At long last another update. We've moved in just over a year ago but still have quite a bit of work to do.
I am currently working on my office so that I can actually move into it. For the last few days I have been installing the wooden floor …
Last week, Mark has been working on the balustrades for the front steps.
Not quite finished yet, it's going to get a top board yet, but the balustrades are already looking great.
Check for yourself on the pictures.
Mark has been working on the balustrade again today, adding the uprights to about half the balustrade …
We found an easy to follow recipe on the Internet on how to make your own paint. Rosalba tried it today with great success. The paint recipe is really easy to follow. Check it out yourself:
"Buy Hydrated Lime powder (I bought 1.5kg from Bunnings for about \$5) and …
Since the workshop, Nick, Roger and Andrew (the brilliant roofer has
joined the team) have been hard at work putting on the lime render on
the
outside
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The first and second coats were pumped on using …
Kat Gawlik (www.forgreenies.com) not only made plenty of pictures at our rendering workshop but has also made a very professional video as can be seen below:
Thank you Kat for your professional coverage of our rendering workshop.
Awesome community-minded people turned up to do the workshop. The picture below shows the Saturday group. Some of these also came for Sunday's session and some new people turned up on Sunday as well. Nick gave a great teaching session about clay and the formulas required for the different coats …
Our house will have a lime render outside and a clay render inside. We have been busy filling the gaps between bales and between the window frames and the bales with cob. The process is a slurry coat which is just clay and water like a thick shake applied to …
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The straw bale wall raising weekend was an unqualified success. All the bales, except for the last row, were in place at the end of the weekend. Our bedroom …
Here is a guided tour of our house on the first of the wall raising working bee.
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height="150"}As
you can see from the photos the roof is going on at a rapid rate due to
the powerhouse known as Andrew (the roofer). On Wednesday, March 10,
2010 the straw bales will arrive from Nanango. On Saturday 20 and Sunday
21 …
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height="150"}Nick
and Roger are amazing. In the last 4 weeks they have managed to do the
deck, have the roof completed so the roofer can start and all internal …
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before Christmas, a wild storm swept through Conondale. I arrived just
after it had ended. I hadn't seen the carpenters' progress for over a
week so I went around marvelling at the progress they had made.
En-suite, walk-in-robe and the rafters though half …
Cooee wood oil and cleaner
I found an Australian certified organic paint that doesn't cost the earth. The straw bale walls will be rendered up to the pitching beams (far left). So Roger suggested I oil/paint them now as it would be easier than later. So at the Green …
{.alignright
width="240" height="220"}Dear Kevin / Penny
Following the very disappointing outcome of the Conference in Copenhagen I feel disillusioned and let down by our political leaders. It seems that no binding agreement has been reached. The fluffy accord that emerged feels woefully inadequate to address the immense challenge …
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.size-full .wp-image-161 width="130" height="87"}Nick and Roger are
making great progress with the framing (left). Lovely straight posts
adorn our slab and define where our straw bale walls will be. The
Kurilpa bridge (right) is a pedestrian bridge in Brisbane …
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caption="Looking from dining to bedroom"]
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In the wet areas and as thermal mass, it was decided to use timbercrete …
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.size-thumbnail .wp-image-149 width="150" height="150"}We now have a
slab with rods sticking our where the bales will go. Next week (from
9/11/09) we are going to start putting the frame up with the assistance
of a local carpenter, Johan.
Timbercrete blocks (for wet areas and …
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We are trying to keep our impact on the environment as low as possible, so we are constantly on the lookout for second hand items. Ebay has been great for the doors, windows, pavers (heaps) and some timber.
Some items I thought we were stuck …
Up until now I have left publishing on the blog to Mark, and I am sure you will agree that he has done an awesome job. I have had a nagging question/quandary regarding alternatives to PVC and Mark suggested I put it up on the blog to see what …
{.alignleft
width="216" height="288"}Rosalba and I have recently purchased a wood
stove, a Crown No 7. When we got it, it had a few cracks which we got
our neighbour, Pancho, to fix for us. We have now installed the stove in
our shed temporarily, until the house …
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in the
kitchen"]
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We have got our plans approved and we have now started building.
We have found a great concreter and block layer (Mike Pascoe from Witta) that is doing the foundations work for us …
{.alignleft
width="173"
height="240"}James
Howard Kunstler, prominently featured in the peak oil documentary "The
End of Suburbia", has written a frank
and chilling assessment of where the world is at for "The Daily
Reckoning".
