Strawbale House

Andrew, our architect, has sent us some 3D pictures of our future home today which I’d like to share with you.

The next step is to work out the size of the photo voltaic system for our electricity needs. That’s going to be exciting, especially when we get a better idea of how much the solar panels and batteries are going to cost us.

We have visited our land (or as we tend to call it the farm) last weekend again. I am normally not very lucky when taking images of animals but this time I have been able to get a really nice shot of two female fairy wrens sitting on some branches.

These fariy wrens actually look bigger in this picture than they really are. Both of these together are about the size of a fist. They are light enough to sit on a seed stalk of gras without bending it much.

As August has now finished we have closed the competition for the book of house plans and have drawn the winner. But before I announce the winner I’d like to explain that we have also drawn a runner up and a second runner up in case the winner is not interested in the book.

So without further ado I present to you the winner of the competition:

Terry Gerling

Congratulations and we hope you enjoy the book of house plans and make good use of it. Terry will also be notified of his winning by email.

And I’d like to also say that I liked all comments left by all participants. We did not feel once that a comment was neither civil nor intelligent.

Keep up leaving your great comments.

Some time ago I came across an article about Freecylce and how it aims to keep good stuff out of landfill. Freecycle basically are a large number of mailing lists where people can advertise stuff for free that they no longer need.

One of Freecycle’s main rules is that anything that you advertise needs to be free. My first thought at the time was: “Great, I can now get all this stuff for free. This is going to save me buckets of money.”

I have quickly come to realise though that Freecycle really is not about saving money or getting stuff for free, it’s about finding a new home for stuff that is still good / working so that you don’t put it in the rubbish where it ends up in landfill.

Of course I have found a few things that I thought were pretty neat but what has actually given me more satisfaction is when I have been able to give away some stuff  that we had no use for any longer.

One example is a laundry trolley that is still working but was just surplus to our household as we already have another laundry trolley. I advertised that trolley and found a new home for it within one afternoon. The lady that came and picked it up really appreciates the trolley and makes good use of it now.

To check out if Freecycle is available in your area go to: http://www.freecycle.org/group and look through the areas already covered by a Freecycle group.

If you have stuff, that is still good but that are not using anymore and its kind of in your way, please consider joining Freecycle and advertising your item.

Andrew and Steve have been busy again and have already produced a second version of the preliminary plans for our new home. On the right you can see the newest iteration of the floor plan which is a very close to how Rosalba and I would like it. (For a more detailed look, click on the image of the floorplan to see a larger version).

The few changes that we have asked Andrew and Steve to incorporate are as follows:

To save a bit of room, Rosalba and I have decided that we’ll put the laundry outside and change that small laundry into a cupboard. Having an outside laundry works really well for us where we are now.

The main entrance door needs to change back into a double door, as Rosalba and I have already purchased two doors for the main entrance (see related post “Front Door“).

On this plan it looks a little like there are some louvres or similar in the walk in wardobe. We are both not so sure that is a good idea. We fear that some of the smaller wildlife, such as bugs, mice, and snakes, would find the louvres an inviting entrance into our wardrobe.

To have a look at some elevations of the house have a look at this gallery. Again, by clicking on any of the images you get to see a larger version with more detail.

As most of you are probably aware our current economy is driven by constant growth and that the success of any commercial venture is always measured by continued growth of sales, earnings, and market share. Since I have realised this myself quite a few years back I have always wondered how such continued growth can be sustained, not just in an environmental perspective.

I have recently come across this site called “The Story of Stuff” which kind of explained how the current economy works and that we can’t keep on expecting relentless, continuing growth.

The site features a 20 minute movie where Annie Leonard explains how our economy currently works and how this needs to be changed to enable a sustainable economy which in turn even helps the environment.

One scary fact that I always suspected but thought was a bit of a conspiracy theory is that world economies have been deliberately set-up for more and more consumerism in order to keep the earnings of the big corporations growing.

I do highly recomend taking 20 minutes to watch the movie on the “The Story of Stuff” website to anyone interested in sustainabilty.

Also, please share your thoughts on what Annie Leonard presents in the movie in the comments section of this article. I’d also like to hear about any ideas this movie might have inspired.

For ourselves, Rosalba and I are most likely to move our superannuation money into an super account that invests more into sustainable companies. We are currently looking at Australian Ethical Supperannuation as we believe that ethical investment includes investment into companies with sustainable practices.

So again, please share your thoughts in the comments section. Remeber every civilised and intelligent comment until the end of August 2008 goes in the draw to win the Book of House Plans.

On Wednesday we met our Architect, Andrew, again to discuss the fist draft version of the floor plan for our new home. I have included a scanned copy of the draft that was drawn by Steve (the Building Designer working together with Andrew) below for your enjoyment. (Click on the plan for a larger version of it.)

As is usually the case, Rosalba and I have identified some areas where we would like to see some change. I’d also like to see any changes we requested as (hopefully) valuable feedback for Andrew and Steve.

