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Re: What would you have now if you rebuilt?
Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2018 12:25 am
by dream4red
Good luck with making it cheap Dot.
I can only add that the solar has saved us a bomb BUT the sun hasn't been out much for several months (it's winter I am told) So our last power bill was for $120 not as good as the summer one of $10.
I like a gas cooktop, found induction needed too many specialized pots n pans when I am still wanting to use my perfectly good older pans.
When looking at houses, I suggested my wants were:
gas kitchen, solar on roof, ensuite bathroom, walk in wardrobe, walk in pantry, everything wheelchair friendly and a double garage.
The only thing on the list that materialised was the double garage, which I then turned into a family/guest room and have to put up with the old single garage out the back!
Go ahead and dream, it's only money an d we can't take it with us when we go!
Re: What would you have now if you rebuilt?
Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2018 10:35 am
by Busman
We are actually planning this right now as we prepare the current abode for sale.
As the T1 post had a lot of desirables I have copied it here and will modify it.
(1) Disability bathroom and wheel chair access throughout the house including big doorways and at least one entrance with wheel chair access. SMARTas some of us are getting older !
(2) Tile Roof with the house built strong enough to carry it, that is most of the reason houses these days have tin roofs, not the cost of the tiles. NO, all roof and walls will be coolroom panelling, lot of builders up here using this now.
(3) Good venting in the roof to get rid of the heat in summer and vents in the ceiling of every roof that can be closed for winter or partly closed so each room still clears the stale air trapped near the ceiling. SHOULD not be too difficult to obtain
(4) Most definitely solar and batteries and not connected to the grid, pay for itself in no time with the savings from not having to pay to get the wires to the house and never paying any network fees or electricity costs. By the way, the Tesla units don't have that ability, they are grid connect only YES with our Liths experience in VP this is a given. BTW if I invested in some Liths for the house a 10% price increase could be expected. (Around 70 grand) We currently get 54c kwh so loosing that will hurt but we will be off grid anyway
(5) Reverse cycle air con in each room but not ducted but rather the ceiling cassette units. Seems smart
(6) An integrated air con and hot water storage heat pump system with electric back up powered via solar, easier than solar hot water and more versatile.We will do what we have done with VP, run water heating direct off the DC panels into a storage unit, works a treat, another brilliant T1 suggestion. Back up with 240 v element as we have in VP
Big verandah all the way around to keep the sun off the windows and walls and provide an outside relaxation area no matter what the season.
(7) If you want under floor heating then you can only have concrete slab construction and that is very hard on the knees and ankles so a suspended timber floor over the concrete slab would be required and that sort of negates the heating side of it, unless someone has come up with underfloor heating for a timber floored house. Then I'd go with under floor climate control, so it can be cooled as well. Have not given any thought to this, doubt is necessary up here.
(8) Some where with a great view and lots of windows, the big verandah should save the need for double glazing.WE hope for this, have to see what land is available, only started looking.
(9) Induction cook top with gas back up outside under the back verandah via a big BBQ and that can double as the oven PRETTY much on par with our ideas
(10) All cooking areas with range hoods vented directly out through the roof, not into the roof cavity, same for the bathroom and toilet ALWAYS doe this anyway
(11) A full size ensuite in the master bedroom and a walk in wardrobe, a normal ensuite the main guest room HOUSE will only be a 2 bedder so pretty much as is stated here.
(12) Water tanks, Galvo and painted inside. Forget about concrete or plastic, the water taste is definitely an acquired taste YES water tanks but we have no problem with plastic, will use the same triple filtration system as in VP
We plan on a couple of bedrooms, a large entertaining area, plenty of room for bus friends to stay. House and very large workshop all from coolroom material, me for VP and trailer and her for all her hobbies, all airconditioned.
Minimum 32 (pallet) solar panels (8,800 watts) to run it all, with Rich Electric equipment. Probably about 1500 ah of Liths at 24 volts.
Want to be comfortable for next few years.
Re: What would you have now if you rebuilt?
Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2018 11:04 am
by BernieQ2
Would like to see that build when you finish it Bill .
Only thing we wouldn't do is the dunny in the bedroom....ir you get my drift ?
We had two dunnies on the farm one inside as per normal and one on the back veranda so there was no need to remove boots to go inside .
It also doubled up as a change room for the pool .
Bernie .
Re: What would you have now if you rebuilt?
Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2018 1:10 pm
by T1 Terry
Busman wrote: ↑Sun Jul 15, 2018 10:35 am
We are actually planning this right now as we prepare the current abode for sale.
As the T1 post had a lot of desirables I have copied it here and will modify it.
(1) Disability bathroom and wheel chair access throughout the house including big doorways and at least one entrance with wheel chair access.
SMARTas some of us are getting older !
(2) Tile Roof with the house built strong enough to carry it, that is most of the reason houses these days have tin roofs, not the cost of the tiles.
NO, all roof and walls will be coolroom panelling, lot of builders up here using this now.
(3) Good venting in the roof to get rid of the heat in summer and vents in the ceiling of every roof that can be closed for winter or partly closed so each room still clears the stale air trapped near the ceiling.
SHOULD not be too difficult to obtain
(4) Most definitely solar and batteries and not connected to the grid, pay for itself in no time with the savings from not having to pay to get the wires to the house and never paying any network fees or electricity costs. By the way, the Tesla units don't have that ability, they are grid connect only
YES with our Liths experience in VP this is a given. BTW if I invested in some Liths for the house a 10% price increase could be expected. (Around 70 grand) We currently get 54c kwh so loosing that will hurt but we will be off grid anyway
(5) Reverse cycle air con in each room but not ducted but rather the ceiling cassette units.
Seems smart
(6) An integrated air con and hot water storage heat pump system with electric back up powered via solar, easier than solar hot water and more versatile.
We will do what we have done with VP, run water heating direct off the DC panels into a storage unit, works a treat, another brilliant T1 suggestion. Back up with 240 v element as we have in VP
Big verandah all the way around to keep the sun off the windows and walls and provide an outside relaxation area no matter what the season.
(7) If you want under floor heating then you can only have concrete slab construction and that is very hard on the knees and ankles so a suspended timber floor over the concrete slab would be required and that sort of negates the heating side of it, unless someone has come up with underfloor heating for a timber floored house. Then I'd go with under floor climate control, so it can be cooled as well.
Have not given any thought to this, doubt is necessary up here.
(8) Some where with a great view and lots of windows, the big verandah should save the need for double glazing.
WE hope for this, have to see what land is available, only started looking.
(9) Induction cook top with gas back up outside under the back verandah via a big BBQ and that can double as the oven
PRETTY much on par with our ideas
(10) All cooking areas with range hoods vented directly out through the roof, not into the roof cavity, same for the bathroom and toilet
ALWAYS doe this anyway
(11) A full size ensuite in the master bedroom and a walk in wardrobe, a normal ensuite the main guest room
HOUSE will only be a 2 bedder so pretty much as is stated here.
(12) Water tanks, Galvo and painted inside. Forget about concrete or plastic, the water taste is definitely an acquired taste
YES water tanks but we have no problem with plastic, will use the same triple filtration system as in VP
We plan on a couple of bedrooms, a large entertaining area, plenty of room for bus friends to stay. House and very large workshop all from coolroom material, me for VP and trailer and her for all her hobbies, all airconditioned.
Minimum 32 (pallet) solar panels (8,800 watts) to run it all, with Rich Electric equipment. Probably about 1500 ah of Liths at 24 volts.
Want to be comfortable for next few years.
The one I'm in the process of doing at the moment is fully off grid and a long way from the mains. 1200Ah @ 24v, 2 x 4000w inverters in parallel, 10kW of solar all through MPPT controllers but none of it is Rich Electric equipment. Because it is a house there is a lot more room for the inverters and solar controllers so the ones we are trialling for this job aren't the smallest or lightest available but hopefully reliable and cost effective. I'm wiring it up on pallets at the moment and that is proving an interesting challenge. The plan is to simply load up the 2 plastic pallets onto a trailer and unload them on site to minimise the amount of wiring etc needed to be done away from the workshop. The Crystal Brook job was a step learning curve and the major things to come out of it were to use those more experienced to put the solar on the roof and wire as requested and get all the 240vac wiring done and ready for straight forward connection. Trying to work with house sparkies that have no knowledge of how an inverter off grid system works is not something I wish to repeat
Re: What would you have now if you rebuilt?
Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2018 2:37 pm
by Busman
Bernie, we will probably end up with 2 1/2 bathroom as the RE agents say, but basically if you visit you will have to be self contained anyway. As I read your post I had a mental flash of the porcelain sitting proudly on the veranda, then read further and gather it was enclosed.
