Gas Plumbing
Most people who have mains gas available will have gas connections for hot water and central heating automatically provided by the builder. But what else do you need to think about? Meter Location You will need the meter somewhere where…
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How Much Can You Afford
So you want a new house? Before you start going around display houses the first thing you need to figure out is how much you can afford. Get this wrong as a couple and it can damage your relationship, and…
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Block Orientation
Sponsored by Coral Homes When looking at block orientation a key issue is using the sun to warm the house in winter and keeping the sun out of the rooms in the summer. Typical blocks in Australia are rectangular. About…
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Starting House Design 1- Bubble Diagram 1
A big mistake in designing a house is to get involved in detail too quickly. Rough sketches of a floor plan, which you can easily change, are the best way to start. . . . Much better than using a computer…
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Starting House Design 2 – Bubble Diagram 2
Once you have a basic bubble diagram you can then start to develop it by: Drawing Circulation Routes Think about your block how will people approach the front door. What rooms do you want to overlook approaching visitors. Where do…
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Mission Control
Although we have a study in our house most of the organising the household, paying our bills, writing letters and using the laptop happens on the kitchen counter. So do we really need the study? If I was going to…
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Starting House Design 3
In two other posts (Bubble Diagrams 1 and Bubble Diagram 2) I have described how you can start a design using bubble diagrams. When you are happy with the bubble diagrams then you can start working on how the floor plan will…
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Types of Solar Panels for Electricity
From some of the adverts you see you would think there is only one sort of solar panels…. in fact there are several alternatives. The type of panels generally available are: Monocrystalline solar panels The highest cost but the most…
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What Will It Cost?
When you are setting your budget for a new house, it’s not only the cost of the house and land, but all the other things that you might not have thought about. If you haven’t considered these you might find…
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Solar Electricity – Is It Worthwhile? (2011)
Since this post was written in 2011 there has been many changes; in subsidies, the cost of systems, and Power Supplier charges. For the an updated post see: Solar Electricity – Is It Worthwhile? (2014) There is a lot of…
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