What will your house look like 20 years from now? How will it function? These are hard questions to answer, yet for homeowners and renovators, they are ones that bear thinking about.

By future-proofing your home, you’re doing what you can to ensure your house will be comfortable to live in for the long term – creating a home that’s easy to adapt as technology and living needs change, that’s affordable to run and environmentally sound. Importantly, a little forethought now might also mean you’re maximising your home’s resale value down the track.

Before you bemoan the absence of a crystal ball, take comfort in the knowledge that there are several ways to ready your home right now for any challenges the future may bring.

Future-proofing against energy price rises
Few predictions come anywhere near becoming a certainty, but here’s one: the price of energy is going to increase. Take into account the prospect of future carbon emission trading schemes and the amount of investment required to establish renewable energy infrastructure and it’s clear that the only way for your electricity bill to go is up.

“Energy prices will rise at a faster rate than the Consumer Price Index,” says Paul Myors, energy-efficiency expert with EnergyAustralia, “so having an energy-efficient home is a really good way to buffer that.”

There are already building regulations in place in all states and territories that set out minimum standards for energy efficiency in new homes, but Janine Strachan, CEO of the Housing Industry Association’s GreenSmart program, says astute homeowners should go beyond what’s legally required. Here are some things you can do:

Design
Take the opportunity at the design stage (or if you’re remodelling) to maximise solar-passive design principles. This simply means having living areas north-facing if possible, so they allow the sun to warm the areas during winter and keep it out in summer. Also, be mindful of creating cross-breezes when deciding on the placement of windows. Getting this right means less energy is required to heat and cool your home.

Insulation
According to GreenSmart, when you warm a room, up to 35 per cent of the heat can be lost through the ceiling. But by choosing and installing the appropriate type of insulation for your climate – in your ceiling, walls and possibly even under the floor – can mean significant energy savings year-round.

Solar hot water
Heating water accounts for up to 25 per cent of the average home’s energy usage, according to the Federal Government. It estimates that installing a solar hot-water system can translate into an annual saving of as much as $700. Put one in and you may be eligible for a rebate (see “Government Rebates” left).

Lighting
Plan to keep halogen downlights to a minimum, because while they deliver good task lighting it takes several to illuminate a room – and that will impact on your electricity bill. In the future, LED lighting may be the best way to go, suggests Myors, who says that several great applications for residential use are in development.

Alternative electricity
As energy becomes more expensive, the idea of generating your own will be increasingly appealing. Solar power is the most obvious option in sun-drenched Australia. If you choose a rooftop photovoltaic system that’s connected to the mains grid, you may (depending on where you live) be able to take advantage of generous gross feed-in tariffs. This means you are paid a premium rate for the electricity you contribute to the grid (more than you are charged for drawing power from the grid).

Another development to keep an eye on is the fuel cell, a potential power source of the future. The size of a bar fridge, a fuel cell uses methane or hydrogen to produce electricity. Myors says a fuel cell program is currently being trialled at the NSW Government’s Smart Village project in the Sydney suburb of Newington.

Future-proofing for water scarcity
Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth, and headlines about drought, dust storms and low dam levels serve as a frequent reminder of this fact. GreenSmart’s Strachan observes that as our population continues to grow and the demands on our water resources increase, water availability is declining.

“All the states have, in the past couple of years, been through severe water restrictions and that’s a phenomenon we need to get used to as a community,” she says. “If we are to continue to live the lifestyles we want, we have to look at other ways of not only capturing and treating water locally, but also reusing water to the best of our ability.” Here’s what you can do to be water wise:

Grey water
If you’re serious about reusing your home’s grey water, this is one area where it pays to plan. The more sophisticated ‘set and forget’ grey-water systems – which take water from your bath, shower and laundry to the garden via a built-in  treatment system – need to be plumbed in. So it makes financial sense to at least lay the pipes for a grey-water system when your home is under construction. “Installing the plumbing upfront could save you thousands in the long run,” says Strachan.

Super-sized tanks
Small rainwater tanks are a common sight in urban backyards today, but Strachan is looking ahead to a time where much larger tanks are the norm. As she explains, rain often falls in a strong, sudden burst that fills a small tank in minutes, leaving the rest of the roof run-off to gush into stormwater drains.