Unfortunately it is not all rosy, but as usual it's all in how we …
According to news.com.au
reporting about the Australian federal budget for 2009, Australia will
be spending up to \$1.5 billion over the next nine years to build up to
4 massive solar power plants. Plans for these solar power plants are on
a scale the world has never …
Rosalba and I have recently been interviewed by a very nice lady that writes for The Ottawa Herald. The interview has now been published and I'll re-create it here linking to the article at The Ottawa Herald would not be very productive. The Ottawa Herald seems to remove articles from …
{.alignleft
width="160"
height="240"}The
more I think about the state of solar electricity generation and
government support the more I understand that gross metered feed in
tariffs are a really powerful means to increase the uptake of solar
panels amongst the public.
The current scheme of RECS is …
Rosalba and I have purchased some Cantilever shelving to store some of the recycled material we are using to build our house. This shelving has arrived as a giant "Meccano Set" which Rosalba and I started assembling on Sunday.
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bought two sets and in …
{.alignleft
.size-full .wp-image-125 width="200" height="200"}Solar Girl from the
"Solar Energy - Green Lifestyle for
You" blog has given
our blog an award. Wow, how special is that!
Thank you very much Solar Girl.
These are the rules for “I Love Your Blog" award:
1). Add the logo of …
{.alignleft
width="288" height="216"}I changed a desk lamp I already had to use LEDs
instead of the CFL tube. I mainly did that because I wanted to do
something "crafty" and because I like LEDs and how their light comes
with almost no heat.
Of course the LEDs …
{.alignright
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a quick message to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I reckon 2009 will be a most interesting year for all.
On the house front: Our house plans have gone to a certifier and we hope that early in the …
The Australian federal government announced today that it would scrap the unpopular means-test for the rebate for installation on solar panels. This means-test restricted the rebate to households earning less than \$100,000.
The means-tested rebate was worth up to \$8,000 where as the maximum rebate under the new …
Rosalba and I attended a one day event organised by the Sunshine Coast Energy Action Centre (S.E.A.C.) about Transition Town initiatives in South East Queensland. The Transition Town movement aims to provide solutions for dealing with peak-oil and climate change. Even if you don't believe in peak-oil …
Kin
on the Aussie Bloggers
Forum
was so kind to organise a Secret Santa for forum participants.
Yesterday my secret Santa present arrived and it is an absolute hoot. The bits I received were pretty cool (see image on the right), but the message, which I share with you below …
Just
a very quick update. I managed to get a lot of recycled hardwood floor
joists and some recycled hardwood tongue and groove hardwood flooring.
We are currently planning to use the hardwood flooring in the master bedroom, Study, Sewing Room, and Media Room.
The hardwood floor joists will be …
Last weekend Rosalba and I attended a Strawbale Building Workshop in Yandina. This workshop was part sponsored by our Architect WD Architects. Other supporters included Rockcote, Wildlife Warriors, and the Sunshine Coast Regional Council.
Our tutors where Lance Kairl, and Chris and Colin Newton.
Lance is South Australia's most experienced …
Rosalba
and I have been rather lucky as we have found about 87 m² of used slate
tiles.
Last weekend I went to pick them up with our 1 tonne ute and a trailer.
I have to say that I seriously underestimated the weight of the slate tiles and I …
During
the weekend before last, Rosalba and I attended a course put on by the
Rainbow Power Company titled "Living with
Solar"
The course covered pretty much anything to do with solar power generation, from solar panels and cable sizing to battery care.
The course was presented in an easy …
Wanting to go fully solar not only for our hot water needs but also for our electricity needs we have purchased the book "Solar Success" by Collyn Rivers recently. The subtitle of the book "Getting It Right Every Time - The Complete Guide To Home & Property Systems" really got us interested …
Project Better Place is planning on bringing electric cars and a charging network to Australia by 2012.
In a deal unveiled in Melbourne, international company Better Place plans to team up with AGL Energy and Macquarie Capital Group to set up a network of "charging spots" and "battery exchange stations …
John, one of our friends, has given us some free door handles for our new
home. John is a locksmith and has told us that these handles would have
most likely been thrown out.
These handles have come of some doors where the builders installed the wrong type of handles …
](http://www.flickr.com/photos/65223305@N00/80785086)Some
of you may remeber the post I have written in August about a different
way to finance a solar power system by basically giving the power
company the right to place their own solar panels onto your roof and you
then …
Rosalba and I have started looking around for bits and pieces for our new home. We have purchased the main entrance doors a while ago.
