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Last night I knocked up a couple of changes to the shed plans, taking out the windows on the "shed" side and removing the door between the two sections to reinstate the separate doors. So we'll have a glass sliding door on the "office" side, and an ordinary external door on the "shed" side. There'll be loads of natural light and ventilation on the "office" side, and complete darkness on the "shed" side.
The purpose of all these changes is to finally get myself a meeting with the planners at Marrickville Council. I'll be asking lots of questions about the planning process and what I need to give them to get my Development Application through. We've got a few things that force us to go the DA route. The floor space of the "shed" is bigger than the "complying development" rules, and our house isn't detached so we can't use the new rules.
I'll have lots of technical questions for them too. Like the need for a retaining wall under the fence, as there's about a 50cm drop at the fence. And drainage is going to be an interesting issue, as the back of our block is lower than the street level. Big question is whether I can use a rubble pit for the gutters on the shed, or if I have to do the very complicated easement thing and drain into a public stormwater drain.
28 Apr 2009 00:50 [category: /diy] #
The broad beans came out today. We've had an enormous amount of beans from a very small space. They were lovely! However, they've been taking up a lot of space and providing a haven for snails and cabbage moth caterpillars that are munching the brocolli and sprouts. Tonight we'll eat the last beans in a risotto with some leftover salami from pizzas made earlier in the week. Yummy! I'll definitely be planting a lot of broad beans next winter. They've been an excellent crop.
In their place I've planted a bunch of tomatoes and a few lettuces. I've got a Digger's Russian Tomato mix and another 5-colour mix in there. They should come along nicely! I also planted out some peas and more beans.
Holly and I had a bit of a seed-a-thon this afternoon, planting loads of new seeds. I've had some going a week or two: tomatoes, cucumber, more beans. I bought some of those jiffy pellets to try too, since I've not been having much luck with chillis. They apparently work well in these little pellets that swell when you water them.
As well there's more radishes, more basil, more chives, more lettuces. The summer crops which we'll need to keep going.
08 Nov 2008 07:34 [category: /diy] #
A while back I blogged about fridge efficiency and my idea for improving it by creating airflow over the condensors. Lance at the ATA didn't seem to think it would be effective without forced air, though since publication I've received some emails saying it will improve efficiency up to 30%, without complicated active ventilation.
As part of the Food for the Future Fair last Saturday, we took the tour of Michael Mobbs' Sustainable House. We've been there before. The biggest mistake he mentions is his fridge selection and lack of passive ventilation incorporated into the design. With a fairly small gap under the flooring, the layout of the joists meant that when he retrofitted a grill in, there wasn't much airflow.
We don't have the low floor problem, so I think I'll ensure this is in our design. We'll probably also chuck our massively-inefficient fridge and buy a better one, though I'm kinda hooked on the ice maker now.
Mobbs suggested the best approach was to have a cupboard with the fridge door attached to the door, with a grill 25% larger than the fridge on the floor and some way of venting at the top of the cupboard. That way you'll get year-round ventilation without losing room heat in Winter. I like that idea a lot!
14 Oct 2008 23:06 [category: /diy] #
Something is eating my garlic. Little black bugs. What's that all about then? From what I've been reading, garlic is something that repels garden pests, and that you can use to get rid of garden pests. Yet everything else in the garden is doing fine.
In other garden news, my potatoes have shot up and the fruit trees have started growing leaves.
08 Sep 2008 10:05 [category: /diy] #
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We've been getting quotes for heating in our house, as it's starting to get cold. Initially we thought we'd go for a flued, fan-forced gas heater in the fireplace in the lounge room. A friend has the unflued gas heater recommended by Choice and it's brilliant. Heats her whole house really well. We figured flued because then the exhaust gases go outside.
Turns out gas heaters of this calibre, flued or unflued, are around $3,000 or more plus installation. Not cheap! So we decided to have a look at ducted heating, which if it comes in at under double that, I reckon isn't a bad deal since it would heat the whole house.
Now I've found The Sun Lizard which was featured on New Inventors. It uses heat from the sun to force warm air in or out of the house, depending on the season, and stores the heat in the thermal mass of the house. Given we're in a double-brick house, we've got plenty of thermal mass.
This claims to heat by 4-6° which sounds like it'd probably be enough most of the time for us. In addition, it cools by up to 10° in summer which would be a nice bonus. At under $3,000 it sounds like a nice option, and with no ongoing costs it's quite attractive.
But I'm not sure 4-6° is quite enough, even in Sydney's mild winters. I vowed when we bought a house to never spend another winter shivering with all my clothes on and a crappy electric heater sucking down expensive juice. This is the experience of poorly insulated, unheated rental properties for about a month a year in Sydney.
I wonder if the money we were thinking of spending on ducted heating might be better spent on a unit like this and upgrading our insulation. Get the roof vacuumed and the old insulation replaced with modern, high-spec insulation. As an added benefit, it would reduce plane noise. We're also looking into double glazing, which has benefits for both thermal and acoustic insulation. Perhaps with greatly-enhanced insulation and this unit, we could get by with a crappy electric heater used for only a few days a year?
So does anyone out there have any experience with this unit?
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