Taylor household, Canberra: intake dossier

Release A for the Canberra home: the homeowners' brief, the property as it stands, and what nobody yet knows. Issued in week 1.

Case material. The Taylor household and this property are teaching fiction for the Household Resilience Loan Programme case. Dimensions are an internally consistent educational model, not a survey.

Illustration of a brick-veneer suburban house among mature eucalypts. — Conceptual illustration of the Canberra single-storey brick-veneer house (1978) with a detached garage, carport and garden shed home. Use the scaled plans below for geometry.

Intake note

Common Ground Engineering, first client meeting, 22 February 2027

Alex Taylor rang the programme's referral line after a summer in which the garden was watered from the mains every evening. Both parents work weekdays; the children are 9 and 12 and use the back lawn every afternoon.

They want the fruit trees and raised beds kept going through summer without mains water, and anything installed to keep working through a Canberra July. Morgan's condition for signing: nothing that needs checking on a weeknight.

Household: Alex and Morgan Taylor and their two children, aged 9 and 12. For comparability every case uses the course's demand convention for two adults and two children aged 9 to 13.

Dwelling: Single-storey brick-veneer house (1978) with a detached garage, carport and garden shed
Tenure: Owner-occupied residential lease. No body corporate.
Climate: Bureau of Meteorology station 070014; long-term statistics on the datasets page

In the homeowners' words

“The tank is empty by January most years and we water off the mains all summer.”
“The back lawn is where the kids actually play. We are not digging all of it up.”
“Nobody is home to look at anything between Monday and Friday.”
“The herb strip never does much. I assumed it was the soil.”
“Whatever we do has to keep working through July, when everything here freezes.”

Priorities and service targets

The household's priorities, in their order:

Keep the fruit trees and the raised beds productive through summer without watering from the mains.
Make whatever is installed work reliably through a Canberra winter, including frosts.
Keep a real lawn for the children: at least 100 m² of the back lawn stays lawn.
Nothing that needs attention on a weekday.

Agreed at intake as the service targets a proposal must meet. They are checked in an average year; the dry year is where the case for extra spending gets made.

Target	Service the client needs	Met today?
T1	The raised beds and fruit trees (45 m²) fully watered from on-site water, with no mains irrigation, in every month of the average year	no
T2	Toilet and laundry supplied at least 90 % from rainwater in June, July and August	no
T3	Everything installed keeps working through a Canberra July: pumps and exposed pipework frost-protected, and the energy check made in the peak month	yes
T4	At least 100 m² of the back lawn kept; at most 2 hours of care a week, none of it needed more often than weekly	yes

model estimateClient priority service targets. The existing condition is checked against each in the specialists' model.

Attainable, with room to spare. A staff check across the published decision ranges found options meeting all four targets that leave at least $22,500 of the $30,000 allowance and at least 4.5 kWh/day of the energy cap unused. Which option, and whether to spend more than the minimum, is your call to make and defend.

The property

Site plan: what covers the ground

Key to canberra site plan
ID	Feature	Area or size
B1	House · Building — single storey, tiled roof	168.2 m² (roof 201 m²)
B2	Garage · Building — boundary wall to the east, steel roof	36 m² (roof 41.6 m²)
B3	Shed · Building — steel, no gutter	7.5 m² (roof 9.9 m²)
H1	Driveway · Hardstand — concrete, falls to the street	74.8 m²
H2	Terrace · Hardstand — paved, north of the house	34.8 m²
G1	Front garden · Growing zone — lawn and shrubs; the house shades it from May to August	99.6 m²
G2	East side bed · Growing zone — morning sun; meters and hot-water unit on this wall	55.1 m²
G3	Back lawn · Growing zone — where the children play; the family keeps at least 100 m² of it as lawn	133 m²
G4	North beds · Growing zone — warmest aspect; the two raised beds are here	70 m²
G5	Orchard strip · Growing zone — apple, pear and plum	72 m²
G6	Herb strip · Growing zone — beside the shed; the neighbour's eucalypt shades it after 2 pm	13.2 m²
V1	Carport · Roof over hardstand — steel roof over the driveway	roof 26.6 m²
V2	Verandah · Roof over hardstand — polycarbonate over part of the terrace	roof 16.6 m²
T1	Existing 5 kL tank · Tank — poly, 2009, garage roof only, gravity tap	5 kL
E1	Apple · Tree canopy — mature	canopy ≈ 4.2 m
E2	Pear · Tree canopy — mature	canopy ≈ 3.8 m
E3	Plum · Tree canopy — partly shaded by the pear	canopy ≈ 3 m
E4	Neighbour's eucalypt · Tree canopy — off-site; shades the west of the back garden from about 2 pm	canopy ≈ 10 m
X1	Sewer easement — 1.8 m along the rear boundary on the title; main depth and alignment not verifiedestimate	36 m²
P1	Water meter
P2	Gas meter and hot-water unit
P3	Switchboard
P4	Sewer connection (approximate) — the house drain is assumed to leave the south-west corner; not locatedto be measured
P5	Stormwater to kerb
A1	Vehicle access

Hatched: growing zone. Dotted: retained recreation. Dashed outline: roof edge or tree canopy. Cross-hatched strip: easement or exclusion zone. Triangles: estimated spot levels. Squares: service points.

Roof and catchment

Roof plan area is footprint plus eaves, plus any roof over hardstand. It is the area that collects rain, and it is not the same number as the footprint or the pitched roof surface. Only the shaded zones drain to storage today.

