simple 

thermostat and when it hits the set temperature, the system 

is going to change from pouring in heat to energising the 

extraction fan. That’s it. 

In the wintertime, we normally set it up to a reasonably high 

temperature, so there’s no risk of it switching to cooling 

mode. I really love the simplicity of this - it’s a beautiful thing. 

Testing Ceiling 

Insulation 

Before upgrading the ceiling insulation, we had to decide 

how much to upgrade it and what to upgrade it with. Without 

knowing very much about insulation products, we decided 

to build a controlled heat chamber and we hired a cool 

room. We built a simulated house and insulated it with all 

the different bulk insulations and reflective installations and 

basically tested how they performed in heat and in cold. 

So the result was that polyester performed really, really well. 

Not only that, but it was a nice product to work with. It is much 

more pleasant than the fibreglass batts that we had in the 

roof already. We went with a combination of the polyester 

bulk insulation and reflective insulation. We’ll see that very 

shortly. Before we did that, we actually took the existing R2.5 

fibreglass batts from one end of the home and used them to 

double up in the opposite end of the home so that we had R5 

fibreglass batts. 

So, one end of the home is end’s slightly smaller than the 

other. We had enough extra installation to make good all the 

gaps around the downlights that we now didn’t need to have 

and doubled it all up. Effectively, we had about R5 down one 

of the home. At the other end of the home, we used R3.5 

polyester batts and pleated foil batts over the top. So with the 

combination of those we found worked really well. 

See Our Product Feature Section For Autex 

Ceiling Insulation 

https://ecomasterstore.com.au/collections/polyesterceiling-insulation 

THE TOP & BOTTOM 

Introduction 

One of the things that we did really early on was to improve 

the ceiling insulation. Some years later, we did underfloor 

insulation as well. Now, before we look at those in detail, 

let’s talk a little bit about the structure of this home because 

there are some things that are a little unusual and not found 

in many other homes. So although we’re in a cathedral 

ceiling here, the cathedral ceiling is not actually the roof as 

is normally the case. So that cathedral ceiling is a structure 

within the greater roof, and so there is actually crawl space 

above the cathedral ceiling. The other thing is that although 

we’re on a concrete slab, the concrete slab is on stumps. 

So there is crawl space underneath the slab. So those two 

things are really unusual features that you don’t normally find 

in homes but have enabled us to insulate under the slab and 

actually over the cathedral ceiling, as well. 

See Our Product Feature Section For Autex 


https://ecomasterstore.com.au/collections/polyesterceiling-insulation 

Attic - Insulate 

The Manhole 

We are just about to go up in the roof to have a look at things 

up there. But before we do, I’d just like to point out that in our 

case, we’ve got attic stairs, but nonetheless it’s a manhole. 

And in your home, you might have a more regular size 

manhole in the ceiling. Just remember it’s part of the ceiling, 

so it needs to be insulated as well as the ceiling. 


Smoke Alarm & 

Insulated Hot 

Water Pipes 

to the tubes, and it comes back this way. So actually, I’m just 

going to test the difference in the temperature here. Pretty hot. 

Ouch, really hot. So, it is a sunny winter’s day outside. And so 

those evacuated tubes are definitely working fantastically well. 

Underfloor 

Insulation 

one after the other, and glue them up under the galvanised 

deck. We used water-based liquid nails to do that. They fitted 

together just like a jigsaw puzzle, making little still air pockets, 

which you need for reflective insulation to work properly. So 

that’s what we did and it’s still there and working today. 

Firstly, we decided to put a smoke alarm up here because 

if there’s a fire that happens to get started in the roof, this 

is likely to warn us a long time before a smoke alarm in the 

house would do. 

The other thing is the hot water system here. We’ve got a 

low-pressure copper tank with 400 litres of very hot water. So, 

this hot water pipe here is pretty well insulated. And this is the 

return from the tubes on the roof. Down below here, we’ve 

got the flow to the tubes on the roof. So it goes out that way 

vimeo.com/356774717 

Because this house is a slab on stumps, it gave us the 

opportunity to insulate under the concrete slab. It’s great 

thermal mass but not a very good insulator. So normally under 

a floor, you would use the polyester rolls between the joists, 

which are fantastic. But under this floor is a galvanised tray 

that was used to pour the slab on top. And so very difficult to 

fit any kind of bulk installation to that. 

So what we had to do was invent our own insulation and we 

decided to use reflective insulation. So you can see here we’ve 

got 15mm Foilboard cut into 600mm tiles and fitted with this 

25mm border on two sides. What enabled us to lap them 


R2.5 Underfloor Insulation 


underfloor-insulation 


Insulating The 

Cathedral Ceiling 

We’re currently in the roof, looking over the cathedral ceiling. 

And what we can see here is the original fibreglass bats laid 

on black plastic over the cathedral ceiling, and then on top, 

we’ve actually fitted R2.5 Underfloor Insulation Rolls that were 

pulled across the cathedral ceiling. You can also see that 

while the cathedral ceiling actually holds up the roof, it is not 

the roof itself. 




Draft Stoppa 

We are over the bathroom now, and specifically, we’re 

looking over the exhaust fan. This is a Draft Stoppa that’s 

fitted over the exhaust fan. It’s got two flaps that are pretty 

carefully weighted. When the exhaust fan is on, they tip up 

and the moist air comes out. When the exhaust fan switches 

off, they just fall down. Now you can probably hear that 

clickety-clack sound that they make. This is an old model. 

The newer models have got little rubber bumpers on them 

so that they don’t make that sound. 



Draft Stoppa 




SHOP OUR 

STORE 


Draught Dodgers 

Awning or Casement 

Windows 

ecoMaster - Draught 

Dodgers Cavity 

Slider Kit 

ecoMaster - Draft 

Stoppas 


ecoMaster - Draught 

Dodgers For Doors 

ecoMaster - RP35 

- Bottom Door 

Draught Seal 

ecoMaster - RP2A 

- Bottom Door 

Draught Seal 

ecoMaster - Goodbye 

Heating Vents 

ecoMaster - 

Renshade 

Insulation 

ecoMaster - Autex - 


Draught Dodgers 

Awning or Casement 

Windows 


Wall Insulation 

Please use this 

discount code 

“DIYEEH” to get 

great offers in 

our store 



Quietspace 3D tiles 

THANK 

YOU! 


Horizon Circle 

Maurice and Lyn would like to thank you for reading 

the magazine. We would love to encourage you to take 

action with your own DIY Energy Efficient Home Project. 

So please use this Discount Code “DIYEEH” with our 

complements to get great offers on 

www.ecoMasterStore.com.au 

ecoMaster - Autex 

- Underfloor 

Insulation R2.5 


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FAMILY. 

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EcoMaster magazine is printed on a high quality 100% post-consumer recycled 

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biodegradable and compostable (except the 2 staples which can be removed).

The DIY Energy Efficient Home Project Magazine By EcoMaster

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