Lorraine, even though this is an old post, I thought I would put my two cents in. I’m with you. My husband and I have been married for over 30 years, and he washes the dishes and I dry them, every night. We have our own business and family and are buggered at the end of the day, but this is our time to talk about the day and get ready for tomorrow. Our dishwasher also wasn’t working, apparently it was because we weren’t using it enough. I now use it when we have gatherings or when my daughter decides to cook up a storm! We also only use our aircon when we have had consistently hot days over 35 degrees. I’m in Perth so summer can be hot. However we built our home with solar passive principles in mind, and it definitely makes a difference. So yes I don’t need a dishwasher but an air cooling system does come in handy.

Not that I have seen - what we could do is a plantation shutter and then use a Crimsafe build-out to attach the security screen - you need to have it so that the shutter can open and it not protrude in to the screen - the challenge I see is that there will be a fairly large gap between each door to allow them to pass each other You might be better to look at using a commercial door section a slimline fixed louvre and then having your screen at the rear - this would allow a much better fit and also slide - but it would not be an opening type shutter Sorry best ideas I have for now - if you need anything else or me to do a rough sketch so you can approach someone in your area let me know Regards Heather

We are still building and just had the power cable put in and I insisted on a landline cable to go in at the same time. Living in the country means bad reception or blackspots for mobiles as mentioned earlier and it isn't being fixed none too fast either!! We also have allot of older clients who still prefer to contact us on a landline because they dont all have mobile phones or if they do, they have the isues just mentioned, blackspots etc... and mobiles are still considered by some to be a financially extravagant way to make contact versus a landline!! I guess the young ones don't remember a time when there were local and STD or long distance calls which used to cost an arm or a leg and these STD calls didn't mean you were calling interstate, it could be as simple as being 40km away. I have a fixed landline monthly plan at very little cost which covers all local and STD calls and I could if I chose to, talk for several hours, still at no extra cost compared to a mobile. Mobile plans are at a fixed rate like say getting $300 worth of free calls for $35 but you go over that plan and you can get a fair shock when the bill arrives. Landlines as mentioned earlier are safer to use, always have clearer reception and really are still the cheapest way to keep in touch from home.

Ducted, 2-zones (bedroom and living). Check out reviews of different systems on productreview.com.au. Look to improve your ceiling insulation, window covers etc to improve its efficiency. We also went a slightly bigger system than we needed, so it never runs at 'full' capacity. Very cheap to run, compared to an under-sized system we had previous that just constantly ran at full pelt.