| March 2004 |
Life in the Tropics is great. Water,
sun, the rainforest, the Great Barrier Reef, but after eighteen years
in the
Tropics we just wanted to experience a cool climate again and
within Australia it doesn't get much cooler than Southern Tasmania.
In March 2004 we bought a block of vacant land 60 kilometres south of
Hobart at a place called Abels Bay. Abels Bay has no shop and no
facilities. It's just a few houses perched right on the ocean near
Cygnet. |
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Green wooded hills, blue water, cows,
sheep, wallabies and wombats, apple trees and gum trees. Summers are
cool with temperatures rarely above 25 C. Winters are mild, it doesn't
freeze often at sea level where we are.
View
from the house. We have to build it yet!
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| Our block has a size of five acres (2.1
hectares). It is on a hillside sloping down to a winter creek at 10 to
15 degrees. One third of the block is covered by tall eucalypt trees,
over twenty metres high. The remainder is low re-growth, grass and the
marshy area of the winter creek.
Car parked at future house site.
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Plans
for the new house
| Designing a house for a
sloping block like ours is a challenge. The soil classification is "P",
which means that building activities must have minimal impact on the
land to prevent slippages and erosion. The worst approach here would be
to excavate into the hill and build a concrete slab. We decided on a
high set timber framed building on steel stumps.
We
want to build our new house completely ourselves as owner builders.
Ease
of construction, minimal impact on the site, energy efficiency of the
building and use of sustainable building materials were the main issues
during the design phase.
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-sub-floor
construction: steel posts in concrete footings
-building to be timber framed
-internal sheeting, where possible fibre cement
-external cladding in fibre cement planking
-all external walls including floors and roof to be 200mm thick for
insulation purposes
-windows to double glazed
-floor size 7m x 12m and layout one large room plus toilet and shower
-two lofts for sleeping and storage
-composting toilet
-grey water treatment only. Water can be re-used in garden.
-large water tanks for rain water collection |
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