SLA Sustainable House Tour

With spring on the horizon, a handful of Armidale homeowners are preparing to open up their houses to the public, to show off a range of features that make their homes sustainable and reduce their environmental impact.

Local community group Sustainable Living Armidale Inc. is organising this ten-house tour on the weekend of 8^th and 9th September, to showcase what can be done by individuals at a local level.

Similar tours in Armidale have been organised in the past by the Waldorf School, and their school buildings will be included this year, in addition to the houses.

SLA invites people to purchase a booklet with map and detailed descriptions of the houses, which will help them plan their visits, and give them entry to the houses.

All the homeowners (and a renter) are conscious of the environmental aspects of their houses, and there’s a wide spectrum of responses to sustainability issues – some focussing on technical hardware to achieve this, others on the basic design.

Some are architect designed, some owner-designed, and some show how to maximise the benefits given an existing structure. Houses range in size from spacious to quite small, on large and small blocks, in age from nearly a hundred years old to just completed, and all exhibit the personal stamp of the individual owner/s.

This is a self-transporting tour. The Tour Booklet is on sale at the Customer Service Centre at Armidale Dumaresq Council, Rusden Street, and also at Knight’s Store, corner of Marsh & Mann which is also open on Saturdays and Sundays.

Cost of the booklet is $30/$20 concession, and one booklet will give entry to all the houses for people travelling in a car together. Most of the houses in town can also be reached by bike or on foot, (so booklet can be shared by 3 or 4 people who visit together) and the out-of-town houses are in one area.

The Booklet includes a map, and details of the features of each of the houses, with their opening times, plus information about designing for sustainability.