Energy Smarter!

Previous Article
In March, I wrote about energy smart houses, mainly about the companies who are providing energy efficient light bulbs. This is still a good idea, and if you haven’t been replacing your old bulbs with energy efficient ones, you should consider it. Remember the Enviro Saver group will do this for you for no cost!
Sustainable House Day

The Sustainable House Day is organised by a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting the environmentally sustainable use of energy. The event is made possible by volunteers, community support, and ethical corporate and government sponsors.

On this day, many architects and people hoping to make a difference open their houses to show the rest of us what can be done.

My goal
David and I visited two house which were interesting, but I didn’t really learn much. Then we happened to visit a home build by a very passionate young couple. They were so knowledgeable and so passionate that they have turned me around from someone who thought it would be good to be a bit more efficient in my power and water use to someone who now thinks I should aim to be close to energy and water neutral in the new house I am planning.

Neutral power—How?
All of the hot water can easily be heated by solar. The solar panels we now have are getting quite old, but the newer solar tubes are much more efficient as sun doesn’t have to hit the top directly in order to produce good heating. You could also use solar tube heating to circulate under the floor (tile, polished concrete, etc) to provide free energy floor heating.

This is good, but did you know that you can also produce enough electricity from the sun to run your other household devices? Solar tiles can be used to pass electricity through to the electricity grid during the day and then you can buy it back in the evening. In others words you can have an electricity meter which actually runs backwards part of the time! The young couple I told you about paid for no electricity as they produced as much as they used. The had mostly normal appliances except for a couple energy saving ones.

Insulation, etc
In order to be energy neutral they had build carefully. Huge windows facing solar north with a high thermal mass (floor, walls and false wall panels); proper overhangs, insulation in walls, under floor, in ceiling and a metre out from the house; double glazed low e argon windows; cross ventilation; and low energy light bulbs all contributed to this wonderful result.

Composting Toilet?
Yuk; an outhouse in my house? No way. But wait… I saw a working composting toilet and it looked like a conventional toilet without a flusher. It didn’t even smell and this toilet produces only a small amount of compost from a family over a period of year. This can then be buried. That’s right no water. However if you want to use water, there is a composting toilet which used 500ml a flush, the envirolet toilet. It is still expensive from $2000 to 3500, but if you can afford it, this would be a good way to avoid black water in the system. There are cheaper systems and if these can be installed in Canberra, I sure hope they can be installed in Yass.

Grey Water
Now if you have no black water, you can treat the remaining used grey water through a filtration system so that after 5 days you can have recyled water which can be held in tanks and used for laundry and watering. The young passionate couple I mentioned have lived in Canberra city since early December and have not connected to the water supply yet! Amazing. So why aren’t we doing this in Yass when water is so precious to all of us.

The garden
I’ll leave this information for Lisa, but much water saving can be incorporated here as well.

So much we can do
Yes, all this will cost more, but if you can afford to build smart now, do it! You will not only save money in the future, but you will help to save the resources of our planet. If you are renovating an older house, consider what you might be able to incorporate to make it much more energy efficent.
Until next month…

Useful Websites
http://www.solarhouseday.com/info.shtml
http://www.enviroletvf.com/
http://www.rotaloo.com/01loo.html
http://www.envirosaver.com.au/
www.greenhousegasnsw.gov.au