Being green

At the beginning of this project we both thought that we would be mildly green in our approach to building, nothing radical we thought. Just sensible sustainable practices. In our innocence we wondered why people continued to build such environmentally rude houses. The answer is simple, builders. And it is not their fault, they have to run a business which means not taking risks and doing anything different is a risk. Much better to follow the pack. To specification is the Builder's cry, never over. To force the pack to move along legislation and government incentives are needed. Unfortunately this is woeful.

Double Glazing
The general consensus is that it is too expensive to be worthwhile, in other words it is cheaper to lose energy heating and cooling than to install anything above the crap standard 3mm thick single glazed windows used in Australia.

Insulation
This is where build to standard comes into play, builders will fight to the end when you ask for better insulation. Its above the standard mate, is what you hear. You have to wonder if they refuse to go above standard in other parts of their lives, like pay rises. There is also a lack of knowledge about how insulation works and how it can be designed.

Alignment
Another no-brainer, not one of the builders we spoke to made any attempt to adjust their plans to suit the alignment of our block. This includes such simple things as window placement and overhangs. No, they only looked at how the windows looked on the plan without reference to the surroundings.

Overhang
Following on from above, everything I have read about house design suggests that some thought is put into the size of the overhangs. In our case we have a long west facing wall, surely it needs a decent overhang to protect it from the harsh west sun? We got the builders specification. Still arguing the toss on this so stay tuned to hear what arguments the builders raise to ignore overhangs.


Roof Colour
This is such a basic and simple concept. Dark roofs are not good in a hot environment, the dark colour absorbs heat significantly more than light coloured ones. Australians understand this when they buy white or light coloured cars over black or dark coloured ones. Why don't they get it when they choose the colour of a roof? There is no difference in price. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Photovoltaic Cells
Now this is getting radical, but surprisingly not difficult. You wait for your house to be built and call the people out and they install the cells. None of them can offer any advice on what to include during construction. And no difference in price between doing it before or after.

Dual Water
Well here we have governments forcing the builders to do something, perhaps. New houses by law must have at least one toilet or laundry connected to rainwater. The tank must be at least 1000L in size. Sounds ok, but we wanted to make a more significant impact. Getting a bigger tank is easy and not expensive. The problem is getting the builders to install piping to both toilets and laundry. Again the specification says.......

Grey water
Now we are really getting out there. For those that haven't heard Australia has a little problem with lack of water. Most states have banned watering of lawns and until the earth's climate changes this is unlikely to change. On average people use 150L per day each. So in our family of 3 we are washing 450l each day down the drain. A big proportion of this is in showers and washing. Imagine if the water from showers and the washing machine could be used to water the garden? We could then have a nice green lawn, that will be a real luxury in a few years. Again this is not in the specification so more discussion with the builders.....we have a plumber who is willing to do this. But of course the sewage pipes are all in the concrete slab. The only time to change them is now, before the concrete goes down. Watch this space.

Selecting Brown

Last week we began what s known as the Selection process. This means visiting various suppliers to choose the parts that make up a house, taps, baths, showers, tiles and ovens. Of course there is a limited selection of Builders Range items which are included as standard. Anything nicer costs more. You can supply your own item and get a credit back, however this usually works out so that the credit is only say 70% of what it would cost to buy the same item elsewhere and you still have to get it installed. And there is no insurance on it, apparently building sites are thick with thieves. This is a very easy way to spend a bunch of money. We did quite well, most of our selections were within the builders range and the extras modest. Being colour challenged I was worried about the tile selection interview. But with help from the sales person (who know her stuff) we managed to choose tiles that looked great and were in our range. We were in a brown mood so hopefully brown will not date.

Now we only have to do the kitchen and electrical plans. And a reach agreement with our builder on everything else before inking the final contract.

Some thoughts on sales people

Notice that I said people, not professionals? I am amazed at how sales people use any old argument to sell whatever product they are hawking.

Buy the local Fridge
Shopping for a Fridge the line is that Australian made is the way to go, experience with local conditions plus local support and backup. Sounds fair enough, they are built here so parts should be easy to get.

Buy an Italian Stove and Oven
After finding a nice aussie made fridge we head off to look at cook tops and ovens. Now we are told that to get Quality you must buy imported. Apparently the local stoves are not up to scratch. For some reason the Italians know how to make the best stoves. And because they are imported you just know they are more reliable than anything made locally. What about service support? Well no problem, apparently the imported stoves are better because they are all made in the same factory and you can therefore be assured of getting spare parts. Where as the local designs are made of parts from all over the place and you can't be assured of getting spares in the future.

Keeping Clean
Of course we need a washing machine. Now we discover that the only way to go is imported, and with washing machines key features seem to be efficiency and reliability. Swedish machines are some of the most efficient machines available and they are combined a design that has not changed in 20 years. But they are also very advanced. Again being imported is good for washing machines.

Hot Water
Of course we want to have a Solar water system, surely this should be easy? Turns out that Australia led the world 30 years ago with solar hot waters and has done nothing since. There are two types of solar hot water system, flat panels and evacuated tubes. Both are technology that is over 25 years old but only flat panels are big in Australia. Evacuated tubes are more efficient- no one can tell you how much- but more expensive. Here you can really see sales lies in action. Flat panel guys say that evacuated tubes are a new technology (not true) and cost more (depends on your quotes) and are not very common (evacuated tubes are huge in china, I saw one figure that suggests 1million evacuated tube systems per year). Evacuated tubes are not local so you can't get parts (tell that to the oven sales people). Flat panel guys say the added efficiency of evacuated tubes is not worth the price premium.

Keeping cool
After all of that we needed a cool change talked to an A/C person. Seems that unlike fridges Auusies are not able to make good A/C units so imported is the way to go. Here you should pay a price premium for greater efficiently (quick question- do you use an A/C or hot water on more days per year?). Local support is not a problem for imported A/C as they are local agents. Further we should buy the expensive model because is is more advanced (unlike solar hot water where we should go with tried and proven) .

Breaking the Earth

This is a blog that aims capture the processes, hoops and hurdles that we followed in building our dream home.

First up it was never meant to be a dream home, being sensible types we wanted to be pragmatic. We can't think of everything first time around we thought.

Balancing this is the comment made to us at a party, we are not first home owners. We are a bit older and our next home will likely be a downsize.

Finding the block was easy and lucky, we stumbled across an advert and on a whim had a look. After protracted negotiations with the land agent we finally purchased the block.

We already had an idea of a plan so thought it would be an easy thing to select a builder and design a plan.

First stage was to have the trees removed.