Our Russell Island project is coming along nicely. In fact we’ve scheduled our final inspection for Wednesday next week. The plumber came yesterday so now we have running water and a functioning toilet. No hot water yet because the electrician still has to power up the hot water system.
Meanwhile we’ve finished the kitchen…
Our kitchen completed
… and today I completed the insulation in the roof space.
Attic insulation and ducting for the bathroom fan.
Before the plasterers put the gyprock on the ceilings I threw the insulation up into the roof space so that I wouldn’t have to drag it all up through the manhole. Since this morning was cool and cloudy it seemed like a good opportunity to complete the installation. While I was up there I also attached a bit of flex-duct to each of the bathroom exhaust fans and directed the outlet towards the vents in the gable ends.
Most bathroom fans in Australia are a simple, large round fan that blows air up into the roof space through a hole in the ceiling. Back in the days when attics were very drafty and uninsulated, this was an acceptable (although not an energy efficient) arrangement because there was little risk of condensation or mould problems. But these days there is insulation in roof spaces that can do two things… it can absorb moisture (and therefore potentially harbour mould) and it can make the roof space colder ( by reducing the amount of heat that escapes from the rooms below) which increases the likelihood of condensation in the attic. So in cool to cold climates it is essential to vent bathroom fans and kitchen rangehoods directly to the exterior of the building but up here in Queensland it’s okay just to direct the moist air from the bathroom towards the gable vents where it can escape without doing any harm.
Wish us luck for our final inspection next week, meanwhile here’s a bit of good news…
Higher Energy Efficiency Standards Coming to Australia
Long-time readers will be familiar with my rants about how pathetic our energy performance standards are. So I’m VERY happy to pass on this article from Renew Magazine which details a decision by the Council of Australian Governments to (finally) raise the minimum standard for new homes from 6.5 stars to 7 stars. I know… it’s incredibly exciting… but hey, it’s better than nothing.
Hello again, it’s been a productive week here on Russell Island. We’re solidly into the finishing stages of the house and it’s exciting and rewarding seeing it come together. So far we’re very happy with the design and materials we’ve chosen.
I could have done the tiling but we’ve got too many other things to work on so we’ve hired a lovely German couple to do it for us.
Hans tiling the kitchen floor
Hans started with the kitchen floor while Ursula was doing the waterproofing in the bathroom and ensuite.
Tiles going down in the ensuite.
The lovely blue colour is the waterproofing compound and today Hans started laying the floor tiles in the ensuite. Meanwhile Cintia and I have completed the second bedroom….
Second room completed! (the walls aren’t pink, they’re white… that must be a reflection off the floor).
….I’ve started gluing the benchtop for the kitchen island….
Gluing laminated bamboo panels together for our kitchen island.
….and, we’ve started putting finishing touches on the outside.
Just to prove that Cintia hasn’t done ALL the work on this house…
We’re hoping that, in a couple more weeks, we might be ready for our final inspection. We don’t have to have every little detail finished but, if we can get our occupancy certificate, we can move into the house while we finish the last bits and pieces.
Meanwhile, some other good stuff caught my eye this week…
How To Cool a House as Sustainably as Possible
With temperatures hitting record highs and heat waves causing havoc across Australia this summer here is a timely article from Renew Magazine. It delves into the details of how to stay comfortable as sustainably as possible in the hot weather. It’s a long article and quite detailed but well worth the read.
Energy Positive Car???
Long-time readers may remember our mention of the ‘Stella Lux’ in a Newsletter back in 2015. In case you missed it, it was a Dutch university entry in the Solar Challenge aimed at creating an energy positive car. Since then, a number of the students involved have formed a company called ‘Lightyear’ with the goal of taking the energy-positive car concept to the streets.
This seven minute YouTube video describes what I hope will be the future of automobiles… cars that produce more energy than they use. The video doesn’t provide much detail (apart from the fact that these cars are likely to be hugely expensive) but, if they can make it work, it’s only a matter of time before it will become cheaper and more accessible for the rest of us.
More Friends Go Electric
In last week’s Newsletter I mentioned my friends, Daniel and Kari, who have recently purchased a Nissan Leaf. This week it’s Cintia’s ceramicist colleagues, Steve Harrison and Janine King who have switched to a brand new Hyundai Ioniq plug-in hybrid. They have also recently invested in an expanded solar power system and a Tesla battery.
