Episode 15. Heritage Renovations: Five Upgrades for High Performance & Thermal Comfort

Renovation Optimism Is Costing Melbourne Homeowners Years of Their Lives

Seven years from first sketch to building contract. Two builder quotes on the same design, one at $900,000 and one at $1.8 million. A home designed, approved through council, and quietly shelved because it came back three times over budget. These are not rare stories. They are the renovation industry's default setting. In this episode, Simon Clark, founder of Sustainable Homes Melbourne, names the thing that derails more renovation projects than bad builders or bad luck: renovation optimism. The belief that the lower quote is probably right. That the design will come in on budget. That things will work out. Simon opens with three real client stories: a Brunswick terrace that took seven years to reach a building contract, multiple enquiries returning after years working with designers and architects, and a homeowner who proceeded through town planning on the strength of the cheaper of two wildly different quotes. He unpacks why the building industry's fragmented structure makes optimism not just understandable but almost inevitable: designers working in silos, builders pricing in isolation, and nobody accountable for the gap between the two. He then leaves listeners with three questions to ask any professional before engaging them:  1. When will you get a real price from a builder who does this type of work? 2. Who is accountable if the design comes back over budget (including what the Architects Institute of Australia's standard agreement actually says about cost overruns)? 3. What past clients have to say about the process (you're about to embark on) rather than the finished product? You'll learn: * Why getting a real builder's price at concept design rather than after town planning can save hundreds of thousands of dollars * How the standard Architects Institute of Australia client agreement handles cost overruns, and why most homeowners sign it without reading it * Why the lowest building quote is almost never the right one * What early contractor involvement means and why it changes the renovation experience * How to speak with past clients in a way that surfaces genuinely useful information about a builder or architect's process Who it's for: Melbourne homeowners, inner-city property buyers, anyone who has saved a heritage terrace on realestate.com.au and wondered about its story, and anyone who has ever stood outside an old Melbourne home and felt something they could not quite explain. If you'd like to know more, please reach out to Sustainable Homes Melbourne or call us on 1800 683 697.

Melbourne Heritage Homes: The Mysteries They Hold with Elio Sarpi

Most Melburnians have a saved search on realestate.com.au they will never act on. A terrace in Fitzroy. A cottage in West Melbourne. A Victorian on a street they drove down once and have not forgotten since. We do not just look at houses in this city. We fall in love with them. In this episode of House of Meaning, Simon sits down with Elio Sarpi, the North Melbourne resident behind one of Melbourne's most quietly remarkable Instagram accounts: Houses of North and West Melbourne. With over 30,000 followers, Elio has spent five years uncovering what is actually inside those houses Melburnians dream about. Not the floorplans. Not the facades. The lives of ordinary people from the 1800-1900’s. Simon and Elio explore what Melbourne's Victorian terraces tell us about the identity of the city we live in today. They move through how domestic life actually worked inside these homes, when front rooms doubled as grocers and boarding houses, when Italian and Greek families reshaped the way spaces were used, and when a single North Melbourne cottage held far more lives than most of us could imagine. The conversation turns to what Melbourne risks losing as the city grows and builds over its own history, and what it means to feel a personal responsibility to the people whose stories may otherwise disappear entirely. You'll learn: * Why Melbourne's heritage homes carry stories the official heritage register never captures * How Elio traces a family's full history from a single photograph of a front door * What immigration and commerce did to the way North and West Melbourne terraces were actually lived in * What Melbourne stands to lose when heritage homes are demolished or altered beyond recognition * Why the houses Melburnians romanticise hold meaning that goes far deeper than architecture Who it's for: Melbourne homeowners, inner-city property buyers, anyone who has saved a heritage terrace on realestate.com.au and wondered about its story, and anyone who has ever stood outside an old Melbourne home and felt something they could not quite explain. If you'd like to know more, please reach out to Sustainable Homes Melbourne [https://sustainablehomesmelbourne.com.au/] or call us on 1800 683 697. Follow Elio's work on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/housesofnorthandwestmelbourne/]: @housesofnorthandwestmelbourne

Why Australian Homes Are So Cold in Winter (And What to Do About It in 2026)

