This beautiful 4 year old strawbale home has been built for comfort based on the principles of passive solar design. Its construction of rendered strawbales, timber, concrete and glass, combined with non-toxic strawboard and internal finishes – minimises its environmental footprint.
It is a highly desirable, three-bedroom, two-bathroom contemporary minimalist home on a highly manageable 18 acres. And the location is ideal: centred between Kyneton and Daylesford.
Open to the north and nestled into a gently undulating and protective slope, the home is snug and warm in winter, and cool in summer. The thermally broken German designed Moser ‘tilt and slide’ doors and windows are all double glazed. In summer there is plenty of scope for cross flow ventilation.
Nothing beats hydronic floor heating – in this case it’s powered by a small Finnish wood-fuelled boiler. There’s 130,000 litres of rainwater storage and a 5kw SMA off-grid solar system, which runs like clockwork and is blissfully unaffected by grid outages.
Thoughtful extras include a Falcon Classic stove with two ovens (1 electric via the solar system, the other gas), a 3 bay garage, a workshop area, a tack room or sleepout complete with its own (3rd) bathroom, a 2000 litre Jaspi (Finland) hot water tank, and a worm farm septic system.
The vendor decided at the outset that the home would be 100 per cent off grid and was guided by a leading Victorian sustainability designer in achieving an impressive environmental home which provides all its own energy, water, and waste processing. – not only was this achieved but the floor plan opens up to the terrain with a complimentary palette of colour & finish, proving that this is a home that doesn’t just fit into the area – it shows a way forward.