Anytime when we get there, or call in on your way home, the rate we are going will probably still be here !
Put a bit of money back into the farm for expansion, I have total control and am charging 20% interest so busy for a little while yet
T1, have already planned to have someone else to fit the panels, have a guy up here that does off grid systems.
You still impressed with the Tindo panels ? We have some here on our expanded system, seem to be working fine, that string matches the mono string, even though it is smaller. The mono string should be cleaned though I guess. Ever take the container idea any further ?
Re: What would you have now if you rebuilt?
Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2018 3:28 pm
by BernieQ2
Amazing how others read words , I can just see myself sitting on the loo ( porcelain ) with shorts around ankles hat on (because of the sun) and a piece of straw in my gob , just checking the health and wellbeing of the animals in the paddock , not to mention those in the pool...part of my job as pool rescue .
Good on you Bill ...must re-read from now on .
A smiling Bernie .
Re: What would you have now if you rebuilt?
Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2018 4:12 pm
by T1 Terry
Busman wrote: ↑Sun Jul 15, 2018 2:37 pm
Bernie, we will probably end up with 2 1/2 bathroom as the RE agents say, but basically if you visit you will have to be self contained anyway. As I read your post I had a mental flash of the porcelain sitting proudly on the veranda, then read further and gather it was enclosed.
Anytime when we get there, or call in on your way home, the rate we are going will probably still be here !
Put a bit of money back into the farm for expansion, I have total control and am charging 20% interest so busy for a little while yet
T1, have already planned to have someone else to fit the panels, have a guy up here that does off grid systems.
You still impressed with the Tindo panels ? We have some here on our expanded system, seem to be working fine, that string matches the mono string, even though it is smaller. The mono string should be cleaned though I guess. Ever take the container idea any further ?
Still very pleased with the Tindo panels so we are still using them on the bigger 24v house systems. The build on the plastic pallets is an off shoot of the container idea for those who have panels on their roof and no roof for a container in the yard.
Re: What would you have now if you rebuilt?
Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2018 7:14 pm
by jon_d
We have a walk-in shower base.
The floor is wood with a recessed area for the shower base.
The whole bathroom floor is lined with a fibreglass membrane including the recessed area.
The recessed are is then build up with a cement pad to achieve the sloped to the drain and act as a substrate for the tiles to glue onto.
It's been good for about 15 years but now there is some seepage under the tiles to other areas of the bathroom floor. I'm sure its getting in via the grout. - plus the cleaning required to keep the mould away.
Based on this, I wouldn't recommend a tiled walk in shower. I'd go for the base with a small step.
Re: What would you have now if you rebuilt?
Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2018 7:25 pm
by Newcastle George
Jon, are you sure the water isn't escaping around the floor waste outer edge. Some years ago we noticed damp carpet in the bedroom and finally tracked the problem down to the bath waste which wasn't sealing correctly and water was running under the bath, under the bottom plate of the dividing wall and under the carpet.
George
Re: What would you have now if you rebuilt?
Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2018 8:25 am
by Peter and Sandra
Dot we pulled the back verandah off the existing 70 y/o house a couple of years ago and built onto the back with a new kitchen, pantry, bathroom, laundry and then a 3.6m wide verandah on the western and northern sides (house faces east). The new section has fully insulated walls and doors but we should have fitted double glazed windows as despite the wide verandah they still admit heat on very hot days despite the sun never actually shining onto them. The walls are fully stuffed with insulation and many tubes of no more gaps to seal even the smallest gaps which has resulted in a pretty much airtight building with zero airflow when closed up. Some internal walls are insulated but we should have done more.
The aluminium sash windows have very good O ring type seals and there are no draughts, doors are Corinthian with double glazed glass sections with internal venetians so can go from full light to full privacy with a flick.
As the existing house is on piers the new bit is too but insulated under the floor with batts.
We have two Daikin multi head split systems, each bedroom has a floor mounted head and the living areas have typical wall units.
The laundry, back and side doors are all flush with the verandah so no steps and access to the verandah from the yard and driveway are all ramps so a gopher/wheelchair/walker can go from the back shed to the front street and access the house from both directions.
The new bathroom will have flat floor access to a shower but is yet to be completed and the existing bathroom will be the same eventually.
We have a good friend who is a a plumber and his advice after a lifetime of fixing leaking showers is if it is a suspended timber floor then a moulded shower is the best bet.