Steve and Janine live and work in the Southern Highlands of NSW making beautiful pottery, running workshops, building pottery kilns and trying to live and work as sustainably as they can. Along with their PHEV purchase they are also working on making their pottery workshop as carbon neutral as possible. Steve’s latest project is to build a small electric kiln (made almost entirely from spare parts he had lying around) which they can run off their solar and batteries and use a tiny bit of LPG to create a reduction firing (you’ll have to ask Cintia or Steve about that but it’s an important thing for potters).
Here’s another link to their blog where Steve describes the building of the kiln and the philosophy behind it. https://tonightmyfingerssmellofgarlic.com/2019/01/19/solar-pv-fired-pottery-kiln/ It’s great reading and great to know that people like Steve and Janine are doing such wonderful work just down the road from the Greeny Flat.
Long-time readers may recall my good friend Daniel Jones and his work with Repower Shoalhaven. Daniel has recently moved to Maui and deserves two lots of congratulations. Firstly for his marriage to the lovely Kari, and secondly for their purchase of a Nissan Leaf to get around the island.
Daniel and Kari with their new Leaf.
So far they’re loving the Leaf. Here’s what Daniel had to say about it…
I have some exciting news! Kari and I are now the proud owners of a 2018 Nissan Leaf.
We picked it up on Tuesday – it was shipped from Honolulu (we saved $8k by doing this due to lack of any competition on Maui)
The cost to us after we get the $7,500 rebate will be about $22,500 USD. Starting Price was $32,600, we got about $2.5k off by haggling and through a utility-based rebate before the $7,500 Fed rebate.
The car is amazing! I can’t wait to tell you more as we get more experience with it. It is currently charging at Safeway for free about 1km from our house.
It has 150 Miles (240km) of real world range, accelerates to 60km/h faster than a brand new golf GTI and is so quiet and fun to drive!
We love it!!!!!!!!!!! We are renting (no solar) so we will mainly rely on charging at public level 2 stations, hopefully during the day to take advantage of the surplus of solar energy we have here!
Maui might be the perfect place to own an electric car. For one thing you could drive right around the island in a Leaf with a full charge. Apart from the government incentives Daniel mentions, the state of Hawaii is making big efforts to switch over from the old diesel power generation to renewable energy. Daniel tells me that the Maui grid was at 37% renewable energy in 2017 so it’s probably close to 50% by now. So that makes their new Leaf a much greener option and with free charging at the local Safeway, a much cheaper option for Daniel and Kari.
Meanwhile, back on our little island we’ve started putting the finishing touches on the house we’re building.
Cintia having fun laying the first section of bamboo flooring.
Click-lock bamboo flooring is really quick, easy and fun to lay. You just have to be sure to leave a 10mm gap all the way around the edge to allow for expansion and contraction. This gap will be covered by the skirting boards so you won’t see it.
First room completed!
We’ve only finished one room so far but it’s fun to see a small part of the house completed. Next week we have the tilers coming in to work on the bathrooms and kitchen. So yesterday we spent the day hammering hundreds of little nails into the fibre-cement underlayment. It has to be nailed every 150mm in the middle and every 50mm around the edges which adds up to a LOT of nails. (I feel a bit sorry for the neighbours after yesterday).
Tile underlayment in place.
While the tilers are doing their things we’ll be focusing on completing the kitchen and, hopefully a few more rooms.
Quick update after a busy week hanging doors, adding more kitchen cabinets and starting to install the architraves. Cintia’s been painting away while I’ve been doing the carpentry. Things are starting to come together nicely.
Hanging the last two doors.
We won’t be putting the architraves around the doors or the skirting boards on until we’ve laid the floor. Apart from the tiled areas in the bathrooms and kitchen, we’ll be using a floating bamboo floor throughout the house. Because this clicks together and is not nailed down, it needs room to be able to expand and contract with changes in temperature and humidity. This means we have to leave about a ten millimetre gap all the way around the edge of the flooring. This will be hidden under the skirting boards which will be 18mm thick. So we’ll lay the flooring and then install the rest of the trim.
Meanwhile we can complete the architraves around the windows which we started today.
Today we started installing architraves around the windows.
Next week we’ll make another trip to the mainland to collect our flooring, tiles, kitchen, plumbing and electrical fittings. Then we’ll have most of what we need to finish the interior.
More photos soon.
Happy New Year. I hope it’s a great one for everyone.
Cintia and I are really enjoying being back on Russell Island as we work on completing the house we started back in June (see previous Newsletters here if you don’t know what I’m talking about). We were a bit worried that summer in Moreton Bay might be very hot, humid and infested with mosquitoes and midgies. But we’re finding the climate here to be very pleasant and not too buggy at all.
Yesterday we took the PHEV over to Australia to do some shopping. It costs about $100 for a round trip on the barge so we try to make the most of it.
