Longhouse Home Designs

23/05/2022

We've been researching materials and products for our current project this week. Looking into natural (jute, wool, sisal) vs synthetic carpet we were reminded of this video.
Just another reason to use natural, sustainable products and materials, even if they're a bit more work and expense.

In 2020, the UL FSRI team captured a new side-by-side burn comparison of natural vs. synthetic furnished rooms. Since the original comparison video was share...

23/05/2022

Every day I fall more in love with this design.

17/05/2022

H**pcrete is an ancient form of infill insulation, used since early medieval times to create solid insulated wall panels. H**p is a very fast growing woody herb which has been used for millennia for it’s long, strong fibres. The fibres were mostly used for rope and rough cloth, but these days we use the seeds and oil for their health benefits, and can turn the fibre into paper, clothes, and even bioplastic.

The woody part of the plant that isn't used for fibre is very porous, and is chopped and combined with lime and water to create a slurry. This is poured into forms, and once set creates a solid, insulated wall panel.

Air moving slowly through the wall is filtered by the h**p, creating cleaner internal air, and over time the lime absorbs CO2, meaning this material is carbon positive. Internal clay render will also regulate internal humidity in the building, making it more comfortable and healthy.

This is really an amazing material, which has been sorely lacking from our building landscape, due to strict prohibition on cultivation. This is changing now though, and there are some big producers coming online so we should see a surge in use in the near future.

03/05/2022

Here is the latest project underway. These are the final concept images for a set of eco-tourism cabins on the NSW South Coast.

The land is all 50+ year regrowth coastal forest which was spared from the 2019 fires.

These cabins will be built in and around the trees and are intended to offer visitors a real connection with the forest and it's abundance.

17/04/2022

Hope you all have a great Easter!

15/04/2022

The kitchen is the heart of the home, and this cooker is the heart of the kitchen.

Such a perfect little work station, with a splashback of hand made tile, the floating shelves with built in lighting, and stained glass pantry door from the old QVB in Sydney.

Love it.

13/04/2022

Rigid insulation panels have a few uses, but the standard stuff is made of various forms of polystyrene foam, which is all around awful stuff, and we should all avoid using it if there’s a choice. Luckily, most of the time there is a choice!

We use rigid insulation for things like under a concrete slab, or to form a weather barrier and thermal break on the outside of framing. Panels are great for this because they can form a full skin around the building. It’s a little bit of a helper for extreme climates, and mostly we don’t need to worry about it here. Of course, we always want to make sure we have the best systems and materials to minimise environmental damage and energy use.

So what are the options?

Starting with the bad stuff – XPS foam boards are rot and water proof (which means they’ll never break down after disposal…) so they’re useful for under-slab and slab-edge insulation. Handy but not vital. Foam panels are sometimes used for sheathing to form that thermal break (heat can travel through your framing and the thermal break stops that). There are a few types, but on this front we have alternatives, so we’d never recommend using the stuff.
The big new player in rigid insulation is wood fibre panels. The provide a thermal break, an air and water barrier, and are made form plantation softwood. They’re imported though, so they some some carbon miles. For extreme climates, or if you want to head toward a passive standard, these are the ticket.
A great Australian made product is Durra straw panels. Insulating, sound resisting, and made form high density straw. They’re an alternative to gyprock for homes, but gyprock is pretty good anyway.

All in all, rigid insulation has it’s place and you should know about it, but it’s unlikely you’ll ever use it in a home in most of Australia.

11/04/2022

This is a heavy timber truss design called "Priory" style after the one and only place it's known to have been built.
It's a beauty and one I've been trying to convince clients to choose for years now. 😆

09/04/2022

Typically seen as a very fringe material used a lot in “alternative” home building, straw bales and straw panel systems are being used more for standard home building these days.

The material itself is a great insulator and forms the bulk of the wall as well so there’s less framing to deal with. We use rice or wheat straw for building bales, which are packed tighter and drier than normal to boost their durability and insulation value. Rice straw is great too because termites don’t like eating it!

Straw is hands down the best material for disposal at the end of it’s service life, and a close second for its origin. The straw comes from the stalks left after harvest which otherwise gets burned, so storing that carbon is a great way to use the material. At the end of the building’s long life (there are 300 year old straw bale homes in America!) you can just pull the walls down and spread the straw out to start regenerating the site.

Lets take a quick look at four great features of straw bale insulation:
- Thick walls. Thick walls are more soundproof, and feel extra secure and comforting. A good thick wall really makes you feel safe and secure, and adds a character that you cant get any other way. Looking out a window you can feel the bulk of the building around you.
- Fireproof. With 5cm of Lime render on the exterior and a massive R-value, straw bale homes are easily made into natural fire shelters.
- DIY. Building with bales is very hands on and free-form, so it works really well for a DIY building style. Even if it’s the only part of your home you build yourself, you’ll have something to show off and feel proud of forever. And it’s super easy and very forgiving.
- Community. DIY also means getting all your friends and family involved. From toddlers to oldies, everyone can have a hand in helping build. It’s such a great experience, and you’ll find loads of people willing to help so you can build a little community along with your home.

07/04/2022

One of our favourite unbuilt projects around here is this Japanese-Australian cottage. The two styles work really harmoniously and this little house would have been really nice.

05/04/2022

Cellulose is our next insulation material. This stuff is pretty great.

As far as the material source goes, this one ticks a lot of boxes. Its made right here in Aus from recycled paper, ground up into little chunks. The loose fluffy material is pumped into cavities like walls or ceiling spaces.

To make it fire, pest, and mold resistant, cellulose insulation is treated with Borax. This is a pretty much harmless chemical used regularly as a “natural” alternative to more toxic treatments. In the levels its used here it is very safe and of no concern at all.

Aside from being recycled and low-tox, there are a couple of other big benefits. Its a reasonably low cost solution, and easy to install, which is good. It does have to be installed by a pro though, so you can’t DIY this one sorry.

The big plus is that you can make it as thick as you like, so you can do things like super-thick walls for insulation values way above what you’d get with standard batts. It will also fill the space you put it in so there wont be little gaps all over the place like you can get with batts.

Everything has its place in the world, and we reckon there’s a lot of uses for cellulose.

03/04/2022

Lets have a look at insulation batts!

The ones that are in pretty much every house in Australia, and are famous for being itchy and awful, shedding tiny glass fibres everywhere. They’re also infamous for being used extensively during the federal government’s insulation scheme, for better or for worse.

Cheap builders love to use batt insulation because its cheap and easy to stuff into ceilings and walls. Whether they’ll just throw the sealed bags into the ceiling cavity or “forget” to put the batts in a wall or two is a question we won’t get into now. Its one you should remember if and when you build though...

We want to talk here about the good types of batts. The ones that are more healthy, more sustainable, and that you can even install yourself if you’re so inclined.
Batts are a pretty good type of insulation – they do a great job, they’re easy to install, simple to work with, and are really cheap. If you’re going to get batts installed (or do it yourself!) there are two products we’d recommend pretty much equally.

Earthwool batts are mostly made of recycled glass, and Greenstuff batts are recycled polyester (plastic) so they’re both great on the material origin front. They both perform about the same but each has their own little foibles. Earthwool still sheds some glass fibres, but they’re much gentler than the horrible pink or yellow batts. Greenstuf is really good, but at the moment we’re questioning whether we want to keep using it. With evidence mounting of microplastics getting into everything (really, its horrifying) maybe creating more plastic fibres isn’t the best option.

In the end though, the benefits of having a really well insulated home far outweigh the problems. Our advise is this: Use as much insulation as you can, if you go for batts pick one of these, and don’t sweat the little things.