Eco-home in Geraldine

Eco-home in Geraldine

Rhys Taylor and Anne Griffiths have built stage one of a two-stage low visual impact home on their property in the Geraldine Downs with a number of eco-features that they were keen to have financed by a loan from Prometheus.

Their property is a lifestyle block of just over 6ha, a few kms west of Geraldine, which borders farmland to the south and west with gorgeous views of the Four Peaks range. Due to the sensitivity of the Downs landscape Rhys and Anne commissioned an assessment from local landscape architect Ines Stager to propose a landscape design to mitigate any visual impact effects.

The site is in the Pareora Ecological Region which used to support typical downland podocarp forest of totara, kahikatea, and matai with broadleaf, mahoe, kaikomako, rohutu and pokaka. Nearby Talbot Forest is the only substantial remnant of this forest on the Downs, a further two forest remnants (protected by QE II covenant) are immediately to the west and south-west on neighbouring farmland.

Rhys and Anne have adopted a management plan for a native bush restoration project covering nearly half the property. They are also planting the bush margins. They have established a pip fruit orchard with over 20 heritage varieties and a large organic vegetable garden.

Their house is being built in two stages to make the development process more affordable. Stage 1 is just intended as short-stay accommodation initially.  It is recessed into the contour of the land at the East to avoid standing out on the neighbours' skyline and will have an earth-bermed roof which will be planted in low growing native plants. Rainwater from the roof will be captured and used for watering gardens.

 

The house will have solar water heating and an engineer-designed eco-friendly effluent disposal system, consisting of a septic tank, subsurface wetland and dispersal fields which irrigate shelter plantings. The design uses high thermal mass concrete floor, wall and roof construction with double glazing and good insulation on exterior walls for passive solar gain through north and west facing windows. The Holcim concrete incorporates waste fly-ash for lower embodied energy.

Rhys and Anne applied for a large part of the necessary funds for the building project from their local building society and the remainder from Prometheus. They saw this as a way of involving both NZ financial organisations that they support and in particular, saw the Prometheus loan as financing the explicitly environmental features of the project. We were very open to this shared financing arrangement, as was the Canterbury Building society who, according to Rhys:

"... understand our wish to work with Prometheus as the financier of the ‘environmental features' that distinguish this project from more conventional house building ventures".