Double glazing

It seems a little naf to go to the effort of making a passive solar house and not double glaze the windows. However, earth bag building is an inexact art and double glazed windows of custom sizing are prohibitively expensive. A conundrum.

It's always seemed to me that the challenge of double glazing was in the frame - the rest is just two sheets of normal glass, surely? We could debate the merits of low-E coatings and argon filled cavities for days I'm sure, but the basics is two sheets of glass held a little way apart and sealed well. Glass is easy to get hold of in almost whatever size we want (again, we love the tip shop dearly - people throw away the most amazing things), so then it's just a matter of spacing the glass, sealing it in, and ensuring any moisture trapped in the gap is dealt with.

I found several sites describing various methods of DIY double glazing, from the very simple to the more in-depth. Also, a great how-to.

Optimal distances for double glazing for thermal insulation purposes is somewhere in the region of 10-20mm (sound insulation appears to be different again, opinions vary and I haven't yet delved into actual research articles on the matter). The gap needs to be small enough to prevent convection currents from forming in whatever gas exists in the middle. Any number of spacers from bits of wood to strips of plastic seem to be used for achieving this depending on the frame. I particularly liked this suggestion about how to deal with moisture in the gap - sprinkle a little silica gel in between the glass, and let it absorb the moisture over time. None of this high-tech desiccant stuff!

So two layers of glass is do-able. Do we want the windows to open and close, or be fixed? The answer to this is obvious in a more conventional house where one needs the ventilation. Our house, however, will likely have ventilation tubes running underground to cool the air before it gets to the house itself (the ongoing debate about ventilation tubes vs. wind scoop is ongoing and will be posted later).  Whilst opening windows are pretty there is a whole lot of extra stuff to do with them - more technical to construct, need fly screens, all that sort of thing. It is very tempting to have a screen door that can be left open at need, ventilate via underground tubes, and do away with opening and closing windows all together.

I foresee considerable research going into this decision.

Interviewing the bank

We have been advised both by our own knowledge of people, and by several individuals who seem experienced in such things, to approach meetings with banks about home loans as though we are interviewing the banks to see which we'd like to borrow from, rather than the other way around. I tend to approach conversations with planning councils in much the same way - this luxury will obviously end when we actually buy a property, but until then we can just decide to live somewhere else.

Although we've been talking about buying a rural property for several years, it's only recently crystallised into an actual plan. We're quite lucky, then, that this process has coincided with what appears to be a fall in the prices of such properties. People don't necessarily want to take on what they perceive is a large amount of risk at times when things are changing around them - buying a hobby farm and building a house yourself definitely seems an endeavour of considerable risk by conventional thinking.

Last week, after considerable reading around, we met with our current bank to interrogate their representative about their processes and products and potentially decide if they're a suitable lender for our unconventional purpose. We were aware from the experience of several friends that many financial institutions will require a larger deposit on rural properties of considerable size, though opinions vary on what the size and zoning rules might be. It's worth being aware that rules are considerably different for land with no existing dwelling than they are for large properties that have an existing house.

So now we begin the onerous journey of comparing various loans and subjecting ourselves to the whims of mortgage brokers to find a deal that works for us. The irony of having to buy in to the whole mortgage debacle in an effort to escape ever having to do it again is not entirely lost on us.

Owner Builder Permits

The NSW Office of Fair Trading requires that individuals be licences as 'Owner Builders' in situations where the building work relates to a dwelling that requires complying development approval. Thus, either Kyle or myself must get an owner builder licence.

Originally we thought Kyle would be the ideal candidate, having previously worked in construction. However a severe knee injury, reconstructive surgery, and several months of physio later Kyle's white card has been invalidated and requires a lot of hoop-jumping to reinstate. Jenny, however, is a clean slate in the construction industry.

1. The White Card
• Cheapest through WhiteCardOnlineExpress ($39)
• 3-4 hrs online training + quizzes
2. Owner Builder Certification
• Cheapest/Easiest through Absolute Education ($189 September special)
• Also do white cards in a deal with owner builder certs, but more expensive.
3. Owner Builder Insurance
• Australian Owner Builders Insurance Services looks likely (specifically covers mud brick structures, good start) but I haven't looked into it with a lot of detail yet.
• Would only need it once we start the project (it's useless before we buy a property anyway)
• In an ideal world we're all understanding people who don't sue each other over accidents, but insurance is what you have just incase it's not an ideal world after all.

