Our house has been constructed on the site of a house which was destroyed in the Black Saturday bushfires. The property is 20 acres in size with a ridge line running in an east / west direction, from this ridge line there are views to the North of the Kinglake mountains and to the South of the Melbourne CBD. The property consists of about 13 acres of pasture and 7 acres of bushland.
My main design criteria were to design a passive solar house; to locate living and bedroom spaces on the North side, to minimise East and West facing windows, to design the eaves on the north side of the house to allow maximum winter sun penetration whilst eliminating the midday sun for the hotter four months of the year. A laundry/mud room has been designed as our main entry to the house. This entry is convenient to our carport, firewood supply, composting bins, rubbish bins and vegetable garden, it serves as an airlock to prevent heat loss and gain in the house.
The house has been constructed on a concrete slab with a high level of well placed insulation in the roof and walls, all of the gaps and cracks have been filled to prevent air leakage. Apart from some louvre windows, the house has double-glazing in Black Butt timber (bushfire-resistant) window frames. The house has been constructed well above the required BAL19 level. The house has also been designed with ageing in mind; it is constructed on a single level, the roof pitches are low, and all gutters are reachable from a short ladder; all of the windows can be cleaned without the use of a ladder.
Another design criteria was to manage the storage of rainwater without the use of "charged downpipes", storing rainwater in PVC piping can cause the water to become rancid. All in all, our house has proved to be very energy efficient and climatically comfortable.
