Traditional House vs Flexi House Envelope

This graphic talks about the fundamental reasons why the traditional house envelope does not work well and how you can do things better.

Traditional House

Frame & Truss Envelope, built to NZS3604

The build-up of a ‘traditional house’ has,

  • A concrete waffle slab with no continuous insulation underneath or slab edge insulation. Polystyrene pods alone are not enough insulation.

  • 2.4m stud and 90mm thick wall framing with a high timber fraction (timber content), meaning a lot less insulation in the walls. The additional timber creates a lot of thermal bridging which you can see on hot and cold spots on the outside of the building.

  • Low insulation values typically R2 - 2.4

  • A truss roof/ cold roof design that has a high chance of mould growth without adequate roof ventilation and detailing.

  • No consideration of airtightness, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery,

  • Aluminium Double glazed windows. Aluminium is a poor performing insulator and therefore if it’s cold, condesation will form on the frames.

Although extremely common practise and popular among Spec Home Builders and designers, this is the bare legal minimum and should not be the goal or benchmark. It is a model that often doesn’t create a healthy home.

The Flexi Difference

Flexi House Envelope, built to High-Performance

We get asked all the time what the difference is between a 'traditional house’ and a Flexi House. We’ve created the ultimate build-up that ensures a continuous thermal envelope. Getting all of the right layers, in all the right places is fundamental to a high-performance home. We have designed a system that performs much better, with the data to back it up!

  • Pushing the thermal envelope to the perimeter of the building we create one complete and continuous thermal envelope, it also create beautiful architectural Cathedral Ceilings making even some smaller spaces of your home feel grand and spacious!

  • 46% better than code minimum, no condensation, can achieve 21° mid-winter with no heating*

    *Based on the Flexi House Show Home - Mount Pisa

  • Significantly reduced carbon footprint through the use of renewable materials, elimination of nearly all treated timber waste as well as significantly reducing offsite and onsite construction waste. High energy efficiency reduces opperational carbon for the lifetime of the building.

  • Our offsite panels enable creating a weathertight envelope in a matter of days! This not only speeds up the overall build programe significantly but also reduces significant risk of project delays and cost overruns.

  • Curated design, detailing and specification of: kitchen, flooring, linings, fixtures, finishes, decking, etc