Nearmap Update - The Roof

Here's the latest from Nearmap showing the house with the roof on. The hallway has annex ceilings, that can be seen here as a continuation of the upper storey roof line.

Heating & Cooling

In our old house we had gas ducted heating and evaporative cooling. We felt that the ducted heating tended to dry the air (newer internal unit) and the evaporative cooling (albeit an old unit) did exactly the opposite, putting too much moisture into the air. Like most of the other items in the house I spent considerable time looking online and asking people about their preferred option. Here's just a few of the points I'd gleaned;

- Melbourne's cooler climate relies more heavily on heating, therefore gas ducted is the default option
- Reverse cycle AC can be expensive to run if done incorrectly
- Using larger 3 phase multi zone units can be more economical to run
- Mitsubishi commercial are good units
- Daikin or Actron Air are generally the two options at the higher end of the market
- The controller boards in the Daikin are expensive to replace
- Actron Air use Copeland scroll digital compressors (from Emerson USA) and are made in Australia (source: Whirlpool)
- The scroll technology provides variable capacity output from 10% to 100%
- The external module can be noisy, so don't place it near bedrooms
- The internal module is big, so along with the ducting it needs significant space under the house or in the roof
- The ESP Plus system uses variable fan speed technology and can significantly reduce energy consumption

Source: Actron Air

We chose the Actron Air ESP Plus SRD 230C 3 phase 23kw heat/cool model

Lighting

I thought I was heading down the right track by trying to find the best LED lighting for the house. I researched the various manufacturers and checked colour temperatures, spread, lifespan, consumption and actual appearance compared to existing halogens. I'd come to the conclusion that the best product was the Curve D900 designed by Brightgreen in WA and made in China to their specifications - http://brightgreen.com/.

All of this research went out the window in the space of 2 minutes after meeting our electrician. At ~$125 per LED downlight plus fitting, we quickly found the cost to upgrade was significant $4-5k (based on no. of lights). When our electrician confirmed these are best on the market, but come at a cost that isn't necessarily realised as a cost saving over the life of the product we thought it best to stick with the standard halogen.

We opted for pendant lighting over the kitchen island bench, dining room & powder room as we wanted these areas to be a feature of our home - down lights were also installed in these areas for functional purposes. The pendants we selected are a new product called 'Torino', that are a replica of the Italian Designed AXOLIGHT Spillray Pendant. Available in several colours & configurations, they are a 12v 20w halogen.

We selected the "smoke" colour (pictured below) which compliments our Raven Caeserstone perfectly & have gone with 3 x singles over the island bench, 2 x 3 drop pendants over the dining room & a 6 drop pendant in the powder room to add a bit of retro glamour for guests.

What month to start building?

With all the rain we've had recently, I began to think about a concern I had before we started to build - what month/season should you start building? Some may consider this approach rather pedantic, but considering the investment you're making in building your new home, it's something worth considering.

The timing largely depends on the time taken to build, but with the average build (for our builder) taking between 9 - 12 months, it makes sense to do site preparation and footings late spring Oct/Nov. The ground is dry enough to dig footings/pour concrete, but not so dry it's impossible to dig. Assuming everything else goes to plan you should be at lock-up with the roof on late April, before any substantial rain in May/June.

In our case we got a lot of rain in May before the lower roof tiles were laid and we had a lot of water in the house. The water isn't that much of a problem, as I'd read somewhere that the yellow tongue can be submerged for 3 months, but you need it to be thoroughly dry before plastering starts so this did delay our plastering by a few weeks.