Modern techniques combine with traditional values at Hamilton building firm Excelsior Residential, where the team understands its clients have invested not only their money but also their unique dreams into their residential construction projects.
Excelsior Residential has embraced the desires of its clients to build in a more eco-friendly way, and is committed to continually educating itself of ways it can build its clients’ dream homes without having a negative impact on the environment.
This includes a waste management plan offered at the start of every project, to help everyone involved in the building process to reduce the waste going to New Zealand landfills.
“We are constantly coming up with new ways we can recycle the waste produced by a new home or renovation, and we have a team of sub-trades with the same philosophy,” says Excelsior Homes managing director Pete Brooky.
Excelsior Residential learns from specialist environmentally friendly building product suppliers about the various options available, what they take to run, and what savings they can offer to clients.
The company also invites Hamilton City Council’s eco design advisor Ian Mayes to visit with its clients and advise them how to make their new home warmer, dryer, and more energy efficient.
Excelsior Residential has also been involved with a local Passive House group, where members can visit eco friendly homes under construction to find out about all the techniques being used.
“Being involved with all of these people and groups is one way we can build our knowledge,” Pete says.
Excelsior Residential has built many types of ecofriendly homes, including straw bale homes and other eco-friendly building techniques.
“We prefer to build energy efficient homes to reduce utility bills and create healthy living spaces. Energy efficient homes also have the happy side effect of increasing market value.”
Excelsior Residential is currently building two energy-efficient homes, one Lockwood in Raglan which is totally off the grid and run by solar powered battery, and another in Ngaruawahia with a fully insulated MAXRaft floor slab, water heating by thermodynamic panels, and solar to subsidise the power usage from the national grid.
On renovation projects, Pete says there are options to future-proof homes and bring them up to current standards.
One such project was completed by Excelsior Residential about five years ago, when a client wanted to shift her 1954-built home onto another section. One builder said bulldoze it, but Pete said he could salvage it.
“We took it all apart, we saved all the screws and everything, then we rebuilt the home with a new MAXRaft floor, new insulated exterior walls, and new insulated roof.
“The twenty original oregan roof support beams and pine sarked ceiling were re-installed along with the original Rimu wall linings, mahogany shelves in the library and the original timber kitchen, all giving the home its original inside warmth and feel.
“That was one of the best projects we’ve ever done, where we recycled most of an old home,” says Pete.
“Rather than let it go to landfill, it’s now there for another generation or two.”
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