EcoStay building project

For the past few years we have been slowly collecting pavers. Whenever we had the time and energy we would scroll through the free Gumtree ads and haul them back home. It's a heavy, hard work slog but we eventually amassed enough to cover our verandahs. And over the last couple of weeks we've laid them.



The walk through between the studios and the house.



The back of the studios.



The verandah leading to the back door.



Parking area at the back of the studios.

We've just got to sweep the sand into the joints over the next week and then wash them off (also some time to straighten our backs).
It'll be so good to control the sand and dirt that gets constantly walked into the buildings.

Our site has a bit of a slope and with recent (and welcome) rains we were able to see how the water moves around the building.





With the removed vegetation and the reshaped landscape we were getting erosion in some areas and water against our footings in others. So we have worked the landscaping to take care of run-off rainwater. This is just the rain that falls on the ground, all water that falls on the roof is captured and pumped to large storage tanks on the hill above the house and provides us with all our year-round water supply.


With LOTS of rock we created terraces to stop the runoff and capture the water, giving it time to soak in to the soil. We used the laser level to get the retaining barriers level across the site. We then back filled the rock walls with some decent loamy soil. We planted out succulents that will eventually help stabilise the soil and provide a fire retardant barrier around the house. The reduced glare in mid summer will also be welcome.

Now we've done most of the bigger dirtier outside jobs we've turned our attention to the finer indoor finishings. And first off, the benchtops. We had the option of timber as there are plenty of slabs from our sawmill but we wanted something more resilient, especially for the wet areas. Like everything else we wanted it to be from the property and personal to us. So we made the benchtops using washed gravel and yellow sand, both from here, with a little cement, cast to fit the space perfectly.





We made up some molds using scrap chipboard and added the concrete.



Fresh out of the mold. It looks like any piece of concrete.



After grinding and then polishing with an angle grinder the stone comes to life. It's a slow labourious process but the results are well worth it.



We also added a bit of green and blue glass for the bathroom benchtop to match the tiles.

That's four benchtops plus two smaller pieces on either side of the stove. Total cost was about $20 for cement plus around five hours work in the grinding and polishing of each one.



This is the island bench in the kitchen. The other benchtops still need to be fitted with sinks and plumbing etc.
Very happy with the end results.

WOW your build never ceases to amaze me! They look fantastic!

The bathroom basin and the kitchen sinks are now installed and plumbed.




We made up our own tapware from odd plumbing fittings and window handles we had laying around.





And the bathroom basin





Quite civilised to have running water in the house now.

One of the final internal jobs are our office desks.






I put aside these jarrah slabs when I was milling the structural timbers a few years ago. Perfect to knock up a study desk from.



And it's come out beautifully. 50mm thick, 600mm wide and extra solid. Awesome timbers right off our own property and hand built by us.



And now it's in use.

It's the middle of winter and although the house isn't particularly cold we still wanted a slow combustion stove. So, off to the "treasure" pile and knock something up. Lots of rusty gold .....















A couple of days on the tools and we now have an awesome heater that fits our home like it was made especially for it!

It has front and back adjustable air inlets for an even burn, adjustable chimney damper for greater control of the burn rate, baffle plate between the fire and the flue outlet to improve efficiency, a fan to push more heat into the room from convection and radiant heating, ducting to take heat downstairs, a dehydrator oven on top, removable plate at the base of the flue so that the flue can be easily cleaned from top to bottom and will accept wood up to 600mm long to reduce the amount of sawing required.

Gotta love that!! )

An interesting side note to the slow combustion stove we built.



Mounted on top of the oven chamber is an old compressor we had collected many years ago and had been sitting in our treasure pile waiting for just the right project. We knew nothing about it except it was an old compressor and we just love the shape and style.





Anyway, after posting some pics on our FaceBook page, the manufacturers, A.J Baker & Sons contacted us. They are having their 100 year celebrations this year and an historian from the Museum of Perth is writing a history of the local company. It turns out that this is a refrigeration compressor and one of only two known to still exist, with the other now in the company's showroom.There were only 84 made. They were cast here in W.A. for a special military contract in 1940. They have a unique eccentric big end and straight crankshaft design which we noted when we stripped it down to clean out the old oil. Far from being horrified that this 80 year old piece local history was now welded atop a fireplace, they were delighted that it had found a new home adorning our living room.

