Your Domain: Bushfires destroyed this family's house, so their son rebuilt it underground

After heavy rain across the east coast contained many of the recent bushfires, the focus for those affected has turned to rebuilding.

It has been more than 10 years since the devastating Black Saturday bushfires that killed 173 people and destroyed 2000 houses across Victoria. Rebuilding efforts in affected regions provide examples of how architects and builders have adapted to the increased bushfire threat.

During the 2009 Black Saturday fires, Edd and Amanda Williams from Steels Creek, about 45 kilometres north-east of Melbourne,  saved most of their animals but lost their home of 30 years.

They now live in a new house built on the same block of land.

After the fires, Mr Williams said, he never considered living anywhere else, but knew that during the rebuilding process that something needed to change.

“We put the dogs in the house and we went back in about 10 minutes later and they were dead,” he told Your Domain. “That’s what would have happened to us if we had stayed in the house.”

“It was a two-storey house, four sides, and only two of us here to protect it.”

Although parts of the original structure still remain, most of their new home, which took 15 months to build, is underground.

Mr and Ms Williams’ architect son, Alvyn, of Soft Loud Architects, was instrumental in designing the new house, which needed to be fire-resistant and sustainable.

Looking like a Hobbit-hole, the home appears to be carved into the land, with only one side exposed to the elements, as opposed to four, and large windows to let in the light.

There’s no sub-floor space for leaves to gather and the earth roof protects the home from falling embers.

“There’s virtually no fire risk in any scenario that can impact the house on three of the sides out of four,” Alvyn says.

Those who wish to build in a fire zone need to have their property assessed and ranked with a Bushfire Attack Level (BAL). The higher the level, the stricter the construction requirements the home has to adhere to.

“The main driver for the BAL rating is the distance between the building and the risky vegetation,” he says. The new house has been built in a different location to the original, one that is further away from the surrounding vegetation.

For the Williamses, building underground came with additional costs, including excavation, waterproofing, backfilling and managing vegetation – something the fellow woolly residents look after.

“We’re very lucky here, we are on a farm and the sheep mow the roof,” Alvyn says. 

Non-combustible materials, particularly concrete, were used as another layer of defence. Approved timber was used for the doors, a type which takes a longer for it to lose its structural integrity under fire.

For Mr Williams, the horrific experience of Black Saturday gave him and his family the momentum to stay and rebuild. The experience was cathartic.

“We’d really stayed and worked through the adrenalin rush that comes from a situation like that … we just kept working and kept rebuilding, and because we had that to help us, we carried through,” he says.

The underground home doesn’t come without its issues. The neighbours have been known to cause them some grief from above, Mr Williams says.

“We had a wombat in the roof. It dug a hole right down into the soil on the top of the roof. So, I think I’m the only person in Australia that can say they had a wombat in their roof.”

Your Domain airs at 10am on Saturdays on Nine. Catch up on all episodes on 9Now.