Small (250 mm) eaves, is that too small

We are building a 2 story house (South east of Brisbane) on a narrow block of about 12.5m, our builder is suggesting to reduce the eave on the each side of the house from 450mm to 250mm. I haven't come across with house that have small eaves before and not sure how it will turn out?

Also would you save much cost by cutting down the eave? I know it won't be good for protection from the heat in the summer.

Any good advice??

I will try to attach our plan once i scan them in my computer. (We still in our plan drawing stage).

Thanks

eavees are NSEW ?

I would definetly go for 450 m eaves over 250 mm eaves. Not only for the appearance, but because you get bettersummer shading.

I'm assuming from your post that is you reduce your eaves from 450 mm to 250 mm your house can be 200 mm wider - therefore the question is whether the reduced effectiveness of the eaves for summer shading is a good compromise for increased living space because of your narrow block.

our eaves are only 200mm

one more thing i wish i could change

definitely go bigger if you can chloe, although TDL makes a good point of maybe having to reduce house's area to achieve this...

In most estates you need to have at least 1m on each site, as you said you are building in a narrow block, so may be because your eaves is too long and cannot compromise this requirement.
I think the question is do you really need the eaves, do you want to have smaller living area with eaves, or just don't have eaves at all... you can still look at other option for cooling off the house such as extra insulation and/or double glazing...

We've got 450mm eaves on a 10.7m wide block, so I guess it just comes down to how wide a house you're willing to have. We've got 2m clearance to the fenceline as well...

Wow....that must be a super efficient house design I'd be interested to see the plan if you care to post....otherwise MrT tell me "it's none of my business, fool!"...

Yeah, the block we have is not in any new estate , so we didn't have to meet any requirement for the size of the eave, except we have to satisfy the local council when it comes Development Application.

But we rather keep the small eave instead of having a cut the house by 200mm. I agree with To-do-list but I have not really see a house with small 250mm eaves. Anyway one have a picture of such house.

For the 10.7m frontage house, with 2 m from the fence. So how wide is your house? I've look at a few builder with 10m frontage design, but we can only get about 7m for the house. This house we get about 10.5wide (except ground floor is 10.9). now you know why we have to have small eaves.

Not sure why you need to do this ... Eaves are allowed to encroach into the building setbacks, so you should not have to reduce them to retain the width of the house.

My house has 600mm eaves on the sides and all 600mm of it is inside the building setback (i.e. outside the building envelope).

Councils used to have a limit on how close the eaves can be. These are being relaxed to allow more environmentally friendly designs.

That is, you should be able to have your bigger house and good sized eaves, but you may need a concession from your Council (which they should be happy to do). It doesn't hurt to ask.

We belong to Redland City Council (south east of queensland), but in order to get our plan through, the builder suggest to go with the Queensland's code - which mean the eave is part of the house when it comes to set back (but they will accept smaller set back). I will double check with the council.

The problem is that I don't know what the house will look like with 250mm eave. Some people say it will make the house more 'modern and trendy' but other say it look ugly.

Its a two story house which is about 42sq, so I don't want a small eave make a big house look silly.

Thank you guy with all the good advice.

I might drive around in locak new estate and find some small eaves house just to get some idea...since some new house don't even have eaves with the new coastal design.

I think a previous quote on here about houses with no/small eaves was that they looked naked... boxes with tin hats? That being said though, if you are so close that you have to have smaller eaves, then the neighbours would proabably be doing most of the shading work for you?

Regarding councils being more relaxed about evironmentally concious designs, I saw a news/doco piece on it yesterday and they said some coucils are great with it, and some councils are still bloody minded. Worth the shot to ask though,

Hi chloe,

Here is our house with 200mm eaves atm, probably doesn't help much as only at frame stage but might give you an idea. I don't think it will look as 'naked' as houses with no eaves at all.

Well, our block is 45m long, so that helps! Its 24m long, without a garage. House is 6m wide for most of its length, with the dining room extended out to the fence on one side. Here is what it looks like - will post some floor plans once I've removed some of the detailed dimensions, to make sure our builders shouldn't have any concerns.

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee6/tastony/Front_with_roof.jpg

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee6/tastony/house_back_small.jpg

In that part of Qld - go the larger eaves.
You'll appreciate the lower power bills in the future.
Steve

Hi Chloe

Council definatley works on measurement from the eave. We looked at reduing our 600 eaves to 450 to get more access down the one side but decide against for 2 reason. Like the look of big eaves, western sun considerations. Also the build was only going to rebate $400 from memory.

Is asking for a relaxation a possibility? That way you keep you 200 inside but get the larger eaves!

Anne

Hi Chloe. Sounds like your builder has no idea what he's talking about.

The Redlands Planning Scheme 2007 - Division 25 - Small Lot Code overrides Part 11 of the Queensland Development Code.

Side boundary setbacks are to be 1500mm to the wall and 900mm to the eaves. Effectively this means that the width of the eaves does not determine the side setback. As such, reducing the width of the eaves will not give you any benefit. Go for 600mm eaves and make sure you maintain a side boundary clearance of 1500mm to the wall. You can also build up to 9 metres of wall on the side boundary provided there are no openings in the wall and the maximum height of the built to boundary wall is 3.5 metres (3 metres maximum average height).

Buildings setbacks are by default determined by Part 11 and Part 12 of the Queensland Development Code. However, multiple planning schemes, including the Brisbane City Plan 2000, Caboolture ShirePlan 2005, Pine Rivers Plan 2006 and the Redlands Planning Scheme 2007 override the Queensland Development Code with their own siting requirements.

Relaxations of boundary clearances are possible with all Councils, but vary from Council to Council. The Redlands Planning Scheme 2007 boundary clearances are varied by the building certifier lodging an application under the Building Act 1970 in order to override the Redlands Planning Scheme 2007 and Queensland Development Code. On the other hand, building setbacks under the Logan Planning Scheme 2006 are picked up under the scheme and as such a development application is triggered for boundary setback variations.

How depth is your house. I guess you will need to have your garage at the front of the house? With the council we in, they are not allow to have the garage to dominate the front of the house, therefore a balcony is required. Did you have the same issue? We in Brisbane (south east Brisbane).

Anyway, having looking at some of the house in the area, now we are thinking about having a small eaves on the East side,where as the West side we will go with the standard eaves, simply because we really don't want to get all the afternoon sun into the house.

Will let you know once council had a look at our proposal.

Eaves don't actually do much to stop east and west sun, they are best at keeping out the mid-day sun in summer. Not much can keep the sun out on the western side...it is actually best to choose a house with few to no windows on the west...or plant trees on that side...or put some sort of external shutter on those windows. Just a few things to consider...it may be too late for you to change where your windows are going, but just don't expect too much from your eaves on the western side.

I'm sure yak-chat has suggested this site, but it is really worth a look as it explains what sort of shading to use on which side of your house.

http://www.yourhome.gov.au/technical/index.html

Look at Passive Design 4.4 Shading.

Goodluck