The house is certified for occupation

It's now official: the house has been certified as suitable for occupation. According to Tim, it's 99% ready for us ... and we have keys.

Today was the official handover day - and the keys came with a bottle of champagne, a charming card, and flowers from our building company. I think they are all as chuffed with the house as we are ... and why wouldn't they be? The testing on the energy efficiency of the house has demonstrated that it is performing very well - the best of those Jigsaw has built to date. The design is perfect for us, and the construction is sound.

The Energy Efficiency Rating is 7.3. Given that the climate in Canberra makes it very difficult to achieve ratings of more than 8 with current technologies, we are happy with that.

Perhaps of more interest is the air leakage test that Jigsaw routinely performs on all of their houses. This test isn't yet common in Australia, although it is used in other parts of the world. Fan depressurisation is used to measure the rate of air leakage through the building envelope. The number for our house is 4.8 (air changes per hour). The UK standard aims for less than 10. At 3, there is a risk of compromising air quality, and mechanical heat exchange ventilation systems are required.

So ... it should be toasty in winter and cool in summer.

Here are some of the photos I took this afternoon.

Deborah's bedroom, complete with Murray's blind

Deborah's bedroom door; the purple and
pink stickers indicate marks in the paintwork that have to be touched up

Deborah's study nook

Tim and Gail investigate the
paintwork in Deborah's bathroom

I took your advice, Allan, and went for a higher toilet seat
Note that Gail has already installed loo roll in both bathrooms

The other end of the bathroom

The Eastern sitting room, complete with
reverse-cycle air-condtioner

The space in the laundry where the washing machine will go

The other end of the laundry

The space in the kitchen where the fridge will go

Lots of glass doors and windows - all double-glazed

The Western sitting room

The pantry cupboard

Tomorrow I'll take some photos of the outside of the house, including the magnificent mailbox.