The begining

Five years ago we designed our house, as part of our planning permit application.  We had been interested in alternative energy, sustainable lifestyle and natural building type stuff for quite a few years, and we were enthusiastic to start. The design was for a modest home, not too big, well insulated, practical and a bit different. 

Earlier this year, we made a start on getting the our plans to the stage we could get a building permit.  The process took 5 months, and was not the most enjoyable experience.  So many steps along the way, soil tests, bushfire assessments, engineering reports, energy ratings, and final plans.  Each one of those comes with a price tag, and you just want to close your eyes sometimes, it hurts the bank account!

It probably didn't help us that we weren't building a run-of-the-mill brick veneer home in the suburbs...  Little mistakes like the building designer/draftsman getting the size of strawbales wrong, to them not understanding the concept of a 'mud room' and that we actually wanted the back door to come through the laundry!

We thought alot about the design to make it as energy efficient as possible (no doubt there are mistakes in it that will become apparent once it starts to take shape), small windows except on our north side (south for those in the northern hemisphere) were we have a sunroom and lots of glass.  Orientation is the easiest thing to get right in designing a house, and the hardest thing to fix once its built.  It has big impact on how livable a house is (we lived in a poorly oriented house for 8 years), and yet has little if any impact on the energy rating that a house has to get to be approved. Other important features of our design that had no impact on our 'energy rating' were the thermal mass in the walls and floor (that help even out the temperature), and the fact that the house will be running on solar power!  Hopefully some day these things will be incorporated into these energy ratings, and perhaps the rating will actually reflect the true energy efficiency of a house.

So as of October 2010 we are now owner builders, with building permit in hand.  We have built the house of paperwork, now for the fun to begin!