Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Building a narrow lot home in Perth 2Mar 24, 2020 6:35 pm Designer,Engineer (Civil,Const & Envir),Builder,Concrete & Masonry Contract.Struct Repairs Re: Building a narrow lot home in Perth 3Mar 24, 2020 6:44 pm Accessible Carpentry & Cabinets accessiblecarpentry@gmail.com accessiblecarpentry.com.au https://www.facebook.com/pages/Accessible-Carpentry-Cabinets/583314911709039 Re: Building a narrow lot home in Perth 6Mar 24, 2020 10:23 pm Accessible Carpentry & Cabinets accessiblecarpentry@gmail.com accessiblecarpentry.com.au https://www.facebook.com/pages/Accessible-Carpentry-Cabinets/583314911709039 Re: Building a narrow lot home in Perth 8Mar 25, 2020 12:28 am Accessible Carpentry & Cabinets accessiblecarpentry@gmail.com accessiblecarpentry.com.au https://www.facebook.com/pages/Accessible-Carpentry-Cabinets/583314911709039 Re: Building a narrow lot home in Perth 11Mar 26, 2020 7:26 am Personally, I'd aim for 'quality', not 'quantity'. Unless things have changed recently, Australia builds the largest houses in the world, averaging around 240sqm for new builds. We also have extremely poor building standards. A leaky, energy inefficient home being the norm. Do we really need houses this size? The average UK house is a third this size, & actually shrinking. No, I don't think we'll be building houses that size any time soon. But I think we've got to be much sensible with design. To save money, improve energy efficiency, reducing CO2 emissions & urban sprawl. Heck a smaller home will even save you time spent on cleaning, & time & money on maintenance. So ask yourself, how have you come in at 260-270sqm, a very large house? Do people really need that rarely used guest bedroom. Wouldn't it be better to incorporate this space in a multipurpose room that serves double duty, also used as the second living area, or a study. How about the butler's kitchen? Honestly, often one of the silliest design ideas ever, often complicating family life, making it harder to do the dishes, out prepare food, or whatever you've setup to do back there. How about the voids? Wasted space that can make a home way less thermally efficient. Acting as a giant chimney, making the living areas uncomfortably cold in winter, as much of the heat escapes upstairs. Narrow lots are particularly tricky, as access to sunlight has a huge effect on comfort & energy efficiency. Depending on the orientation, narrow lots can suffer from problems of overshadowing by a northern neighbour (for eastern & western frontage blocks). While northern frontage blocks can have big problems with access of light to living areas (due to the large double garage at the front). Both northern & southern frontage blocks can result in a home with far too much eastern & western glazing, which result in a scorching hot home in summer. Reducing the home size will give more opportunities to position the home so that it is not overshadowed. Money saved can be spent on design to overcome the challenges outlined about, & on improved building quality (such as increasing insulation), to improve energy efficiency, saving money & improving comfort. Below is an extreme example of design overcoming the challenges of a narrow lot, overshadowed by a northern neighbour, a large block of flats. Located at 35 Kangaroo St, Manly, NSW. A traditional design would have resulted in a cold dark home, with zero privacy. Instead the occupants enjoy a private, light filled home, with views of the sky. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ No, I don't think most people would have the budget or inclination to build a home like this. But it just highlights how good design can overcome some very large challenges. Start with something more simple. Getting the basics right, by orientating a home correctly. https://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design Re: Building a narrow lot home in Perth 12Mar 26, 2020 8:09 am ddarroch Personally, I'd aim for 'quality', not 'quantity'. Unless things have changed recently, Australia builds the largest houses in the world, averaging around 240sqm for new builds. We also have extremely poor building standards. A leaky, energy inefficient home being the norm. Do we really need houses this size? The average UK house is a third this size, & actually shrinking. No, I don't think we'll be building houses that size any time soon. But I think we've got to be much sensible with design. To save money, improve energy efficiency, reducing CO2 emissions & urban sprawl. Heck a smaller home will even save you time spent on cleaning, & time & money on maintenance. So ask yourself, how have you come in at 260-270sqm, a very large house? Do people really need that rarely used guest bedroom. Wouldn't it be better to incorporate this space in a multipurpose room that serves double duty, also used as the second living area, or a study. How about the butler's kitchen? Honestly, often one of the silliest design ideas ever, often complicating family life, making it harder to do the dishes, out prepare food, or whatever you've setup to do back there. How about the voids? Wasted space that can make a home way less thermally efficient. Acting as a giant chimney, making the living areas uncomfortably cold in winter, as much of the heat escapes upstairs. Narrow lots are particularly tricky, as access to sunlight has a huge effect on comfort & energy efficiency. Depending on the orientation, narrow lots can suffer from problems of overshadowing by a northern neighbour (for eastern & western frontage blocks). While northern frontage blocks can have big problems with access of light to living areas (due to the large double garage at the front). Both northern & southern frontage blocks can result in a home with far too much eastern & western glazing, which result in a scorching hot home in summer. Reducing the home size will give more opportunities to position the home so that it is not overshadowed. Money saved can be spent on design to overcome the challenges outlined about, & on improved building quality (such as increasing insulation), to improve energy efficiency, saving money & improving comfort. Below is an extreme example of design overcoming the challenges of a narrow lot, overshadowed by a northern neighbour, a large block of flats. Located at 35 Kangaroo St, Manly, NSW. A traditional design would have resulted in a cold dark home, with zero privacy. Instead the occupants enjoy a private, light filled home, with views of the sky. