Building a smart and sustainable home with PDL

About Alistair and Carol’s home

Nestled in a lush avocado orchard in the rural Bay of Plenty is a modern and energy efficient home with clever technology at its heart. This home belongs to the couple Alistair and Carol, who has been living in inner-city Auckland when the first lockdown of 2020 motivated them to move to the country for a quieter, more relaxed life.

Their search for the right lifestyle property eventually led them to a site in the hills of Katikati, with 320 avocado trees. “It had a beautiful building platform with views out to Mount Maunganui and the ocean, which really appealed to us,” says Carol.

“We were looking to get back to nature,” says owner Alistair. “Coming from Auckland it was a real change, and to build a house as we’ve done now, it’s just transformed our lives.”

An existing cottage on the site was gifted to a local family, leaving the couple with a blank slate and some big ideas. “We wanted to build a home that had functionality and sustainability and was future-ready,” says Alistair. “It was about having a house that was simplistic in its style but technical in its production.”

With their home ready for upgrades, Alistair and Carol set about briefing their architect about the changes they wanted. The brief was simple: a home that made the most of its location and views, with plenty of room for the couple and their dog, and a separate area for guests.

Adding in PDL Wiser Smart Home

Alistair’s plans for a smart home meant finding a system that could bring all the individual parts together in one easy-to-use application. During a visit to the PDL Vision Studio showroom in Auckland, they saw how PDL Wiser Smart Home could achieve that.

“Wiser is about having a home on your phone. It’s one touch and the whole house transforms. And it was so easy to use.”

Wiser can control and dim lights throughout their house, and control appliances such as the wall heater in the master ensuite. “If we’re out and coming home and it’s a cool evening, I can actually crank up the heat in the bathroom from my phone, so there’s a warm bathroom to shower in,” says Alistair.

Even the entrance to their house can be operated via Wiser — an electric maglock secures the large reflective glass front door, which they can see via the security cameras on their phone screen and then unlock remotely.

Alistair says that having touch-screen control from his smartphones is a game-changer and adds to the overall enjoyment of living in their home. “It’s so much cheaper to run a house too and you can run everything very simply.”

He says their power bills have come down thanks to the energy efficient features, and the fact that Wiser lets them control exactly what is on and when. “I think the bills will come down further too, because we’re living within the home’s sustainability programme.”

How Electric Home Design brought this project to life

Alistair and Carol spent more than a year planning what they wanted in their home, with careful thought given to lighting, heating, security and other electrical elements.

“Electric Home Design actually futureproofs you within your new build,” says Alistair. “The more preparation you do beforehand allows you to enjoy things later. We spent a lot of time thinking about little things that could make a big impact later on.”

“We had an idea of some of the functionality of the components we wanted to use but the Vision Studio showed us how they could work.” says Alistair. He also recommends asking your electrician for ideas as you go. “It’s really important to understand what your electrician can add to your project. They are all about value-adding.”

“We’ve gone with PDL because of the quality and the craftsmanship they have in their products,” says Alistair. “When you use a quality product, life becomes easy because the functionality is so much simpler.”

For Carol and Alistair, the time spent on planning and design was well worth it for the energy efficient and technologically intuitive home they have created. “It’s warm, it’s inviting, it looks beautiful. We just love it here. We struggle to leave.”