Firth’s FlowPave helps target 7 Homestar points

With the Remarkables at the back door, building a warm, energy efficient home was on the list of ‘must haves’ for the Lloyd family when designing and building their holiday home in Queenstown - with the aim of obtaining a 7 Homestar rating, a result in part to be achieved with the use of Firth FlowPave from Firth's EcoPave® Paving Range. 

When the Lloyd’s first moved to New Zealand from the UK seven years ago with their family, the plan was to stay for a while, but over time the family grew to love the country and decided to make New Zealand their permanent home.

A holiday to Queenstown introduced them to the area and they were captivated by its beauty. “On our first visit to Queenstown we were sight seeing and came across Jacks Point - which we were really taken with,” explains Guy Lloyd. “ We pictured building a holiday home there but we just weren’t ready to proceed at that stage.”  

A couple of years ago the family returned to Queenstown to discover that the area was changing rapidly. “Things had really started to move down there so we decided to take the plunge and buy a section at Jacks Point to build a family holiday home,” says Guy. Two years later, and what has turned into a real labour of love for Guy, the family are very close to having their new home finished with all but a bit of landscaping to be completed.  

“Once we started looking at what type of home we wanted and taking into account the strict guidelines set down for Jacks Point, we talked with various people and decided to go with Rilean Construction who have a division called Evolution that specialises in energy efficient homes,” explains Guy. “As most New Zealand homes only achieve a 3 Homestar rating we thought surely with a bit of effort we could achieve 6 or 7 Homestars.” 

Having made the decision to build an energy efficient house, and being an engineer, Guy says he started to investigate the various ways they could they achieve the Homestar points they were after. “If you have an unlimited budget you can achieve a very high rating but we decided to see what systems and products we could use to give us the highest points but also take into account the budget.”

With Guy’s wife employed by Fletcher Building, Guy says they naturally asked that the builders use Fletcher Building products where possible, including permeable paving from Firth. “Using permeable paving really helps achieve Homestar points and of course we wanted to use Firth for any of the concrete and paving products.” 

The elongated pavilion-style design of the house allows the home to maximise the passive solar gain on the north so this helped Guy decide on a highly polished concrete floor to help retain the natural heat from the sun.

In addition to Firth’s FlowPave permeable paving, the 237m² home also features rainwater harvesting to supply toilets and laundry, mechanical heat recovery ventilation and solar power with battery storage.

“The FlowPave smaller cobbles are a nice option and look very neat and tidy,” says Chris Werminghaus from Creation Green, who laid the paving system. “The smaller paver with the smaller stones offers very good drainage.”

“I have learned so much and have really enjoyed the whole experience,” says Guy. With the kids now off to university Guy admits that they may make the move south to Queenstown a permanent one in the future.