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Seeking to live more responsibly in the suburbs of Melbourne

Purpose

These pages are a place to document the journey we have been on as we seek to respond to the challenges of sustainable living and climate change. We aren't trying to claim that this is the perfect approach, but there may be ideas here of use/interest to others.

Setting

The house we bought was built in 1927. It is built out of weatherboards on a timber frame, set on stumps. We bought it because the house (although small at the time - 90 sqm) had good sized rooms, 3m ceilings, and was on a large (c. 900 sqm) block. The block is orientated E-W and slopes gently downhill from East to West. It also slopes gently from South to North. This provides good exposure to the sun as it tracks around to the North during the day.

At the time of purchase, the back of the block had a number of established fruit trees: two old apples (possibly original - this part of Melbourne used to be an orchard area), a Beurre Bosc pear, and an Orange tree. We've since added to this number just a bit, while removing the apples as they died and the pear (because we kept losing the crop to fruit bats).

In the early 1990s we extended the house out the back, doubling it in size, and adding an upstairs study for Andrew.

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