2011 Dreaming PART 2

The dreams described in the previous post continue here with a focus on the house

Verandah

We have always intended building an undercover area on to the front of the house where we can store boots, coats and umbrellas and enjoy a morning coffee or afternoon glass of wine when the weather is conducive. We have chewed over many different possibilities, and decided on an open sided verandah area that is roofed over with materials that let enough light in, without it getting too hot in mid-summer. This construction will extend around the side of the house and also provide space for the steam engine, boiler, heat exchange tank etc. This area will also have a small kitchen garden and an outside cooking area for those very hot spells we sometimes get in summer. We may even explore the idea of a wood fired pizza oven!



Our rough model of the shape of our verandah

One reason why our projects take so long, is we spend a lot of time mulling over different possibilities. It has taken us around 2 years to come up with the final concept. One of our problems was to come up with a design that fulfils all the functions we have in mind and at the same time fits in aesthetically with the house. This latter point is quite complex because where the verandah adjoins the building there are 4 different roof levels, 3 different wall corners and 2 different levels on the ground. Our solution is a bit complex so to make sure in our minds that it would work we constructed a rough real sized model. The model gave us the confidence to take the next step- which is to start getting quotes for the job.

The house

We moved into the house in 2001, so it really is time to finish off the sanding and staining of exposed timber beams and ceilings, sealing windows and rendering the mud brick walls. This will be our first project for the year. Hopefully we will report on our progress in a month or two.

Obviously we will not get every one of these projects completed by the end of the year (in fact we may not even get them all started). However we will be working on them as time and finances allow. By doing many of them concurrently we can maximise the use of machinery whilst it is here. Sometimes the hardest part is just making a start, and in a way, putting down our intentions in writing is the very first part of that. Anyway, it will be very interesting to see how far we get by this time next year.

Would We Do It Again?

Would we do it again? No, not at our age now. We have done it once, enjoyed the journey and now we are happy to live out our days enjoying the fruit of our labour. However if it was a question of the clock being wound back would we go down the owner builder path again? We certainly would. We thoroughly recommend that everyone at least consider the owner building process. If you do, we found the following helpful

· Undertaking some major renovation tasks at our previous house provided us with some building experience
· Choosing subcontractors wisely (recommendations are useful). The cheapest is not always the best. Look after subcontractors (cups of tea etc). A good relationship will often yield good advice and valuable information. We may have just been lucky but every one of our subcontractors did an excellent job, fitted in with us and were very helpful. Many contractors are happy for you to reduce costs by doing some of the work yourself.
· Having access to paid long service leave enabled a lot of work to be completed in a shorter period of time
· We contracted a qualified builder (Rod Sheppard) to help us erect the frame, and we worked as his labourers. This saved us money, gave us the chance to learn skills on the job, and meant this complex stage was completed in a quarter of the time it would have taken us to do by ourselves.
· Attend as many house tours as you can, to get ideas for your own project and to learn from other people’s experiences.
· Publications such as Earth Garden, Renew Magazine, Grass Roots and Owner Builder frequently have useful articles and useful contacts. These and many helpful books can be found in local libraries.
· Improve your bbq skills so that friends look forward to visiting (and helping when you need an extra hand). This doesn’t always work, but it’s worth a try.
· Learn as much as you can about good design. By this we don’t mean the so called “good style” demonstrated in coffee table magazines, but design that works for you and the planet over the long term.

In conclusion we recommend the completion of a Permaculture Design Certificate. This course introduces all the basic principles and concepts needed to develop plans for an energy efficient, environmentally friendly house which integrates with other infrastructure.

