Going Green - the sustainable investment property thread

Link to book tickets:
COOL SUBURBS: BUILDING A COMFORTABLE HOME

I will hopefully be heading along to this.

 

This one looks good too:
Hami Hill Home Open - Tours & Workshops

 

Great thread!
I've got two blocks that I eventually want to build townhouses on and this is precisely what I want to do. I want to keep them as rentals, so I've wondered if there would be renters that would be willing to pay more to have these green credentials (as well as solar, which is a direct financial benefit to them? This is the NSW Central Coast.

 

Most of our investment properties are at least 7 STAR ENERGY RATING and we feel there is a reward of lower costs for our renters than if they were living in a cold house or a hot house.

Further to this the same can be argued for re-sale values. A green house should be worth more.
Regarding the loan, a bank should assess serviceability on a loan for a sustainably designed house more favorably as bill commitments should be less.

 

Sustainable House Day is on 15 Sept 19.
Renew is on the callout for homes to open to the public as well as volunteers.

Have you worked hard to make your home more sustainable? Do you have knowledge to share with others about how to renovate/build sustainably and lighten your footprint on the Earth?

Submit your home to open it to the public on Sustainable House Day, to be held this year on Sunday, September 15.

Sustainable House Day is a national event that gives people a privileged view into exceptional homes designed, built or renovated with energy efficiency and environmental living in mind and allows them to speak to and learn from homeowners.

More details here: Submit Your House - Sustainable House Day

 

For anyone who hasn't been to sustainable house day before I would highly recommend it. It is a great event (at least the Perth one is).

 

Indeed. However as far as I am aware this is certainly not the case at the moment?

 

Thanks for kicking off a thread on my jam. I changed trades to get into building so I can build houses like this. Ive also done a development that started out with big green dreams but fell a bit short. Ill discuss this later.
Ive just started going over the Joshs house info. Im from the east coast so I don't understand the preference for double brick in WA. I understand thermal mass but this is a choice as far as I can work out????

 

My PPOR builder
Home Page - Green Homes


Green Homes Australia Brisbane North

 

Thanks @Heinz57 .

Great to see a volume (?) home builder pushing the sustainability thing.

I must admit though I am inherently sceptical of these sort of outfits who claim to be sustainable and include a bunch of energy/water efficient standard inclusions (which is great) but offer off-the-shelf home designs. In my opinion sustainable design starts first and foremost with site responsive design; if you don’t get your orientation right (sun angle, prevailing winds) then everything else is just lipstick on a pig. What was your experience @Heinz57 ? Did they insist on/start by making the standard floor plan respond to your particular site?

Seems a bit odd their standard designs don’t have eaves either, nor fans as far as I can tell?

That all being said, the ‘end game’ for the housing industry MUST be to get sustainability into the big volume house builders which will always mean standardised floor plans to some extent, so I think it is a good thing there are guys like Green Homes out there. It looks like what these guys are offering is better than 95% of the current housing stock being built.

 

Didn’t use their designs so can’t comment. Although they are more of a franchise than volume builder I’d say.

Worked with an awesome local builder (see Facebook page) and Brisbane designer on a solar passive design. Haven’t used air conditioning all summer and electricity bill just pennies.

 

CRC for Low Carbon Living: Guide to low carbon residential buildings – retrofit

Guide to low carbon residential buildings – retrofit

A free easy to read guide on how to make your home healthy, efficient, comfortable and low carbon written for people with little or no formal training or experience in construction and design to those who are qualified builders and architects.

I haven't actually read this one (maybe when I do my next retrofit project) but the CRC do some good work.

 

What a great idea! I just planted few in my garden as we drink lemon/lime with water first thing in the morning.
Actually I could gift long great tenants lemon/lime trees...!

 

I just came across this range of permeable pavers (reduce runoff, increase aquifer recharge, increase biodiversity, reduce heat island effect and reduce embodied energy, compared to normal paving). My only concern (from a sustainability point of view) with turfed pavers is the potential need to water it - though putting an agregate down instead of turf can get around this.

01 AusCast GrassDiamond Paver

Some of them look great, though maintenance is obviously a potential issue.

I had a property where I ripped up some of the verge put down some compacted limestone (which is also a pain to maintain) to provide extra parking for the tenants - in retrospect this would have been a much better solution (though I bet more expensive) that would be much harmonious with the rest of the grassed verge.

I know not all local governments are happy to approve this sort of thing for driveway crossovers though - anyone have any experience with this?

 

City of Vincent went through a stage where they liked a similar product that grew grass in the negative spaces but long term it didn't hold up. This was simply because the grass really wasn't happy to grow when it was being driven over and hand watered irregularly. The grass would then die and the paving ended up becoming trip hazards due to uneven filling in of the negative areas.

 

That’s a shame. Though I don’t see why you couldn’t have pop-up irrigation on the sides of the driveway to deal with the watering issue.

I think City of Bayswater went through a similar trial process. I will try and find the articles about it when I get a second.

 

Josh’s House (refer previous posts) uses a plastic framework called ‘Nearo cell’ with bluemetal aggregate over the top and a geotextile fabric below (to stop weeds). Looks ok (not as nice as grass but better than dead grass!) and I think I recall him saying it was cheaper than paving, though the gravel doesn’t always stay in the driveway and it can be a bit noisy to drive on if you use it for a driveway next to bedrooms like in a battle axe duplex/triplex lot.

 

Minister Tinley launches new solar scheme

Housing Minister Peter Tinley has announced that ‘The Amble Estate’ is the first green titled subdivision in Western Australia to provide a solar power system with every home.

The Minister advises that 90 per cent of homebuyers have signed up to be part of the solar Power Purchase Agreement (PPA).

The Department of Communities is delivering this urban infill project in collaboration with Yolk Property Group and Ventura Home Group.

The Amble Estate will see up to 129 dwellings built over three stages on the former Hainsworth Primary School site.

Homebuyers are also offered a complimentary Sustainable Living Package to reduce non-renewable energy use and create cost-savings for households.

 

LG Chem RESU series home batteries seem to be going cheap lately. Word has been for a while LG are going to step back a layer from the consumer and provide the modules to another company to package into a wider solution so there could be some run outs being priced in.

The units are DC which has some advantages in certain cases, useful for retrofitting to existing systems or for compliance reasons in QLD. State govt is offering a 0% interest loan also: Queensland Solar And Battery Grants/Loans Update - Solar Quotes Blog

 

My fly ash blend concrete floor is almost finished. Final buff is next week once all the trades are out