look at that, it almost feels like a house. it has recently seen the addition of key features all houses need (the serious ones anyway): a roof and windows. sounds easy enough, but in this day & age of supply-side shortages getting either on time is not a given.
what is a given, however, is that central banks around the world fight inflation induced by these supply-side shortages (and profit increases by corporations) using the only tool they have in their inventory: by jacking up interest rates, hoping to increase unemployment so wages are pushed down. see the logic? no? me neither – but i guess if all you have is a hammer ….
… don’t bother showing up trying to help build our house. we’re all about the right tool for the right job. in case you wonder what the green sheet is: it is a membrane that allows water vapour to pass through from below, but doesn’t allow water to make its way back inside. it mostly works, there is only one spot that requires a bit of remediation, but the key point is that by allowing moisture to pass through we will hopefully not have mould issues, which plague so many australian houses.
we chose a light coloured roof to ensure inside temperatures are kept down. there isn’t much point in trying to address a problem – say heat build-up inside the house – that can be avoided by not letting it arise in the first place, right? ok, a dark roof may look cooler, but it definitely isn’t (there’s a bad pun).
the window installers were next. of course all windows are double glazed (evacuated & argon filled), with a 5 or 6 mm toughened glass sheet on the outside so the windows can withstand fire; this is part of the requirement to make the house bushfire resistant. the frames are thermally broken and made of … plastic.
we are a bit ashamed of that; we prefer to use renewable materials as much as possible for our new home, but our experience with timber framed windows has unfortunately not been positive, so in this case we hope that longevity will offset the use of non-preferred and non-renewable materials.
these granite rocks are very much natural, sustainable, locally sourced and perfectly suited to help us deal with stormwater management around the house. this isn’t a theoretical question: we just had more than 40 mm of rain on the weekend and it is amazing how much damage that can do to our driveway. the dry creek bed (that’s what it should be under normal circumstances) did its job extremely well, and directed the water around the house.
there are still a few meters of creek bed to build, and i have to create the bridge heads for (at least) two structures we will build to provide an easy crossing. we’ll use timber to build the bridges, i promise.