“A Tasmanian green renovation” …. It just makes sense

Why a Green Renovation ??

WHY NOT !!  It just makes sense.

UPDATE!!!

Sean, Mandy, and Jade the Jack Russell sold GreenTasReno house in May of 2019 after completing all the renovations. We then moved into our investment property for 16 months whilst buiding a sustainable hempcrete home. We moved into Westbury Hemphouse in September 2020.

July 2022 update: Westbury Hemp House is once again open for casual tours once a month. For more information about the tours please head on over to our website www.diyeco.com.au

You can follow our journey building a new solar passive hempcrete home also in Westbury at our new blog www.greentasbuilder.wordpress.com . See what we did with  renovating a rental property in a sustainable way so that tenants might enjoy the same low power bills and healthy living as we do, www.greentasrenter.wordpress.com

 

GREENTAS RENO Blog:

Welcome to our GreenTas Reno, our blog that follows the renovation we carried out to our 1950’s weatherboard and tin roofed house in the picturesque village of Westbury, Tasmania, Australia. Here you will find information, links and pictures of our renovation as it progresses.

Although we finished renovating in 2018 and the blog around that time also alot of the information will still be relevant. I apologise if links are broken or not relevant anymore. Keeping up with link checking etc on a blog that has over 130 posts is a full time job on its own.

To see the latest updates check out THE BLURB!! in the Index or the archives. To find specific things make use of the search bar.

Use the Index in the side menu to have a look at posts on each room, the exterior, and the garden as it progresses.

Subjects like hot water systems, roofing, solar , paints and finishes, and many other things that we are including in our renovation.

Most important of all make sustainable changes to your house and the world reaps the benefit.

• Use sustainable or recycled products.
• Non toxic coatings on floors and walls
• Sensible insulation
• Solar power
• Alternative hot water systems
• Publications and websites that offer some of this information
• Introduce new technologies that help reduce waste in this wasteful world.
• Half the fun is in the challenge and hunt for these things.
• Spread the word about products that work or not in some cases.

 

To find out the reasons as to why we did what we did check out the “About Us” page

Rocket stove pizza oven and earthbag wall build

• Earthbag wall and cob pizza oven part one

  

  For about the last three years I have been thinking about building a cob pizza oven and a nice curvy earthbag wall to create an entertaining area at the end of  our deck. There is a concrete slab there that a shed used to be on and I thought I would use that as the…

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  January 7, 2017

• Earthbag wall and cob pizza oven part two. Rocket pizza oven

  

  As I was planning, designing, and musing over how to build our earthbag wall and cob pizza oven I was reading articles about how much wood a wood fired oven uses. This correlates with my own experiences in building two previous wood fired ovens in our local community gardens here is Tassie. An article in…

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  January 24, 2017

• Earthbag wall and cob pizza oven part 3. Truth window and rendering the wall

  

  Once the wall was finally built, the suspended concrete slab poured and the rocket stove built it was time to build a truth window and render the earthbag wall. I will update this post as I put successive layers of render on. A truth window is often built into straw bale houses so that people…

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  February 15, 2017

• Earthbag wall and cob pizza oven part four. Building the pizza oven

  

  The last installment covered rendering the earthbag wall and creating the suspended concrete slab. Now the fun begins, the construction of the pizza oven out of very simple easy to source materials; clay, sand, straw, and water. Together these become cob. There are 10 steps to building the pizza oven. Work out your clay to…

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  March 23, 2017

• Earthbag wall and Pizza Oven part 5. Finishing off and trying it out

  

  After completing all the rendering, building etc we were very keen to christen the pizza oven. One Sunday afternoon in late March (perfect early autumn weather here in Tassie) we invited about 30 people to come join us in a pizza afternoon. We supplied the pizza dough, cheese and tomato base and asked people to…

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  May 2, 2017

Casual Sunday home tours of Westbury Hemp House running again

Just a quick update to let people know that after having to stop the home tours due to Covid restrictions and just plain common sense we are starting them up again in March.

We run them on the fourth Sunday of the month from 2-3pm. Only take ten adults plus any children for a casual tour of a sustainable, owner built hempcrete home in Tasmania, Australia.

All details on www.diyeco.com.au including where to book tickets.

Sustainable House Day 2017

For more than 15 years, Sustainable House Day has provided a great opportunity for hundreds of thousands of people to visit some of Australia’s leading green homes – ones  that are not only environmentally friendly, but cheaper to run and more comfortable to live in.

In Northern Tasmania there are three houses opening their doors on Sunday 17^th September to give people an opportunity to see sustainable houses and to ask the house owners about their sustainable journey. The houses are in Westbury, Evandale and Sheffield. If you are interested in attending any of the houses please register at www.sustainablehouseday.com This will enable you to find out the addresses of the houses.

We started our renovation journey back in 2008 and opened our house in Westbury on Sustainable House Day four times in the past. We have also kept this blog of our journey www.greentasreno.wordpress.com Now after a four year break we are re-opening our 1950’s weatherboard home that has been renovated using sustainable materials and products. People will be able to see how these products have stood up to daily wear and tear, ask us why we chose the products we did and how we  made those decisions. Come along and see the additions like the shading options on the east side, or the rocket stove fire cob pizza oven which will be up and running.

To find out more:

Website: sustainablehouseday.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sustainablehouseday/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SustainableHD

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sustainablehouseday/