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email   print   report       Colonial Queenslander outdoor living area - north facing recycled timber bifolds to outdoor living native garden     Related Tags Add a Tag Like this topic? Write story Add to Favorites story that links to this one story RATING  5.00 (Highly recommend) from 1 votes (673 Visits) Sustainable House Day, Railway Estate, Townsville, North QLD Category: Sustainable House Day 2009 by sandymc (August 2009) (rank 159th) House Name: 84 Ninth Ave   Summary: Renovation of a 1930’s highset timber Queenslander. Tropical design & sustainability principles were front of mind throughout the renovation. Nicole and Just wanted the design to provide coolness and comfort naturally without the use of air-conditioning for most of the year. The walls throughout are timber framed and timber lined internally and externally, except where single skin. The new floor downstairs is concrete slab on ground. The new section of roof is a metal skillion roof. Key successes of this house are its tropical design, use of recycled and eco-preferred materials, the fabulous garden, energy and water efficiency and the impact of the home’s design on the owner’s quality of life and further adoption of sustainable living practices. The result is a modern Queenslander to house their growing family that is functional, eco-friendly, naturally cool and lifestyle enhancing. In the end, say Nicole and Just “they couldn’t have done it any other way” and “the longer we live in the house and try new ideas the more the house evolves in a sustainable way”.    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:   Building process project managed by owners. Owners extensively involved in researching options and sourcing sustainable products including recycled building materials.  Designs drawn up and contributed to by architects and others specialising in tropical /sustainable design.   Orientation : Living areas are positioned along the northern side of the home to achieve good natural day-lighting, cost effective shading of windows and access to Townsville’s prevailing north easterly breezes. Access to Prevailing Breezes The north and east sides of the house are virtually all openings rather than walls, enabling prevailing breezes to enter the home. Openings include multiple stacking timber bi-fold doors with adjustable timber louvres, a series of five side by side full height aluminium louvre windows, the front door, open balcony railings to open up the semi-enclosed verandah, timber casement windows, and louvers with steel or frosted glass blades. Indoor / Outdoor Living Converted from an inward looking traditional Queenslander to an outward looking modern tropical home, Nicole and Just’s home now embodies indoor/outdoor living. There is dedicated outdoor table under cover and hammock under the wide north facing verandah. Indoor spaces feel like they’re semi outdoors because of their great views and wide openings to the outdoors.   Cross Ventilation:  Open plan living areas and minimal addition of new walls plus the addition of new openings in internal walls encourage airflow. Internal openings have include the retention of the French door openings fitted with iron balustrades over the stairwell for child safety, timber louvres adjacent doorways and the restoration of ‘fanlight’ openings above doorways. The tropical design rule of providing at least three openings to every room has been followed to ensure good airflow in all rooms. Shading The design of the building incorporated the existing long north facing verandah that shades all openings in the building set back under it. An extra wide eave was provided over the western wall.   Microclimate: Recognising the cooling benefits that gardens provide to the home. Early work involved the planning and planting to create a shady garden around their home including a wall of trees down their side boundary to make the temperature around their home cooler, to provide pleasant views and also a sense of privacy – all important features for tropically designed homes.   Walls: Timber was chosen as the material of choice throughout the home. Nicole and Just specifically avoided the use of any foreign or rainforest timbers, preferring recycled and plantation grown Australian timbers, as well as fast growing bamboo. Low thermal mass timber framing and finger jointed, pine chamfer boards from Australian plantation source were used for external wall cladding matching the style on the original home. The insulation fitted in the walls was a single layer of Reflective Foil Laminate (RFL) inside all walls cavities, with the exception of a small section of wall that is single skin and under the shade of the pergola and which required no insulation at all.   Roof: The original roof has galvanised metal sheeting. The new section of roof is white reflective colourbond roof sheeting in a skillion style (ie no roof space). Aircell insulation (bubble wrap type insulation with foil on both sides) was installed in the new section of the roof and on the ceiling of the existing roofspace. Original open timber slatting under the eaves helps to ventilate the existing roofspace. Floor The new floor downstairs is a concrete slab on ground, overlain with suspended Bamboo floorboards.  The bamboo was plantation sourced, and is fully grown in only 6 years. Upstairs, in the extension, Australian plantation hardwood timber was used. The timber floors were finished with a single pack polyurethane coating. Large format tiles were chosen for the laundry and bathrooms to minimise grout and make them easier to clean.   Fans and Air-conditioning: Four blade ceiling fans are fitted throughout the home and over outdoor living areas to assist with air-movement. All of the bedrooms have the ability to be sealed off for efficient air-conditioning as air-conditioning is used occasionally in the bedrooms during the summer months. The living rooms downstairs have been successfully designed and are naturally cool and comfortable without any air-conditioning.   