Greetings! Your post was very informative and to the point. The only point you did not cover is the installation of a battery system to supply power in the evenings. I think the most important aspect of building a solar home is to build your home using insulation in the form of Styrofoam or Polystyrene blocks with rebar and cement infill. The second most important is your point on building orientation. The third is the placement and use of thermal mass. The utility cost savings with the use of solar hot water and photovoltaic systems can be increased by proper building orientation use of thermal mass, insulating double or triple pane windows, super insulation and an experienced building contractor.
Cheers, Joe On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 8:16 PM, gary dorn <garyd...@ausconnect.net> wrote: > > We are building new house and will hopefully be having Solar power and >> water. Any advice would be gratefully received, OT of course :-) >> > > > Mac and WAMUG > > If I may, I make a longish reply covering a number of aspects. > > 1. Power system > You are not saying whether you are Stand alone, Grid switched, Grid > connected or Hybrid. Each has its merits and advantages and costs. > You may want to look at unisuns web site for a description and also stand > alone system costs. > > http://www.unisun.com.au/ > > To keep the system to a reasonable size or have a reasonable payback > period, its generally advisable to reduce energy consumption, particularly > look at the items that require either high energy loading or are on > constantly > such as: > lighting - use low level general light and make up difference with task > lighting - stay away from halogens and use PL tube compact fluros or now > LEDs > heating - use the sun or wood, or gas as much as possible ( see below) > cooling - use the breeze as much as possible, then electric pedestal fans > cooking -generally use gas , however it seems that most ovens are now going > electric, induction are super fast although draw 36 amps I think? > washing - > pumping - see below in water section > > 2. House Design > In your house design generally you want to have good orientation so that > you get the sun when you want and have shade when you don't. I find long > thin wings can achieve this the best. > > Next is to fully insulate your building. The building code currently > requires R1.5 for walls and R3.5 for roofs - I recommend that you try and > achieve a higher rating than that, atleast R4.0 for roofs and R3 for walls, > the difference in cost is not that much for a superior envelope. > Then you ought to locate your thermal mass in the right place. > > 3. Heating > Radiant heat is the best and most comfortable sort of heat - the SUN > provides massive amounts of it.- So use the SUN as much as possible to heat. > This can be done by: > judicision use of glass and mass floor ( for heat absorption) > hydronic floor heating ( hot water tubes in floor) > > If you can't do that then you have to move to burning carbon via; a gas > fired heat box, an electric reverse cycle aircon, a wood fired heat box, a > gas fired heater, an electric panel (convection) heater or a "Finnish mass > stove" > > In my designs we do > Judicious use of glass > hydronic floor heating - see Enviroplumb > http://www.enviroplumb.com.au/index.php > Finish mass stove or masonry oven > wood gas fired heat box, typically large enough for wet back and cooking ( > ala Metters stove sort of thing) > > Interestingly women generally require a higher ambient heating temperature > than men - > probably because a 65 kg women makes 90watts, a 85 kg man 130 watts! > > 4 Hot water > Solar is the first preference, - the Apricus evacuated tube system seems to > be the most effective. > Enviroplumb has tanks where by the heated water can be used for showers, > kitchen etcs and also hydronic floor heating. On one of my projects the heat > exchanger is 1000 ltrs > see rotex > http://rotex-solar-hot-water-hydronic-heating.com.au/html/domestic/10/solar-hot-water-heating-hydronic-residential > > if the Apricus system doesn't suit (cost more) then the Solar kleen system > is the next choice > http://www.sola-kleen.com.au > > 5. Cooling > Most people are aware the natural ventilation, particularly along the coast > is the most effective and cheapest way of cooling an interior, yet we seeing > a rapid increase in the installation of refrigerated air con systems. These > operate a some 2400w , so they chew up the power consumption and virtually > make a mockery of PV power system . > A few years ago we looked in the viability of making an aircon system > powered by a stand along PV system. The system looked like costing $30,000 ! > > At a recent sustainability forum for mechanical systems I went too, the > presenter suggested that overhead (high) windows is the preferred method of > inducing cross ventilation in buildings without the blowing around papers > effect. > I essentially call this clerestorey windows. > > 6.Drinking water > With the move to incorporating rainwater tanks, initially for gardens but > eventually it might be needed for personal consumption, comes the need for > greater filtering. > We prefer Reverse Osmosis (RO) our supplier does whole house filtering > see http://www.purewatersystems.com.au/ > we go with Grundfos pumps, for their low energy consumption, and decent > size reservoir, so that the pump is only on occasionally to refill the > reservoir. > http://www.grundfos.com.au/ > > Hope this helps > > -- > Gary Dorn > Permaculture architect > <gary.d...@eepo.com.au> > Perth, Western Australia, Australia > integrating Permaculture , Organic Solar architecture, > Straw bale construction & Solar and wind power systems > http://www.dornworks.com > > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Unsubscribe - <mailto:wamug-unsubscr...@wamug.org.au> > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:wamug-unsubscr...@wamug.org.au>
