story RATING |
 4.92 (Highly recommend) from 4 votes (802 Visits) |
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Sustainable House Day, Mona Vale, NSW |
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Category: Sustainable House Day 2009 |
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by monavale  (August 2009) (rank 282nd) |
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The brief was to design a contemporary Australian beach home that was in harmony with the natural environment and incorporated sustainable features, including solar hot water, solar PV, passive and active solar space heating, rainwater use for the whole house, natural ventilation, and low energy lighting.
Architect: Choi Ropiha Architects, Manly
Design: John Choi and Graeme Jessup
Unique Sustainable Elements featured in this home
Hot Water
Hot water is supplied from a Rheem solar hot water system using flat panel collectors, a 300 litre stainless steel tank, and a Rinnai instantaneous gas booster. The booster can be turned off and bypassed in summer when no boost is required.
Space Heating
Passive solar heating is utilised in the north facing sunroom which has a tiled concrete slab floor. A retractable awning provides a means of solar control in the summer.
Solar powered hydronic heating is currently being installed to heat the floor slab in the living area on the south side of the house.
Extensive provision for breezeways, including clearstory windows, allow the coastal breezes to flow easily through the fabric of the house. No additional cooling is provided.
Solar Power PV Generation
A 1.4kW grid connected PV array provides about 50% of the electrical needs of the two person household.
Lighting
Fluorescent lighting is used extensively in the house, either as tubular, CFL, or GU10 fittings. Task lighting is used to supplement low level background lighting.
Rainwater Tank
The entire roof area of 180 square metres feeds through underground pipes into a 15,000 litre circular rainwater tank. An Onga centrifugal “constant pressure” pump feeds the rainwater to the whole house. So far rainwater collection has provides sufficient water for the whole house without the need for townwater supplement.
Insulation
R2.5 polyester insulation is used in the walls and ceilings, with additional insulation provided for the floating ceiling in the southerly pavilion.
Glazing
Comfort Plus laminated glazing has been used throughout the house for all windows and sliding doors.
Landscaping
Native shrubs have been used exclusively to minimize the need for watering.
Construction
The house id divided into two parts. The southerly steel framed Pavilion houses the kitchen, dining and lounge rooms - external cladding is spotted gum.
The northerly part consists of the three bedrooms, two bathrooms, laundry, and sunroom. This construction is of reverse brick veneer with painted ecoply exterior cladding.
The roofing is longrun Colorbond.
