Sustainable House Day, Glenalta, SA

Birds View, Glenalta

Initial construction of this architecturally designed home was by a traditional builder with a strawbale specialist as a sub-contractor. The owners then acted as owner builders to complete in 2002 and make subsequent upgrades.
Strawbale walls have good insulation qualities and their earthy colours and rounded forms create a pleasant and welcoming living environment.
The western end is dug into the hillside and the eastern end is built of Hebel Block.

Type: New family home using strawabale and Hebel block. Completed 2002
Architect: Initial architect's design revised by owners. Initial construction by conventional builder. Strawbale by Lance Kairl. In later stages owners acted as designers and builders.

Unique Sustainable Elements featured in this home

Water Harvesting
All roof water collected and transferred by underground pipes to a 22500 litre poly tank in front yard. This is pumped to all of house. Excess water flows to a storage trench and into a local stream. Tanks water provides all needs for 7 to 8 months a year. Mains supplements.
Laundry grey water system to bamboo and lawn.

External Walls
Upstairs walls are timber framed with strawbale infill. These walls are rendered with an oxide tinted lime render on the inside and cement render on the outside.
External ground floor walls are Besser brick where acting as retaining walls below soil level.
Lower storey walls above soil level are Hebel aerated concrete blocks walls with insulation fill. Lower storey external walls are rendered to match the strawbale walls above.

Internal Walls
Internal walls are timber framed with plasterboard cladding.
Downstairs ceilings of compressed strawboard to reduce noise transmission from upstairs.

Roof
A light shade of Colorbond, 'Merino' was chosen on the roof for its reflective properties. Sarking and polyester batts used for insulation.

Floor
Pine floor upstairs
Tiles adjacent to downstairs north facing windows for winter heat storage.

Window Treatments
Many salvaged windows and doors. Some retrofit double glazing added using Korflute or acrylic sheets applied with magnets or double sided tape.

Solar or Wind Generation
1200W Amorphous (thin film) for cloud and temperature tolerance.

Heating & Cooling
Some use of portable evaporative coolers cooling ducted fresh air from outside. This develops positive pressure to pump out stale humid air. Fans and upper storey opening windows are used to control heat build up.
Design of sun angles and northerly aspect absorb sun energy during cold months and shield windows from hot summer sun.
Upstairs areas are solar heated from northern windows. Thermal mass of tiled area and walls stabilise internal temperatures. Supplementary heating is by a gas stove used for a few hours a night when required. A ducted fan can be used to move warm air from upstairs into the downstairs office.

Water Heating
Flat plate solar with electric boost. Heater is shielded with a shade cloth blanket in summer to stop excessive heating and water loss.

Appliances
A sheltered wash line is raiseable by cable. This allows clothes to be dried throughout the year, avoiding use of an electric clothes drier.
Lighting mainly compact fluoro, with some high efficiency dichroic bulbs.

Other
Strong emphasis on using reclaimed materials. Most doors and windows and much of the timber used was sourced from salvage yards.
Materials were chosen throughout to avoid outgassing from glues and solvents.
Permacultural principles were applied in some areas of the vegetable garden including recent installation of bathtub gardens, to minimise competition for water from tree roots.
A mini composter processes contents of nappies.