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ No, I don't think most people would have the budget or inclination to build a home like this. But it just highlights how good design can overcome some very large challenges. Start with something more simple. Getting the basics right, by orientating a home correctly. https://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design Thanks for the great info. You are right, positioning is so important. We really don’t want a dark house. I guess there is no need for a really large house but we do have kids and the reason why we are building is because our current house is just too small. 3x2 but only one living area. Toys everywhere, no storage, clutter. We want more space as found such a small house stressful! And loud with the kids. Our block is north facing. Next door will be a new double storey also (subdivided block) the other next door neighbour is single storey old home on a full block so this no doubt will be demolished in the future with another double storey on that side (it will definitely be double storey for ocean views). Do you have any tips for the ground floor not being dark and feeling small? We will have an open plan living kitchen dining living with bifold a opening up onto alfresco. High ceilings to this area due to split level (7-8 steps). Also ideas for energy efficiency would be great, what do we need to include? I’m new to this and haven’t even thought about that side of things just yet. Cheers Re: Building a narrow lot home in Perth 13Mar 26, 2020 11:24 am 'Facing' is a confusing term nowadays. It used to mean where the living areas faced, so usually the backyard. So a north facing home actually had a southern frontage. Nowadays 'facing' seems to be used interchangeably with 'frontage'. So, by 'north facing' do you mean a northern frontage? If so, it is certainly a hard orientation to deal with, in terms of energy efficiency, light & comfort. Particularly for a narrow block, even more so if you want a double garage on the street frontage. So what are your thoughts on the garage? A 6m wide double garage won't leave enough room for a proper, decent-width north facing room. A single garage will leave enough room for a decent-width north facing room. If this is the approach you take, of recommend the north facing room is an open planned living room. Although there is another option. A garage, separated from the home, with a courtyard between them. In this case the garage will not usually rob the home of northern light. All rooms across the entire front of the home will have access to northern light. Here's an example, from the northern beaches of Sydney. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ It's hard to tell, but number 18, the home on the left, has a courtyard behind the garage. So the front of the home will be night filled. While number 20, the home on the right, has a more traditional layout. The double garage will rob downstairs living areas of any northern light. Even upstairs, which has a large north facing window, will receive no direct sunshine, due to a large covered balcony. Not good. Here's a satellite image of the two homes. Number 18 now towards the right. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ There are negatives to this approach. This courtyard separating the garage & home may be overlooked by the adjoining neighbours. Also it's a bit of a walk from the garage to the front door. Not good when carrying the groceries, a young child, or in the rain. But this build is quite extreme example of a narrow build. As the frontage is only 7.5m. So let's here more about your build. Firstly, where are you located? Climate should have a very large effect on the design of a home. What's appropriate in Hobart it's certainly not appropriate in Cairns. Tell me about this slope. This could have a great influence on what you can achieve. By your description it sounds like the land slopes down towards the south. If this is the case, & it's a steep slope, this could present even more challenges regarding access to northern light. Re: Building a narrow lot home in Perth 14Mar 30, 2020 10:26 am Whoops, asking where you're located, & it's in the title of your thread 😂 If you're planning on having a second living area, I'd probably recommend you locate it upstairs, at the front of the home. So that you'll have a north facing living area that is light & receives winter sunshine. Locating your main living area towards the rear (south) of the lower level will be quite dark & cool, there's no getting around this. Eastern or western windows may help, but then you'll have more problems with summer heat, & maybe privacy. So I certainly would want to overglaze the eastern & especially western sides. One way to get light downstairs here would be to have a void or open staircase. I'm not usually a fan of these, as they make it impossible to control the flow of heat (which will travel upstairs). But maybe in this case it's not such a bad idea, possibly better if it can be zoned with a door. If the staircase is linked to the upstairs north facing living area it will help light the downstairs even more. Thanks again for this information. If you do hear anything different, would be great to know 4 8182 A quick update, we didn't have site start before Easter. Summit can't seem to give me a day when they are scheduled to begin, so I'm left with a vague "within 10-20… 4 26716 dimensions on your original plan are inconsistent and with accurate dimensions (including site plan, upstairs and down) i could make a proper scale drawing with furniture… 3 7485 |