This is the family home we're building. It's supposed to have stable temperatures all year round and not need heating or cooling. It's a bit of an experiment, a one-off, but we might not even be able to live in it once it's finished to test it out. After disappointing dealings with a dodgy window manufacturer causing cost overruns, the bank is making us sell it once it's done. So instead of relying on the bank for the final $110k to finish it, we're hoping to swap our way up to something that we can sell for $110,000. But we need to do it in the next 3 months, by about the end of February 2018....
It all started when Josh and I were in our 20's and we came across this idea of passive solar houses. It's a simple concept - uncovered concrete floors, mega insulation everywhere, and aligned facing north - with lots of windows on the sunny side and basically none on the south side (where the heat will try to escape). It's always been our dream to build one and try it out. Some time when we're older and can afford it. I always said if we have children I'd like to be able to stay at home with them while they're young, and having a big mortgage will mean I have to go back to work...
However it was a bigger dream than building to raise a family. After 6 years of trying for a baby, 3 failed IVF embryo transfers and one miscarriage, we decided it was time to get on with the next biggest goal in our life, because we didn't know if that biggest one would ever happen.
We made some changes and sacrifices in our lives and secured a piece of land that was still being subdivided. But to our huge joy, by the time we were about to get a title on the land, our 4th embyro had been successful and we got to 12 weeks pregnant with a healthy baby!
We were far down the track with design and resource consent, so reluctantly, I swallowed that desire to stay at home and went back to work full time when our baby was 7 months old. I had to so that we could get a mortgage for the next phase of the project, otherwise we would lose money selling the land at this point. Isn't it funny how life throws these things at you! However it was a big team goal, this house, for me and Josh, and we both agreed to see it through. I would reduce my hours as soon as we could move in and get rent from the minor dwelling we were building to help with mortgage costs.
At the time of bank approval, they approved the total budgeted amount plus an end of build contingency - one that we had to apply for as we approached the end, if we needed it, to finish.
After our daughter was about one year old, we became eligible for one last publicly funded IVF treatment. Naturally we took it, and were immensely ecstatic to become successfully pregnant again. Our second daughter was born in July this year and I'm currently at home with her sister and her, she's four months old now.
One essential part of a passive solar house is good windows, because it is the weakest part of the walls in terms of heat loss. Josh managed to find a manufacturer in New Zealand (who will not be named as we may still have to face legal action) who could make them out of a more high performance material than aluminium and so we paid a 50% deposit in April 2017. We were promised the windows by the end of May.
After a series of shocking service, month-long phases of being uncontactable, unmet promises and excuses after excuses, by mid August we had still only received about 70% of the windows. As they were drip-fed to us, the builders installed them. One of them turned up opening the wrong way to what was signed off on the plans, and then another arrived with pieces sticking out and parts missing, so we took a closer look at all of the rest of them. What we found was a shocking lack of quality: windows not able to close, pieces sticking out, joins filled with putty and paint chips touched up among many other issues including a sliding window with a gap open to the outside! Not so high performance after all.
We asked for our deposit back and to send the windows back, and the manufacturer is to this day still demanding we pay the remaining 50% and he wants to ship the rest of the windows. We have engaged a lawyer but this process takes a long time.
Since then our building site has sat idle, and we have ordered new windows from another company which were due to be delivered this week, they've just informed us we have to wait another week and meanwhile our plasterer is waiting for them so he can plaster over the brick.
Then about a week ago, our landlord in the place we are currently renting, gave us notice as they wish to move back into their house. We have to move out by 15 December 2017! Now we are in a hurry to move in, still waiting on windows, and will have to move in grossly unfinished.
Even so, in order to finish it, we need to borrow extra funds to the tune of $110,000. This is the amount that it has cost us extra for the dodgy window fiasco - the deposit still not returned, paying months of extra rent and scaffolding, loss of months of potential income from the minor dwelling, etc. What's more, now if we borrow the extra amount, there would be little possibility I could reduce my work hours once we move in because of the added interest costs - so I'll have to work full time for much longer than we thought.
We approached the bank asking to borrow into that contingency approved at the start of the project. However we have been advised by a very apologetic and sympathetic lending manager that the bank's lending criteria have changed. Even if I go back to work full time once our baby is 6 months old, it will not be enough to meet the bank's criteria. We can borrow the amount to finish the house, but the condition is we have to put it on the market and repay the loan.
Well, I've worked through and overcome my reluctance to go back to work so that we can give this house a try. If we could live in it for at least a year, we can see if it stays cool in summer, and warm in winter, just like we designed it. If we get the $110k from somewhere else, then we can manage the mortgage with me working, maybe even less than full time.
We're willing to be creative to get the money from somewhere else, and stick it to the bank!
So we thought we'd try swap our way up to $110k. A little bit like the one red paperclip campaign (over a year he started with a red paper clip, swapped it up for a quirky fish pen, swapped that up for a door knob, then an outdoor cooking stove, etc until he up-traded for a house!). We don't have much time - we figure the last of the bills will probably be due around February next year so we would have to borrow from the bank by then. Hence we figure we'll start with something a lot more valuable. It's one of Josh's hand-crafted one of a kind treasures we're going to put on the line, put some skin in the game as it were - a hidden projector and screen home entertainment set. Read more about the swap here.
