Browse Forums Owner Builder Forum 1 Sep 15, 2011 11:06 pm I gotta say i am often surprised, disapointed, horrified and saddened by many of the house designs I see on this forum. Thought about environmentally sustainable homes seems to be the exception rather than the norm. Designing and building a sustainable house will save you money in the long term, that alone should be enough reason to think a bit more about what you are building. This is a fantastic basic resource that is worth a read if you are embarking on any building project, it will save you heaps of $$ and also make a big differnce to your impact. http://www.yourhome.gov.au/technical/index.html Steve Re: Your Home 2Sep 16, 2011 7:42 am I am with you on that score steve. It seems people are more interested in 'Looking good' than 'performing efficiently'. The golden opportunity exists in every block at the planning stage to make a home that is warm in winter, cool in summer and has minimum running costs. Passive solar design can be incorporated in all designs. To quote a line from that classic Aussie movie 'The Castle' ---- "It seems like a big fancy driveway is more important" Re: Your Home 3Sep 16, 2011 9:55 am Yes have to agree with you here and to be honest I think it may be how most people Owner Building go about things. In the quest to save money many people often "design" their own dream home, then take it to a Drafty to draw up to be built, instead of engaging a professional for the design. Whilst that has it's merits I know from my own experience what I thought was a good design was in fact just a bunch of rooms with no flow or purpose and no consideration at all to solar orientation. When we went to an Architect to look at things for our place, my concept and everything I had drawn (thankfully) was flipped on its head. In my opinion and what I have learnt so far, extra money spent at design time is worth every cent and should pay for itself many times over both in savings in building and energy consumption down the track. After all you only get one crack to build it right and if the plans are flawed no matter how many fancy gadgets you put in your house the design and layout will forever be flawed and can never be changed. https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=44762 My Owner builder journey extending a 1930's Bungalow Re: Your Home 4Sep 16, 2011 1:01 pm I must admit I would have liked our home to be more sustainable. However, finding a layout that suited our block, our lifestyle, our taste and most importantly our budget wasn't easy. The biggest thing was having the alfresco at the back of the house so we can make full use of the backyard.
I did look for sustainable building companies. Those who replied to my inquiries, didnt have a lot of designs and they seemed quite expensive for what they were. Sustainable design seems to be an after thought. Unless you are prepared to design your own home with the help of a professional, you are a bit stuck and things like grey water recycling is quickly put in the too hard and too expensive basket. At least solar power, solar hot water and insulation are becomming mainstream. I have no idea whether our home design is good or not. Knowing my luck it is probably completely backwards. To be honest I was a bit confused by all the information and the differences for those building in the East vs those building in the West. It seems to be more popular over East. I do think the west should be paying more attention to it. Steve that is a wonderful link, I wish I had come across that earlier. This is our first build. If we were to build again, it would be owner builder and the house designed by a professional. Rather than tinkering with whatever comes close to what we like and hoping for the best. There wont be a lot of garden, just natives/grasses out the front and the backyard will have a raised garden beds for growing veggies. I am not sure whether we will have grass back there or not. There is no room on the sides of the house for garden, so we will probably rely on window tinting and thermal/blockout blinds. We did choose a medium coloured roof (windspray) instead of a dark one (monument), lighter render, light colour bricks. The paving down the sides of the house will be silver as opposed to the charcoal feature paving for our driveway and undercover alfresco. If there is room/council allowes we will have some sort of solar pergola on the east and west sides. If anyone is curious this is our site survey and this is our floor plan Re: Your Home 5Sep 16, 2011 2:54 pm Many people are building in estates with covenants that don't always have sustainability in mind. e.g. all roofs have to be black tiles, best orientation - skinny end to the north with no eaves what the? Estates plan for more blocks, not necessarily good use of the whole site. Can someone please set up a survey on how many hf people are in an estate on acreage ownerbuilders extending etc .......? (assuming it hasn't already been done) Re: Your Home 6Sep 16, 2011 3:12 pm Our slab is laid, our kit is made.... Solar passive, off grid, rainwater..... earth tubes, whatever I could think of to make our house environmentally excellent and cheap to maintain is where I started the design. Then I approached companies to see how close they could come to my ideas... based on lots of research of course. Most were happy to listen. In the end, I found a house plan that came close and after many tooings and froings have the design that matches our needs. Not hard so far...... just have the build it..... with basic skills at best. By the time I've finished I should know a lot more! Re: Your Home 8Sep 18, 2011 10:24 am As with anything , the more research and homework you do yourself the better informed you will be about how you go down this path whether you are Joe Blow looking to build their own home or like me a design professional. One of the good things that came out of the bad drought we had here in NSW about 7 years ago is that the state government looked at sustainability in a big way and along with relevant authorities spent quite a bit of time and money to come up with BASIX - the Building Sustainability Index. https://www.basix.nsw.gov.au/information/about.jsp Any design professional worth their salt would already know most of the principals behind good environmentally sustainable design but now those that don't have been dragged kicking and screaming to the table. Any DA