First of all we’d like to change the bathroom and toilet to be an ensuite instead of separate. The toilet should still have it’s own door to allow for proper reflection even when another person is using the bathroom. Having the bathroom and toilet become an ensuite starts making sense once I tell you that what is marked on this plan as “Bedroom 2″ is actually going to be my office.

We don’t intend to have many visitors staying overnight in our new home but instead we are also planning to build a separate little granny flat or guest house at a later date to make overnight visitors more comfortable.

We have also asked for a second toilet to be included on the plan next to the back door. The main reason for this being that we’d like to be able to get to a toilet without tramping through the whole house, if we are working outside.

We are quite happy for the laundry to become significantly smaller to free up some space for the second toilet, as both Rosalba and I can’t see that we are going to spend a lot of time in the Laundry. In our current house we have an undercover outdoor laundry that works quite well for us.

The outside walls are designed to be made of strawbales. Looking at the plan the walls look not quite as thick as I would have expected because Andrew and Steve designed them be built with the strawbales stacked on-end instead of laying flat as I expected.

The advantage of building the walls with strawbales on-end is that this makes the walls stronger according to Andrew. The disadvantages are that it makes it harder for the render to stick to the strawbales and that building some alcoves into the walls is quite a bit harder as well.
Rosalba and I feel that we’d rather make the render stick better as the walls should still be quite sturdy with the strawbales stacked flat.

Rosalba has also asked for more bench space in the kitchen and the inclusion of space for a wall oven instead of an oven underneath the stove.

All in all, Rosalba and I are quite happy with this first draft of the floor plan. It is very close to what we imagined without any big or nasty surprises.

Also according to Steve with the plan as presented our new home would have a 9½ star rating. This compares to a standard brick veneer home having about a star rating of 4½ stars. Both Steve and Andrew believe that we would not need to heat or cool our home at all and the fireplace would be used more for aesthetics than heating.

So what do you think?

As prize in our first ever competition, we are giving away the book of house plans by Peter Lees (pictured on the left). This book contains a large number design sketches but does not contain finished plans. Nevertheless there is enough information to help you work out what you’d like or not in your house, though.

The competition starts now and runs until the end of August. To be in the draw to win this book of house plans, all you need to do is leave a comment anywhere on this site.

In early September I will draw a a random entry from all comments left on this site. So to have a chance of winning all you need to do is leave one intelligent and civil comment. Multiple comments do count as multiple entries so if you are really keen, feel free to leave multiple intelligent and civil comment.

Also, please remember that if you win I will need to be able to contact you so make sure that you enter a valid email address at which you can be reached with your comment in the “Mail” field.

So go ahead and leave lots of happy comments. Good luck.

Your email will not be published, is only accessible by myself and will only be used for the purpose of this competition.
Rosalba and I reserve the right to judge what constitutes an intelligent and civil comment.
Our decisions are final and no correspondence regarding them will be entered into.

Installing a solar power systems is not cheap as most people interested in the idea are already aware of. Solar power systems, especially grid connected systems, pay for themselves over time, but a relatively large up-front investment is needed to reap the benefits of a solar power system.

An article on TreeHugger published today talks about a different way of financing a solar power system by using a service model instead of an asset or ownership model. This service model means that a service provider installs, owns, and maintains the solar power system on your house and you buy the electricity generated from the service provider.

Major benefits, as I see them, are:

• No large up-front installation cost which makes solar power a feasible option for many more people.
• No worries about maintenance as your service provider looks after the system for you.
• You are not dependant on government handouts rebates to be able to afford solar power.

The article on TreeHugger seems to apply mainly to the USA as it does not contain any information about any such service outside the US of A. Nevertheless the idea described in the article is interesting and merits further thought and hopefully duplication in Australia.

Please leave a comment if you have any information or links to alternative ways of obtaining a solar power system that apply to Australia as this sounds very interesting to me.  I am sure such alternate ways of financing a solar power system would increase the up-take of solar power in Australia again after the damper the Australian government has dealt with the introduction of the means testing for the solar rebate.

For more reading check out the article on TreeHugger.

Rosalba and I have joined the Alternative Technology Association (ATA) a couple of months ago because we thought that this would help us decide on what alternative energy system we will incorporate into our new home.

The ATA have published a Solar Panel Buyers Guide in their October-December 2007 ReNew print publication. The really nice thing is that the ATA have now made this article available for free and in full on their website at http://www.ata.org.au/renew/renew-101-solar-panel-buyers-guide.

A few of the things that were mentioned in the article that I found interesting or helpful are:

• All solar panels currently available will produce more energy than they use over their lifetime including initial production.
• Some solar panels come with up to 25 years of manufacturer’s warranty
• Currently BP Solar, Conergy and PV Solar Energy manufacture their solar panels in Australia.

If you are currently thinking about installing solar panels on your home this Solar Panel Buyers Guide is well worth a read.

Additionally if you are interested in alternative technologies you might be interested in some other articles on the ATA website, so go have a look.