Low Impact

Its come around again – next weekend on Saturday and Sunday, the 8th-9th of September is Sustainable House Day (formerly known as Solar House Day).

This is fantastic little scheme where owners of houses that embody environmentally friendly designs and features open their doors for people to look through. This year, the fee is $5 per house visited (in Canberra, there are 7 houses open this year). Or, to put it another way, about the same as a coffee and a biscuit at your local cafe!

What I like about this day is that it lets you see good environmental concepts “in real life”. So rather than reading about it on web pages, or looking at the pictures on the brochure, you can actually walk through a house and see it all in action. Houses I’ve seen in the past have ranged from “just” having excellent solar passive design, to houses with water tanks, grey water recycling systems and solar cells on the roof.

It can be very inspiring to see what’s environmentally possible in a normal, everyday house.

The Sustainable House Day web page can be found at http://www.solarhouseday.com/. Inside you’ll find a list of all the houses open in your state, as well as links to useful information such as “green” builders and architects, and information on Government rebates. This year, the site also includes links to Google Maps pages showing the location of some of the open houses, which is great to see if there’s one “just around the corner”!

So whether you want to see all the houses in your area, or just check out that one house that demonstrates some pet green concept you’ve been thinking about, try and set aside some time next weekend for a visit.

Categories: community, efficiency, environment, green, solar