Sustainable House Day, Hamlyn Heights, Victoria

House information

The house is a 3 bedroom 1950s weatherboard (now with vinyl cladding). The house is adequate but much smaller than a modern house – hence saving on energy costs. There is such thing as a small house movement (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_house_movement) although we chose a small house because we couldn’t afford a large house.

Inside the house we have restored the original Baltic pine floorboards, installed roof insulation, and water saving devices. We only heat one area of the house.

Solar

We purchased 1.1 kW Kaneka thin film solar panels (and upsized inverter) as part of a Geelong Sustainability Group bulk buy with the Solar shop. We are happy with the panels and happy to talk about performance, feed in tariff, costs etc. At this stage we haven’t installed solar hot water but are looking into it (although because we have gas hot water we don’t qualify for the same rebates)

Garden

The front garden contains a mix of species indigenous to Geelong. Most were planted 1-4 years ago and are growing prodigiously. We are happy to discuss which shrubs / trees / grasses have worked best for us and in what capacities. The back garden contains open space and vegetables. Grey water from the washing machine and shower is hooked up to the garden. We also have a 1000L corrugated iron water tank in the backyard (using water from the shed). We have grass but don’t water or fertilise it and mow it with a push mower. Our next door neighbours have an incredible sustainable vegie garden bursting with goodness and we can probably arrange for visitors to look at that also.  

Dave is president of Geelong Sustainability Group  and can talk about various sustainability options (even if we haven’t got around to doing it all ourselves !) 

www.geelongsustainability.org.au