May 14, 2021: 3D Printed Earth Home

We’ve written before about various 3D-printed homes. The technology shows a lot of promise for reducing cost and construction times but, until now, most of the projects we’ve seen used extruded cement-based materials for the structure. The problem with cement. of course, are the high levels of carbon emissions and embodied energy required to make […]

Feb 12, 2021: Barangarooted

A couple of weeks ago Cintia and I had the great pleasure of a trip to Sydney to see the Bangara Aboriginal Dance company perform in the beautiful Walumil Lawn at Baragaroo Reserve. We parked at Rose Bay, took one ferry to Circular Quay then another around to Barangaroo, enjoyed a wonderful performance on the […]

Jan 29, 2021: Our House on the ABC

Last week we had another visit from Justin Huntsdale from ABC Illawarra. Justin has been to see the Greeny Flat a few times over the years and produced some excellent articles and videos about the project (see previous Newsletters here and here). This time he came to see the completed Energy Retrofit of the old […]

Dec 12, 2020: Water Works and Solar Cars

One of our original goals for the Greeny Flat was to make it water efficient. Before we built it we were hoping to use at least as much tank water as town water. We put meters on both the tank and the town water lines and I’m very pleased to report that, after five years, […]

Oct 2, 2020: Another Year of Living Positively

We’ve now had the solar power system on the roof of the cottage next to the Greeny Flat for more than a year and we’re very happy to report that the house is now officially ‘Energy Positive’!

At the time we had the solar installed we also installed a new smart meter which has recorded […]

Sept 18, 2020: Virtual Sustainable House Day on Sunday

As many of our readers will know, the Greeny Flat has been open for Sustainable House Day (SHD) for five of the last six years. This year we were planning to open both the Greeny Flat and the upgraded house next to it for SHD. However, the Covid situation has meant that SHD has gone […]

Sept 11, 2020: Back in Mittagong

I’m now back in Mittagong and starting to put the final touches on the energy retrofit of the old fibro cottage next to the Greeny Flat.

As much as I enjoyed spending the winter in Port Macquarie and working on the garage conversion to a granny flat, it’s good to be home. I had to […]

Aug 28, 2020: One More Week in Port Macquarie

I have one more week in Port Macquarie before return home to Mittagong so we’ve been hard at work on the granny flat project. The owner managed to enlist a couple of extra helpers this week so we got a lot done including…

Completing the cladding on the north wall with some of […]

August 21, 2020: Progress Report

It’s been another busy week in Port Macquarie. We ended last week’s report with the walls insulated and the windows installed ready for gyprock. But first I needed to do some work on the floor. It’s strange but convenient that the old garage had a timber floor. It’s strange because most garages have concrete floors […]

August 14, 2020: This week’s progress report

As with last week’s Newsletter I’ll let the pictures tell the story of this week’s progress on the Port Macquarie project.

We started the week the way we ended last week… with more rain turning the red clay into really sticky mud.

So we worked inside installing special mineral wool insulation […]