They had a Sustainable Living Tour of eco houses on the weekend, the Australian Open Garden Scheme had a few open gardens and there was an expo, Live. Garden. Farm. on as well. There was a tour of sustainable farms on that we couldn't make it to (because of our toddler - I am amazed she let us see as much as we did).
There were more houses open the weekend before, but we could only make it down this weekend.
I took some pictures of the houses I liked.
This first house owned by David and Camille at Invergowrie (west of Armidale) was built in 91-92. It's a small mud brick house, with kitchen living and bathroom/laundry downstairs and a loft bedroom upstairs.
They have a single room studio out the side with lovely sunny windows facing north east (for the morning light).
Inside the roof they have Solomit straw panels, which I hadn't seen before, but they are very visually appealing and apparently have great acoustic properties.
The second house was also in Invergowrie, owned by John and Jane, who bought it off the builder. It was built entirely from stone gathered from the block, and is very beautiful. 2/3 of the floor was on bedrock, and covered with slate makes for a very good heat sink - soaking up winter sun and radiating it out during the night.
All the living areas face north (and a beautiful mountain view), and one bedroom faces north too. They say the temperature inside very rarely wavers from 17/18 degrees celcius, even in winter (I did notice they do have two wood fireplaces though!).
This is an internal view from the east most room looking through the kitchen/dining area into the lounge.
The third house was my favourite, and a beautiful example of how good straw bale can be. Modern and sleek.
This house, owned by Maree and Neal, is on the south-eastern side of Armidale. It's almost finished, they hope to move in in the next month or so.
It has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a study and a living area and rumpus. I quite liked the layout, and I think it will be a really lovely place to live in.
I love the wide straw bale walls.
I got to have a long chat to Maree, and took lots of notes. The cost was about $300 000 all up, not including the cost of the land. A bit scary as they did a lot of work themselves.
The floor is acid stained concrete, in four colours. I'd never seen this kind of finish before, and it is truly beautiful. It is neutralised with bicarb of soda and then finished with polyurethane.
The septic system is a worm farm (will add what the brand is when I find the card). All black and grey water is processed and irrigates the entire lawn and tree area. The compost bin sits above it, so all your scraps can get added too. There's not much of an ongoing cost to it, unlike something like the Biolytix system.
The last place we visited was the Michael O'Keeffe Woodland Centre, which is in town.
The glass house on the northern side is used to help heat the rest of the building during winter. The vents allow them to control the amount of heat being directed into the house. Great idea, but I wonder how it goes during the heat of summer? Do they cover up the topmost glass?
They have clerestory windows to let light into the rear of the building.
There were a few other places I would have loved to have visited. I hope they will be open again next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment