Cameron Rosen, the founder of Australia living, has thrown down the gauntlet and challenged 4 new home owners to build sustainably.

The homes are the first to use environmentally conscious building materials that had formally only been used commercially. Even though Australia is far behind Europe Cameron suggests that we can make the most of this by learning from their mistakes and using the information to our advantage.

Thermal comfort

How to use less energy to heat and cool the house is an essential question for building sustainable homes. The way Cameron managed internal climate control was by analysing the heating and cooling needs of each room not  just the whole house. “So that we can limit the (heating/cooling) needs.”

Cameron designed the insulation, shading, aspect maximisation, and double glazed the windows to maintain an internal temperature of 19-26 degrees all year round. As well as the traditional use of insulation in the roof the walls are fully insulated. Cameron uses the analogy of the human body- the layer of fat in the body is like insulation.

The Use  of Timber and Recycled Materials

The choice of materials is key. Concrete is an excellent material for thermal mass. Storing heat in the winter and keeping cool in the summer.

Timber is used for the window frames and external cladding. Aluminium is a temperature conductor so framing windows with aluminium is like having big gaps around your windows. If it is hot outside the aluminium becomes hot and transports the heat inside. Bricks have a similar effect conducting temperature.

The walls have phenolic resin insulation, concrete then the timber cladding externally.

The concrete is recycled industrial waste slurry and the timber cladding is recycled. The internal posts are recycled formally from a bridge.

Recycled Water

Water has become a huge issue for Australia. But think about how much water waste we generate in our homes through washing and gardening.

However in Cameron’s house things are different!

The grey water is recycled for use in the garden.

Water is defined as:-

White - fresh water.

Grey - is from the shower, sinks and laundry.

Black - is sewerage and not yet recyclable.

Permaculture Garden

The garden is a mixture of natives local to Rose Bay and edible trees and plants. The core philosophy of permaculture is that it should maximise effect and minimise work. If you plant natives that will thrive on the rainfall it shouldn't need watering. The design is in harmony with both nature and life and should be sustainable as in providing food for it's inhabitants. The permaculture garden was designed by Cameron Little from Sustainability Services.

Design

In the centre of the house there is a courtyard. The walls connecting to the home are glass. The external wall will be a green wall planted with natives. The roof is an interesting horizontal panelling that can be opened in the winter and closed in the summer.

The benefits are numerous:-

1. The exposure allows the sun to filter through to the southern part of the home (often an area that is too cold in winter). The sunlight hits the concrete floor (the thermal mass) and keeps the room warm all day and night.

2. The ability to close it off in summer adds to the cooling effect of the house. Again it is the thermal mass not being exposed that will keep the room cool.

3. It enables the family to step outside without having to be exposed to the elements, getting some much needed fresh oxygen provided by the green wall.

4. It adds an unusual aesthetic to the home- pleasing to the eye and the senses.

Ultimately Cameron suggests that the cost is comparable to that of a conventional home but the ongoing costs are minimal and the long term savings on water, energy and food are tremendous. Although the NSW energy regulations for a new home is at 3.5 these homes are rated at 8!

Why wouldn't you go for a sustainable home? The initial cost is comparable, the ongoing costs minimal, the aesthetics beautiful and at the end of the day you can feel like you have really accomplished something  when living in it! What more could you ask for in life?

By Molly Niumuqun.

Vanitha. Ryde.

Hi Vanitha, great idea - the sustainability field is growing all the time although to be honest it seemed to me to come off the boil a little when the world 'leaders' failed to reach any meaningful outcomes at Copenhagen in December. It seems to be picking up as businesses, (local) government and non-government organisations decide that they are just going to get on with addressing the issues at hand. As they say: "when enough people lead the leaders will follow".

Sustainability is an increasingly broad area and I suggest that you ‘begin with the end in mind’. There are an ever expanding number of courses available and in order to find the one for you it helps if you can create a more vivid picture in your mind of what you imagine yourself actually doing for work on a day in, day out basis in your ideal circumstances. Do you see yourself as an educator? A trainer? A scientist? An engineer? A water specialist? Renewable energy system designer and installer? A Green Cleaning specialist? A product developer? Are you particularly interested in plants or animals or do people and social or political processes really attract your attention? Different objectives should point you towards different courses.

It is also worth realising that organisations and courses are very good at selling themselves and so it pays to ask people doing the specific type of work you are interested in about the training and qualifications they have. Ask them what courses they are aware of or that their colleagues did and about the course suitability and/or reputation in the industry.

Consider looking for some stints of voluntary or paid work experience so that you can be more familiar and realistic about what these jobs entail so that you don't train or study for years for a job you hate.

In my opinion we need all trades, industries and sectors of the economy to engage with sustainability in some way. Aiming to combine experience or at least an interest in an business or government sector with a solid grounding in the relevant principles and sustainability practices will assist you to identify the right institute or university training to lead you towards finding your niche in the workforce and to develop an ethical and meaningful career over your lifetime.

About: Installing a rainwater tank

- Efficiency in kitchen/bathroom/garden

- What size do you need and where would it fit?

- What extra plumbing would be needed?

- Rebates and incentives

Part 5: Wednesday 15 September

About: Green Building and Renovating

Introduction to environmentally responsible resources, materials & products for building and renovating.

Where: Home Ideas Centre

61-63 O'Riordan Street, Alexandria, Alexandria

RSVP: events@homeideas.com.au

When the Sun's energy reaches the top of our atmosphere, about half of it is reflected back into space, and the other half penetrates to the surface. The energy that does reach the surface warms the land and oceans, and in turn, the land and oceans radiate heat back into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases – such as carbon dioxide, water vapour, and various others – absorb some of this radiated heat, acting like a blanket, and keeping the earth warm enough to sustain life. This is called the natural greenhouse effect, and this is the way it's always worked.Trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. When a tree falls over in the forest and starts to decompose, it releases that carbon dioxide. Another tree will grow nearby and absorb it again, before eventually going the same way as the first tree. The process repeats continuously, and is called the natural carbon cycle, and if left alone, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would always be the same.

The natural carbon cycle is being disturbed at the moment due to human activity. By digging up and burning coal and oil, we're pumping the atmosphere with more carbon dioxide than all of the trees can handle. As a result, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing. In fact, we have more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than we have had at any other time in the last 420,000 years. The earth's blanket of greenhouse gases is becoming thicker, trapping more and more heat, and further warming the planet. This is called the enhanced greenhouse effect, often referred to as global warming or climate change.

But I heard that there were 31,000 scientists who signed a petition denying the link between greenhouse gases and climate change... It's often claimed that 31,000 or more scientists have signed “a petition” denying the link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. But it is well known that the great majority of people on these kinds of lists are not practising research scientists with PhDs, and of those who are, very few are qualified climate scientists, or climatologists.

The vast majority of qualified climatologists agree that humans are significantly contributing to climate change. Don't some scientists believe we're heading into another ice age? There's a popular misconception that in the 1970's "all of the scientists" predicted that we were heading into another ice age. This is one of those persistent assertions that is repeated endlessly, but which has very little basis in fact. It is a complete myth that there was any kind of consensus among climate scientists in the 1970s that we were heading into a cool period – in fact there was far more concern about warming. The myth's basis lies in the fact that some observers and members of the media at the time – and even today – focused their attention on the one or two scientific papers which suggested an ice age, and ignored the 40 to 50 others which said the complete opposite – that we were headed for global warming.

But the earth has been cooling since 1998, hasn't it? No. I want to introduce you to a concept known as "cherry-picking" - this means basically coming up with a claim, then using little snippets of the data to support it, ignoring the rest of the data which clearly shows that the claim is false – as opposed to looking at the data first and THEN working out what it means. In this case, the cherry-picking has involved choosing particular years, like 1998, to try to show 'trends' that don't exist. 1998 is the key here - it was hot. Real hot. The years 1997- 1998 saw a major temperature spike from the strong El Niño in the Pacific, so if we take a big hot El Niño year like 1998 as a starting point, then of course the years immediately following it during the neutral and La Niña phases (the opposite of El Niño) are going to be relatively cooler. Compared to 1998, 2008 was a little cooler. So if you put just those two years on a graph, then you could make it look like the place is cooling down. But if you look at the years 1999 or 2000, 2008 was much hotter than those – and much hotter than any other year for a very long time before 1998. Because 1998 was so hot, it's a year which is very commonly used by climate skeptics to demonstrate again that we're "heading for another ice age" – or at the very least that the planet is cooling down again now, so we don't need to worry about any of this climate change stuff anymore.

Why is it such a big deal anyway? Over the last 100 years, the average global temperature has risen by about 0.7°C. Since 1910, the average temperature in Australia has risen by about 1°C. Although these increases sound very small, they have a big impact – the current best estimates for the future are that by 2030 Australia will face another 1°C increase in average temperature, 20% longer periods of drought, 25% more days of very high or extreme fire danger, and significant increases in storms and other severe weather events. Other generally accepted climate models predict that the temperature in Australia will rise by 0.4-2°C by 2030, and up to 6°C by 2070. But it's not just we humans who are going to be at risk – for example, an increase of 2°C will shrink the kangaroo's habitat by 48%, and an increase of 6°C will shrink it by 96%. Once you lose one species, several other species which rely on it will be threatened, and much more likely to follow suit. What can I do about it? We're not all doomed to grow old in a hot, dry, bushfire-plagued, kangaroo- free future – as long as we do something about it now. We can pressure our governments to take serious action on climate change. We can pass on environmentally-friendly values and behaviours to our children. We can all try to lead more sustainable lives, by making little changes to the things we do every day.