This week we were lucky enough to win an eBay auction for some nice french doors as shown below. We are planning to use these …
Yesterday,
Rosalba and I, met Shayne from Alternative Energy Solutions to start the
process of working out the size of our solar power system. Shayne
performed an energy audit with us by going through every room on our
plan and working out what electrical appliances we'll be using.
Based on …
Andrew, our architect, finished the preliminary drawings a few days ago and as part of that has performed a preliminary energy assessment. The outcome was better than both Rosalba and I expected.
In Andrew's own words: "It doesn't get much better than 10 stars!"
To clarify, in Australia, houses are …
Jean over at the The English Armchair Abroad has tagged me for a post about 6 things you don't yet know about me. Well, let's see what secrets I am willing to give away ... :-)
Andrew, our architect, has sent us some 3D pictures of our future home today which I'd like to share with you.
The next step is to work out the size of the photo voltaic system for our electricity needs. That's going to be exciting, especially when we get a better …
We have visited our land (or as we tend to call it the farm last weekend again. I am normally not very lucky when taking images of animals but this time I have been able to get a really nice shot of two female fairy wrens sitting on some branches …
As August has now finished we have closed the competition for the book of house plans and have drawn the winner. But before I announce the winner I'd like to explain that we have also drawn a runner up and a second runner up in case the winner is not …
Some time ago I came across an article about Freecylce and how it aims to keep good stuff out of landfill. Freecycle basically are a large number of mailing lists where people can advertise stuff for free that they no longer need.
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One …
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height="156"}Andrew
and Steve have been busy again and have already produced a second
version of the preliminary plans for our new home. On the right you can
see the newest iteration of the floor plan which is a very close to how
Rosalba …
As most of you are probably aware our current economy is driven by constant growth and that the success of any commercial venture is always measured by continued growth of sales, earnings, and market share. Since I have realised this myself quite a few years back I have always wondered …
On Wednesday we met our Architect, Andrew, again to discuss the fist draft version of the floor plan for our new home. I have included a scanned copy of the draft that was drawn by Steve (the Building Designer working together with Andrew) below for your enjoyment. (Click on the …
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height="210"}As
prize in our first ever competition, we are giving away the book of
house plans by Peter Lees (pictured on the left). This book contains a
large number design sketches but does not contain finished plans.
Nevertheless there is enough information to …
Installing a solar power systems is not cheap as most people interested in the idea are already aware of. Solar power systems, especially grid connected systems, pay for themselves over time, but a relatively large up-front investment is needed to reap the benefits of a solar power system.
An article …
Rosalba and I have joined the Alternative Technology Association (ATA) a couple of months ago because we thought that this would help us decide on what alternative energy system we will incorporate into our new home.
The ATA have published a Solar Panel Buyers Guide in their October-December 2007 ReNew …
With our decision not to connect our future home to the electricity grid I have started thinking about ways of making the most of the electricity that we will collect with our solar panels. Unfortunately I currently have a number of computers that that are acting as various servers and …
About a week ago Journeyer has tagged me for a six word memoir. I thought initially that's going to be easy... I know better now.
Well, here it goes:
"Playing, Working, Searching, Moving, Marrying, Sustainability"
Then again, I'm not so sure about the above. Maybe try the next one instead …
Rosalba
picked the book titled "Built Like A Woman" by Sandra
Broman when we were looking at books to
get more information about building a house. I have to admit that at
first I thought that this book would not be very interesting for me.
Having just finished reading it …
The Channel 7 Sunrise team have started another petition to stop the means testing of the solar rebate in Australia. The Sunrise petition already has over 30,000 signatures so it looks like this petition will make an impression.
If you would like the means test for the solar rebate …
We just got the most current ReNew magazine issued by the Alternative Technology Association which contained a number of interesting articles. One that I found most interesting was about "Solar Guerrillas".
Solar Guerrillas are people that install small grid connected solar systems without approval by the utilities or respective government …
Rosalba and I went to the Sunday market in Chandler today to get organic fruit and veg as we do most weeks.
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strolling around looking for some laundry baskets we walked past this
stall with beautifully carved solid wooden doors. There were some …
Rosalba, Remy (our son) and I have just moved house this last week from a largish 4 bedroom home to a reasonable sized 3 bedroom home. Foolishly we decided to do most of the moving ourselves.
I think one of our friends upon hearing this has put it best: "You …
Jess at Sustainable Suburbia tagged me for a meme so below is my reply…
Well, that's a long time ago. I'd like to concentrate more on the present and future as we can't change our past. My near term future obviously involves doing …
I have found this site called Animoto that let's you make short videos from pictures and music files. To play around with it I have made a short 30 second video featuring views from the site where we'll build our new home.
