Tim Gooden and Sue Bull rebuilt their Manifold Heights home into a sustainable masterpiece after a devastating fire in 2018. Justin Flynn talks to Tim about the fire, the rebuild and the couple’s favourite aspects of their new abode.
In June 2018, Tim Gooden and Sue Bull were excited about heading to Italy, but on the morning of their flight disaster struck their Manifold Heights home.
Tim was woken by what he thought was his alarm, but he soon realised it was a smoke detector just outside the couple’s bedroom.
Luckily they, and their two poodles, were able to escape, but their house wasn’t as fortunate.
Days spent getting new passports meant their trip was delayed, but Tim and Sue headed off to Italy five days later with the knowledge that, when they returned, years of clean up and recovery were in front of them.
What didn’t burn down in the fire was smoke and water damaged.
“The whole back of the house was alight,” Tim says.
“I was in the NSW fire brigade for 10 years so I knew what I was doing, but the fire brigade turned up and kicked me out. I was on oxygen for an hour. Lost our travel bag, passports, cameras. No ID.”
Tim says the fire had an impact on their trip.
“We want to do it again,” he says.
“It was good, the kids were all there, we went to all the wineries, Florence, Venice, Rome, but at the back of your mind there’s two senses.
“One was sheer relief that we survived and we were thankful. But then there was also the dread of what are we going to do now? We have to get somewhere to rent, we have to move, we have to clean everything out, all that stuff that you never planned on doing.”
Back on home soil, their 1954 double-front redbrick home was written off by the insurance company, but Tim says they were “under insured” with $395,000 coming back to them for house and contents.
Faced with three choices – demolishing the fire stricken house and selling the land, subdividing or rebuilding – Tim and Sue eventually decided to rebuild and the result, after two years of hard work, is outstanding.
Tim took on the job of owner-builder of the now three-bedroom residence that is as sustainable as possible.
He created an industrial style home featuring solar panels, thermal mass, LEDs, hydronic heating, double glazed windows, natural light, compost and veggie garden.
There is reclaimed timber, recycled concrete in the base, all the bricks are recycled, all furniture is made by Tim or salvaged out of the old house. The laundry and toilets all operate on rain water from an 8000 litre tank.
“There’s solar hot water, solar electricity, no battery yet but that will be the next thing,” Tim says.
“We have six-star insulation. Underfloor heating is only on during the day and is solar. It still releases heat at night, the hydronics are actually off, but the heat is still coming out of the concrete. We also maximise ventilation by using louvre windows to purge heat once the afternoon southerly winds come up.
“We went for underfloor hydronic heating, polished concrete floors, simple straight lines, a high ceiling to match the high glass ceiling of the stone hall out the back and a cutaway.
“Even though the house is much bigger now, the footprint on the land isn’t much because we saved the driveway so that’s now got the front garage on it.”
The house was demolished after Christmas 2018 and the new slab was poured June 1, 2019.
Six months later on January 20 Tim and Sue got practical completion.
“I took six months off to finish the inside, to make the concrete kitchen and do the fitout,” Tim says.
COVID lockdowns then meant Tim was at home and able to finish the stone shed and the gardens.
A two-year journey was finished in time for October’s Geelong Sustainable House day, an event that featured seminars and open houses to give people an opportunity to explore new and innovative ideas and solutions.
However, to add to the couple’s woes, while rebuilding, their rental house in Swanston Street was robbed.
The burglars stole all Tim’s tools, knives, hunting and archery gear.
“My dad’s collection of bits and pieces – stamps, coins, old knives. I swore off doing any collections ever again.”
Tim, a carpenter by trade, pauses when asked if he enjoyed the rebuilding process.
“I would never have chosen to do it,” he says.
“I would probably now build a smaller place with that experience under my belt. Mechanics drive bombs, carpenters live in shit houses. When you work all week as a carpenter, the last thing you want to be doing is building on weekends.
“Three years ago if someone said ‘come on, let’s go build a house’ I would have said ‘no, nothing wrong with this one. We’ll use our weekends to do other stuff, like ride push bikes and stuff’.
“Now that it’s finished, it’s great, but I wouldn’t have chosen to do it. It was a very stressful period.”
Sue’s favourite room is the kitchen.
“She likes cooking a lot more now,” Tim says.
“Especially with the family at Christmas because we can get everyone in there cooking at the same time.
“I love the kitchen as well but the wheel-in showers are my favourite. The shower roses are in the ceiling and they’re just square pencil-jet showerheads. There’s no shower basin so you can just wheel a wheelchair in if you want to. It’s all flat concrete, not polished.
“I’ve always hated showers where you have to climb in and out of the bath, the three sliding doors that never slide properly, mouldy, someone’s put the showerhead down at your waist somewhere and it keeps dropping. I hated all those things. None of that exists anymore.”
Tim says the silence of the double glazing is “incredible”.
“I’m deaf anyway, but we barely hear any cars going up and down outside. You can barely hear the fireworks downtown, you can still hear the dogs a bit outside,” he says.
“Raining – it’s got to be really heavy rain before you realise it’s raining. You can just shut the world out. I didn’t realise it was going to be that quiet, we were just so used to it being noisy with the old place.”
Tim and Sue’s message is simple.
“I’ve got hardwired smoke detectors now,” he says.
“All rental places now must have fitted smoke detectors and they have to be serviced every 12 months.
“It’s the smallest thing. I wear hearing aids, and they still woke me up. Had we spent another hour in the smoke and CO2 we mightn’t have woken up.”
