Home Design Guides: Climate control

The most effective ways to heat and cool your home are still with air conditioners and coolers - but carefully controlling ventilation can often prevent the need for them altogether.

While not as regulated as air conditioning or heating, there are specific Australian Standards that you (and your builder) need to be aware of to ensure that your ventilation complies with building regulations.

Ventilation requirements exist in Australia to help prevent the likelihood of 'sick building syndrome'. These need to be carefully addressed when building a home with a tight building envelope.

Garages, sheds and workshops, particularly those where dust, particles or sprays float around, may require extra ventilation to ensure your safety.

The cleanliness of your vents can have an impact more than just the performance of you ventilation system; it can also impact upon your health. Cleaning your ventilation system is easy, and could do wonders for you and your home’s health

Part of establishing how well your home fares in terms of passive design is to establish how 'tight' it is. Learn more about how to test how much air leaks from your home.

Heating and cooling ducts carry air all around your house, and vents often get dirty as a result of how much air flows through them. Find out if (and how) you need to clean them.

The cooling checklist runs through the different things you need to take into account to ensure you're choosing the right cooling systems for your home.

The heating checklist runs through the different things you need to take into account to ensure you're choosing the right heating systems for your home.

Find out how star ratings for homes relate to how the house is designed from a climate control perspective.

Heat lamps can be a good source of warmth for your bathroom, particularly in colder weather.

It's important that you only have licensed technicians do work on your air conditioners. Find out about the different types of air conditioning licenses.

Electric underfloor heating can keep your toes warm on cold mornings and keep the temperature in your house at a constant, comfortable level.

A wall surface, using some clever design principles, can be used to passively heat air and allow it to naturally flow into your home. Learn more about Trombe walls and how they work.

These single-unit airconditioners are slightly more noisy, but can easily be mounted in a window and don't require a separate compressor/evaporator unit.

Underfloor heating is a popular heating option for dwellings that experience colder climates. Learn about the different types of underfloor heating available.

Ventilation is essential in a home theatre room - but it needs to be achieved in such a way as to ensure that it doesn't create unwanted noise or light infiltration. Find out how to ventilate your home theatre.

There are a great many ways in which a smart home can use technology to improve and automate climate control. Find out how automated climate control might suit your home.

There are regulations that dictate where you can place a chimney, both in relation to your own roof and the roofs of neighbouring properties. Find out how this applies to your home.

One of the most important parts of cooling your home is ensuring that air conditioners and fans are properly taken care of.