One year in the new house

Well here we are a year since we first moved in albeit another two months before all our solar systems were turned on.

The house is working really well, nearly cleared all the minor things and have had the plasterers back for a few minor screw wholes, painters will be back early in January to re-paint. The concrete floor cracks will also be sorted then.

Here is a brief video of the outside of the house which gives a good indication of the work in the garden area, or you can use my link
 http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151378922919602

Another Great Month of Sun.

Wellington has had the best spring on record with the most sun since records started so as a result we have had another great month for the photo voltaic run with over 11KW per day average for the whole month with a best day of over 16KW.

Great to see credits coming in through the energy account.

This month saw the first sizable dollar credits  in our power account, albeit that it may have been due to their estimation process. We had a credit of over $65 for the month.

The month also generated for the first time over 300KW's for the month averaging over 10KW each day and peaking at 15.1KW on the 31st October. The next few months leading up to the longest day should give really good results.

The rest of the house is working really well, although we did have an incident part way through the month. We had a planned power outage on one day for 3 hours, but no one told us, and as a result the hot water system that collects heat and heats our hot water and stores heat in our core over heated. The pumps turned off once the Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) ran out. The water in the solar panels on the roof then went to over 120 degrees C and turned into steam. Once the power came back on the pumps pushed this steam down into the core and blew two of the six pipes at the ground level in our laundry. Luckily the door to the rest of the house was closed but we ended up with a sauna in the laundry and total loose of pressure. The system survived but still needs to be fixed so that we can run it properly. The redundancy in the piping in the slab and core have taken over and we are collecting heat still but only providing storage to two thirds of the core.

The power company has admitted liability, having failed to notify us of the outage. We are now looking at solutions to ensure that the UPS can survive in the future.

Spring has finally arrived

SPRING
Spring has arrived at last.
The house has stayed really warm right through the winter, so the test now is to complete a full year and interpret what that means for

As at end of September we have generated 1.63MW off the roof. By next February when we have completed a year we will have a good feel for how much that is of the total usage of power in the house.

 See the results page for the most up to date data on the power generation.

After a very dull autumn and cold winter its good to see the garden starting to respond to the sun.



The tulips have done really well give the equinox winds.

We are now into June 2012 with the house having settled down and all systems pretty well balanced.
The hot water is now working as expected with plenty of water on average days, a little less when we have a really poor light day as happened in early June.

The house is nice and warm and is consistently in the range of 20+ degrees with the odd morning where it gets down to 18.5 degrees (on a frosty 0.5 degree morning).

Here is the view from this morning looking out to Mana Island.

An update after 5 Months

The first 5 months have flown by and we have been very busy getting ready for winter.

The summer and autumn has been very poor with very little sun and hence the amount of heat stored below the house is not as great as first thought, but having said that the house has remained nice and warm with the Digital Self Heating Home system providing a warm environment with the temperature throughout the house not getting below 18 degrees even on the very cold nights such as this week when outside it got down to zero for the first time.

The gardens are now starting to look like they should, the lawn is nice and green and all systems are go for winter.

Thus far we have generated over 900 kwhr's of electricity and the house is operating an providing about 65% of power coming off the photovoltaic system. The hot water system and house have now been balanced and are working well.

The house is certainly warm 24/7 and hence has that real nice healthy feeling. The uPVC windows and doors are proving their worth with no condensation what so ever even with the very cold mornings.

The LED lights are great and we appear to have calculated the light requirements pretty well with the need to only add a couple of lights in the kitchen and in the walk in wardrobe to get the required coverage.

All features operational

The last of the features was turned on during the week.

The solar water heating system which provides the hot water, the heating for the floor slab and stores the balance of the heat generated in the ground below the floor slab was turned on on Tuesday and has been up and running since.

The five arrays are now installed and fully operational, If only we had a run of cloudless sunny days.

The PV system has now been working for 19 days (since the 1st Feb) and so far we have generated  185Kw of power, of which  99Kw has been sent to Meridian. The house was using 16Kw per day prior to the DSHH system being turned on at the start of the week but since then has only used 12.5Kw per day as the hot water is now coming off the roof.

The array system is a big target for the local ducks who fly around and do their business on the roof. Must be a good target as I've already been up to clean the waste away.

On a good day we have been getting runs of over 14Kw from the PV system and on the poor days when its been raining our low is 3.3Kw. The average run has been 9.7Kw per day mainly as a result of the poor summer. If we averaged 12.5Kw the house would be self sufficient.

Here you can see the Photovoltiac system with the measuring system. The LED chart graphs the power generated each half hour and each day. In this case the chart is showing the power each day since we turned it on.

And in the laundry we have the cupboard with all the switching and pump system for the hot water system. The unit on the top on the right is the Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) which keeps everything going during power spikes and on the left is the little computer and readout which shows how the system is performing.

The first of the recorded results will be on the separate results page next week along with charts.

Tour of the Outside of the House

A very brief tour of the outside of the house and the landscaping areas, deck and the views is available on the attached link.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150654886134602&saved 

Water Feature

Well the house is now nearly finished with the photo voltaic system switched on and generating power, the DSHH system solar water panels installed on the roof and this week the system should be finally connected and balanced.

The landscaping water feature is now finished with the solar pump working well to recycle the water. The water ponds and creeks have had four sealing coats on Cemix blue resin and then topped off with a coat of grey concrete paint. The water plants are now all in the ponds and the system was switched on at lunchtime today and worked as intended.

See the attached video at http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150652431294602&saved

The front of the house is now all finished, the garage all cleared out and cleaned up and cars now parked in the right place.

The lawn is also ready for its first trim with the over-sow working really well. Letter box up and in place and can now start to think about putting my feet up on the deck with a glass of cool beer..
Watch out for the results of the systems in the weeks ahead.

Landscaping Near finished

With workers back from Christmas there is now more progress being made in finalising those items still to be completed around the house. The solar water panels are about ready to go on the roof and we finally have agreement to connect the input/output meter so that the photovoltaic system can be connected to the grid.

The fences and side gates are now installed and the letterbox is up.

I have been very busy over the holidays with the landscaping and now have the gardens near finished and the Japanese garden in the front all formed and ready to have the solar water pump installed. The extra mowing strip on the road reserve has also been finished and the lawn has been oversown again now that its at the right level.

Japanese garden with three Acers, ground covers and mosses, two creeks and three ponds nearly ready. Still needs solar water pump to be installed and the sealant for the ponds to be applied.

Mowing strips for the road reserve lawn completed.

Trees at the top include Kowhai and Lancewood

lawn oversown and should be up by end of the month.

Side fence now all complete and the gardens starting to come away.

Side gates installed down this side of the house and beside the garage.

Five old rose types planted all have great smells.