Tropical Living

[slopsbucket]

This is actually my house without the roof. It took 2 of us 28 days to build and cost around $5000. That's tiny little Australian dollars, not those big shiny Yankee ones. And $3000 of that was 170 meters of underground power line and water pipe. That was brand new, the rest of it is mostly second hand materials.

Scale is 10 blocks to 1 meter.

The Obsidian Glass represents Fly Screen Wire. I left the door out because I couldn't be bothered.

For a single man it's the most practical house I've ever lived in. The major consideration is Air Flow. As soon as the sun sets the wind stops, at night you barely get the faintest of breezes. And it's hot, even when you've lived here for decades.

You can't use any timber at all because of termites. They'll even eat treated hardwood. They eat plasterboard too. And all timber rots away within 10 years here, even if you manage to keep the termites away. So it's steel and concrete everywhere.

There's another consideration about Air Flow that most people new to the region don't seem to understand, if the air is still for too long everything gets covered in mould. The floor, the ceiling, the walls, everything. So no closed in cupboards and wardrobes, that's just asking for trouble, everything is open shelving and racks.

The garden bed around my veranda is a riot of Spinach, Beans, Tomatoes, Capsicums and Chillies, it gives the impression of a wall and some privacy without restricting any air flow. And it tastes good, local women kept trying to give me flowery things and things with spots on the leaves, why would I want that?

The little swimming pool is one of those cheap plastic things with the one blow up ring around the top, best $50 I ever spent.

Conventional "boxed in" houses with regular sized windows are a disaster here, you can't live in them because of the heat, and if you close the house up when you go to work by the time you get home the whole house will smell like cat's piss. And all your clothes and bedding too.

But you can't have my style of house in the city because of privacy and security. Your only option is to aircondition the house 24/7, and if it's a big house your electricity bill is going to be worth more than your mortgage. People that are overly concerned with how neighbours and friends see their house can't afford to live here.

Not something I need to consider, I'm surrounded by tropical rainforest and population density is around 1 person for every 7 square Km.

If you want to have a closer look no mods are required but you'll need the Fly privilege because of it's size.

MyHouse.zip 2.5 Mb.

http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?fi ... 6560119274



Cheers,

Andrew.

[slopsbucket]

Just a side note that might give someone a laugh.

We're one of those strange little communities that has slipped through the cracks. 15 years ago it was a recent development and still didn't have a local council. Some bright spark in government came up with the idea that because the Northern Territory is so sparsely populated it only needed 5 Councils, they called them "Super Shires", each one of them is bigger than Texas. (he probably had a B.A. in economics) And when they drew the lines on the map they forgot about us.

We have no local government to pay land rates and taxes to.

We don't complain. :)

Cheers,

Andrew.

[slopsbucket]

Just some specs because a couple of you have downloaded it.

It might not look it but this building will withstand category 5 cyclones.

The narrow posts around the outside of the building are 150 mm X 75 mm galvanised box section 4 mm thick.

The thicker posts around the main living area are only 100 mm X 100 mm galvanised box section but they're 8 mm thick.

All posts have "tags" or bits of scrap metal welded to the bottom of them to give the concrete something to grip and the bottom 2 meters is painted with an oil based anti-oxidant resin to prevent rust. All post holes are 900 mm wide and 1500 mm deep and the concrete that they're filled with has less sand than regular mixes.

Roof trusses are 200 mm galvanised "C" section, the top of the C is resting on the top of the posts, the bottom of the C is cut to fit tightly around the post and it's welded top and bottom.

Roof purlins are 50 mm galvanised box section 4 mm thick welded to the trusses all around and set 900 mm apart. The roof is galvanised corrugated iron and has a "tech screw" in every flute on every purlin.

I think this house will last a few years. :)

Cheers,

Andrew.

[benrob0329]

Cool, if only MT had better physics...