Cordwood House

Cordwood House

Carolyn Simon’s eco-house in Onekaka, Golden Bay, was unusual from the start, being built with walls whose core construction materials included pumice, recycled crushed glass and cordwood (firewood for the uninitiated).  The house is designed around a flat low-pitched roof supported on recycled telegraph poles and standard beams, with non-load bearing walls in-fill walls of mortared and plastered cordwood construction.

Carolyn lives and practises as a qualified naturopath, medical herbalist and craniosacral therapist on a 1.3 hectare bush-clad property in Onekaka, which she owns with her brother Stephen. Apart from the space taken by her current limited accommodation/studio space and the cleared building site, the land is all in regenerating native bush.

Her aim is to continue living and working on the property and provide stewardship for the re-establishment of native species within a dynamic and balanced ecosystem. She also intends to develop a nature garden that can be a source of many of the herbal tinctures and flower essences that she uses and an organic vegetable garden that can be a source of living food for her table and others'.

When Carolyn approached us for finance to build her cord-wood eco-house we were intrigued and interested in this unusual project. The house is designed around a flat low-pitched roof supported on poles and beams, with non-load bearing in-fill walls of mortared and plastered cordwood construction. The roof is designed for simplicity and ease of rainwater collection. The house incorporates passive solar heating, composting toilet, flowform treatment of greywater.

 

The attraction for Carolyn of cordwood walls are several. They utilise a relatively cheap and abundant renewable resource in wood offcuts from the local mill. She was able to use crushed glass from the local recycling operation in the mortar mix. "I mixed eight parts of glass with two parts of sand and one of cement. It makes good strong walls and hardens quickly." In addition, the wall has good insulation properties, especially when enhanced by pumice mixed in with the mortar and lends itself to freeforms and curves in the wall design.

We were impressed with the thoroughness with which Carolyn had prepared and planned her house, the professional engineering design work she commissioned and the experienced builder she engaged to bring her dream to realisation. After requesting a second opinion from a quantity surveyor as to the robustness of the budget for this project, Prometheus was very pleased to confidently approve this loan and support the realisation of Carolyn's dream home.

We have since been impressed with the efficiency of the building process and the beauty of the house she is creating. We wish her all the best in her new living space and look forward to an opportunity to visit in the near future.