Eco Living Display Centre

Eco Living Display Centre

Discover how to create a comfortable and sustainable home.

The Eco Living Display Centre at The Briars Mount Martha is a retrofitted home that showcases a range of sustainable innovations, materials and products.

When: Open to the public Fridays 1–4pm and the first Saturday of the month 9am–1pm. (Exceptions - public holidays, Melbourne Cup weekend and Christmas holiday period: 15 Dec 2024 – 11 Jan 2025).

Where: The Briars, 450 Nepean Highway Mount Martha, adjacent to the Briars Nursery.

Visiting the Eco Centre

Pop into the Eco Living Display Centre on Fridays: 1-4pm and the first Saturday of the month: 9am – 1pm and find out how you can retrofit an existing home to make it more comfortable and sustainable by taking a tour and chatting with volunteer experts.

You can learn about:

  • environmentally sustainable house design 
  • efficient appliances
  • renewable energy options
  • energy audits
  • water saving innovations
  • waste solutions
  • sustainable food production

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What's on display at the Eco Living Display Centre?

The Eco Living Display Centre is a retrofitted home showcasing sustainable innovations, materials and products.

Find out how to reduce your environmental impact while making your home more comfortable and cheaper to run!

Save money on energy bills

With energy prices rising, we have more incentive to save energy in the home. The Centre showcases energy saving innovations including: solar power and battery, lighting, hot water heat pump, ventilation, insulation, window coverings and glazing.

You can also see sustainable design options including passive design, use of thermal mass, interior and exterior sustainable material options and the features of an all-electric home.

Save money on water bills

Tour the Centre to find out ways to save water at home. This includes grey water recycling, water tanks, flow restrictors on taps and showerheads and water efficient appliances.

Get into the garden

A well-designed garden can provide us with nutritious, tasty food and significantly cool our house in summer. The Centre's garden has been designed to minimise water use. It includes rainwater tanks, rain garden, drip fed irrigation, compost bins, a worm farms, indigenous gardens, wicking beds and no-dig garden beds.

Community Environmental Workshops

Check out our upcoming workshops here

 

Harvest exchange at the Eco Living Display Centre

Schools Sustainability Education Program

Mornington Peninsula Shire's Schools Sustainability Education program at the Eco Living Display Centre at the Briars offers hands-on learning designed to engage students to learn more about the environment, sustainability, science and climate change.

Take a virtual tour of the Eco Living Display Centre

Register for a free energy consultation

Want to save on your power bills? Free energy consultations are here!

Book in some time with one of the Mornington Peninsula Shire’s volunteer trained energy consultants and learn what you can do to have a more comfortable home and reduce your bills.

The consultation can cover a range of energy saving initiatives within your home, such as insulation and draught-proofing, energy efficient heating and cooling and hot water systems, solar and batteries and much more. The consultation will not cover specific technical advice or business recommendations.

Apply for a free energy consultation

Eco Living Display Centre school holiday programs

Are you looking for activities during the school holidays that will connect your kids to our beautiful environment?

Our Family Winter Lantern Making evening is now booked out.

Check out upcoming events here

To keep up to date with upcoming events, subscribe to our climate change e-newsletter

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Volunteering at the Eco Living Display Centre

The Eco Living Display Centre is a great place to volunteer to promote sustainable living practices that don’t cost the Earth

1. Harvest exchange stall hosts

The Eco Living Display Centre is re-launching our fortnightly harvest exchange, where members of the public can bring along their excess fruit and vegetables and swap them with other home gardeners. Volunteers will assist by occasionally manning the stall.

The exchange operates the first Saturday (11am – 12pm) and 3rd Thursday (9.30-10.30am) of each month.

2. Gardening club

Our display garden demonstrates a bucketload of innovations, from wicking beds and rain gardens to a zero-food-mile kitchen garden, a food forest, compost bays and a worm farm. We’d love to have your company in the garden.

3. Eco Living Display Centre tour guide

If you have an interest in eco-friendly building design and construction, solar PV systems, electrical and plumbing systems, engineering, or innovative products and materials - or you just enjoy talking about the technical aspects of an energy and water efficient home in general…you may be interested in volunteering as an tour guide. We will teach you everything you need to know about our sustainable display home

4. Become an energy hero!

Volunteer Energy Heroes will receive training to provide free impartial energy advice to residents and empower them to improve the sustainability of their home. Once trained, you’ll will be matched with residents seeking advice on improving household energy efficiency, reducing energy bills and improving comfort and safety in the home

Email us to register your interest for any of these opportunities: environmentaleducation@mornpen.vic.gov.au

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