“If you want to maximise your rainfall capture, it’s best to optimise the size of the rainwater tank,” she says. If you plan to future-proof your home by installing a tank capable of storing tens of thousands of litres of rainwater – enough for the bulk of your household use – you’ll probably want to look at underground options. Slab tanks can be installed under your lawn or below your driveway, with plumbing connecting them to the house.

Grow food
Using water to save water may sound like an anomaly, but David Holmgren, co-originator of the permaculture concept, points out that the water used to grow fruit and vegetables at home is generally a fraction of that used to grow the same amount of food commercially. “People shouldn’t be concerned about using water to produce food because they are saving water to an enormous degree,” he says.

Holmgren suggests that to future-proof your garden you should plant some long-living, food-producing deciduous trees and vines: figs, olives and grapes are ideal, if your climate permits. These can also be used to keep the sun out of the house in summer while inviting it inside in the cooler months. If you decide to branch out into a more extensive permaculture garden, free space around those trees and vines can be filled in with vegie patches and other productive plantings.

Future-proofing for innovation
Expect your home to become more automated in future than it already is. If you don’t yet have sensors that retract your awnings in line with the sun’s movement, networked computers in your home office or an alarm system you can control from your mobile phone, chances are that you might in the next decade or two.

If you are planning to renovate or build, you may like to prepare for these advances during the construction process – it’s far less costly to ‘smart wire’ at this stage than to retrospectively fit out an existing house.

Get connected
Consider all the technology you currently use in your home – computers, home-entertainment equipment, lighting, heating/cooling, security and so on. A home-automation system, such as C-Bus, lets you network all the audio, video, data and communication systems  in your home. It also allows you to hide unsightly cables away behind walls and ceilings, because the devices are plugged into a central hub that can be installed in the garage or a utility room. You can then control any equipment on the network from anywhere within the house by remote control or via wall outlets. With a smart-wired house you will be on track to take advantage of home-automation technology as its popularity increases and the technology itself becomes more affordable, says John Fennell, CEO of the Copper Development Centre and a member of the Smart Wired consortium (which takes in businesses in the electricity, telecommunications, and information technology sectors).

Take it up
With smart wiring in place, you’ll have the capacity to opt in to a variety of innovations that are on the brink of being commercially available. One is the idea of connecting your home to a Smart Grid (a kind of interactive electricity grid, also currently being trialled in the NSW Government’s Smart Village project) so you can monitor your household energy use and operate appliances remotely from your office computer or iPhone.

Future-proofing for a lifetime
Simply having a long-term outlook for your home is one of the best ways you can possibly future-proof it. “It’s really important that people think about a house having a lifespan of 50-plus years,” says Strachan. “What other item do we create or purchase for such longevity in mind? We might not live in that house [for that duration] ourselves, but other people will.”

Architect Lara Calder concurs, proposing that we focus less on resale value and more on building a house that will last a lifetime – and more.

Flexible floor plans
“Houses don’t necessarily have to be arranged in a cellular format, with a series of smaller rooms accessed from multiple corridors. You can have one simple space that can be divided in a couple of different ways,” says Calder, referring to the moveable partitions and retractable walls that feature in the design that won her the 2008 Australia Green Eco House of the Future award. With a flexible floor plan, she says, a home initially occupied by a couple can be converted into a house with two or three bedrooms as the family grows, then downsized down the track as required – all without knocking down a wall.

Think modular
The individual units of a modular home system are designed to be disassembled, says Calder. For example, steel structures are bolted together rather than welded so they can be taken apart at a later date. Opt into a home with a modular design and you can add units such as bedrooms or an office space when you need them, and remove them when they’re no longer needed.

The forever house
Strachan recommends building with the best quality building materials and to the highest standards you can afford. “Remember that quality and durability can help reduce the ongoing maintenance costs of the house,” she says.

Calder shares this view: “Value and quality are closely aligned,” she says. “It’s better to have less of better quality than to have more on a lean budget and be replacing things constantly.”

See the light
Switched-on homeowners think ahead when it comes to lighting, says Glen Haron, Director of Sydney-based lighting design consultancy Light Matters. He advises that detailed domestic lighting plans be made before you apply for any mandatory energy-rating certificates, like the BASIX certificate in NSW. “That certificate locks in what you can and can’t do with lighting. In other words, your selection there could actually determine your final lighting solution,” says Haron. “Make sure you are clear about what you want.” 

Produced by Sarah Pickette & Julia Richardson