A sustainable Austinmer home built for a Sydney retiree seeking a tree change has been recognised at a statewide awards ceremony.
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Blue Mountains-based builder, Viva Living Homes collected two award wins at the Master Builders Association of NSW’s annual awards ceremony this month.
They won the ‘Best Contract House Build $650,000-800,000’ and ‘Best Energy Efficiency Housing Open Price’ categories.
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The Master Builders Association of NSW’s ‘Excellence in Housing Awards’ aim to recognise the best in residential building, workmanship and innovation.
The Austinmer property that Viva Living submitted for the awards features a solar passive design.
“(This) means it takes much less energy than a conventional home to heat and cool the home throughout the year… So, cosy in winter and cool in summer,” Simone Vivers, Viva Homes company spokesperson said.
The home, which took six months to build, was completed earlier this year.
It was built for relocating Sydney retiree Helen Watkins, who wanted to make a tree change.
Ms Watkins has a background working in environmental education.
“I grew up as a country kid just outside Grafton and then eventually ended up in Sydney,” she said.
“Once I retired, I thought, ‘I can’t do this (live in the city) any more’.
“My grandparents had a dairy farm near Dapto, so it feels like coming home in a way.”
Ms Watkins said it was important to her to build a home in a sustainable way.
“It’s a beautiful, organic, natural place,” she said.
“Everyone involved in it did it with a whole lot of love, and there’s a lot of little touches that made it really special.
“Everyone who walks in says, ‘oh, this is so peaceful’.”
The home features a raft of natural materials such as solid earth walls, straw bale external walls, natural clay renders inside and natural lime renders outside, traditional timber frames and special renders in the bathroom so it didn’t require tiles.
Ms Vivers said the winning home was essentially hand-crafted from local materials and included sustainably sourced timbers.
“All materials in the home, for example paints and timber were low in volatile organic compounds which usually emit smells and off-gas in your home,” Ms Vivers said.
“It was also built on a tricky block with many building zones.
“We had to work around slope restraint, escarpment, electrolysis (near a train line), bushfires and environmental areas. (The award wins are) an awesome result for our crew, the owner and of course the planet.”
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