submitted to the council over $50,000 ( new home or reno) now has to have a BASIX certificate attached and it means that most developments now have at least some semblance of all the things mentioned above. At least we are starting to move away from the terrible McMansions that were an environmental nightmare even though our appetite for large houses seems to be as insatiable as ever. Stewie Re: Your Home 9Sep 18, 2011 11:57 am Hi, I did approach a company doing sustainable designs but was quoted about $17k per building square as a rough guide. This included basic fittings, no solar power etc. It was going to be way too expensive for me to do this. I ended up going with a volume builder and picking a plan that suited my block. Then I just did what I thought would help by selecting facade that had eaves, selecting surfmist as the roof color, double glazing windows and doors, removing downlights and replacing them with fans with lights, upgraded heating to a five star unit with zoning. It is very hard to get information from volume builders on what you can do to increase efficiency you end up doing the research yourself. I am also amazed that in NSW the boral brick catalog lists the rating of bricks as medium, light etc but none of this information is in the VIC catalog. I had to check out bricks that were available in both states to help with selection. House - Lockup completed 23rd December 2011 - Painters are in!!! https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=37261&start=0&hilit=Blaxland Re: Your Home 10Sep 20, 2011 9:37 am If you go the site Steve links to in his post you will find a lot of good info. Download all the pdfs and have a good read. There is a wealth of information there Here it is again http://www.yourhome.gov.au/technical/index.html Volume builders are only just starting to cotton on to the fact that more and more people want greener homes. When they see that they will sell more homes because of these desirable features then they will all offer this. Stewie Re: Your Home 11Sep 29, 2011 11:24 pm Environmentally sustainable homes are a real ballancing act. When we built our home my mind set was "this is what I want, how can I make it more environmental without sacrificing my needs or blowing out the budget" In the end our house has an east, west aspect (completly wrong) but considering the site you wouldnt want to build it any other way to take in the views and to minimise the cut/fill. We have managed to run the house entirly on rainwater, have an enviro septic system, and went for extra insulation and double glazing on the western side to help, but didnt want to lose the open space plan that suited our family (hence heating costs are higher, but all of our heating is from a wood fire - most wood from our property) Our house could be much more environmentally friendly, but would be much less of a home, and more of a house. Re: Your Home 12Sep 30, 2011 7:12 am That's is actually a very sound point there Hills Guy. One size never does fit all In Perth people building on the Ocean build there for the views. (Same for the Hills area) That means in most cases the house faces West and with big areas of glass on the west side also. An absolute recipe for disaster as far as Solar design goes but I can certainly see why they do it and would do the same thing. Why build in a location with a spectacular view if you dont use it? In cases like that a lot more "assisted" Green technology is needed to make things liveable as well as some smart design. (But then again maybe people in these multi million $$ coastal houses can just afford the massive heating and cooling bills and dont give a rats) However the Urban planners or Developers that design all these new "Suburbs" with land holdings facing the wrong way in the middle of nowhere have a lot to answer for. https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=44762 My Owner builder journey extending a 1930's Bungalow Re: Your Home 13Sep 30, 2011 1:07 pm On a similar note I read in the Manly Daily Real estate guide at the weekend that the Australian Bureau of Statistics has found that new freestanding houses in Australia have an average floor area of 243.6 sq m - the biggest homes in the world ! Approx 10% bigger than the US figures. Other countries referenced were 137sqm in Denmark ( the largest in Europe ), 187 sqm in Japan and 177sqm in Canada. These Australian figures were attributed to us having a much lower population density than other parts of the world and that we have a larger land mass plus smaller population. On these forums I regularly see floor areas of 300-400 sq m mentioned and even some over the 500 sqm mark. I'd love to see some sort of poll here comparing floor size , no. of people living in these homes and total energy costs ( gas plus electric bills ). I think some of these bills would be huge. Stewie Re: Your Home 14Oct 01, 2011 8:54 am True Stewie, space is a luxury item that comes at a high environmental cost. After living in a caravan for the last 3 and a half years whilst we build, our 'wants and needs' balance has been seriously questioned. I have realised my needs are well below what I used to want. Steve Re: Your Home 15Oct 01, 2011 9:38 am As mentioned above covenants are too restrictive...eg I wanted a Surfmist roof for thermal reasons but council refused as 'Surfmist isn't permitted in their council area'. Then a neighbour's house was started a matter of weeks behind this one and sure enough they have a Surfmist roof!! By then it was too late to change as the whole colour scheme would need to be rearranged, bricks/gutters/fascias/etc. I also wanted a split skillion roof where the southern side (bedrooms/bathrooms) was higher and had opening louvre windows to light that side of the house naturally and also allow good airflow in summer. Again, council wouldn't agree. Now a year later there's a house with this exact roof built in the next street. Have to admit it's with the builder I spoke to back then, so my guess is he took my ideas and somehow got them through council. Just about every house around here has black roof tiles (except that one Surfmist roof) and on a hot day it's amazing to watch the heat shimmers and listen to the aircons running all day and all night. While I had aircon installed (post handover) it will only be used for winter heating as it's the most cost effective and only needs to be run for around 30-40 minutes per night because of