Whale Sightings and Council Requisitions

 

As I should have anticipated I was required to address some further matters for Council. My eaves gutter was too close to the boundary on one small section. The house was more than the required distance from the boundary and the eaves gutter complied with the BCA setbacks but not with Shoalhaven Council’s own LEP. The total distance I was out was 225mm. So this issue was resolved by moving the whole house over by 100mm, shortening the eave by 100mm and putting a 25mm smaller gutter on.

Secondly I had to put all my BASIX information on the plan. I had misunderstood the requirements on the BASIX certificate where it indicated that certain matters needed to go on the plan that this included the specification. This matter was also easily solved by adding a number of extra notes on my landscape plan which now became my “Landscape and BASIX Plan”.

Unsurprisingly the third requirement was to provide more information to show that the hemp lime walls complied with the performance requirements of the Building Code of Australia. I was a little worried about this, but this was solved by a quick e-mail to Klara Marosszeky from the Australian Hemp Masonry Company, who I am sourcing my hemp and binder from. Klara promptly sent me a copy of the report prepared by the UNSW Centre for Construction Innovation and her Hemp Lime Construction Manual. This information previously satisfied Lismore Council, so I sent it off to Shoalhaven Council.

On a beautiful warm late spring weekend we headed back down to Culburra to meet up with Nowra builder, Glen Roulstone, who will be providing us with some advice and assistance with the build. Unsure how to find a local builder willing and able to assist an owner builder, we put an add in the local paper and Glen fitted our requirements.

The weekend provided excellent swimming, further confirming why we had chosen to build at Culburra, and as a bonus two whales and a calf put on a spectacular show tail slapping and fin waving just off Culburra Beach. It was as if the whales were having as much fun in the water as we were.

Back on the building front preparation continued, obtaining window quotes, frame quotes and roofing quotes.

Grand Designs and The Hemp Gallery

As I am building and a fan of the show “Grand Designs” I felt compelled to go to the Grand Designs exhibition at Darling Harbour on the weekend of 21-23 October 2011. The building section of the show was quite useful, as was the advice section where you could speak to experts in various areas, but the kitchen and bathroom section was very ‘high end’ and well out of my modest budget.

However, hearing Kevin McCloud speak was a highlight; he is an engaging and thoughtful speaker. I listened to both his talks during the day, thankfully they were different. In his second talk he spoke briefly and showed a slide of a housing project his company HAB had undertaken at Swindon in the UK, involving the construction of a number of hemp masonry row houses. During question time at the conclusion of his presentation I asked why he had chosen hemp construction for the Swindon project. He gave an excellent explanation of the hemp construction process and the benefits of hemp building. In hindsight, I only wished I had recorded his response so I could share it with more people, but it was great to see hemp building being put out before the audience at the Grand Designs exhibition.

A further highlight was discovering “The Hemp Gallery” at their stall at the Grand Designs exhibition. Now that I am building with hemp I have become more aware of other hemp products and was excited to see hemp furnishing and curtaining fabrics, hemp floor rugs and hemp bed linen. The products showed the diversity of uses for hemp and were of high quality, gone are the days when hemp fabrics were rough and scratchy. I had the good fortune to speak to Ray and Beatrice who run The Hemp Gallery at Belrose, NSW, about hemp products, hemp building and my own hemp building project.

Ray asked if I had read Steve Allin’s “Building with Hemp” book. I had not as I had believed it was out of print. Ray had a spare copy and sent it to me. “Building with Hemp” goes through a lot of issues I had questions about like running electricity and water through hemp masonry walls, as well as having lots of pictures of different hemp construction methods and render finishes. Many thanks to Ray and Beatrice from The Hemp Gallery.

I have since become aware that “Building with Hemp” is still available from Steve Allin’swebsite. It has also started me thinking about other uses for hemp in my building.  I have started looking into hemp insulation for the roof. Such products are available from a number of sources in the UK, but I am not sure if they are available in Australia.  If anyone knows where hemp roof insulation is reasonably available in Australia send me an e-mail at culburrahemphouse@hotmail.com