An important point for us to be aware of at this stage is that it is likely there will be a requirement that anyone who helps us build the house (including Kyle) will need a white card as well. I've been trying to work out what's happened on other similar projects (such as Earthships) regarding this, but it's difficult to get details that specific for Australian builds that are very recent. Just another of the variety of hoops to jump through on atypical projects.

Eco-Builds as Sovereign Risk Insurance

I was recently sent an article comparing the economic policies of various Australian governments past and present, which set off an interesting string of email discussion with various members of my family. During this discussion my father decided he was appalled at the thought his daughter felt the need to take out sovereign risk insurance.

Sovereign Risk is described by economists as what happens when governments default on their debts. A concept that's come up a lot over the last few years, though not often by that name. Sovereign Risk is considered particularly relevant by industries such as mining which have a very long-term return on investments. When starting an open-cut mine, for instance, one expects it will be in operation for several decades. 'Soverign risk' is the possibility that the government of the day sometime further down the track along those several decades will make decisions which change the profitability of the mine from what was first expected. For example, Australia suddenly introducing a mining tax certainly raised Rio Tinto's assessment of its sovereign risk in this country, and the next government removing the tax just makes the economic climate more uncertain rather than less risky (Not that I particularly disagree with the mining tax - it just provides a good example).

Kyle and I have many reasons for pursuing the project around which this blog is based. One of them, is that we are concerned about the direction public opinion and political will is taking society around us. Whilst we are quite well off, and would ourselves probably end up in the category of the 'haves' rather than the 'have nots', current policies lead to the type of society we don't particularly want to live in anyway. On the off-chance that the general public hasn't quite woken up to this yet and votes the Liberals back into power we're looking at a collective future in which individuals cannot depend upon social support services. We don't want to risk being tied to expensive mortgages and rising energy costs, necessitating the stressful career choices that would go with supporting that.

Coupled with the inability for government to admit climate change is likely to be a problem, leading to food/water/energy/safe housing shortages in 30-40 years, we figure we may actually need to support ourselves on that front for at least some length of time. Sounds rather extreme, and a little bit on the side of sci-fi apocalypses, but more and more becoming a real possibility for the distant future.

If you stop bothering to attempt to convince conservatives that climate change will happen and we need to plan for it, or that social policies will benefit us all in the long run, then you start thinking about how to survive it if they don't. We figure on the off-chance that it pans out that way we should probably think about living outside the systems we won't necessarily be able to depend upon. The alternative is moving to another country (Jenny, by virtue of ex-pat well-travelled parents, has triple citizenship, so we would be able to do this fairly easily), but it begs the question of where to?

 So, in a sense, we are looking at the long term plan for ourselves within this society and developing our own insurance for that eventuality. Thus, amongst so many other things, this project represents some insurance in the form of self-sufficiency against the risk that not enough is done to slow the changing of the climate, and that help is unavailable if this or other ills befall us.

Hot Water

In considering options for a hot water system for our house I began with quite a few assumptions, some of which have proved false, a few wants, and just a few needs that could not be compromised. There seemed to be the following general options:

System	Pro’s	Con’s
Electric storage tank	Cheap upfront Many models Common (maintenance familiar to tradesmen)	energetically expensive to run takes up a lot of space
Gas storage tank	Cheap upfront Many models Common (maintenance familiar to tradesmen) less energy than electric storage tank	takes up lots of space energetically expensive
Electric on-demand	takes up less space than storage tanks	more energetically expensive than gas on demand can end up more energetically expensive than electric storage tank, depending on use
Gas on-demand	takes up less space than storage tanks	... requires gas?
Heat pump	less energetically expensive than regular electric elements	still requires electricity loud during operation
Solar	no additional energy source required	requires secondary booster system to maintain stable temperature

For the same reason as others before us Kyle and I rapidly came to the conclusion that the type of water heater we have in our current house (traditional electric element with storage tank) will not work in the intended ones, either the 'prototype' or the bigger house. I did a little bit of reading of some very boring comparison tables to confirm this assumption before quite happily discarding them altogether as an option.

We are very reluctant to chose any system relying on electricity, as this places greater pressure on solar panels which are expensive. It seems wise to follow a policy of minimising use of electricity altogether as part of our intended way of living. Thus, electrical on-demand systems and heat pumps will probably not be the eventual choice.

On a side note, an ex-geologist friend of mine presented a great argument a year or so ago about why he thought our area would find itself in the next 5 years rapidly short on fuel for gas appliances as nearby sources were exhausted. Whilst I didn't really follow the specifics of his claim at the time, and haven't (yet) looked into it in detail myself since, the discussion lingers in the back of my mind as I generally trust his opinion. Thus I would be reluctant to commit irreversibly to gas alone for water.