Walk into an unrenovated Melbourne home on a winter's morning and the heating's running flat out while you're still wearing two jumpers. The problem isn't the weather. It's the building. And it's the same story right across Australia. In this episode, Simon Clark, founder of Sustainable Homes Melbourne, breaks down why Australian homes are so cold in winter and exactly what to do about it. From the big stuff to the small stuff people overlook. Australia's housing stock is old, leaky, and built for cross-ventilation in summer. Most homes have single brick or weatherboard walls with no insulation, suspended timber floors over an uninsulated subfloor, and gaps around every skirting, cornice, and architrave you've ever walked past. You're not just losing heat. You're losing money every single minute the heater is on. Simon walks through the full hierarchy of fixes: air sealing first (the single biggest bang for your buck in an existing home), ceiling and underfloor insulation, window coverings and glazing upgrades, and how to use north-facing glass to capture free solar gain through winter. He covers zoning — heating where you actually live, not the whole house — and explains why a reverse cycle split system is almost always more efficient than ducted gas for a leaky older home. You'll learn: * Why air sealing is the first thing to fix in an existing home, and where the biggest draughts actually hide * How ceiling and underfloor insulation change the thermal performance of a suspended floor home * Why zoning matters more than heater size in an older home * How passive solar gain through north-facing windows can do a lot of the heavy lifting in winter * The small wins — door snakes, lined curtains, rugs, ceiling fans on reverse — that genuinely move the needle Who it's for: Homeowners across Australia in older or unrenovated homes who want to be warmer this winter without running the heater all day, and anyone planning a Melbourne renovation who wants to understand the building fabric fundamentals before they start. If you'd like to know more, please reach out to Sustainable Homes Melbourne [https://sustainablehomesmelbourne.com.au/] or call us on 1800 683 697.

Rethinking Architecture with Izzie White: Building Sustainable Homes and Communities That Last

Most of us have never stopped to ask whether the city we live in makes our lives better. Not bigger. Better. It turns out that question sits at the heart of everything wrong, and everything still possible, about the way we build our cities and the homes within them. In this episode of House of Meaning, Simon sits down with Izzie White, Australia's most compelling architecture advocate for a conversation about sustainable homes, heritage, community and what we've quietly stopped expecting from the places we call home.  Izzie has never held an architect's licence. What she does have is tens of thousands of people on social media following her through Melbourne's streets, learning to see streets and buildings in a totally new way. They cover what architecture really is, what Australian cities reveal about who we are as a country, and how to evaluate good design and architecture. The conversation moves into territory that rarely gets discussed: the slow erosion of community in Australian cities, the places in Scandinavia and the UK where community has been deliberately designed in through alternative housing models, and whether Australians have simply accepted a version of home that may not be adaptable to our growing cities. You'll learn: * Why sustainable homes and thoughtful architecture are inseparable from the communities they sit within * What a city that takes design seriously actually looks and feels like compared to one that doesn't * What countries in Northern Europe are doing to re-engage communities and create better places to live.  * Why Melbourne and Sydney are at a genuine turning point and what that means for the homes and neighbourhoods being built right now. * What great architecture does to the people inside it that they often can't name or explain Who it's for: Melbourne homeowners, architects, planners, urban designers and anyone who cares about building homes and communities that are worth living in for generations. If you'd like to know more, please reach out to Sustainable Homes Melbourne or call us on 1800 683 697. Izzie can be found at: https://www.izziewhite.com/ Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/izziewhitecreative?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==] TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@izzie_white_]

What Separates a Great Home From a Good One: 7 Design Decisions

Walk into some homes and everything just feels right. The light lands where it should. The kitchen is calm. There's a corner that draws you in without announcing itself. Walk into the one next door, same suburb, similar size, and something's off. You can't name it. But you feel it. That difference almost never comes down to finishes. It comes down to decisions made long before construction started. In this episode, Simon Clark, founder of Sustainable Homes Melbourne, walks through seven design ideas that quietly determine how a home feels to live in every day. These aren't trends or styling tips. They're the architectural decisions behind homes that hold up: spatially, emotionally, and practically. Simon covers how connecting the kitchen to a working laundry creates a hidden service zone that gives mess somewhere to live. How a properly defined entry choreographs your arrival, so the house begins filtering the day before it reaches your living space. Why human-sized rooms, including window seats, study nooks, and generous island benches, deliver more comfort than adding square metres ever could. How widened hallways designed to hold bookshelves, study zones, and winter sun turn expensive circulation space into real living space. Why storage integrated into joinery and structure prevents clutter from forming in the first place. How a courtyard or light well solves airflow, daylight, and privacy on tight Melbourne sites. And how ceiling height variation shapes intimacy, acoustics, and the way a home holds you differently from room to room. At Sustainable Homes Melbourne, none of these ideas are considered upgrades. They're baseline. You'll learn: * Why connecting the kitchen to the laundry creates a hidden service zone that restores calm to everyday life * How a defined entry with compression, release, and everyday amenity changes what it feels like to come home * What human-scaled rooms actually deliver and why they consistently outperform simply building bigger * How dual-purpose circulation turns hallways from a cost into a genuine living asset * Why storage designed into structure prevents clutter from appearing in the first place * What a courtyard or light well achieves for light, airflow, and privacy that no open-plan layout can replicate * How ceiling height variation creates intimacy, improves acoustics, and makes a home feel crafted rather than simply built Who it's for: Melbourne homeowners planning a renovation, extension, or new custom sustainable home, and anyone who has ever walked into a home that felt right and wanted to understand exactly why. If you'd like to know more, please reach out to Sustainable Homes Melbourne [https://sustainablehomesmelbourne.com.au/] or call us on 1800 683 697.