“Pipshy” is a 22ha property located in Cremorne.
It is situated between Pipe Clay Lagoon (saltwater) and Rushy Lagoon (freshwater, if not dry). The name is derived from the first 3 letters of Pipe Clay and the last 3 letters of Rushy.
The idea with the house was to build an environmentally friendly, energy efficient structure. The choice of straw bales for walls was made after finding the book “The Straw Bale House” by Steen, Steen and Bainbridge. The main living space – kitchen, dining and living room – all face north with full solar access.
New Build: Designed by Nigel Jones in cooperation with owners. Completely owner built.
Sustainable elements featured in this home:
Water Harvesting and Sewerage Treatment Systems
3 buildings provides approximately 300m2 of roof for water collection. With the construction of a shed (which is now under way) this will increase to around 400m2. On average this will collect somewhere between 120,000 and 160,000 litres of water per year. There are currently to water tanks connected to the 3 existing roofs (a total of 45,000 litres) and another water tank will be added to the shed to expand this to around 65,000 litres storage capacity.
The buildings have 3 flush toilets (3/4.5 litres) and all showers and taps are either 9 or 7 litres per minute. All gray and black water is recycled through a constructed wet land system, using reeds collected from Rushy Lagoon (to avoid any infestation in the lagoon of non native reeds). The recycled water is used to irrigate an extensive plantation of native trees, as well as a small orchard with some 20 fruit trees.
Garden Features
The property is 22 ha, with 16 ha being our share of Rushy Lagoon. This area has been placed under a conservation covenant so is now protected. As the property was an empty paddock when purchased, the owners have planted some 1400 native trees on the property, as well as established a native garden, and a large vegetable garden. Further up in the paddock, a grove of some 200 trees have been planted, including around 130 Eucalyptus Morrisbyi, a threatened Eucalypt growing on a hill nearby. Funding was received from the Federal Government under the Enviorfund programme to undertake this planting.
Structure, External Walls and Internal Walls
The structure of the house is based around steel posts holding up hardwood beams that supports hardwood rafters. The straw external bale walls are therefore infill, not structural. The straw for the bales was grown within 30km of the property. The bales are stacked like bricks on top of one course of besser blocks. Chicken wire was attached to the bales to help stabilize the walls and reinforce the render. 3 coats of render has been used, the last coat on the outside with an oxide to provide colour. The inside walls were painted with a low VOC off white paint to have a more manageable surface. The render mixture is 6 parts coarse sand, 3 parts fat sand, 3 parts lime and 1 part cement.
It is hard to provide an exact insulation value of straw bales, but it is likely to be in the area of R6 – R7.
Some small external walls sections were built using hardwood timber and have been insulated with R2 batts and cladded with colorbond.
Normal internal stud walls, made using EcoAsh, except for one straw bale internal wall around the music/movie room and a brick wall in the living room to provide thermal mass.
Roof
Wilderness coloured Colurbond, R 4.5 polyester insulation and sisalation.
Floor
Slab construction with waffle pod for the main house. Sides of the slap insulated with 30mm polystyrene sheets and covered with cement sheets. Bamboo floor boards used throughout the house as floor coverings, except kitchen, bathrooms, toilet, laundry and entry way where tiles have been used.
Window Treatments
All the windows are double glazed, 95% of them sourced second hand. Window frames are made of timber. Thermal curtains/blinds are currently in the process of being made by the owners.
Power Generation
So far, the house has a 1.00 kW solar grid power system, which was purchased with a 2 kw inverter for further expansion in the future. Based on current power consumption levels, it is envisaged that a 2 kw system should produce enough power to be self sufficient in power production.
Heating & Cooling
There is currently no fixed heating system installed. The owners have a small electric fan heater that is used on some overcast winter days. The temperature inside the house is always at 15 degrees or more and the maximum temperature inside so far has been 24 degrees. In the future the owners may install a small wood fire to be used in the winter periods rather than the small electric heater. The house has been energy rated and given 61 points (a 5 star rating requires 15 points).
Water Heating
A 30 tube solar evacuated tube system, with a 250l stainless steel tank is used for hot water. The system has a 3.6kw electric backup. Experience so far has shown that the back up is needed in June, July and August. It is then turned on about every 2nd day. The remaining 9 months the back up is turned completely off at the switchboard.
Appliances
The appliances are all purchased taking account of the energy usage and water consumption. The fridge and the freezer together use approximately 1 kwh per day. LPG is used for cooking on a second hand commercial stove. A front loading washing machine and a modern dishwasher also helps reduce water consumption. All the lights are either compact fluorescent or fluorescent.
(August 2009) (