Here is a list of tradesmen/contractors we used or know, and whom we would happily recommend:
· Rod Sheppard - Marysville –survived the fires (Builder, building designer, draughtsman, building timber supplier) Top photo
· Kevin Jones -Chirnside Park (Very skilled and knowledgeable. Did our excavations, driveways and dams) Bottom photo
· Bill Hayes -Lilydale (Plumber & House fire defence sprinkler systems)
· Stephen Cook- Glen Iris (Top class Electrician)
· Glen Morris of SolarQuip Healesville (Solar Supplier & Installer)
· Regis Bezencon Healesville (Solar Supplier & Installer)
· Janelle Murphy of Australian 5Star -Bayswater (Energy Rater who will work through the process with clients, and Insulation consultant)
· Alan Duke of A&A Wormfarm Waste Systems - Hastings. Disposal of all grey and black waste water. Middle photo

House Design Details

Once we had decided on a mudbrick house, the next stage was to sort out the nitty gritty of design. We drew up plans ourselves, taking care to integrate as many of our criteria as possible. The whole process was a matter of compromise and adjustment and aimed at reaching a final result which would best meet our needs, taking into account factors such as cost, personal preference and perceived significance, to reach what we considered the best acceptable outcome.

HOUSE LAYOUT
The house is basically rectangular in shape with kitchen, lounge and master bedroom to the north with large windows giving a view over our front yard, dam and down the drive. On the southern side are 2 other bedrooms, family room, laundry, bathroom and toilet. There are cathedral ceilings throughout, except for the utility areas which have a lower ceiling to allow for an attic space above. The kitchen, lounge and family room are open plan, which has proved very useful when we are hosting large groups (we’ve had up to 80 people inside).

SOME PARTICULAR FEATURES
THERMAL MASS
Thermal mass provided by mudbrick walls, concrete slab and earth sheltered eastern wall heats and cools slowly, acting to moderate the internal temperature and making the home comfortable to live in all year round. The wood heater is only necessary on the coldest of days, but is used to create a ‘cosy’ atmosphere on other days.

VENTILATION
Cross ventilation is obtained via windows to south and north in our open plan design. Vertical ventilation is created by low air intake from vents and windows and high air exit points in the clerestorey and high vents.

STOVE & HOT WATER SERVICE CUPBOARD
A Stanley Wood Stove is our main cooking appliance, heats all our water and provides some heating to the house. The flue passes through the wall into our HWS cupboard. This reduces the amount of heat coming from the stove in summer and makes the HWS area ideal for use as a drying cupboard. The hot water supply is gravity fed to taps using a 5m head from the header tank located within the ceiling space.

RENEWABLE TIMBER
We’ve endeavoured to use natural materials to minimise chemical release from glues, plastics etc. Radial sawn timber is used extensively internally and externally as a wall cladding above windows and doors. The curves of the boards are perfect match for the flowing lines of the mudbrick. Radial sawn timber is a renewable resource, aesthetic and the milling process uses the whole log with little waste (unlike square cut boards).
Cypress macrocarpa is used for the frame. This is a plantation grown timber which is easy to work with, comparatively light, and contains oils that give it some resistance to insect attack.

EXTERNAL EAVES
These have been constructed to exclude summer sun but allow deep penetration into the house by the lower winter sun. They also protect the mudbrick walls from excessive rain.

STORAGE AREAS
Large built-in-robes provide storage space in each bedroom, a walk in pantry will have extensive specialised shelving and storage areas (for storing produce, home-made products etc.) and the roof space above wet areas has been built into an attic. We plan to build a cool cupboard in the pantry to negate the need for larger refrigerator.

GREY AND BLACK WATER WORM PROCESSING SYSTEM
The “A&A Wormfarm Waste System" processes our “grey and black” water. The water and solids flow into a below ground tank by gravity. A filter in the base holds back the solids which are broken down by aerobic microbes and worm activity. Liquids containing worm castings and minute particles of solids are pumped to absorption trenches. In the future, the liquids will be filtered through reed beds. The captured nutrients will be used to grow biomass as an additional source of composting material and the filtered water will irrigate fruit and nut trees.

IS THE DESIGN EFFECTIVE?
After chatting to a qualified energy rater, we believe that our design would not reach the 5 star energy rating that has been in use for the past couple of years. If this is the case, it is proof that the current computer program used to rate houses is unsatisfactory as its calculations rely too much on insulation qualities and do not consider the full benefits of thermal mass.

