Our search for an affordable eco house

This blog documents our search for an affordable eco house. We're not handypeople, so we're probably not going to be able to do it ourselves. We do want a nice house, not flash, but comfortable and beautiful to live in. We like some alternative building methods, like straw bale, but we're not sure if we can go down that path.

We have 20 acres of land, ex-orchard, cleared, north aspect, two big dams, near Stanthorpe, Queensland, Australia. Although we are in Queensland we are the coldest town in the state, and do have temperatures up to -5 degrees celcius in Winter, and sometimes snow.

We would like our eco house to include passive solar design, solar hot water &/or power, recycled grey and black water, sustainable building materials.

Our budget: we currently owe $50 000 on the land, and with our combined income of $80 000 a year (at the moment), we would like to not have to borrow more than another $200 000, or less, if possible. Or much less if we can have the house we want for less. A few people have said to budget $50 000 for services (power, sewerage, etc), leaving us with a maximum of $150 000 for our house. I know to some people $150k is a lot, but that's our topmost budget and we do want a nice house, and not a shack.

I'm sure houses can be built for that price, but we want to make sure this is the house for us forever - we're not planning to move. Ever. And with one child, and a few more probably down the track, we have to future proof.

Our options for our house are at this stage:

• An architect designed eco house - we spoke to one experienced in sustainable design from Armidale, NSW, and she estimated at least $300 000 ($30 000 at least her fees for the design and management of the project). Twice as much as we can afford. Reluctantly we will have to put this in the "if we win lotto" category.
• A local builder - we haven't spoken to any local builders, so we'll have to see if any of them have experience in this area, and whether what we want can be constructed for that price. Not sure if they will help us with the design, or if we need to bring a completed one with us. We've only moved back to the area a few months ago, so we need to find out more from locals who have been there done that.
  
• A pre-fabricated house - there are some companies starting to make ecological pre-fab houses. I've looked a few, but none in proper detail yet. From what I've seen pre-fab houses tend to have really tiny rooms. If none are exactly what we want, we are also considering getting a pre-fab house that's ok for a few years, and then building our proper house, and when that is done we can sell the pre-fab house and move it away.
• A removable house - this was just suggested to me by a friend a few weeks ago, and had not crossed my mind before. For approximately $50-90 000 you can have a house moved and restumped on your site. What could be more eco than not building a new house at all? Although, of course, finding a decent house would be tough, and one that doesn't feel like a dodgy sharehouse rental, even tougher. Though it would save us a lot of $$$ and we could, as described above, build our dream house in front and then on-sell the removable house.
• A shed - sheds have come a long way, apparently. You can buy shed kits (that don't look anything like sheds) and put proper walls up and they look pretty good.
• A kit home - these seem like a good affordable option. Most are meant for owner builders, and we're not likely to be able to put one up ourselves anytime soon. So, we'll find out from the local builders how much they would charge to build a kit home. Some kit homes are very eco-friendly these days.
• Not build at all - we're staying with my parents at the moment (very handily next door to our block of land). Rent is cheap, combined bills even cheaper, and we have free babysitters. Very tempting :) But I would like to have a place of our own.

At the moment none of the options stands out as the best. Over the next few months we'll investigate these options in more detail.