Some folks are renovating in Balmain and have asked me these questions:

“Some of the questions we are grappling with at present include:

• Whether bladder type water tanks are a good idea. They certainly give us a bit more flexibility, and also the ability to fairly easily remove them for replacement (they will be located under the main kitchen/living area
• The architect is thinking about concrete for both the floor and ceiling/roof of the new back area of the house, for its insulating properties and potential ability to hold warmth in winter (but will it hold too much in summer??). He’s also been talking about a type of “aerated” concrete block (my term, I can’t remember the correct one) that’s much lighter but has the same thermal mass as concrete, but you can cut it with a saw. I know concrete in particular has a high carbon cost, but wonder if this is only initial and will be amortised over many years. We are engaging a sustainability consultant to advise further on this.
• We are seriously considering prefab bathrooms. Do you have any you can recommend? We’ve done a Google search, and the only one we can find is a company called PUB Prefab Bathrooms (www.pubaustralia.com…. Some of their plans look interesting, but we’d obviously need to go and look at some examples.”

My answers are:

Bladder tanks:

Unfortunately: urk.  Time has told the truth about these.  Such a good idea.  But such a bad track record; many tank installers won’t install them now.  Rats eat them, or they leak for other reasons and fixing them is well nigh impossible.

Concrete, aerated blocks:

Cement is the third biggest source of climate pollution.  I rarely use it in my jobs.  Aerated blocks are ok.  But rammed earth for the floor, walls or bathroom is B E A Utiful – for example:   you might be interested in James Robertson’s newly-constructed
rammed earth wall, located inside the house to increase thermal mass:

lewishamhouse.wordpress.com…

I’ve run out of time to give more examples, sorry, as I’m packing to go away for a while; but only use cement if you’re on the wrong end of the point of a gun.

Prefab bathroom:

I love prefab everything but most of all in the bathroom.  Imagine:

• it’s winter and you walk into your bathroom and tread on timber decking that doesn’t slip, isn’t cold and feels kinda ‘human’;
• the water from the shower and whatever runs through the timber slats to a stainless steel catch-all below and if you need to get at it you can lift up the timber slats;
• you don’t have all the grout going off and grey over the years from tiles, and you don’t have the muck and waste of tiling during the building process
• like your kitchen the lot has been built off site and is just fitted into place on the day.

Mmmmm.

Yes, it’s new to most designers, trades and others.

I’d give more particulars but I’m packing to get a long way away from here so can’t be as forthcoming at the moment as I’d like to be.

But if you can get it when you go for a sauna, or to the Japanes Bathhouse in the Cross, why can’t we get it in our own house?

May the cement not be with you,

M