About as much as you can fit in an Outlander PHEV
As you can see, we had her pretty well loaded up. In fact, there is a whole Kaboodle kitchen in there plus some extra stuff on the roof-racks. It must have all weighed about three-quarters of a tonne but the trusty PHEV handled it with no trouble at all.
So now we have all our doors, skirting, architraves and kitchen cabinets rounded up and delivered to the island and we’ve got lots of work to do. We’ve finished painting the walls and ceilings with low-VOC paints.
Plenty of work ahead of us.
Today Cintia started painting the door frames and I started putting together and installing the kitchen cabinets. I’ve put a lot of Ikea kitchens together before but this is my first Kaboodle. So far I’m pretty impressed. The cabinets are more solidly built than Ikea’s and they’re slightly shallower which works well for us because we bought a whole lot of laminated bamboo panels (you can see them stacked in the middle of the room) to use as our benchtops among other things. These are only 600mm wide so they will fit nicely on the Kaboodle cabinets which are 560mm deep (580mm once the doors are on). I can’t wait to see how it all looks with the bamboo counters and bamboo floor that we should be getting delivered next week.
I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile we hope you enjoy New Year’s Eve and have a prosperous and productive 2019.
Our PHEV back at our house building project on Russell Island.
I made it back to Russell Island about two weeks ago to finish building the house we started in July (see previous Newsletters for previous project updates). On the first trip we managed to get the house almost ready for gyprock. The only thing left to do was to install the insulation which was my first job for this trip.
I like to use Knauf ‘Earthwool’ insulation (sold at Bunnings). It’s a 100% recycled glass product which doesn’t make me itch or cough nearly as much as standard pink or yellow fibreglass batts. In the Southern Highlands (where the Greeny Flat is located) I would use R2.5 batts in the walls and at least R4 batts in the ceiling. But up here the climate is much milder so we’re just using R2 batts in both the walls and ceilings (plus the R1.8 anticon blanket under the roof metal).
Here’s how the insulation looked before the gyprock went up. You’ll notice that each stud cavity is completely filled and there are no gaps, cracks or folds. Compare this to the typical insulation job you might see an any Australian building site which I wrote about in this Newlsetter post back in 2016. Unfortunately insulation is not inspected in Australia so it is up to the builder to self-certify that the installation is done properly. In my experience, it seldom is.
Insulation in place before gyprock is hung.
On Monday this week the plasterers started hanging the gyprock and today they finished the last coat of plaster. That’s a pretty impressive achievement for just one tradie and one apprentice.
Gyprock hung and plasterers hard at work.
I always enjoy the gyprocking stage of a building project. It suddenly transforms the place from the skeleton of a house to something that resembles the finished product.
Tomorrow I’ll be heading over to the big island to get some materials and pick Cintia up from Brisbane airport. Then we’ll be spending Christmas painting and installing the skirting boards and architraves.
Best wishes for the festive season and thanks for reading.
Just a quick note to let you know that the Greeny Flat will be available for rent from the middle of December to the end of February. Cintia and I will be heading back up to Queensland to finish the house we started over the winter so the Greeny Flat will be up for grabs.
During our last trip a delightful lady named Brenda stayed in the Greeny Flat and gave us some wonderful feedback about her time here. I put her testimonial in our Newsletter when we got back. You can read it here.
If you know anyone who might be interested in a summer stay in the beautiful Southern Highlands please pass this along to them or ask them to contact Emma at Highland Property in Bowral (02) 4861 0666 for the details.
Thanks. I’ll keep you posted on the progress of our Russell Island project while we’re away.
This afternoon I was driving past the house of a friend of mine (shown in the photo above). In the interests of full disclosure I should say from the start that I had a hand in the design and siting of this particular little gem. But what struck me most today was the contrast between this house and the one four doors down on the same side of the same street which was built at the same time a couple of years ago.
House No 2.
Can you spot the difference?
From the point of view of building sustainably, they make for an interesting comparison.
Small is Beautiful
Even though what you can see in the first photo is actually only half of House No 1 (H1), the total floor area of the two halves combined is only 124sqm which is about half the size of the average new home in NSW. As for House No 2 (H2), I’m guessing but it looks to me like the combined area of the first and second floor is at least 300sqm.
Obviously, a smaller house will use much less of everything, both to build and to operate for its entire life. Fewer materials and energy to build, less energy to heat and cool, less effort and expense to maintain, etc. This adds up to a huge saving in cost, resources and environmental footprint over the life of the home.
In the article mentioned above, K.I.S.S. stands for Keep It Small and Simple and, as far as I’m concerned this is Rule Number One for building sustainably.