The thermal mass in the house maintains comfortable temperatures year round. In winter, it rarely gets below 16⁰C, even when there are frosts outside (the Yarra Valley is known for heavy frosts). We generally start using the wood heater occasionally in May. It gets more use from June to late August (usually just in the evenings) and we only use it in spring if there happens to be an extra cold snap.

In summer, the temperature rarely gets above 30⁰C, and this should be improved once we install a vine covered pergola along the northern wall. Most of the time house temperatures hover around 20º. In terms of function and pleasant living environment the house performs extremely well. Every room is well lit and “airy” and the aesthetic qualities of the building materials are pleasant to the eye. All living areas have good outlook over surrounding gardens and bush allowing us to enjoy the natural attributes of our environment.

A Mudbrick Adventure

We promised to do this post about our house design way back in October last year. (Recently Geoff from Flood Street Farmlet - http://floodstreetfarmlet.blogspot.com/ reminded us about this.) It's a convoluted tale so we will start at the beginning and spend the next few posts filling in details.

We spent several years pondering our house design and considered a wide range of materials and housing styles, ranging from the traditional Australian homestead with verandas all round, through to concrete earth-covered domes. To help us clarify our ideas, we spent about 12 months going on every alternative house tour we could find. This was a great way to explore possibilities. During this period we drew up the following criteria that we wanted our house to meet.

· Maximise our involvement by being owner builders to save costs and to maintain “ownership” of the process
· East-west alignment with large north facing windows to maximise solar gain
· Smaller windows on South, west and east to minimise heat loss
· Minimise fire risk by giving the house a low profile and by using low risk materials
· Eaves to exclude summer sun but allow winter sun to warm house and protect mudbricks from weather.
· Utilise at least some earth covered wall construction (a carryover from our earlier thoughts of building an earth sheltered house)
· Use thermal mass to maintain constant pleasant temperature (20 –25 degrees) and minimise energy use.
· Utilise natural ventilation and cooling pipes (stack and cross ventilation)
· Maximise natural lighting to all rooms avoiding need for lights during daylight hours
· Wet areas to be in close proximity to HWS to minimise hot water pipe distances
· Incorporate a window outlook that provides views of our bush environment
· Accommodate wheelchair access to most of house
· Plan to include provision for large concrete water tank, wood stove and wood heater
· Access between garage, pantry and rest of house
· Cathedral ceilings and exposed beams
· House to have appearance of being part of the environment- not alien to it
· Rooms to be reasonably spacious and Incorporate plenty of storage space
· Use plantation timber (not old growth forests)
· Minimise “wasted” space eg. halls
· Use materials with a low “embodied energy component”
· Adequate insulation using natural non toxic materials
· Use physical termite barriers- no poisons
· House plan to incorporate 3 bedrooms, a study/office/spare room, lounge, family room, kitchen, walk-in pantry, bathroom, toilet, laundry and garage/workshop.
· Deciduous vine covered pergola along northern wall for shade in summer but light in winter

OUR SOLUTION
Our solution was a mudbrick house (external and internal mudbrick walls), built on a slab with one earth sheltered wall (built with “normal” fired bricks and back filled with soil). The house and garage area is around 25 squares. A clerestory is used to bring light into the back of the house. We are very happy with the design we came up with, which meets 99% of our initial criteria.

WHY MUDBRICK?
We decided on mudbrick because:-
· They have low embodied energy
· We were planning to make the mudbricks ourselves. After we had made 80 bricks (out of the 4000 we needed) we decided to buy the rest from Barclay Bricks in Hurstbridge. Back in 1999, puddled clay bricks were only $1.65 each delivered- a very reasonable price we thought.
· They do not require great skill to lay. Slight irregularities in levels add to the “rustic charm”. We use this excuse all the time to explain imperfect lines etc.
· They have good thermal mass (but not good insulation)
· We love the texture of mudbrick wall surfaces
· Laying a few bricks puts the wall up a fair bit because of their large size
· They are fire reistant
· The density of the mudbrick adds an element of sound reduction so that activities in one room have less impact on people in another room
· By building a post and beam frame and later filling in the walls with mudbrick we could put the roof up first and then work on the walls under cover in rain, hail or shine.

In the next post we will get into the nitty gritty of construction and layout.