Sustainability
Shading Northern Windows
In a post about Passive Solar I talked about shading North facing windows. That doesn’t mean installing roller shutters, or blinds that pull down over the window. Shutters and blinds tend to make the rooms very gloomy and depressing, and…
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Winter Sun
If you are going to get as much winter sun inside your house you want to minimise shading. That could be from neighbour’s houses or even and boundary fences/hedges. Here is how to check………………….. Ideally you should be aiming for…
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Passive Solar – What Does It Mean?
Do you want a house that is filled with natural light in the summer without overheating, and minimises your heating bills in winter? ……….If you do, then a passive solar house is what you need. Here are some of the…
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What Size Rainwater Tank 3
Other posts explain how to calculate: How much rain you can collect and How to work out how much water you will need to last for a month without rain. From your calculations find out the month of lowest average…
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Rainwater – Safety
Millions of people have lived long healthy lives drinking rainwater . . . . but that’s doesn’t mean that rainwater is entirely pure, or completely safe for everyone. Composition The following Chemicals are commonly found in rain: Hydrogen, Ammonium, Calcium,…
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Insulation Basics – Calculating R Values
A previous post –introduced R and U values In this post we will demonstrate how to calculate R values. Well it all starts with the thermal conductivity of the building material. The ‘k’ value. This is a measure of how fast…
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Insulation Basics – ‘R’ and ‘U’ Value
R Value R1.5 Batts, R2.0 Batts……. all the way up to R6.0 Batts, but what does it all mean? The R value is a measure of the thermal resistance of the component of the material. In other word how hard…
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Induction Hobs
Why we wanted an induction hob About a year ago we started thinking about going all electric. We had previously gone from gas ducted air heating to reverse cycle units and installed photo voltaic solar panels. After installing a heat…
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Making The Most From Your Solar Panel
To get the best value from your solar panels you need to maximise your use of power when the panels are generating, and avoid taking grid power during that time. This limits the kW you generate that are paid at…
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Coffee Makers
I see some display homes with expensive built in espresso machines costing thousands. I’m afraid I’m for the inexpensive, and easy life, so I am happy to use a Nespresso machine which cost me less than $200 (My milk frother…
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