Solar collectors with 'boosting' from gas or electricity are becoming more common. After considerable reading I found several anecdotal accounts (1, 2, 3) of individuals who used unboosted solar collectors with satisfactory results, mostly in low use households. As we want to limit our external energy needs this would be ideal, and my (by no means expert) understanding of physics leads me to thinking that with a very large, well insulated storage tank you could achieve relatively stable temperatures.

However, Kyle has a quirky medical condition that means he doesn't feel pain and struggles to identify extremes of temperature (sounds weird, I know). Whilst I don't particularly mind the slight variation in temperature expected from solar collectors, this is a very real safety concern for Kyle who can't tell the difference between 'hot' and 'too hot' but will still burn if he turns it up further. Current strategies for avoiding daily injury depend on Kyle being able to memorise how far to turn the taps on - variable temperatures from the hot water system would make this unreliable.

Initially Kyle and I both assumed that this would rule out stand alone solar systems entirely, however I was reluctant to abandon them. My thinking ran along the lines that the risk isn't the days when the temperature is lower than 50°, it's on the days that the temperature is high enough to scald. In a traditional system this would be controlled by a valve that mixes the hot water with cold water as it exits the tank, and you can turn it up and down with a spanner. We already knew enough about these manually controlled valves to know our current home doesn't have one, hence why Kyle risks scalding daily.

A bit of digging, and I found variable valves which will result in a water mixture of consistent temperature regardless of the inputs. One of those "I can't believe we'd never heard of this before" moments. I have slight concerns that all models I found seek to provide temperature stability in both directions, whereas we're really just concerned with keeping it below a certain point and don't mind if it falls a little further, but this is a start!

So at this stage we're keen to explore un-boosted solar further, but may end up with a gas on demand system. A little more research yet.

In search of spaces

In the process of figuring out what we want in our odd version of 'dream home', we have considered the different sorts of spaces we'd like to live in. Kyle wants a house that's cavernous and maze-like, with hide-holes tucked away, dark and sheltered. I want the kitchen and living room to blend together, and a large bath with candle-niches and a window. We'd both love a library somewhere on our growing list of 'someday' wants.

We also considered the outdoor spaces. We want a large veggie garden, and a few greenhouses, but these are more functional spaces, important for different reasons. I'd like a little garden space just outside the bedroom, a courtyard of some sort, sheltered and tucked away (one of the few spaces I merrily envisage flowers for any reason other than bee-attracting). There is some talk of a pizza oven and associated undercover shelter someday.

One of the spaces we both have a very clear, very similar, vision of was inspired by a recent tour of Turkey during which we were introduced to 'kosks', little outdoor gazebo's with low cushions around a central table. We spent a series of very pleasant afternoons finding out that it is impossible not to relax when one is lounging in a kosk.

Whilst many can be large and fancy, it seems the prerequisite for the type of kosk we'd like is that it seats 4-6 people, has a table in the middle, is raised off the ground by a foot or so, has no walls, and only sees sunlight mottled through gently rustling leaves.

This image of relaxation, we realise, seems at odds with our much discussed wish to build our own house with our hands, probably over the course of many exhausting months, then tend an equally exhausting mix of pigs, veggies, chickens, fish, and whatever else we come up with along the way. We feel that's rather the point, though. Kyle and I have no wish to spend our entire adult lives forced into a climbing the professional ladder just so's the banks can profit from having us tied to a mortgage we couldn't afford any other way. We measure our success by different standards than those made common by modern capitalism. We don't want to spend our days working hard to support a house we'd barely see and have little personal connection to. But we're quite willing to work very hard to secure ourselves the sort of future that includes a kosk - indeed, what other future would be worth working hard for?

Construction super heroes

I want to be like these guys:

Not in the sense that I want to build a house just like that one (although it's nice - love all the windows for a place amongst the trees). But in the sense that they are so organised, to the point of seamless obsession.

Kyle and I watch Grand Designs a lot for tips, and long since came to the conclusion that successful builds are all about good planning (my dad tries to tell us that too, but we worked it out ourselves quite merrily). The build in this video looks so smooth and so seamless while its happening, but it doesn't show what I'm sure is months of meticulous planning and years of experience on the part of the build team. How else could all the trucks arrive just at the right time, even though they were delayed by rain at the start? How else could they know they'd need extra people to help part way through, and plan them in advance? These things seem effortless but I am quite convinced they are not.