Bits of burnt gum leaves lie on the ground all over South Canberra. Indeed, you can find them in virtually every part of Canberra.
So maybe the whole of Canberra is a bushfire prone area, and from here on we should build houses accordingly.
At present there is an Australian Standard for construction in bushfire prone areas. It is compulsory in areas declared by state governments and local authorities as bushfire prone. But no areas on the urban fringe of Canberra were so declared at the time of the January 18 bushfires.
It is time to be wise after the event – not only with bushfires but with reconstruction generally.
There will be pressures not to. They will largely be driven by short-term cost considerations. But those burnt leaves help illustrate the balance of cost. The expense of sealing eaves, meshing vents or even making fences of steel or masonry is trivial compared to the loss of the whole house.
Archicentre, the building advisory service of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, lays out some simple principles:
* Build on flat ground on a concrete slab. If you build on a slope fit the house into the slope rather than have it supported on poles.
* Build where there is a fuel break around the home.
* Keep the exterior design simple and avoid crevices or cracks where burning material can lodge.
* Fit vents in walls, under floor and eaves with spark proof metal plates that can be easily fixed in place during a bushfire emergency.
* Avoid decorative timberwork such as trellis, and lattice-work on exposed areas. Timber balconies and decks are also high danger areas for trapping burning debris and should be kept to a minimum.
* Have chimneys screened off to stop embers entering the home.
* Use of leafless guttering or if allowed install ground level rubble drain collectors.
* Make sure all doors have close-fitting screens with metal wire.
You could add to this list a roof sprinkler system fed from a rainwater tank.
Archicentre says that pre-purchase inspections reveal the vast majority of homes built on the urban fringe fail to have appropriate fire prevention measures built into the design.
It is all fairly simple stuff and should not add a great deal of cost, especially if you are building from scratch.
Also, the concrete slab dug in makes for a more energy-efficient house. This gives rise the next pressing point about reconstruction. It is an opportunity to create a much better built environment – even if, alas, the photos and mementos can never be brought back.
On this score, the cost-benefit balance is not quite as obvious as bushfire-prevention measures. And the building code is not of much help. Sure, it mandates a four-star energy rating, but it is fairly easy to achieve that without having a particularly energy-efficient house or one that reduces costs and increases amenity of occupants. You see some pretty appalling designs and orientations in new buildings around the town that must have passed the four-star requirement.
In Canberra, the single most important thing is orientation. If the house is rectangular, the long walls should face north and south and the short walls should face east and west. The north-facing wall should be full of glass with an eave of about a metre. (An architect can calculate the best width.) The south-facing wall should have virtually no glass. This orientation should be done irrespective of the orientation of the street. You not have to build in alignment with the street. It is better to align with the sun. It sure saves on heating bills. And despite this two-week blip of a heatwave, Canberrans should think about the winter when they build. In Canberra it costs about six times as much to heat as cool – assuming you aim for 21 degrees in winter and 25 degrees in summer.
There are a myriad of other things which cost initially but which in the long term pay for themselves, or are worth it for the improvement of life inside — solar or instant-gas hot water, double glazing with UV protection, insulation of internal as well as external walls, electronic cabling of the whole house, an architect-designed lay-out of the house on your block.
Build cheap and in haste and regret in leisure. Spend time and money on design and reap the rewards forever.
With reconstruction — and construction of dwellings and extensions generally – the householder is at a huge disadvantage. Lay people are not trained to visualise in three-dimensions what has been put down in a two-dimensional plan. Lay people do not know what to look for in the detail of a building contract. They assume things about, for example, the number and placing of power points and the quality of tiles and fittings only to find later that they have one power point per room and need a bolognaise of extensions cords or expensive retrofitting to fix the power supply, or they go to pick out the tiles and face the choice of hospital white or paying more.
The standard Housing Industry Association contract has – from at least this householder’s viewpoint — some serious defects that disadvantage houses in favour of builders, particularly the progress payments system under which the builder gets paid in full before period to remedy defects and the nasty little blank clause that reduces builders’ penalties for late work to next to nothing if it is over-looked (which it so often is).
Any bushfire victim should get some serious, detailed advice (architectural at least and maybe legal as well) before banging a signature on a building contract and trusting the builder.
Cheapest upfront is not necessarily the best if, during construction, variations to get good fittings makes it cost more in the long run. Cost per square metre is a very poor gauge of value for money.
Too often people like to pay for bricks, mortar and other materials – how many dollars per square metre – and think money spent on design is wasted. Wrong. If you are paying for those building materials it is wise to spend a bit extra to get them in the best place so you get best value for money out of them.
Bushfire victims have been through enough. But there is no guarantee of building a phoenix out of the ashes.
The best advice is to get advised.