House Name: Klug Winter
House Construction type: Steel framed curved skillion roof. The floor is raised on steel sub-frame, has chipboard sheeting overlain with floating laminated timber floorboards. framed walls clad internally with timber panelling and externally in a combination of timber panelling and custom orb. Partition walls that stop well short of the ceiling are used throughout and no ceilings are present immediately over the bedrooms or living spaces. Large fixed windows located high under curve of roof provide excellent natural daylighting and rainforest views. Timber louvres, bifolding and French doors are used extensively to achieve excellent natural ventilation. There is a large outdoor patio / living area. Townsville Solar Cities Program participant including host of third-party owned 1.5kW solar panel array on roof.
Climate Zone: Townsville is located in the Dry Tropics – there are two seasons: hot and humid (November to April), the wet season, and a warm to hot dry season with low humidity for the other half of the year.
Design/Build Process: Home designed and built by owner (completed in 2005) as their tropical ‘winter’ holiday house. To minimise costs at the time, many of the materials were sourced in Victoria and brought up in a trailer avoiding the high cost of labour and materials in North Queensland at the time. Backpackers helped to build the home.
Summary
This 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, home, was designed and built four years ago as Victorian couple John and Val’s winter home. The home was designed specifically to be suited for use during Magnetic Island’s mild tropical winter weather and to support a minimalistic and beachy lifestyle. The home features a large outdoor patio/living/dining area, excellent transitions and connection with the outdoors – including rainforest garden to the rear, a very high curved ceiling over an open plan design with partition walls, large fixed windows high under curve of roof provide excellent natural daylighting and rainforest views, excellent orientation to prevailing breezes and plenty of openings for cross ventilation. The home is participating in the Townsville Solar Cities Project has as undertaken retrofits advised in that program and as a particularly innovative part of the Project, the Klugs host a third-party owned 1.5kW solar panel array on roof. Roof Unusual curved skillion roof utilising a curved steel truss structure. The roof and ceiling lining are both made of pre-painted corrugated roof sheeting. The space between is fitted with foil backed bulk insulation (foil on outside).
Floor
Raised floor, steel structure, chipboard sheeting overlain with floating timber laminate floorboards. Walls Walls are timber framed. External cladding is a combination of plantation pine timber and corrugated metal cladding. External use of timber panelling was limited to the more weather protected places to minimise weathering. The timber was finished with a quality lacquer for longevity. Internally the walls are lined with lacquered plantation pine timbers. Wall cavities fitted with foil backed bulk insulation.
Open plan
The inside of this home is very open plan and usually has partition walls throughout and no ceilings above any of the bedrooms or living rooms apart from the arching tin roof high above. The exception is the bathroom which housing the toilet was required to be physically separated from the kitchen. The couple noted that this design is perfect for just the two of them, but less suitable for a family environment. Orientation With a north-east aspect, the dining, lounge and outdoor areas are locate along the north-east side of the home which is also staggered to benefit from prevailing breezes and increased interaction with the outdoors. The north-east (front) and north (side) of the home is also the location of a wide wrap around timber deck which is a well used outdoor dining/living area.
Ventilation - Doors and Windows
Western red cedar louvres feature extensively both full length at room level and high under the curve of the roof to allow hot air that has risen to the ceiling to be released outside. Unopenable plain glass windows at height provide excellent natural daylighting to the inside of the home and are shaded to an extent by the eaves overhang. Timber and glass in both bi-folding and French styles provide very open and easy transitions between the indoor dining, lounge and kitchen areas and the deck outside.
Fans
Ceiling fans on long droppers assist with air-movement on warmer days. As the home is only used during the winter, no air-conditioning has been installed.
Energy Use
Average energy use in the house during the winter months is 12kW/ day. The low energy consumption is attributed to excellent natural daylighting (lighting is generally not required during the daytime), no heating or cooling apart from occasional use of a ceiling fan, and John and Val’s minimal lifestyle approach which has resulted in only a small number of appliances being owned/used in the house. Whilst not doing without, they don’t have excess. What they do have is a electric storage hot water system, they occasionally use a dryer, they have a relatively new fridge, cooking is electric, they don’t have a computer, nor a vacuum (sweeping instead), their tv is modest in size, stereo system small and they have minimal other appliances. Retrofits made as part of the Solar Cities Program included fitting of a low flow showerhead and aerators to taps, replacement of incandescent lamp bulbs and exterior lighting with compact fluorescent lightbulbs. The energy intensive dichroics in the high ceiling were left as they were (though they typically only used at night). Additionally, the Klug’s took up an innovative opportunity which is being trialled as part of the Townsville Solar Cities Program to lease an area of their roofspace to a third-party (in this case Ergon Energy) who have installed a 1.5kW (12 panel) solar panel on the Klug’s roof to generates electricity from the sun and sell it back to the grid with proceeds to Ergon.
Greywater
Water from the bath, shower and basin irrigates palm trees in the back yard.
This profile complied by Sandy McCathie of ecoSAVVY in collaboration with the home-owners.
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(August 2009) (
