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Building our House of Bales
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O
ur vision was to build an ecofriendly house within our budget and close enough to the CBD (Adelaide) to keep our jobs. Sound familiar? We took 5 years looking for a property only to find land prices sky rocketed while we did so. Eventually we landed a 10 acre block 20 minutes from the city and our dreams began to meet reality.
Designs and more designs
The first step was to buy a notebook and sketch some designs. Several ‘designs’ emerged but most seemed to be very rectangular and symmetrical. After realizing we were artistically challenged we set out to find someone with more creative flair and practical experience. We approached three architects and after having a coffee with each we recruited Paul Downton from Ecopolis Architects as the first member of our team (www.ecopolis.com.au).
The design stage was somewhat bipolar as we reached highs of imagination and lows of the practicalities of budget and the co-design process. Lots and lots of options were discussed. Simon’s time as editor and publisher of the ‘Earthlink’ magazine (formerly ‘Green Pages’ - Australia’s ecofriendly directory) had allowed us to come in contact all the various eco-building materials and techniques. We considered and listed all the pros and cons of: Strawbale (good insulation), Mudbrick (good thermal mass), or rammed earth walls; Mud, timber or cement flooring; Galvanized or sod roof; Timber or steel frame etc etc.
Finally a design was agreed with the following aspects:
A roughly rectangular house of 4 bedrooms with some crazy angles to maximise the views (230 sq m)
A roof with 2 steep sections for maximised solar gain of solar cells and hot water service.
Clerestory windows getting light into all the rooms at the back half of the house (and you can see the stars in bed at night)
Facing 9 degrees off true north to capture some of the view and all of the sun in winter
Hardwood timber framed double glazed windows all round with no curtains
Timber frames with Strawbale infill walls on the outside for insulation (500 bales) rendered with concrete coloured with oxide (lighter colour inside)
Mudbrick (15 pallets) and Adelaide Hills stone (15 tonne) inside for thermal mass
Marmoleum flooring on a cement slab.
A sunroom on the north to maximise solar gain in winter that becomes part of the outside in summer and acts as an airlock entrance in winter. Solar pergola slats above to keep out sun in the summer
Combustion heating for winter as well as reverse cycle split air conditioner as backup
Solar hot water and 1kw solar electricity
90 kilolitre rainwater tank plus 20 kilolitre for fire reserve
60 fruit and nut trees (watered by the Biolytix septic) and 100 m2 of veggie patch
We built a cardboard model of the design so we could get a good feel for how it worked. This was a great move and some final changes were made particularly with the addition of the inside/outside northern sunroom. We then proceeded to apply for development and building approval. After realising the council were not familiar with the building style and that we were not their highest priority we engaged a private certifier who expedited the process and was excellent value.
