House Name: Rowes Bay Sustainability Education Centre
Owners: Townsville City Council
Construction type: Pre-1980’s home. Concrete slab on ground with concrete block walls both externally and internally. The metal roof has a low pitch with minimal roof space. The building has reasonable eave overhangs, but the east and west walls are unshaded. Breeze blocks between rooms, and multiple banks of louvre windows in every room in combination with large sliding windows facilitate good airflow and comfort throughout.
Climate Zone: Townsville is located in the Dry Tropics – there are two seasons: hot and humid (November to April), the wet season, and a warm to hot dry season with low humidity for the other half of the year.
Design/Build Process: Retrofit and minor building works
Summary: The old caretakers cottage at the Townsville City Council Depot is illustrative of many older buildings in Townsville. Combining this with the building’s ideal location adjacent to the Rowes Bay wetlands it represented an excellent opportunity for the Townsville City Council to demonstrate the retrofitting of energy efficiency measures and renewable energy together with the benefits of maintaining biodiversity through urban nature. Under its new name, the Rowes Bay Sustainable Education Centre will be a focal point of Townsville City Council’s whole of catchment education program providing an interpretive education experience for the wider Townsville community and particularly school groups. By taking the community out of the school room and the office, the Townsville City Council plan to give a ‘hands on’ learning experience where people can learn where water and electricity comes from, how we use it, the consequences of this use and most importantly – ways to reduce our impact.
Retrofitted features include:
- Roof painted with white solar-reflective roof paint.
- Replacement of old whole of house extraction fan with new.
- Replacement of the existing electric hot-water system with a solar heat-pump.
- Installation of water-efficient shower head, bathroom and kitchen taps.
- Installation of a 1.5kW solar panel array on the roof of the building (selling electricity generated by the sun back into the electricity grid)
- Energy efficient lighting (ie strip and circular fluorescent lighting) retrofitted throughout.
Works in progress include:
- Installation of a 900W wind-turbine (under construction).
- Dry Tropics Water-Smart Garden, currently in planning stage.
- Creation of a new indoor-outdoor area on the house’s eastern side (at design stage)
The indoor-outdoor area will: (1) Demonstrate cutting edge solar panels – Building Integrated Photovoltaic’s (BIPV); (2) Display how to minimise air conditioner use by designing an indoor-outdoor area open to the breezes. (3) Provide a learning space where students and the community can learn about solar power and appropriate building design in the tropics.
On Sustainable House Day - Sunday 13th September
On Sustainable House Day, the Rowes Bay Sustainability Education Centre will be staffed with Council sustainability staff and other specialists involved in the planning of the retrofit. Visitors will have the opportunity to discuss sustainable housing design issues with Council staff, as well as pick up a free ‘sustainability starter’ kit.
(August 2009) (
