 |
| 7:47 Start |
 |
| They had to recheck my measurements, the operator commented that his were remarkably right on mine |
 |
| I think they got used to me appearing every time the excavator went quiet |
 |
| The final trench |
Friday, September 23, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
The Drive Way is in
 |
| The Driveway crossover |
We needed a drive way as the soil at Dutton can get quiet slippery when wet.
The grader made quick work of clearing the grass ready for the road base.
 |
| 150m ready for road base |
 | |
| The shed pad leveled |
 | ||
| A muddy mess at the bottom of the property |
 | |
| 150m of road base laid |
The Drive way is located centrally on the property. After major construction work there will be a line of deciduous trees up either side of it.
 |
| The shed pad finished |
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| The house goes here |
The property is ours
On March 10 the property settled, the title is now sitting on my desk. We have also bought our plans from Peter Lees. Next job was to get the council building application in.
A few thing that we needed were; soil test, percolation tests and energy efficiency assessment.
There was a minor hiccup with the soil testing, we were looking at a high to problematic foundation design, but thanks to Doug, the soil test engineer for reexamining the site. After his second test we came up with medium size footing.
The energy efficiency test came back with a 7.1 star rating. This I am extremely please with as poor energy performance was one of my bugbears of the old house in the city. As a matter of fact the assessor told me that if the new house was located in the city it would have achieved an 8 star rating.
The Plans went into the council yesterday, Mid Murray Council are a great bunch to deal with, their information sheets are very concise and it enabled me to take everything I needed for the submission.
Now we have to wait for the Council to approve out plans. Plenty to be done in the mean time.
A few thing that we needed were; soil test, percolation tests and energy efficiency assessment.
There was a minor hiccup with the soil testing, we were looking at a high to problematic foundation design, but thanks to Doug, the soil test engineer for reexamining the site. After his second test we came up with medium size footing.
The energy efficiency test came back with a 7.1 star rating. This I am extremely please with as poor energy performance was one of my bugbears of the old house in the city. As a matter of fact the assessor told me that if the new house was located in the city it would have achieved an 8 star rating.
The Plans went into the council yesterday, Mid Murray Council are a great bunch to deal with, their information sheets are very concise and it enabled me to take everything I needed for the submission.
Now we have to wait for the Council to approve out plans. Plenty to be done in the mean time.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Still Selling the old house
Well, we are still trying to sell our old house. Things didn't progress as fast as I would have liked. our youngest is now going to the school in Nurioopta and we are home keeping the house ready for inspections.
On the progressive side though, we have rented a lockup in the Barossa and are gradually moving our less needed gear up there, the hope is to reduce the stress of moving.
Unfortunately as well, due to council regulations it will be hard to live on the block whilst building, we are unable to build a shed before we get approval for the house (hence the lockup), once this is built it would be very tempting to put a caravan on the block and live in it :).
On the progressive side though, we have rented a lockup in the Barossa and are gradually moving our less needed gear up there, the hope is to reduce the stress of moving.
Unfortunately as well, due to council regulations it will be hard to live on the block whilst building, we are unable to build a shed before we get approval for the house (hence the lockup), once this is built it would be very tempting to put a caravan on the block and live in it :).
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
next step
The next step was to get our current house ready for sale, there was plenty to do. After discussing the proposed sale of our house with more experienced at preparing houses for sale we realized that there was a huge task ahead of us.
We needed to finish the kitchen as well as paint 5 rooms. We also removed 4 cubic meters of rubbish out of the place. Other jobs included replacing the guttering and re pointing the roof cap tiles and re plastering the foundations.
With all this done the current house is on the market, it didn't happen over night this part of the journey took about 3 months. It was a bit of a whirl wind and not something I want to experience again in a while.
One thing that we discussed was timing of buying the block originally we wanted to sell our house and then buy the block but alas we found the block first. Any way I hope this doesn't back fire, we already have a buyer coming to look at the house and it hasn't been listed yet.
More on this to come, the next thing we need to look out for is some where to live while we build.
Thursday and we will know about the sale of the house. Ill keep you posted
We needed to finish the kitchen as well as paint 5 rooms. We also removed 4 cubic meters of rubbish out of the place. Other jobs included replacing the guttering and re pointing the roof cap tiles and re plastering the foundations.
