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The Forum > Article Comments > Housing for our changing climates > Comments

Housing for our changing climates : Comments

By Valerie Yule, published 23/2/2009

Our housing should both protect against the consequences of climate change, and, by being sustainable, help to prevent it.

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Dear Valerie,thank you for your lovely description of a lifestyle we all (most sensible people) would love to occupy, safely sharing our land with other people, native plants and animals in a house with a backyard landscaped and designed outside the box of social engineered conformity. Individual applications in design are very hard to apply to the rigid prescriptive planning and approval process designed to satisfy councils profit motives,and the nimby class of shallow outcomes and envy driven conformity. I too, will not entertain having to walk up those highly treacherous steps to suit some others passing whim with no consideration of life's lessons. Most Australians wouldn't have a clue how big the country is and population growth seems to difficult to handle once locked up in those tiny shoebox type dwellings which governments find easy to count when they are all in one line.
Posted by Dallas, Wednesday, 25 February 2009 12:01:41 AM
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Well, I live in a double fibro, large rambling house, with very wide overhangs, on 20 acres, 25Km from town. I ask nothing of the state, or the council, but that's not what I get.

For my $2,000+ rates, I get 3 hours of mobile library a week, the rest goes on some damn planner, sitting in his AIR CONDITIONED office, trying to think of something else I can be stopped from doing, on my own land.

I have a large air con system, which is used only when we have city type guests. I find it unhealthy to have the inside temperature too different to the outside.

I was brought up on an orchard, & realised, by the late 50s that doing anything usefull, like growing food, was a mugs game. Those romantic market gardens that have now disappeared were a life sentance, not a life style, except for masochists.

After making my living in the city, designing natty plastic "things", & up north, carting tourists around the islands, I made sure I did not do anything usefull, when I came here, either. I grew flowers, & advanced shrubs, for the landscape trade. I have watched as those who tried, the dairy farmers, & the market gardeners, all gave up the struggle with the big 2 grocery chains. It had nothing to do with land prices, for housing, some damn planner decided these people could not subdivide, but just up the road, one developer can chop up 3000 acres.

I have planted a couple of hundred trees around my place, to help keep it cool, & they are getting pretty big, 20 years later. But any public servant who even thinks of telling me I can't cut down any one, or all of them if I decide they are a storm, or fire hazard, had better watch out.

I am not quite sure just what we should do to those planners, who's damn fool regulations have just killed a couple of hundred people in Victoria, but it should be something much harsher than a slow boat to China.
Posted by Hasbeen, Wednesday, 25 February 2009 4:02:50 AM
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It is a constant source of frustration that I have clients who want energy efficient houses but have blocks that have long East-West boundaries and short North-South Boundaries.
Given a site that enables a home to have long North and South elevations and blank East and West elevations it is easy to keep (in Perth) a house within the range 18 to 28 degrees all year round.
In Perth the best con construction is brick veneer with the brick on the inside and insulated veneer on the outside. This way the internal walls can be used as a heat sink in winter whilst being shaded in summer, and the outer wall stops any heat transfer through the wall.
Provided the orientation and sun penetration is correct it is easy. My preference would be for bigger blocks, say 8 houses on 8000 sq metres so that common bio systems and water collection/storage systems could use economy of scale to bring down costs. And also landscape to bring about a balanced ecology.
All the things you are asking for you can have. The expertise has been around forever. All that is required is to bring in planning requirements that allow for correct orientation and sun penetration.
In other areas Architects who understand the local conditions know exactly what they need to minimise energy use without compromising living standards.
Urban renewal is happening all over Australia and if the appropriate by-laws are adopted the change over to energy efficient housing could be rapid.
If you want it you can have it. Just do some basic research and collectively demand government and councils listen.
Posted by Daviy, Wednesday, 25 February 2009 1:07:58 PM
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Daviy:
“Given a site that enables a home to have long North and South elevations and blank East and West elevations it is easy to keep (in Perth) a house within the range 18 to 28 degrees all year round.”
“--if the appropriate by-laws are adopted the change over to energy efficient housing could be rapid.---If you want it you can have it. Just do some basic research and collectively demand government and councils listen”.

It is painfully obvious that subdivisions fostering solar orientation have not been to the forefront of most developer’s minds - which have been fixed on the main dictate of their enterprise. Councils get leaned upon mightily by developers. Yes, Society would be greatly advantaged by even greater pressure being applied by informed citizens. The price of not doing so is leaving a nasty legacy of discomfort, poor social amenity, unnecessary costs, and wasted energy.
Posted by colinsett, Wednesday, 25 February 2009 2:01:26 PM
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I've had some experience building with MUD.
I worked on the complex in Stroud, just north of Newcastle, it was built for occupation by Nuns in the CoE.
Load bearing mud bricks as walls and waxed mud for floors. But for the being Nuns none of it could have been built, because council put such absurd laws on building.
In all three or for seperrate buildings were constructed under supervision of a NZ builder, all done by hippy labour.
The chapel was a masterpiece of high ceiling and a stone shadehouse with louvers in the wall, on hot days open at bottom and top. Any water applied to plants and aggregate in the shadehouse brought cool air into the building.
Well worth a visit you NSW men. The mud bricks were often made by school chidren, they were 12inches by 12 inches and 4 inches in depth.
Cool in summer and warm in winter.
I have wanted to to build again, but am now too old.
Any wanting to visit need make an appointment and be shown around by the Nuns.
Stroud is not a high rainfall area but still long eve;s can protect from driving rain, to reduce maintainance, which is still easy to do.
All you need is MUD!
fluff4
Posted by fluff4, Friday, 27 February 2009 9:53:25 AM
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