H1 is a very simple structure with a rectangular floor plan and a straight gable roof. H2 is pretty complex (although nowhere near as bad as many new houses I see these days) especially the roof shape. Not only does it add a lot of cost to build a complex roof like this, it also makes it much more difficult to mount solar panels on the roof.
Is Your Solar Active or Passive?
Speaking of solar panels, you’ll notice that H1 has them and H2 doesn’t. Solar panels and solar water heaters are sometimes referred to as Active Solar Systems. Don’t ask me why because neither seems to get much exercise. However it’s the Passive Solar Design that makes H1 so much more sustainable than H2. Just to get you oriented, both houses are viewed from the west side so their north walls are both facing to the left in these photos.
Both houses are oriented so that their north wall gets lots of sun. However H1 has lots of windows in the north wall to let that sun into the home to warm it in winter. H2 on the other hand has very few windows in the north wall and lots of bricks to soak up the heat in summer.
H1 has the right amount of roof overhang on the north wall to allow the low winter sun to come in but to shade the home from the high summer sun. Because H2 is two storeys high it would require a huge overhang (or an awning half way up the north wall) to adequately shade all that brickwork in summer.
Meanwhile the west side (facing the street) of H1 is very well shaded from the hot afternoon summer sun by both the existing trees that were left on the site and by the front verandah. H2 has some shading on the west side but also lots of dark, exposed bricks to soak up and hold that afternoon heat and no trees to provide shade (although it does look like they might have planted one).
In a good Passive Solar Design, you want the living areas and rooms that you use mostly during the day on the north side of the house to take advantage of the warmth and natural light that comes in through those big north-facing windows. I know this is true for H1 because I helped design it. Looking at the photo of H2 and the arrangement of windows, my guess is that the rooms on the north side of both the first and second floor are either bedrooms or bathrooms. This means that the living areas can’t be getting much sun and light through the day, especially in winter.
Thermal Mass means heavy masonry materials like brick, stone and concrete that can be used to store heat from the sun during the day in winter and keep the house warm through the night. In summer the thermal mass can be cooled at night by opening the windows and doors and this will help keep the house cool through the day BUT…
…this ONLY works if the thermal mass is in the right place which means it has to be on the INSIDE of the insulation and air-barrier. In the case of H1 one I know that it has an exposed concrete floor which gets directly heated by the sun coming in through those big, north-facing windows and works to keep the house comfortable through the cold winter nights. In H2 I would bet $100 that the ground floor has a concrete slab but that it is covered with floor coverings everywhere. Tiles are okay for covering Thermal Mass but carpet, vinyl, timber, cork, etc, all act as an insulation layer which reduces the ability of the Thermal Mass to absorb and release heat.
H2 also has LOADS of Thermal Mass in the wrong place. All that dark-coloured brick on the outside of the building does nothing to help keep it warm in winter (because there’s a layer of insulation between it and the inside of the house). On the other hand, in summer it soaks up a LOT of heat and holds it there around the outside of the building. Yes, the insulation will also help to stop some of that heat from getting in, but it’s pretty hard to cool a house at night if the whole outside of the building is radiating the heat it soaked up during the day.
This is why brick veneer is such a stupid way to build in Australia’s hot, sunny climate. But hey, at least H2 doesn’t have a dark tile roof on it as well.
Light Materials, Light Colours
While we’re on the subject of colours, you don’t have to be Einstein to notice that H1 is light and H2 is dark. The light colours of H1 help it reflect away the summer heat. It doesn’t make it colder in winter though because Passive Solar Design does not rely on the heat soaking in through the skin of the building. The winter sun comes into the building via the big north-facing windows which are properly shaded in summer.
You might also notice that all the exterior material on H1 are light-weight as well. This means they will cool down quickly once the sun goes down in summer and not hold heat around the building like the bricks on H2. Have a look too at the landscaping. You’ll notice that the gravel drive and paving around H1 are also light coloured. This, and the lawn out the front, helps to keep the area around the house cool during the summer.
Compare that to H2… They’ve got the lawn but check out that black concrete driveway! Image what that’s like to walk on at 2pm on Christmas Day! I reckon it would melt the hooves right off Santa’s reindeer.
In Conclusion
It’s a pity that H2 is what I see going up in new subdivisions all over Australia because I know which house I’d rather live in and which one has a much smaller ecological, financial and social footprint.
