Teesdale: New Strawbale Panel House
House Size: 192m²
Garage Size: Detached shed 112m²
Land Size: 5007m²
Project Type: New Build 2021
Average Daily Energy Use (from Grid): 4kWh
Builder: SO'R Construction
Designer: SO'R Construction
About the house
Back in 2017, we were travelling around the state to every volume-builder’s display home before we had even purchased our block of land mid-year. Being a young couple, our budget was very limited so we were not expecting much for our first home.
We never thought that we could afford to build sustainably, but by chance we set up a meeting with Shamus. After seeing his build in Mount Duneed we were intrigued by the design/building techniques that we had little-to-no knowledge about such as strawbale construction and passive-solar design. Shamus explained that it actually could be attainable to create a home that we could be proud of and that would have a low impact on the environment. In addition to Shamus, the advice we received from various people over a few Sustainable House Days was invaluable and helped us choose certain features like the PVC windows and the worm farm septic.
Drawing inspiration from a mix of the country cottage look and modern Scandinavian architecture, we set out to design a house that wouldn’t be immediately recognised as ‘different’. The straw panels we used allowed us to clad the exterior with weatherboards for our desired aesthetic while maintaining a great proportion of the benefits of straw bales. While we may have given the outline of a design, it was really the help of both Shamus and Tristan at SO’R Construction who took it to the next level with elements such as the burnished concrete floors, rendered interior walls and the structural elements to achieve the vision.
Our family at times questioned why we were spending a little more money on such things as the worm farm and straw panels but our answer was always, “why not?”. We had a chance to build this way and we believe the end product has inspired others in our lives to think a bit greener. There were times it wasn’t easy with delays due to a pandemic and the threat of a property price crash that almost prevented this build from ever happening but we couldn’t be happier with the result. After one week living in our new home we still can’t believe this is our house and we are so lucky to live in it.
Sustainable House Day taught us so much over the past few years, so we are proud to showcase our home to help spread the word and ideas to the next person.
House image gallery
House specification
Zoom Event
Experts:
Builder - Shamus O’Reilly, SO’R Construction
Window supplier - Colin Mills, Thermosmart Windows
Strawbale panels - Sam Vivers, Viva Homes
Other Suppliers:
Designer - Tristan O’Reilly, SO’R Construction
Energy rater - Taylor van de harr, GreenForm Energy
Worm farm sewage - Alan Duke, AA Worm Farms
Electrical work - Dave Devlin, Devlin Electrical
Weathertex Green Tag product brochure - link