This part is from the crankcase cover on an old McDonald diesel engine.



And this, I believe, is part of an old incinerator.









The company John McKell in Pt Adelaide used to make equipment for flour processing but I don't know if this is one of theirs.

Maybe we'll get some more interesting calls!

Wow, the power of the internet...who would have thought! Keep us updated if you receive further calls? I had a small collection of 'stuff' like this but had to dispose of it when facing a long distance move, that 'stuff' was way too heavy and bulky, unfortunately.

Throughout the build we've had "free" electricity as we have a 5kW grid feed solar system on our old house. We've had a 47c / kWh feed-in tariff and we made an average $200 per month income from the electricity providers. The feed-in tariff was set to expire in July 2020 (and then we'd be faced with actually paying for power we produce!) so we've been working towards an off grid system. Yes, we could go out and drop 50k on a commercial battery / solar system but that's not how we do things here.... and anyway, that's as much as the entire house cost to build.

During construction we dual wired everything, that is we installed DC and AC cabling. We run all our lights, extractor fans in bathroom and kitchen, fireplace fan and a number of other small loads directly from a dedicated 12v battery bank. This system has its own solar panels, charge controller and switch board.



One of the great advantages is we can legally do our own electrical work with all this low voltage DC stuff. So all our lights are high efficiency LED lights custom made to fit.



Like this lovely old enameled sodium vapour lamp we found that once used 360W of power at 240v. It's now been modified to use LEDs at 12v.

We managed to score a free ute load of nickel cadmium batteries before they went to the metal recycling centre. They once were used on diesel-electric trains. We have configured 10 of them to power our 12v systems and 40 more to power our 240v appliances. They were made less than three years ago and have a predicted 20 year lifespan and so far they provide us with about 95% of all our power storage requirements.



We also picked up another ute load of solar panels, recycled from a house demolition, complete with mounting rails, switch gear and cabling.



Tying it all together is a 5kW hybrid inverter that produces our 240v. It will run directly from the solar panels without batteries or grid power if required. Excess power is stored in the battery bank and used at night. On the odd occasion when we've had no sun for a few days running and we've been heavy on the power use, the batteries run low and the system automatically switches back to the grid. The old house with its 5kW grid tied system now exports all its power for a measly 7c / kWh.

We have also selected all our appliances for their efficiency. The fridge, dishwasher, microwave and washing machine are all inverter powered. Where ever possible we run these during the sunny part of the day so they run direct from the solar panels.

We easily got through our first winter, maintaining a warm cosy house with the solar passive design and fireplace. We didn't use any power for heating, even all our hot water was solar heated.

But now we're coming into the warmer weather. Last week we had 38 degrees and there'll be plenty more soon to come. We carefully designed the house to cope with our summers as best as we could. Passive design features include roof overhangs calculated to shade all walls from direct summer sun, the roof and floor are well insulated, the mudbrick walls are massive, the windows are double glazed, we have high ceilings, cross flow ventilation, light coloured roofing, well placed thermal mass and earth tubes.

We also installed a spit system inverter air conditioner, ceiling fan and openable vents. These vents, we call windcatchers, are small doors, well insulated, about 1500mm x 600mm in the north and east walls.





In summer we get cool breezes coming from the east and north, usually in the wee hours or during cool changes. To take advantage of these it's best to open windows to let the warm air out and cool air in. And that's just what we did in the old house, open up everything before bed and close up in the morning. It was difficult to get the timing right and often we'd be letting in hot air or missing out on a cool breeze. So in this build we've improved efficiency by automating the whole concept.



I designed and built a computer to monitor the indoor and outdoor temperatures and open or close the windcatcher accordingly. The whole system runs from our separate 12v solar power supply.

During the day our solar panels recharge the battery bank that supplies our household power. Typically the batteries are full by mid morning. After that, the panels are still producing plenty of power but it's not being used for anything. So, to effectively "store" that unused energy (as coolness in the house's thermal mass) I built another system to automatically turn on the airconditioner once the batteries are fully recharged. That way we can keep the house cool for free.