Regular readers will know that, for years now, I have been banging on about the benefits of smaller, more energy-efficient, cost-effective, low-maintenance homes (like the Greeny Flat) in towns and cities that are designed for people, communities and sustainability (rather than automobiles). In fact I’ve been advocating for this sort of thing for most of my professional career and generally feeling like I’ve been beating my head against a wall. It has been very frustrating to watch as houses got bigger and bigger while their energy performance got worse and worse and the evidence of environmental damage mounted.
So you can imagine my surprise and delight to read this article from Domain last week. I’ve included a few choice quotes below and it’s worth a read because the whole article is about all of the things we like. It’s so refreshing to see this in the mainstream media and to hope that this might signal a shift in the housing market towards much more sensible and sustainable practices.
On the plus side of compact homes, they tend to use less energy in heating and cooling, and demand fewer hours be spent on housework, maintenance and gardening, and mean family members spend more time together…. (not to mention spending fewer years paying off the mortgage and energy bills on some huge, energy-sucking monster).
Sometimes new home-seekers choose to buy smaller houses in the best position they can afford: north-facing to be full of light, warmth and air…. (who would have ever thought of such a radical concept?)
‘We find that people are now also more conscious of sustainability issues and the energy costs of large homes,’ she says. ‘Both parents might be working, so they don’t want to spend so much of their downtime looking after a big house – unless they can afford a cleaner and gardener.’ (Yeah right!)
‘The important thing is the flexibility of the home so it can expand or contract according to how much space is needed as older children stay at home longer, or parents may come to live with their children.’…. (Viva la Granny Flat!)
One of the key considerations when buying house and land, be it large or small, is the precinct or community in which the package is located, and the master-planning principles of the developer…. (the next step will be to get developers to think about master planning in such a way that encourages smaller, more energy-efficient, passive solar homes).
‘The focus should be more on design quality than size,’ he says. ‘And with changing needs, it almost suggests a house should be designed as a series of parts rather than one large house so you don’t end up with two people left in a space that’s too big for them, but in a house that can be easily divided into two.’…. (Amen to that!)
In fact this is exactly what we’ve done with the house we’re building in Queensland – if you look at the floor plan below you can see that the part of the house on the right can be separated from the rest by simply closing one door. By adding a kitchenette it could quite easily be turned into a completely self contained apartment with its own access via the back door.
And, just to put things in perspective, the interior floor area of this house is just 100sqm which is less than half the size of the average new home in NSW.
So here’s hoping the market is starting to recognise and value the benefits of smaller, smarter homes.
For the last three months, while we’ve been up in Queensland working on our affordable housing project, we’ve had a lovely woman named Brenda renting and living in the Greeny Flat. She moved out at the end of August and sent me the following email about her stay. This was Brenda’s first experience with a small, passive solar and here’s what she had to say about it:
Dear Andy
I thoroughly enjoyed spending the 2018 winter in your lovely Greeny Flat, so snug and warm!
The happy north facing aspect made going home a pleasure. The excellent design, build and use of insulation made a remarkable difference, as I soon found out moving from there to an older home.
I also enjoyed first-hand experience of the solar system and learned a lot about my own electricity usage. Having the monitor showing the positive or negative grid power usage was informative as well as motivating. It made me aware of my choices and gave me practical knowledge instead of the theory I had up until now, only read about. I wish more people could have the opportunity to learn and experience how the house “works”. I hope one day to be able to stay in my own version of The Greeny Flat.
Best wishes for many more builds,
Brenda
Thanks very much Brenda. Cintia and I love living in the Greeny Flat and we were curious to know if someone else would enjoy it as much as we do. It’s great to know that we’re not the only ones who can appreciate its cozy warmth and what it teaches us about living more sustainably.
Queensland Lock-up
As mentioned in last week’s Newsletter, our present visit to Queensland is drawing to a close. In fact Cintia is already home at the Greeny Flat and I’m due to start heading home in a week.
During the last week we’ve completed most of the exterior cladding and installed a water-resistant type of gyprock on the ceiling above the deck and carport.
Water-resistant gyprock installed on the ceiling of the deck and carport area.
Without this gyprock we wouldn’t have been able to properly lock the house while we’re away because anyone could have climbed over the walls. Now we can leave the place safe and secure until we’re ready to come back and, hopefully, finish the build.
Also last week we had our 3kW solar system installed and completed the gutters and downpipes.
Our new 3kW solar power system.
I’m very happy with how it all looks but the solar is not operating yet because we haven’t got the power connected yet. Hopefully that will happen this week so I’ll be able to check that the solar is working properly before I go. We’re also getting the septic system installed this week, laying the stormwater pipes out to the street, and putting the finishing touches on the exterior cladding.
And that will be all we have time for on this trip.
