It is a few years since I updated my plans. Some of the plans have been realised and some not yet started. I am now start putting some costs and outcome/benefits projections into the posts so we can see if those come true.
Current Projects
Paving
I have been planning to do some paving for several years. Now I am ready to do it. I have chosen the materials and even got started. Broadly I know what I want and plan to adapt the work to what makes sense over time.
What I Wanted
There are a few things I want from the paving and most of them are about convenience and lifestyle.
- Remove the scrappy grassed area outside the large windows. Grass is hard to maintain in small areas and needs a lot of water in Summer to keep alive. In Spring and Autumn it needs a lot of maintenance, while in Winter it can become soggy and slippery. Not a great thing when I am looking to use that part of the house more
- Provide a better entertainment area for pizza parties and the like. Solid footing is a good thing
- Integrate better with the garden beds and pond. More formal lines will help to make it look clean and tidy
- Reduce the need to water the area. That will save water usage and contribute to the objective to use much less water in the garden – preferably to use rain water collected from my roof
- Provide a small improvement in winter light through reflection. This is likely to be around 200W of additional contribution to heating (16 sq m and between 1 and 2% light reflected). It is essentially free so it is good
- Make it a more attractive entrance area. That happens when I complete paving to the driveway and can convert this part of the house to the main entrance for people.
- Have a sensible and attractive space for all seasons
What I did
Paving has been almost finished. I did most of it in Summer while I had a week of leave. Then January was far to hot and also cricket called. I finished it off in March. I chose large diorite blocks for the paving so that I will get reflective heat in the Winter. In Summer, I will shade the paving using artificial grass strips as an experiment. If it works I will just move the artificial grass twice each year. Otherwise I will find a way to shade the area attaching shade material to the upgraded Pergola.
The Paving project will cost $740 for materials. The diorite blocks are most of that with sand and tools completing the costs. I have/will do this myself for the enjoyment more than any cost saving. I also know I will get the job done the way I want it. I may need to get hold of a high pressure cleaner to remove discolouration from them once finished.
One thing I found after a period of rain was that there was a lot more subsidence than I expected. I am not sure if it is just that the underlying clay has absorbed water or whether it is the sand base. When I have time off work in August, I will lift the pavers and see. At the same time I will add two more rows of paving to complete an area outside the main windows. It will be finished when I mortar the end of the pavers that is towards the lower part of the block and cap the mortar with square basalt blocks to provide a secure and defined edge.
Materials Used
- Diorite pavers from Stonehenge in Fyshwick, selected for their ability to reflect light in Winter and be relatively low maintenance. They also look nicer than clay or concrete pavers.
- Washed river sand. 2.5 m3 was used to level out the surface and bed the pagers.
- Crushed quartzite for the edges. 2 bags of 25kg each. This is the edging to keep the look fairly organic and accommodate the curves and straight lines.
- Level, rubber mallets, decking edging to use for smoothing and levelling. Matock, shovel etc.
- Basalt blocks to use as edging over mortar to secure the far edge of the paving and prevent erosion of the sand.
Result
I estimated $1,000-1,500 for the paving. It will be completed at around $1,200 all up for materials. Plus labour … maybe a few thousand dollars worth of it.
It looks good. It seems to perform well. Winter is no problem when walking out there now. Entertaining is a pleasure. Roll on Summer and lets see how that works out.
Pergola
The pergola needed to be replaced because it was old, falling apart, needed too much maintenance and was not very effective.Here are the issues:
- The pergola is 30 years old and made from Oregon Pine. That is not an ideal material for outside structures.
- It had been covered by grape vines and wisteria. Wisteria damaged the pergola structure and grape vines were quite messy. Moth vines were quite intrusive and high maintenance.
- Using vines to cover a pergola sounds very eco-friendly. You grow something that has leaves in Summer and none in Winter. However, in Canberra this is not so great. Summer is ok but only if there is complete coverage from the vines so that no sun gets in. If you have that complete coverage, then you almost ensure that Winter sun is excluded too. more than 70% of the Winter sunlight was shaded out by the bare branches of the vines, especially the wisteria.
- Poles and beams of the pergola contributed to the shading.
- With the pergola built as an extention of the roof, it is too low in Winter – that is one of the main reasons for it being too shady then
- There are no eaves. The pergola was supposed to provide a kind of eave but does not do that at all well.
In short, the problem was that shade in Summer was not great and there was far too much of it in Winter. I would be better off with a higher pergola that acts as an eave and lets the Winter sun in, taking advantage of the window efficiency.
As with many things I want to do at my house, tradespeople are not very helpful. They simply want to do what they are familiar with and not consider alternatives or help me to create a design that will do what I want. I continually get the line that what I want to do will be illegal and or dangerous.
What I wanted
The things I wanted most were about efficiency and low maintenance. Above that there are a few things that are good to have and should be possible with a bit of creative thinking.
- Pull down the existing structure. It has to happen and will reduce Winter shade. Also it is better to remove it than let it fall down at an inconvenient time and potentially do damage.
- Build a new pergola based on a fairly simple frame that will connect to the walls, fascia and roof tiles. This is different to a pole and beam approach as before.
- The pergola frame needs to be low maintenance. Colourbond seems a good thing.
- It should be possible to dismantle and rebuild if needed. Bolted together might be the best.
- To minimise shade on the windows in Winter. Keeping the pergola high and minimising beams and poles will achieve this
- Use solar PV panels to provide eaves. They are good roofing material and the cost of solar panels is not much greater than the cost of other roofing materials fixed to a frame. They are designed to withstand the elements and last 25-30 years.
- Be able to generate electricity from the PV panels
- Be higher than the lower roof line so that the difference of sun angle between Summer and Winter can be used to better advantage. To do this it will be around 200-300 above the guttering and have a lower slop than the roof. Roof angle is 22 degrees and the ideal angle for the panels will be 11-13 degrees (latitude 34 with 23 degrees deducted in summer. More electricity is generated in the summer when the sun is out for longer periods so an angle that is to perpendicular to the sun in midsummer gives close to the best efficiency. A degree or two more than that is not a bad thing because the rest of the year loses out if the angle is too shallow.
Materials and costs
Pull down. Just labour.
Pergola Frame. About $2500 for the materials and fitting.
Solar Panels and fittings. 2x 1640 x 992 x 35mm modules with 250W and 24 V output. Slightly larger than the remaining 5 which are 1580 x 808 x 50mm and 200 W output at 24V. This is about 11 m overall for these panels and the length that I want to cover. Cost is going to be around $1900 with shipping and fittings.
Wiring will be around $200. An electrician to certify the install will be another $300. Miscellaneous cabinets and fittings will be about $200.
Batteries and chargers are not included in this costing. I have bought them separately.
What I did
The pergola project has been delayed. Firstly it was delayed when the person I thought would do it for me stopped answering phone calls. I am not sure why. After that it has been delayed because my mother has been ill. Also because I had very little time. I now have someone else who will do the job and some time soon we will start (May 2014).
There is another motivation. The existing 30-year-old pergola is falling down. Nails and other fixings are coming out and the timber is falling apart.
July 2014
With a friend doing most of the work, we pulled the pergola down last weekend. It has an immediate visual impact as well as providing noticeable improvements to light and heat in the house. After two weeks, I can declare this to be a great success. Certainly for Winter where the average inside temperature has been nearly a degree higher compared to last year. Outside temperatures have been lower than last year, in the mornings and about the same in the afternoons.