So far it's all working really well. Roll on summer....

I've been catching up on this thread and it's all fantastic. I am absolutely in love with the jarrah. What an absolutely beautiful colour it is.

Well done on your build!

We've been living in our house for nearly a year now and just coming into our second winter. Summer was great, the passive and solar active cooling systems worked really well. The highest indoor temperature we saw was just 25 and that was in the middle of a 40 degree heatwave.

For winter heating we have the passive design principles in the building structure and also the slow combustion stove. But there is a period where the days are still sunny but the nights are cold. It's not really cold enough to bother lighting the fire. Right now it's 9 degrees outside but yesterday is was clear and sunny. The indoor temperature is a very comfortable 22 at 6 in the morning. And the fire's not going. Very nice! How so?

We've designed and built a solar air heater. It produces hot air from sunshine even on a cold day. During these sunny yet cold days we can warm up the thermal mass within the house and benefit from it all night. It's just another way to store solar energy.

The solar air heater is made entirely from recycled free materials. We have a piece of glass about 1.5m x 1m mounted on the front of a timber box housing 150 beer cans.



We cut the tops and bottoms off the cans and assembled them in lines inside the wood box.





The cans are painted mat black with the glass on the front.



The whole lots is mounted under the north facing verandah.



Eight recycled computer fans suck in cold air at the bottom and blow hot air out the top. This is ducted in through the wall into the bathroom and living room. (We had the foresight to build the ducting through the thick mudbrick walls during construction.) On a sunny but cold day where the outdoor temperature is in the high teens, the air coming into the house will be about 40 degrees at midday.

There will still be those cold, wet days without sun where this system will not help, but that's when we light the fire.

I love it! I've really enjoyed looking at your novel approach to building and living in a house. Well done.

It's alive! We've just installed the new fireplace in our studio. And it works better than expected. It throws out so much heat with just a little wood. The granite wall behind absorbs excess heat and radiates it out long after the fire is out.




The firebox is made from 12mm steel and is 600mm long to reduce the amount of work required in wood cutting. There are fully adjustable air inlets at both ends and a fully adjustable flue damper allowing for a complete and controlled burn.

Baffles in the firebox prevent the fire from roaring straight up the flue, allowing for a more complete combustion.....the so called secondary burn. The hot gasses then go through the large cylinders where they give up more of their heat energy and reduce in volume before going up the flue.

Made entirely from recycled bits except for the stainless steel flue. We had to erect a scaffold and call in a few friends for the final assembly. Total weight is probably around 350kg and it stands 3.2m high.

Very happy with the end result.

We're off-grid here, running from batteries that are recharged by solar panels. The success of all this is based upon management of our power system. We run loads such as the dishwasher, washing machine, electric oven etc based upon the state of our batteries and the incoming solar power. The electronics in the inverter allows me to monitor what is going on via an app on my smartphone. That's all great but I loathe having to pull out my phone, log-on to the inverter, scroll through data to find out if it's a good time to start the dishwasher or to schedule it for a few hours time. There are fancy colour LCD panels you can mount on the wall that give all manner of data, useful and not so much. But, they are expensive and look ugly in the context of our home. So, in the spirit of just about everything else here, we designed and built our own version.

I found this old bakelite analogue multimeter that I liked the look of. It has that old fashioned steampunk vibe that would fit with the feel of our place.



However, as cool as it is, it's quite small and doesn't show the sort of data we're looking for.
Between the bathroom door and the fireplace there's a space about 800mm wide. So I cut a hole through the pallet wood cladding.



Then put together this microcomputer to process the data from the electronics in the inverter room downstairs.



I then built a custom set of meters to display exactly what we want to see.

We used clock hands for the pointers, made the MDF backplate look like bakelite with "no more gaps", used old brass screws to hold it together and even made the plaques.







The end result fits nicely with everything else and gives us the numbers we need at a glance.

Genius! Have to agree it fits in nicely, anything 'modern' would look out of place.

Brilliant! Looks great - looking at all that electronics and circuitry makes my head spin...