|
|
Sustainable House Day, Vermont, Victoria |
|
Category: Sustainable House Day 2009 |
 |
by vermont  (August 2009) (rank 406th) |
|
Our house is a retro fitted, weatherboard house. Vermont is in a temperate climate with hot summers cool winters, though living in the east of Melbourne provides greater rainfall than other parts of Melbourne. The good rainfall means rainwater tanks can be used for 7/12 months of the year for the garden (mostly just vegies), and the rainwater is used for flushing toilets and washing machine the rest of the year. We have passive heating in autumn through to spring on the north and west facing large lounge windows; in the summer the eaves are wide enough to prevent majority of sun hitting these windows. Windows on opposite sides of the house are opened in summer nights to provide cross flow natural cooling. The retro fit involved overcoming hot weather in summer, and cold winters. In summer because we did not have foil sarking on the roof, radiant heat would case the house to become hot, as high as 35oC. After installing concertina foil batts that sit just on top of bulk insulation, this reduced by 8-10oC. In winter the concertina foil batts add some R-value together with the 3.5R-value fat 5batts. We installed solar gas hot water with summer gas savings of 80%, and around 40% in winter, even though it is (necessarily) angled north west. We also installed 2x3000L water tanks collecting water from 2/3 of the house and garage. We also run agi pipe from the washing machine via a diverter to the back yard. We have 3 compost (1 bin, 2 heaps) and a worm farm with 1000s of worms munching on the food scraps. We also have the two legged composting egg makers in the form of 4 chooks. The manure provides heat for the compost heaps. We have a vegie garden in the front yard (which was awarded the runner up Whitehorse Council Sustainable Garden of the Year for 2009), mainly because it has the best light exposure, compared to our shady backyard. It is dripper irrigated from the water tanks. There are 11 fruit trees in the front yard, including 2 in the nature strip. An old tree stump has been transformed by building a vegie garden box upon the stump. We also have a couple of 3x10m plots at the local community garden, to provide extra space for vegies. ~~
Links
www.sustainabilitystreet.org.au
www.ringwoodcommunitygarden.org.au