Universal Accessibility: The guest bedroom on the ground floor has a wider than usual doorway to maintain the ability for grandparents or others with limited ability to be able come and stay with them and a level threshold was chosen for the shower to improve safety for all users.   Use of Recycled Materials: Nicole worked with the builder to ensure that timber removed from their home was reused instead of new materials wherever possible and went to a fair bit of effort to source additional recycled timbers for use in their home. Recycled timber was sourced from local demolition companies and a Brisbane recycled timber joinery. Recycled/reused timber was used for the kitchen cabinetry, a section of internal wall lining, bathroom cabinet, laundry benchtop, wardrobe in main bedroom, all new doors, and the louvred timber bi-fold doors. Frosted glass casement windows and aluminium blade louvre windows (powder-coated prior to installation) were also used and were sourced from local demolition companies.   Paint: Resene ‘Good Environmental Choice’ accredited paints were used internally and externally for their low VOC (volatile organic compound) (ie non-toxic) content.  Light coloured paints were used throughout, externally to reflect heat and internally to brighten the rooms.   Energy Efficiency: The household has a very low energy use of only 10kW per day, which is approximately a third of that used by the average 4-5 bedroom Townsville home. Designing their home to provide comfort naturally through tropical design principles has significantly reduced their electricity bill as their air-conditioning use is far lower. The air-conditioning uses inverter technology which uses about a third less energy than older air-conditioners. Hot water heating is by a manual electric boosted, solar hot water system with the tank on roof. Hot water pipes are lagged to minimise energy/heat  losses. Electrical appliances are as energy efficient as they could afford, eg the fridge/freezer is 4-star energy efficient and the freezer 3 ½ star energy efficient. All lighting is energy efficient. 11 watt GU10 megaman compact fluorescent downlights are fitted throughout the kitchen, lounge, and living areas. Circular fluorescents in oyster lights are used elsewhere for room lighting. Outside the garden and outdoor living areas are lit up by megaman compact fluorescent energy efficient spotlights.   Renewable Energy: The family presently spend $35 a quarter to purchase Green Power from Ergon Energy which due to their low electricity consumption is equivalent to sourcing 100% of their electricity use from renewable energy. Nicole and Just have applied for the rebate to assist them installing a 1 kW grid connect solar panel system on their roof that is scalable to 1.5kW. Embodied Energy Significantly in relation to the carbon footprint of this home, the embodied energy of the renovation has been significantly reduced through extensive use of timber and the use of preloved building materials for windows, doors, walls and cabinetry. Water Efficiency The garden has been specifically designed to have low water use, with only a small area of lawn and the majority of the garden beds containing shrubs and trees that are mulched with leaf litter and mulch that is chipped on-site. Water efficient fittings throughout the home include 3 star water efficient tap fittings (6 ½ litre per minute), 3 star water efficient showers (9 litre/minute) and a 4.5 star (and very quiet) ecosmart flush toilets (3 litre half flush, 4.5 litre full flush). Water Efficient Appliances such as a dish-drawer dishwasher and 4-star water efficient washing machine are used. Greywater from the laundry is used to irrigate the banana plants not far from the laundry.   The Garden : It is hard to believe that the garden was not much besides a slab of brown grass only 3 and a half years ago when Nicole and Just began. The garden features lots of local native plants species including short lived acacias to help quickly establish the garden and native grevilleas to attract a variety of native birds. Specially selected vines provide attract Ulllyses and Cairns Wing Butterflies into the garden. A vegie patch has been created and some citrus and tropical fruit trees are already beginning to bear fruit. Banana circles are providing an abundance of bananas whilst shading the house from the western sun, and being watered by greywater from the laundry. Other features in the garden include: conveniently located waste, recycling and compost bins, space for a prospective chook pen, a shady and adventurous play space for Just and Nicole’s three children and small tracks that weave through the garden, leading young and old on a path of discovery to homemade art and quirky garden features.   Sustainable Living   Ultimately having a sustainable home is about...  living more sustainably.  Nic and Just’s home is now influencing their entire lifestyle to become even more sustainable. New sustainable lifestyle habits that have evolved since the renovation include: Adoption of Indoor/outdoor living lifestyle as the doors and windows are always open their living environment feels as much outside as in. They’ve become more wholistic, functional and pragmatic. Recycling and composting bins is more convenient due to the ease of moving in and out of the house Children and adults do more activities in the garden They’re considering installing a gate in the fence between them and their neighbour’s property to enable their kids to visit next doors. Nicole finds she spend more time cutting up fresh fruit, making homemade drinks and baking rather than buying processed ‘convenience’ foods because the kitchen has become the heart of the home and because of its proximity to where the kids are playing inside or out including easy visibility of the children’s play areas. With their growing family they have upsized to a people mover that’s capable of transporting both of them plus their three kids and others. Instead of purchasing a second car Just rides a scooter to work when it is too hot to ride. Nicole walks their oldest child, Kirsten to school.    This story compiled by Sandy McCathie of ecoSAVVY in collaboration with the owners. > >   > > >

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