Eco House and Sustainable Living

What is SUSTAINABILITY?

SUSTAIN (from Collins English Dictionary)  +  ABILITY

From Latin ‘sustinere’ – to hold up                              This is the quality of being able.
To maintain or prolong                                                  The power or capacity to do or act

Sustainability is then a process to make deeper meaning of the world we live in. To find within ourselves and our communities, the vitality and courage to hold up and stand up for what we see as the truth. The truth about the path we need to walk and the respect we need to show, to preserve our resources for future generations. Supporting our transition to a just and thriving world, where we live alongside nature, not separate to it.

Our Eco House

On a mission to make a building of almost entirely rescued materials, Kimbriki has created this wonderful place to inspire you – The Eco House Education Centre. Over 80% of the materials used to build the Eco House are reused materials that have been rescued from landfill disposal and was officially opened in June 2011.

Materials used:

• Street Power Poles: The core structure of the Eco House is built from that are often replaced, so are a valuable building material to recover and reuse.
• Corrugated iron, rescued: a wonderfully Australian building material, has been rescued from the metal pile and been used for the walls of the Eco House, saving money and making a smaller carbon footprint.
• Doors from rescued wharf timbers: It was obvious to us that such a great building needed amazing doors. These doors have been created specifically for the Eco House from rescued wharf timbers.
• Timber flooring, rescued: A truckload of timber destined for disposal and now exemplifies a fine example of why some things are worth saving.
• Concrete flooring embedded with glass, engine parts and grilles: Its mass is great for moderating the temperature. It has been polished to reveal these hidden treasures.
• Recycled windows: The embodied energy for glass is 12.7 MJ/kg compared with clay bricks with 2.5MJ/kg. That was why it was so important for us to use rescued windows to build the Eco House as it is a much better option than recycling them.
• Interior panelling from ABC studios: We were happy to receive these panels when the ABC upgraded their studios. Insulation by the bag load was diverted from disposal, for use in the walls of the Eco House.
• Re-used School chairs: Schools may be replacing chairs, but many are still good for another life. The chairs in our education centre are all rescued.
• Front railings, rescued: Beautiful railings delivered to the metal recycling area at Kimbriki were rescued as we thought that such craftmanship should have another life adorning our Eco House.

Solar Panels on the roof and a “smart meter” provide 23 kilowatts of valuable energy which along with an 80-kilowatt array on the main office building, charges the company’s fleet of electric and hybrid vehicles, powers the data centre in the main admin building as well as the air conditioning and other electrical needs of the smaller offices and amenities buildings on site. The excess from both systems is then supplied back to the grid as green energy.

The large Rainwater Tank collects from the large roof surface area have been designed to connect in with our garden irrigation system to water our plants with and top up the Garden Water Tank

We think we have clearly demonstrated through the Eco House design and build that not everything in a new construction must be new.