Sustainable House Day Burrum Heads , QLD

 

Burrum Heads.   The house was initially built in 2000 as an investment house to rent or to be sold when I retired. However, as I watched the house being built, I decided to retire early and live in the house myself.   The area is beautiful. The house is part of a small group of ‘acreage’ blocks each 5 or 2.5 acres on unimproved farmland. It is 7 km from the estuary of the Burrum River. The area between the house and the beach is national park right up to the small village of Burrum Heads on the beach.   It has been said that, in terms of climate, locations on the coast within 200miles of the tropic of Capricorn or of Cancer are the most pleasant areas to live in on our planet. My house is 325km south of the tropic of Capricorn.   The house was built by a local builder. The base was an architect design which I modified. It is built exactly on a north south axis as I wanted to incorporate PV power from the onset.   (Picture/s to be selected by shd people from those already sent.)   Sustainable Elements Design The house was designed for a family of 5. There are 4 bedrooms. Each bedroom has its own en-suite and is separated from the others by built in wardrobes/ensuites etc to minimise noise between rooms and maximize privacy.   There is a kitchen, lounge room and large dining room plus a utility room for washing etc, a ‘garden room, for gardening paraphernalia and a double garage.   The house is brick built on a concrete slab that extends 900mm on the east, west and south sides. The design features large opening doors and windows on every side. These provide maximum cross ventilation. It has 900mm eaves on all sides except outside the 2 ‘utility’ rooms. The main rooms are on the south side of the house with bedrooms opening onto the east side of the house to catch the prevailing wind. Additionally, the dining room opens onto a paved ‘outside entertaining’ area on the west side with a 2 metre logia with 2 mature grapevines that give shade in summer whilst allowing the winter sun onto it and into the home office.   The color bond roof is well insulated. All windows have heavy lined curtains which are drawn at sunset in winter and often closed in the heat to the day in summer.  

Air conditioning/heating The house has a 16kw Actron reverse cycle ducted air conditioning system. It is split into 4 zones which can be separately controlled. However, because the house has been well designed and is run sustainably, air conditioning has only been used on about 4 nights a year in the summer. It has never been used to heat the house.   Water systems. Rain water is harvested from the roof and stored in a 54,000ltr in-ground concrete tank. There is very heavy rainfall in December, January and February but very little in other months. All showers have ‘water saver’ heads. There is no ‘council’ reticulated water on site.   All waste water is treated by Aqua-nova 2000 wastewater treatment plant. Clean water from that system is piped to the fruit trees in the garden.   There is a small dam from which water is pumped for general garden watering.   Power/ Water heating. There is a 220ltr Solahart hot water system mounted on the long north facing roof together with a 2.25kwh photovoltaic grid connected power generation system supplied by Origin Energy. Since the PV system was installed at the end of 2007, which was the first time grid connected systems were allowed here, I have not paid for any electricity and had a rebate of approximately $125 a quarter, except for one very hot quarter in summer 2009 when a visitor used the air conditioning system very extravagantly.   Garden The 2.5 acres of ‘garden’ has largely been left ‘natural’ with plenty of trees and fallen logs for native animals. Thus it abounds with wildlife.   There are fruit trees and a large raised veggie patch plus a strawberry patch, banana trees, passion fruit vines and grapevines. I am self sufficient in fruit and veggies most of the year and practice sustainable gardening, low chemical use, compost heaps, garden waste used for mulch etc. The only problem is the wildlife who like to share my produce but there is usually sufficient for us all.