Sustainable House Day, Hamilton Hill, Western Australia

 

: Adam Peck and Amy Warne

Address: 31 Burridge Way, Hamilton Hill, WA

With an average budget and a small 1950’s brick and tile house we have retro-fitted and gardened to create a sustainable ‘eco-cottage’.

The gardens

The heart of our house is really the garden. We see this as the most sustainable element of our property. Our front garden is mostly native, water wise plants. We have two frog ponds and logs and rocks for fauna habitat. The garden is frequented by the threatened Carnaby’s black cockatoos among others. We turned off reticulation to this garden last year, it’s survival of the fittest now! We are starting to introduce productive plants out the front, eg Macadamia and bush tomatoes.

The back garden is the main food production zone. We have several vegetable beds and fruit and nut trees include citrus, apples, apricots and almond. Reticulation is drip irrigation, with a few pop ups for our mini lawn. We have just installed a DIY grey water system from the laundry to water our banana bed. We also have compost bins and chooks out the back.

Behaviours/community

Each Sunday morning we do ‘the readings’ and record our water, gas, power and kms in the car. We compile the information into charts so we can monitor our use and try to improve each week. Simple behaviour change is just as important as all the ‘eco-toys’! All our charts will be on display during the open house.

We preserve much of our own produce eg, preserving tomatoes in jars (with a Vacola system), sun drying sultanas in the car, pickles, jams etc. This reduces our waste and our food miles.

Meeting up with neighbours for jam making days, and to swap veggies and getting involved in community events like Earth Hour and Living Smart makes sustainable living so much fun, its addictive! (Much more fun than moaning about what ‘they should be doing’)

Power

A 1.1 kW grid connect PV system (Kaneka thin film) has been installed and provides 110% of our energy. We take weekly readings to track our generation and consumption; our aim is to use less than we generate.

Water

We have recently installed a 14,000L rain water tank plumbed into the whole house. This is a ‘wet system’, with a submersible pump and water switch to automatically switch from scheme to tank water and back. We are hoping this will provide us with all our water for 6 months of the year.

 

Heating/cooling

We don’t have air con, so we cool our house with a solar pergola, shade cloth over windows and recently planted grape vines to give summer shade and winter sun. Roof insulation is with Albany woolen batts, a locally produced sustainable product.

Owners