Key to canberra roof zones and downpipes
ID	Roof zone	Plan area	Downpipes	Now
R1	House, north plane — gutters renewed 2021; both downpipes go to stormwater	100 m²	2	not connected
R2	House, south plane — downpipes at the two front corners	100 m²	2	not connected
R3	Garage — the only zone plumbed to the 5 kL tank	42 m²	1	to storage
R4	Carport — drains onto the driveway	27 m²	1	not connected
R5	Verandah — gutter to a garden bed	17 m²	1	not connected
R6	Shed — no gutter fitted	10 m²	no gutter	not connected
T1	Existing 5 kL tank — poly, 2009, garage roof only, gravity tap	5 kL

Shaded zones drain to storage now; dashed zones do not. Circles are downpipes. Areas are roof plan area, eaves included.

Floor plan

Enough to locate the wet areas, the fixtures a rainwater or greywater line would reach, and the services. Not a construction drawing.

Rooms in canberra floor plan
ID	Room	Area
F1	Bedroom 2	16.4 m²
F2	Bedroom 3	16.4 m²
F3	Bedroom 1	16 m²
F4	Hall	13.9 m²
F5	Bathroomwet area — shower over bath, basin	10.1 m²
F6	WCwet area	5 m²
F7	Study	17.3 m²
F8	Laundrywet area — tub and washing machine; door to the east side	9.4 m²
F9	Living and dining	41.8 m²
F10	Kitchenwet area — sink and dishwasher on the east wall	22 m²
Q1	Laundry door
Q2	Hot-water unit (external)

Shaded rooms are wet areas; the darker band is services. Internal walls are indicative.

Areas, and how they reconcile

Quantity	From the plan	Case parameter	Note
Plot	800 m²	800 m²	the plan is the whole lot
Building footprint	211.7 m²		ground the buildings cover
Roof plan area	295.7 m²	300 m²	within tolerance; 84 m² is eaves and roof over hardstand
Roof connected to storage now	41.6 m²		of 285.8 m² that has gutters
Designated growing area	442.9 m²	450 m²	within tolerance
Kept as lawn, inside it	100 m²		a client constraint, so at most 342.9 m² may be cultivated
Retained recreation outside it	0 m²		not available to the design
Hardstand	109.6 m²		drives, paths, slabs
Other ground	35.8 m²		setbacks and narrow strips

course assumptionAreas computed from the plan geometry. Plans are drawn to round dimensions, so derived totals reproduce the case parameters within 15 m² or 4 %, whichever is larger.

Services and ground

Each fact is marked known when it comes from a document or a measurement at intake, estimate when it is someone's estimate, and to be measured when nobody knows yet. Nothing here is surveyed.

Slope: Falls about 1.2 m from the rear fence to the street, roughly 3 per cent, estimated from the ACT contour map. Enough for gravity from the back garden towards the street, not the reverse. estimate
Water: Mains water, 20 mm meter at the street on the east side. known
Sewer: Connected. The main is on the title in the rear easement, but where the house drain runs has not been located. to be measured
Power: Overhead supply, 63 A single phase. known
Gas: Natural gas; storage hot-water unit on the east wall. known
Stormwater: Roof and driveway both discharge to the street kerb. known

What is already there

5 kL poly rainwater tank (2009), fed by the garage roof, gravity garden tap, no pump.
Two timber raised beds, about 9 m² in total, in the north beds.
Apple, pear and plum trees, mature, in the orchard strip.
One 220 L compost tumbler.
Hose and oscillating sprinkler on a tap timer, run from the mains in summer over the beds and fruit trees, about 45 m².

Bills the household supplied

Water: four quarterly bills totalling 244 kL, at $3.10/kL usage charge plus a fixed supply charge. known

Electricity: twelve monthly totals for the whole house. No circuit is metered separately. known

January to March	April to June	July to September	October to December
68 kL	56 kL	55 kL	65 kL

synthetic dataWater use from the last four quarterly bills. Bills cannot show what the garden used, or when within a quarter.

Case constraints

Retained lawn: at least 100 m² of the back lawn (G3) stays lawn, so at most 33 m² of it may be cultivated.
Maintenance: up to 2 hours a week, on one weekend day only. Nothing may need attention more often than every 7 days.
Installation zones: new tanks only on the east side of the house (G2 and the driveway edge) or in the orchard strip clear of the tree canopies. Nothing in the sewer easement, nothing forward of the house.
Disruption: up to five working days on site. No internal plumbing work during school term.
Permitted uses of rainwater: garden irrigation, toilet flushing and laundry. The family does not want rainwater for drinking, cooking or bathing.

Rainwater may serve: toilet flushing, laundry, garden irrigation
It serves today: garden irrigation
Care available: up to 2 hours a week; nothing needed more often than every 7 days; everything survives 21 days unattended

What a design may change

The home is fixed. A design may add storage in the permitted zones (the published steps are 0, 5, 10, 15, 20 kL), connect roof zones R1, R2, R4, R5 that have gutters but no connection, and cultivate up to 298 m² beyond the existing plantings. It may not build roof, buy land, or enlarge anything. The other decision variables are on the method page.

What nobody knows yet

14 facts above come from documents. These do not, and they are the starting point for your measurement programme:

Where the house drain and the sewer main actually run, and how deep they are.
Soil texture, pH and organic matter in each growing zone.
Why the herb strip underperforms: shade, root competition from the eucalypt, or soil.
How much water the household uses indoors, month by month, and how it splits between uses.
Whether the house gutters can be connected to storage without regrading them.
How cold the ground and any exposed pipework get on the worst July nights.