Practical Guides for Smarter Renovations

The wall beside an attached garage can be easy to overlook during an insulation upgrade. It is inside the building’s

A raked ceiling can make a modest room feel generous, but it leaves very little spare space above the plasterboard.

Removing an old wall furnace can free a useful stretch of wall, but the visible heater is only part of

Replacing a roof-mounted evaporative cooler with reverse-cycle air conditioning changes how the home is conditioned, not just the equipment supplying

Adding zones to an existing ducted air conditioner can make the system better suited to how the household uses different

A renovation can put a perfectly familiar air conditioner in the wrong place. A new window may occupy the indoor

A flooring sample shows the surface you will live with, but it rarely shows the whole installation. Underlay, adhesive, levelling

Choosing low-emission materials is easier when the renovation has one procurement schedule covering everything that will be installed. Paint may

A portable air purifier and a built-in filtration system can both form part of a plan for outdoor smoke, but

When outdoor smoke reaches a home, the obvious response is to close the windows. Renovation planning needs to go further.

Concentrating heatwave improvements in one room can give a renovation a clear, manageable target. The room still needs to suit

A heatwave renovation should answer a harder question than whether the house feels pleasant on a normal summer afternoon. What