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 …
While Mark was working on the spring boards, Rosalba was applying shellac to the timber floor. The shellac comes in flake form and needs to be dissolved in methylated spirits and then brushed on the floor. Certainly made for interesting times for Rosalba with the metho fumes. Applying shellac is …
We decided to use one of the trees that we had to chop down to make our own skirting boards. We had a local with a portable timber mill cut the trees into boards and Mark has been busy cutting the boards to size and fit them to the walls …
This week Mark finished laying the wooden floor in our bedroom and the walk in wardrobe. He has also done the inital sanding to remove the old floor polish and get the floor ready for puttying.
Floor sanding is very dusty as you can see in the image below. That …
We found some really nice toilet roll holders and towel rings. They are made out of 100% recycled steel and look just gorgeuous.
They arrive yesterday and Mark put them up today.
It's been a while since the last update. Rosalba and Mark have been hard at work on the ensuite. We have finished with the tiles and grouting and have just this week put up the cornices as well with the kind help of Nick.
We have also installed the outside …
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.
As you might already be aware, we have decided to have an outside laundry as we couldn't see the point of using up indoor space for our laundary. In the place we are renting now, we have got an outside laundry and it has been working really well for us …
Mark prepared moved some pavers today to get ready to pour a concrete slab with paver top for our outside loundry.
While moving the pavers, he found dozens of tiny frogs hidding in amongst the pavers. Had to be really carefull not to hurt them moving the pavers.
Mark installed a letter box a fortnight ago and we have already had our first batch of junk mail delivered.
It is a lot less than what we received in Brisbane before we put a no junk mail on our letterbox. I guess the next "big" event will be when …
When the guy at the tiling shop said I could break up the grey tiles by running a strip of blue glass tiles though the middle, he did not allow for my imagination. I decided it should be a stylized waterfall from a mosaic lake. For \$20 I picked up …
Mark has been working on the balustrade again today, adding the uprights to about half the balustrade so far. It's looking more and more finished. On the picture below you can see before on the right and after on the left.
While Mark kept working on the ceilings, I set to work on the fire wall that will surround my wood stove. Mark is working on the bathroom ceiling so no tiling until he's finished. Blocks I am using are timbercrete blocks leftover from building. These blocks are made from waste …
Mark has been working on the wooden ceiling in our bedroom. Even with some interruptions got it half done. Mark's shoulder is a bit sore now from hammering all these nails in up side down.
We are back working on the house this weekend and have discovered a faster and easier method to lay down the recycled wooden floor board. In particular we have found a great method to push the boards hard against each other to leave as small a gap as possible. We …
They are finally done. Rosalba has worked very hard on these magnificent lead lights. Today Mark got to install them all. Thanks to Graeme Lee for being a great and patient instructor. Couldn't have done it without him and his workshop.
We have today worked on the wooden floor in Rosalba's sewing room again and have reached the halfway mark. Unfortunately we ran out of daylight.
This weekend we have started putting the floor boards down in the Rosalba's sewing room. The recycled hard wood floor boards are incredibly hard and no matter how I tried most nails bent had to be pulled out again. So we have decided to investigate nail guns to fix the …
Installing insulation in your home can dramatically reduce the need for heating and cooling and therefore save you quite a lot of money. For instance the room in the picture has been so well insulated that no heating or cooling will be necessary. :-)
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 …
Rosalba and Mark are working on their house again this weekend.
Mark has been working on creating a window frame from scratch for the large louvre window in the walk in wardrobe. In the two pictures below you can see the opening before and after installatioin of the wooden frame …
It's a rainy day here so not much us happening work wise. It is good though to relax a bit, enjoy nature and reflect on what to do next.
Today I've been working on the deck again. This Kookaburra took an interest in my work and didn't feel intimidated by me at all when I got to within arm's length to take the picture.
I guess this is a youngster that is still quite curious... :-)
We have had a question from Mitch if there is a particular trick to rendering upside down, which is why Rosalba is showing us in this video how to apply a clay render upside down.
[Video: Rendering Upside Down — no longer available]
Today I started with the balustrade on the front of the deck. I am using recycled hardwood that we picked up yesterday from a demolition yard.
As you can see we are already using the deck as our "camping" kitchen.
Over the last few months I have been busily working on the deck.
We purchased recycled and new decking timber. The new decking we purchased mainly because we couldn't get enough recycled decking at the time.
In my experience it is a lot nicer to work with recycled decking as …
In November 2010 we've got the our Solar electricity system installed and we've now got electricity throughout the house. It is just great to be able to use some tools now without having to run a noisy generator.
Here are some pictures from our PV system:
The first pictures shows …
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.
The first and second coats were pumped on using the long awaited render pump. Nick had ordered and paid for the pump back …
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:
Watch: Render Workshop Video by Kat Gawlik
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 …
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 wall was one exception with the determined Andy smacking in the last row on Saturday afternoon (video to come). Perry and …
Here is a guided tour of our house on the first of the wall raising working bee.
[Video: Guided Tour of Our Strawbale House — no longer available]
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 of March, we will have a wall …
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 walls are up as well. If you are ever considering building a straw bale house these are the guys to get …
Just 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 the house. It was amazing what …
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 Paint shop in West End …
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 of climate change.
Following Copenhagen …
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 that looks like a steel spider web with twigs in it. Interesting engineering!
It's …
In the wet areas and as thermal mass, it was decided to use timbercrete: waste sawdust, cement and sand which is formed into blocks/bricks and air dried. The beauty of this product is that it can be nailed into and cut like wood, it is lighter weight than similar …
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 feature walls) have arrived and need a …
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 with buying new i.e …
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 …
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 is finished.
We have now …
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. Once Mike set out where the concrete pad will go we realised that the one retaining block …
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 look at things. Even though …
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 …
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 severely flawed as it doesn't …
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.
We bought two sets and in this picture you can see …
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 the award to your blog. 2). Link …
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 also use less power than …
Just
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 new year we will get …
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 …
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 buy the electricity generated by these solar panels …
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.
One of Freecycle's main rules is that anything …
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 and I would like it. (For a …
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 …
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 help you work out what you'd like …
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.
While strolling around looking for some laundry baskets we walked past this stall with beautifully carved solid wooden doors. There were some stricking designs on display, many of …
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.
The bottom of this floor plan is orientated towards the view. We want our master bedroom …
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:
If you click on the image you can see a bigger version of …
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 …