6 Bennett Street

Brighton SA 5048

With parks, shops, transport and such an easy distance to Jetty road shops and Marion shopping centre, it is situated in an ideal location at an extremely affordable price.

This modern contemporary home has been designed to reduce environmental impact. Using low energy building materials, best practice passive solar design, solar hot water, power generation and active power controls, it utilises highly efficient intelligent wiring and LED lighting in all areas.

Recycled materials have gone into the construction of the house, such as 50-year-old hardwood for roof framing and window frames and century old hardwood timbers sourced locally and from interstate to provide the beautifully featured carport and pergola areas. Stabilised Rammed Earth walls used local soils to provide the magnificent thermal mass walls in the living and sleeping areas and recycled bricks were used for external paving.

A lot of time and effort went into space planning and room orientation and clever configuration gives this home a feeling of light and openness by making the best use of solar gains and natural ventilation thought the four seasons.

The sealed concrete floors capture the sun during winter to provide warmth at night and provide thermal mass to keep the home cool in summer. Angled walls and window boxes invite the sun in during the winter seasons. The modern kitchen with European appliances adjoins the open plan living area and is designed to be flexible .

The external form of the building is specifically designed to efficiently capture all available rainwater. This rainwater is then filtered through a 5-step process to control water quality, to the 23,000-litre underground storage rain bank system, which then supplies water to the house via a submersible 30 micron primary filter, along with mains back up.

Solar hot water is provided by a 20 evacuated tube array with electric boost to a 250 litre stainless steel tank providing more hot water with less sun and minimal water losses due to overheating. Lower water use shower heads and cold water diverters sending water back to the rain bank, ensure minimal water wastage in the bathrooms.

With extremely low power 50,000 hour LED lighting, coupled with intelligent wiring that shuts down unnecessary power in the living areas, the 8 panel roof mounted 1.5 kWh photovoltaic power station will provide on average of 2007 kWh of electricity per year and goes a long way to providing the electrical requirements for the home.

Heating and cooling costs are minimised through the use of screened louver and high level windows to take full advantage of cross flow ventilation. The feature Rammed Earth thermal mass wall in the living area has been insulated from the outside to better retain heat in the winter and stabilise the internal temperature in summer. Ceilings, internal and external walls have been heavily insulated with R4.6 to roof and R3.5 to walls. The sealed concrete slab is designed to absorb radiation in the winter, and to re-radiate heat at night which is supplemented by an electric flat panel heater mounted on the thermal mass wall in the living area. Ducted evaporative cooling throughout all rooms is provided to ensure internal comfort during the extremes of summer.

Outside garden areas have been carefully planned with low water use, largely native species. A multi-station programmable irrigation system has also been installed to ensure harvested rainwater is fully utilised.
Designed and constructed by SALT E-HOUSE (www.saltehouse.com.au). Salt Studios Architects, Elizabeth Warwick and Andrew Pawlowski, highly regarded for their ongoing commitment to building and design innovation incorporating environmental sustainability and sensitivity, this is regarded as a innovative and environmentally friendly home.