About the house

We moved into this 1950s red brick home in Newtown in 2014. While very typical of the time, the previous owners had renovated the rear of the house.

Aware of the catastrophic climate change, we wanted to be part of the solution ~ not the problem.  So over the last 6 years we’ve been slowly doing a staged retrofit of our home to make it more thermally comfortable, more energy efficient and to maximise water harvesting and reuse. We took a few steps forward and sometimes a few steps backwards.

Some positives:

• We live in a very friendly, diverse age neighbourhood and are probably known as the oldies with strange ideas who put posters up on their fence, as for example about Climate, First Nations, Black Lives Matter, etc. Neighbourhood children love to chat about the posters and adults sometimes smile and say, “What are you doing next?”

• We zoned some living spaces so they can readily convert into guest bedrooms. Overnight guests love our “pop-up bedrooms”, sleeping on the floor (on comfortable mattresses) just like they did when they were young.

•  Neighbour Gus who is 11, has been studying carbon at school.  He was keen to be a volunteer at our home on SHD open and answer any questions visitors might have had about carbon. He’is very proud of his knowledge ~ maybe next time~

•  We have appreciated fantastic support and interest from local businesses.

•  A major highlight at the beginning of 2020 was having the gas disconnected and meter removed. We took a photo of the empty space, and sent it to Angus Taylor, Minister for the Environment & Emissions Reduction!!

Some hard lessons:

• Doing-it-yourself double glazing on our small windows (laundry, bathrooms) was difficult, because it was hard to achieve precision in sealing the glass, without cracking it.

• It was, and still is, challenging to locate every draught and block them.

• With the hot water heat pump, it is challenging to reliably achieve optimal time-setting of the compressor, because periodic power spikes in the grid tend to force the unit to turn itself off entirely.  We’ve worked out that it is best not to pre-set the timer at all, but simply allow it to heat when needed.

Our advice & encouragement to others:

• Get an energy audit done at the outset and work from there.

• Do one project at a time ~ and enjoy doing it carefully, or having it done for you (if your budget allows).

•  Get enough panels and battery storage to tide you through a couple of days of no sun. It is also absolutely worthwhile in terms of cost benefit – there are financial savings over the long term – so go for it!

What might be next:

• Wicking beds in the sunny front garden for more vegetable growing.

• We make excellent compost, more than we really need it all. So we may begin sharing it with neighbours.

NOTES:

ecoMaster YouTube channel - dozens of DIY video tutorials

Local or specialist suppliers:

• GreenLight, GS - thermal imaging survey
• Eco Master - secondary glazing
• City 2 Surf Solar, Grovedale  - Sanden Heat Pump
• Wrinkly Tin Tanks, Leopold
• Knauf wall insulation
• Brax Blinds, Newtown
• Just Water Solutions, Queenscliff - grey water system supplier
• Betta Plumbing, Geelong - sump-activated rainwater storage, 'climate sump' and greywater