Get in touch if you think you have something we could swap for it, and please hurry!
Phone 0276 354 901
Comment below
Message us on our facebook page
It all started when Josh and I were in our 20's and we came across this idea of passive solar houses. It's a simple concept - uncovered concrete floors, mega insulation everywhere, and aligned facing north - with lots of windows on the sunny side and basically none on the south side (where the heat will try to escape). It's always been our dream to build one and try it out. Some time when we're older and can afford it. I always said if we have children I'd like to be able to stay at home with them while they're young, and having a big mortgage will mean I have to go back to work...
However it was a bigger dream than building to raise a family. After 6 years of trying for a baby, 3 failed IVF embryo transfers and one miscarriage, we decided it was time to get on with the next biggest goal in our life, because we didn't know if that biggest one would ever happen.
We made some changes and sacrifices in our lives and secured a piece of land that was still being subdivided. But to our huge joy, by the time we were about to get a title on the land, our 4th embyro had been successful and we got to 12 weeks pregnant with a healthy baby!
We were far down the track with design and resource consent, so reluctantly, I swallowed that desire to stay at home and went back to work full time when our baby was 7 months old. I had to so that we could get a mortgage for the next phase of the project, otherwise we would lose money selling the land at this point. Isn't it funny how life throws these things at you! However it was a big team goal, this house, for me and Josh, and we both agreed to see it through. I would reduce my hours as soon as we could move in and get rent from the minor dwelling we were building to help with mortgage costs.
At the time of bank approval, they approved the total budgeted amount plus an end of build contingency - one that we had to apply for as we approached the end, if we needed it, to finish.
After our daughter was about one year old, we became eligible for one last publicly funded IVF treatment. Naturally we took it, and were immensely ecstatic to become successfully pregnant again. Our second daughter was born in July this year and I'm currently at home with her sister and her, she's four months old now.
One essential part of a passive solar house is good windows, because it is the weakest part of the walls in terms of heat loss. Josh managed to find a manufacturer in New Zealand (who will not be named as we may still have to face legal action) who could make them out of a more high performance material than aluminium and so we paid a 50% deposit in April 2017. We were promised the windows by the end of May.
After a series of shocking service, month-long phases of being uncontactable, unmet promises and excuses after excuses, by mid August we had still only received about 70% of the windows. As they were drip-fed to us, the builders installed them. One of them turned up opening the wrong way to what was signed off on the plans, and then another arrived with pieces sticking out and parts missing, so we took a closer look at all of the rest of them. What we found was a shocking lack of quality: windows not able to close, pieces sticking out, joins filled with putty and paint chips touched up among many other issues including a sliding window with a gap open to the outside! Not so high performance after all.
We asked for our deposit back and to send the windows back, and the manufacturer is to this day still demanding we pay the remaining 50% and he wants to ship the rest of the windows. We have engaged a lawyer but this process takes a long time.
Since then our building site has sat idle, and we have ordered new windows from another company which were due to be delivered this week, they've just informed us we have to wait another week and meanwhile our plasterer is waiting for them so he can plaster over the brick.
Then about a week ago, our landlord in the place we are currently renting, gave us notice as they wish to move back into their house. We have to move out by 15 December 2017! Now we are in a hurry to move in, still waiting on windows, and will have to move in grossly unfinished.
Even so, in order to finish it, we need to borrow extra funds to the tune of $110,000. This is the amount that it has cost us extra for the dodgy window fiasco - the deposit still not returned, paying months of extra rent and scaffolding, loss of months of potential income from the minor dwelling, etc. What's more, now if we borrow the extra amount, there would be little possibility I could reduce my work hours once we move in because of the added interest costs - so I'll have to work full time for much longer than we thought.
We approached the bank asking to borrow into that contingency approved at the start of the project. However we have been advised by a very apologetic and sympathetic lending manager that the bank's lending criteria have changed. Even if I go back to work full time once our baby is 6 months old, it will not be enough to meet the bank's criteria. We can borrow the amount to finish the house, but the condition is we have to put it on the market and repay the loan.
Well, I've worked through and overcome my reluctance to go back to work so that we can give this house a try. If we could live in it for at least a year, we can see if it stays cool in summer, and warm in winter, just like we designed it. If we get the $110k from somewhere else, then we can manage the mortgage with me working, maybe even less than full time.
We're willing to be creative to get the money from somewhere else, and stick it to the bank!
So we thought we'd try swap our way up to $110k. A little bit like the one red paperclip campaign (over a year he started with a red paper clip, swapped it up for a quirky fish pen, swapped that up for a door knob, then an outdoor cooking stove, etc until he up-traded for a house!). We don't have much time - we figure the last of the bills will probably be due around February next year so we would have to borrow from the bank by then. Hence we figure we'll start with something a lot more valuable. It's one of Josh's hand-crafted one of a kind treasures we're going to put on the line, put some skin in the game as it were - a hidden projector and screen home entertainment set. Read more about the swap here.
Get in touch if you think you have something we could swap for it, and please hurry!
Phone 0276 354 901
Comment below
Message us on our facebook page
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