Red Dog Carpentry: Energy Efficient and Solar Passive Homes in Albany WA
We are a building and carpentry business at 287 Norwood Road, Albany, and our work is tailored family homes taken from concept through to completion. In our own words on the front page, we specialise in energy efficient and solar passive homes – so if you are shortlisting builders in Albany WA and the way a house handles winter sun and summer heat matters to you, that is our patch. Our director is Ascan Volckerts.
Who you would be dealing with
Ascan grew up in a family with a long history in the property and construction sector. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Building Surveying, a Certificate III in Carpentry and Joinery, and a Diploma of Building and Construction. The best projects come together with a cohesive team, which is why we say that deciding on the builder and the designer for your home is one of the first of many big decisions in a project – and worth taking time over.
How we run a build
Red Dog’s specialised team takes on a limited number of projects to maximise quality control and ensure our dedicated focus on each build. That is a deliberate constraint rather than a slow patch, and it is the reason we can be on site rather than managing from a distance.
We also create computer modelling before we build, so we can solve problems before they occur. On a solar passive house that is not a nicety. Orientation, glazing, shading and thermal mass all have to work together across a whole year, and the cheapest place to discover that they do not is on a screen, months before anything is poured.
The Nest, a solar passive bush home at King River
The Nest is a Scandinavian-inspired solar-passive bush home we built at King River, just out of Albany. In our own description of it, the materials used contrasted with the natural surroundings but didn’t look out of place. It is the clearest example we have published of what an energy efficient brief actually turns into on a site.
Key design features of The Nest
- Cladding and materials: continuous wall and roof sheet metal cladding, with extensive use of local materials.
- Glazing: double glazed argon filled windows and skylights.
- Ventilation and shading: fully automated cross flow ventilation and shading systems.
- Heating and cooling: achieved through the use of thermal mass.
- Power: PV solar electricity generation.
- Hot water: a heat pump hot water system with ring mains.
- Water: water wise design with rain water storage.
- Waste water: an aerobic treatment unit sewage system with a grey water reticulation system.
- Pool: a PV solar heat pump heated indoor pool.
- Cabinetry and finishes: customised cabinetry throughout, using no materials that incorporate MDF, with all materials and paints low in volatile organic compounds.
- Bushfire: built to comply with Bushfire Attack Level construction standards.
Read down that list and the pattern is plain enough: almost every decision is about how the house will run for the next thirty years rather than how it looks on handover day.
Seeing the work
There is a gallery on our website along with testimonials, and a media page collecting coverage of our projects: the Western Suburbs Weekly and the Albany Advertiser in September 2019, New Homes Magazine in The West Australian later that month, and Southerly Magazine in October 2019. We also post finished and in-progress work on Instagram.
Starting a conversation
Ring Ascan on 0408 363 073 or email [email protected]. We are at 287 Norwood Road, Albany. If you are planning a new home in the Great Southern – particularly one designed around orientation and energy use rather than fitted with efficiency afterwards – it is worth talking early, while the plans are still moving.