We had great privilege to open our home, the White Pebble House, to the public on Sustainable House Day on September 11 2016.

Sustainable House Day is run across Australia and gives the public access to Australia’s most environmentally progressive homes. Homeowner’s volunteer to open their home to the public to share their sustainable features and provide peer to peer education.

We conducted private tours through our home and had 160 people come through – we had to end up saying no to many, as 120 people had pre-registered, so we were already over our limit! We had great joy sharing our experience and providing suggestions on what others could do too.

PASSIVE SOLAR

We shared information about the sustainable ‘bones’ of our building, and the site as a whole, incorporating the natural pool, native garden and the 20,000 litre underground tank into the equation, along with sharing our knowledge on passive solar design and how our home used passive design elements to maximise its efficiency.

I then provided the ‘tour’ of the home, explaining the interior design features and how certain elements and features were chosen for their sustainability.

WHAT WAS MOST POPULAR?

The most popular things people wanted to learn more about were the timber tiles on our floors, the ventilator system within our air sealed home, our natural billabong pool and the cantilever drying rail in the laundry – who would have thought!

DONATED FUNDS GOING TO A GOOD CAUSE

We raised over $700 on the day through a donation entry and donated 100% of funds raised to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, which was handed over last week to Andrew the Fundraising Manager. I’m very proud that we raised money to be able to help others. Read more here.

All in all it was a great day, and the positive response and appreciation from those who came on the tour made it all well worth it.

If you’d like to know more about our story, or how to incorporate money saving sustainable features into your new build or renovation, contact Frances on 0401 194 095.