all the insulation. Re: Your Home 16Oct 01, 2011 11:35 am Yes, in our council also ( Warringah ) , Surfmist is on the banned list as well which seems crazy from an environmental view although I have seen the impact that a light coloured roof can have on neighbouring properties regarding glare so I am not totally surprised. Quote: I also wanted a split skillion roof where the southern side (bedrooms/bathrooms) was higher and had opening louvre windows to light that side of the house naturally and also allow good airflow in summer. Again, council wouldn't agree. What were the reasons the Council gave you for rejecting your split skillion roof ? Too high ? Out of character with the suburb ? We are tossing up this scenario too or going for a standard 20º pitch hipped roof or a flat roof with a parapet at the front. Stewie Re: Your Home 17Oct 02, 2011 12:50 pm Re Stewie D's comment, our rural property is 500 square metres. and our utilities are not to bad. Water - all free - rainwater only and enviro septic tank. Gas - hot water and cooking only - about 4 bottles a year Electricity - $500-600 per quarter - I know many others in smaller houses with bills this size or larger. Given that our house isnt the ideal environmental build, I think my use of resources (3 adults and 2 kids) isnt too bad. We hope to get solar panels soon to offset the electricity, and have started vegi gardens and chook pens to supliment the food. We cant go "off grid" entirly, but we will make a bit of a dent in our consumables. Re: Your Home 18Oct 02, 2011 1:13 pm Stewie they didn't give a reason for either the Surfmist or roof style not being approved, other than 'it is not permitted within this council area'. Then several months later both were approved on houses closeby, the Surfmist roof house would have been approved before mine, our blocks adjoin for 8 metres so it was possible to watch the whole construction and the split skillion is a block away. Maybe a Surfmist roof might be create a glare problem in hilly areas, but it's as flat as a table here. I don't feel the split skillion is out of character, it's a new estate so I think it follows modern trends and adds a bit of character where not every house has the same 25deg roof. There is ONE two storey house in the entire estate...now that sticks out!! There are no covenants in regards to roof style/colour/etc/etc it was the council building inspector who made these claims. At the time I had hoped to build a curved roof house but finding a builder with some knowledge of this type of roof was impossible so I went to plan B which was a split skillion only to end up with plan C...a 25 deg pitch with hips/valleys but I still got the raked ceiling (although the builder stuffed that up too)!! Better luck next time!! Re: Your Home 19Oct 03, 2011 9:21 am @ Happy Camper_au It seems more than just a few of council approvals/refusals seems to come down to personal preference or opinion on the Bulding Inspector or town planners part as to what constitutes an acceptable design. More than once have I had to go into bat for clients when their DAs have been refused seemingly at the whim of the approvals officer despite very well put together applications on my part including very detailed Statement of Environmental Effects with numerous references, photos etc of nearby properties ( some right next door ) that far exceed Council guidelines yet have been approved in recent years. I find their lack of consistency to be the worst part of dealing with Councils. @Hills Guy That's not too bad for utility bills for an older house. We are still in our original double brick 1947 bungalow in original condition and our bills are averaged out over two years for two adults and one kid as Water - all mains supply for the house but some rainwater for our gardens - $270 per q. Gas - all mains supply hot water and heating only - $300 per q Electricity - cooking and general use -$200 per quarter. I can't wait until we start our major renos as we would hope that these would all fall considerably. Stewie Re: Your Home 20Oct 11, 2011 9:40 am In a similar vein about long term sustainable and smart building practices is this guide from Landcom and something that a lot of people looking to build don't think about too much- the long term implications by making a house more adaptable. http://www.landcom.com.au/content/publi ... lines.aspx This was linked to an article from the weekend Home supplement in the Telegraph on Saturday. It basically covers what some of the baby boomer generation are looking to do at the moment- build a new house for immediate living with a slant to living there over a longer than the normal house tenure 5-7 years. Given the high price of buying a house to start with ( house unaffordability ) coupled with kids staying at home well into their twenties and the high cost of moving , homes are being used by several generations for a much longer time. Therefore these homes have to be designed accordingly. - Direct and level access from the garage and front door - Front door at least 850mm wide - Internal doors at least 820mm wide - Internal corridors at least 1000mm wide - Main facilities on the ground floor - Space in the bedrooms such as 1000mm wide either side of the bed - Bathroom at least 2400 x 2400mm and no hob in the shower - At least one bedroom on the ground floor All this may lead to bigger homes but ultimately less stress on local services and the need for less homes. We are looking to do our big reno in the next year and with the prospect of having three generations under the one roof we will certainly be looking at some of these design points closer even though our preference is to go smaller rather than bigger ( our hands are tied somewhat with ageing parents needing to be looked after) We will still be making the home as sustainable as possible regarding energy and water consumption and passive solar heating etc. Stewie We already paid for somfy motors for the blinds. The quote above was purely for “pre-wiring” so the blinds company can install the motors and blinds. That’s why we… 5 16275 Thanks mate. Yeah good points! Leaning towards Option 3 to get a bit extra space in the cabinets but not going too crazy high (and expensive). Would require a mini… 13 39714 Broker here - legislation says that every true broker must put the clients best interests before theirs so in theory they must offer you the best options for you on their… 2 46013 |