My house, before the palm trees were removed.
Front of the house now, with the Palm trees removed.
Solahart Black Chrome XII 300 litre Solar Hot Water System with electrical Boosting. Installed May 1999,
5 of the 9 roof-mounted BP 75 Watt monocrystaline photovoltaic panels used in the Grid-interactive PV system. Visible in the foreground is one of the 9 panels mounted on frames on the carport roof. Installed August 2000.
6 of the 9 photovoltaic panels mounted on the carport roof, 3 panels per frame. Frames are adjusted for Winter setting of 55 degrees elevation. Panels facing true north.
Rear view of one of the group of 3 photovoltaic panels. The elevation angle of the panels can be adjusted by unbolting the vertical supports, and bolting them to other holes drilled in the frame supports.
Grid-interactive Photovoltaic system Inverter and associated components. Inverter on left; Isolation switches and fuses top right; Protection Relays bottom right.The Inverter converts the 150 volts DC coming from the photovoltaic panels into 240 volts AC which is fed onto the grid or into the house.
The electrical meter board, The 2 meters at the bottom measure household power consumption. The top-right meter measures the amount of power produced by the grid-interactive photovoltaic system. The clock in the upper centre is used to limit the times in which the Solar Hot Water's electric booster can switch on. These times are able to be manually over-ridden if needed.
2000 litre Water tank with Dab pump. 1 non-pressurised tap on tank; 1 pressurised tap near pump; Pressurised taps in laundry (behind tank). Two-way power switch above pump and in laundry so pump can be switched off when not required (It consumes a small standby load). Water level tube on tank.
300 litre tank used for drinking water. Tank has internal first-flush diverter, and external carbon filter. A 2 litre jug is kept in the kitchen and refilled from the tank when required.
Water for the 300 litre drinking water tank comes from the pergola roof in the background. The roof in the foreground feeds into the garage/laundry gutters, which supplies water to the 2000 litre tank.
Smartflo guttering around the house and garage.
'Functional Art' ??!! Can you work out the purpose of these pipes? From the top: Water is captured off the carport roof and the smartflo gutter around the house (coming in through inverted T-piece) then through first-flush diverter (with drip outlet onto the cherry tomatoes), then through the Leaf Eater filter, and through mesh to the under-house ecosac water storage bladder. The pipe along the ground is to the storm-water drain. The piece of pipe coming off this (with a flywire mesh cover which you can't see in the photo) is an overflow in case the ecosac fills up and the storm-water drain gets blocked.
The other downpipe connected to the bladder. Left hand pipe is the first flush diverter
8m x 1.5m Ecosac water storage bladder sitting in it's frame and sling on a bed of river sand. Photo taken just after installation with no water in the sac as yet. The venting pipe can be seen sticking up from the middle of the sac. The water inlet pipe coming in from the left is from the 'artwork' two photos back, while inlet pipe from the right comes from the 'right hand pipe' in the previous photo.
A full eco sac, showing the inlet pipes, the outlet going to the pump, and the short 'stub' pipe with the level sensor switch in it. The cable from this switch goes back to the Rainbank. (The Rainbank uses this level-detector switch to determine whether household water is going to be sourced from the eco sac or from incoming mains water).
Water meter which shows the amount of water drawn from the eco sac bladder. The cable coming out of the meter is for a 'digital' output which I plan on connecting in the future
Sunlizard Solar Air Heater in the lower part of the photo, with small photovoltaic panel to drive the sunlizard's fans. 2 of the 18 PV panels above the Sunlizard.
Inlet and outlet vents in the loungeroom for the Sunlizard. Round vent in ceiling is the inlet, while the rectangular vent in the wall is the outlet.
Adjustable canvas awnings have been added to most windows to try and limit direct sunlight in summer.
Readily accessible switched power-board in kitchen. Appliances which consume standby power (eg Microwave Oven, radio) are switched off at the power-point when not being used.
Task lighting. 25W incandescent globe over the sink, This helps reduce the main room lighting requirements.
This was the most energy efficient readily available fridge on the market when purchased (Labeled as 413 kWh / year). This accounts for around 70% of my average daily electricity consumption.
Trying to grow a few edible things...Some very green lemons here!
Vegie patch, as of March '09.