With all this done the current house is on the market, it didn't happen over night this part of the journey took about 3 months. It was a bit of a whirl wind and not something I want to experience again in a while.
One thing that we discussed was timing of buying the block originally we wanted to sell our house and then buy the block but alas we found the block first. Any way I hope this doesn't back fire, we already have a buyer coming to look at the house and it hasn't been listed yet.
More on this to come, the next thing we need to look out for is some where to live while we build.
Thursday and we will know about the sale of the house. Ill keep you posted
Monday, October 11, 2010
beginings:- Thermal mass and earth coupling
Hi all,
Well it all started watching Better Homes and Gardens a few of months back, we saw a house a couple built themselves. It was an underground house that had good earth coupling which meant that it kept cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
We started to question the wisdom of the current style of house that we lived in, especially when these guys said that with their solar power and water harvesting they had "no bills".
I started investigating other styles of house design. After making a few inquiries, we decided that earth covered wasn't really and option, its quiet an engineering feat especially if you want to cover your house with 2000 tonnes of earth.
What we did find out was that current building styles of houses are inside out. Meaning that all the solid walls are on the outside and light weight walls are on the inside. The problem with this is that there is very little thermal mass to help regulate the temperature of the inside of the house. The correct style of house is called a "Passive Solar House". This uses the correct placement of the windows and eaves of the house and proper use of thermal mass. In the winter as the sun shines through the windows it warms the solid mass inside your house and absorbs the thermal energy during the day which is released though out the night. In the summer the eaves or verandas are designed in such a way that the sun doesn't hit the floor. Your house is cooled at night by the cool air and because of the thermal mass the house doesn't heat up quickly during the day but maintains a cooler temperature inside.
The key to make all this happen is to have a high thermal mass inside the house. This can be achieved through a number of means, and it really doesn't matter what is on the outside of your house, it can be clad in a lightweight material. What matters is having dense materials internally, without insulation eg carpets getting in the way. Materials that work with this are; reverse brick veneer, solid brick, mud brick, and rammed earth. Light weight and insulated materials like heable block and gyprock and stud walls don't really work in a passive solar house as they don't help regulate the temperature.
Wendy and I decided that we liked the look of rammed earth and have started to investigate plans that utilize them. After looking at the videos at this site: http://www.rammedearthhomes.com/ we also decided that we liked the idea of playing in the dirt, rammed earth certainly fits the criteria of passive solar.
More to come later, I need to sign off now :)
Darrin
Well it all started watching Better Homes and Gardens a few of months back, we saw a house a couple built themselves. It was an underground house that had good earth coupling which meant that it kept cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
We started to question the wisdom of the current style of house that we lived in, especially when these guys said that with their solar power and water harvesting they had "no bills".
I started investigating other styles of house design. After making a few inquiries, we decided that earth covered wasn't really and option, its quiet an engineering feat especially if you want to cover your house with 2000 tonnes of earth.
What we did find out was that current building styles of houses are inside out. Meaning that all the solid walls are on the outside and light weight walls are on the inside. The problem with this is that there is very little thermal mass to help regulate the temperature of the inside of the house. The correct style of house is called a "Passive Solar House". This uses the correct placement of the windows and eaves of the house and proper use of thermal mass. In the winter as the sun shines through the windows it warms the solid mass inside your house and absorbs the thermal energy during the day which is released though out the night. In the summer the eaves or verandas are designed in such a way that the sun doesn't hit the floor. Your house is cooled at night by the cool air and because of the thermal mass the house doesn't heat up quickly during the day but maintains a cooler temperature inside.
The key to make all this happen is to have a high thermal mass inside the house. This can be achieved through a number of means, and it really doesn't matter what is on the outside of your house, it can be clad in a lightweight material. What matters is having dense materials internally, without insulation eg carpets getting in the way. Materials that work with this are; reverse brick veneer, solid brick, mud brick, and rammed earth. Light weight and insulated materials like heable block and gyprock and stud walls don't really work in a passive solar house as they don't help regulate the temperature.
Wendy and I decided that we liked the look of rammed earth and have started to investigate plans that utilize them. After looking at the videos at this site: http://www.rammedearthhomes.com/ we also decided that we liked the idea of playing in the dirt, rammed earth certainly fits the criteria of passive solar.
More to come later, I need to sign off now :)
Darrin
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