Enjoy and let me know if you liked …
My friend Neerav has asked me recently to write an article for one of his blogs about our strawbale house. I was deeply flattered by his request as Neerav is one of Australia's top bloggers and I consider myself as an amateur blogger, having only just started.
Neerav has since …
Reading through the current edition of The Owner Builder magazine I have found a small article on page 36 about Bunnings Warehouse offering discounts to registered owner builders.
In most states you need to obtain a permit to be an owner builder. Such a permit can be obtained by sitting …
Rosalba and I are spending the weekend in the shed on our land where we are going to build the straw bale house. On the picture you can see me editing this article using 100% renewable energy from our small solar power installation on the shed.
On the shed we …
Have you noticed how shopping dockets seem to get longer and longer?
I have just been to Big W to pick up a hooded kitty litter tray. That was the only item I purchased and the docket for the one item is nearly ½ metre long. (Ok, I am exaggerating …
Rosalba has forwarded a link to me for a petition to stop the Australian Government introducing the means testing for the solar rebate of up to \$8000 towards the installation of photovoltaic panels on your home.
You may have already seen my other post about this. I invite all readers …
I have been thinking about making my own biodiesel for a while as I have heard and read about the process being quite simple and easily done your self. What is currently holding me back is that our current cars run on petrol instead of diesel.
Nevertheless our tractor runs …
Rosalba and I have purchased a number of books recently covering sustainable homes to look for inspirations on what we would like in our future home. Most of these books we purchased from "The Good Life Book Club" that, I think, is run by Earth Garden.
The "Natural Home Builder …
I have found some information about a weekend course where participants are tought "Living with Solar". This course is provided by the Rainbow Power Company in Nimbin which isn't too much of a drive from Brisbane where we currently live.
I am thinking that this course may be helpful to …
Rosalba and I had a discussion yesterday whether our home should include a Truth Window. A Truth Window is a section of wall were the straw is covered by a glass plate and a frame instead of render to show unbelievers the truth about the our walls being built out …
Some of you may be wondering why Rosalba and I are wanting to build our new home with straw bales. Following are my reasons:
Straw is a renewable resource that is mostly burned after harvesting. This releases huge amounts of green house gases that don't need to be released. If …
Our architect recommended that we read the book "Building Your Straw Bale Home" by Brian Hodge, especially if we would like to do some things ourselves in the process of building our house. Brian Hodge is a builder with over 30 years experience in a large variety of building projects …
While reading through some magazines to work out how we best could get what we wanted out of our future home we came across this ad for a book of home designs. Wanting to build with straw bales we were intrigued by that book as the ad mentioned all sorts …
The new budget introduced a damper for the solar industry by now applying a means test to the eligibility of up to \$8,000 government rebates for the installation of a residential solar power installation. The means test to be introduced shortly means that any household having a combined annual …
I have found an interesting website from a group of people interested in sustainable power generation which is local and community owned called Local Power. The most interesting part on that website I found was their first project of a Buying Group for PV (photo voltaic) panels to achieve some …
Rosalba has found an article on the Earth Garden website showing different ways of creating footings for buildings. One method that has caught our eye is using recycled car tyres. Considering that there are millions of tyres each year that need to be disposed of, this may help a little …
As you usually do, we have come up with a very rough floor plan to get an idea what we want and also to be able to communicate our dream better to the architect.
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The bottom of this floor plan is orientated towards …
Rosalba and I have met with Andrew form W D Architects yesterday afternoon.
Andrew was great and listened to all our dreams and wishes for our house and gave some great feedback on some of our ideas. For example we though we'd build the house using a steel frame but …
We are meeting the architect for the first time today, so both my wife and I are really excited.
As a treat for everyone, I have included a bigger picture of the view from our house site:
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If you click on the image you …
A recent news item on the Alternative Technology Association website (www.ata.org.au) highlights some improvements that should be made to the feed-in tariff in power across Australia. A feed-in tariff is the mandated price a home owner is paid for any electricity fed back into the electricity grid …
I am keen to use alternative energy generation with our new house as much as possible. Currently we are planning the main energy source to be solar panels installed on the roof of the shed and house.
I have recently look at what is available and have found what looks …
Welcome
The purpose of this blog is to track the progress of the strawbale house that my wife and I are about to start building with the help of some professionals, friends and family.
The image in the heading of this site is the view that we'll be having out …