If the front of the house is west facing in Queensland and you have glass on that side of the house, in summer in the afternoon the sun beats down on this side for hours, heating up the whole house. There is some speculation on double glazing as some think that they do heat up, better than nothing. Once the sun hits the wall you are lost. These image are for north this is worst for west. A more passive means of cooling the house is to install tall enough thick leaves to the base trees on the western side so that they shade that elevation. Problem with that is that in winter, that sun would be nice. So you need trees that drop their leaves early winter and have them back on say September when the sun starts to heat up. Some trees hold onto their leaves till a few weeks before spring, so make sure you do your research and think root barrier up front to protect your footings. Photo below horizontal external shade screens, Another method is to shade the house with screens, i said house not windows. With western sun, it is low when it starts to clear the roof overhangs, so no amount of horizontal shade devices will make any real difference. The screens for western sun in Queensland must be of a vertical nature. So screens that hang OUTSIDE the house to around say 900 mm off the ground would be fantastic. Since the sun travels around the west from more south west in peak summer to west in winter, vertical blades tend to be ideal solution and should pivot, to deal with this moving sun. In the past, Queenslanders used to have these vertical screens on castors and they moved them around to suit the conditions, for some reason we did not learn from the past. This house the screens are not shading the walls at the bottom so they would still heat up. From the plans i see you are building in brick, so western sun and bricks in summer make an ideal oven. Takes bricks 12 hours to cool down depending on the colour. All material heats up in the sun, but bricks take longer to cool, light weight material which is properly insulated is a better choice and against popular opinion, glass is also a good choice, all better if vertically screened. Double brick tends to keep a house cooler and you might as well use the double brick for structure instead of the decorative nature of cavity brick house, but after a while that heats up and takes forever to cool. Studs hold up the roof, not the face bricks. Ever wonder why the house stands up during construction with stud wall and roof? Photo is vertical blades which pivot. A good landscape architect would be worth a look and they will know how to blend your style of house with the garden. North windows in Queensland even with no overhangs, (which is stupid in Queensland) do not get sun into the rooms, but in winter it might crawl in say 2 M which is nice. What are you doing with the roof and concrete tiles heat up nicely and the darker you make them the hotter they get, Colorbond is a good choice with all the hail we tend to get, or keep a stockpile of tiles for when they break. Colour also makes a difference to heat. Make sure you vent the roof space, whirly birds, and vented eaves or gable ends, make sure you fully insulate the roof and also ceiling, and choose a light colour. choose a style of external screens or trees to fit the house. See if that makes a difference to the report which is there to make your life better and we are talking the cost of air con for the life of the house, the reports are there to help save you money, maybe a bit more up front but worth it in the long running cost of a house. Ros

Thanks everyone. Our doors will mostly be open and no part of the door actually sticks out. They are completely flush with the door jamb. Hence the edge pulls that go along the spine of the door. And because they are completely flush, the handles/pulls cannot protrude in any way from the door. We too have a privacy lock on our bedroom door. I'm now leaning towards having flush handles on both sides/faces of the ensuite and study doors. As per the pantry and dry room doors, I think handles only on the side you enter are required as you're never going to close yourself in these rooms (unless you want to escape the kids).

Ours never leaked. We'd installed it, then lived in the house 7yr. The previous skylight was leaking badly when we bought the house, it was one of those plastic dome ones- revolting. It was pretty easy to work out why the flashing had corroded in the old skylight- it was chock full of leaf compost. After that- every year the husband would get up and clean the roof gutters and the gutter of the skylight. Like anything regular maintenance will prevent leaks. I'm not sure what the rules are with cyclone-zones. Velux are made from toughened glass. I'm sure their website would give you this detail. Yeah- they get dirty, then it rains and they are clean again! At one stage we got a little bit of lichen growing, but then in Summer it died and just went away! The dirt/dust never bothered us....it's not like you walk around staring up all the time. It doesn't lessen the impact of the extra light and height.

Refer to your fridge specs before you close anything in. Fair Trading laws in this country have obsoleted warranties. There is now a sliding scale of reasonable expectation on consumer items which means manufacturers will rely on their tech specs more than ever. Check what minimum clearance your fridge officially needs on the sides and above the machine for ventilation before doing anything. Get your lighting working for you. Choose a 'warm white' lamp - not daylight or cool white. Cool whites kill off the warmer hues and makes things appear cold. Change, add or move your lighting to have two small gimbled ceiling lights wash down the face of the joinery instead of one bright light focussed on the fridge. Lighting can make a poor space look great or a great space look poor.