One year on

Well here we are one year after we turned the systems on.

So what has it been like living in a sustainable home..... Well the results have proven themselves to a large extent... with the house never getting below 17 degrees C at any time during the year and with the DSHH system now having stored quite a lot of heat in the core this coming year we shouldn't get below 22 degrees all year round.

The photovoltaic system has been churning out power on a regular basis and we have generated nearly 3 megawatts over the year.The house has been cosy and warm all year, low humidity and hence feels really healthy and while we have had a few minor hiccups with the systems they appear to have now settled down.

January was an excellent sunny month with the best month yet in power generated with 354.6 Kilo watts generated with over half the days getting close to the 15KW per day.
Look out for the full analysis of the first year including comparisons against the original specifications and cost benefits later in the month.

A further update to our harvesting of the sun.

You should go to the Results page to see the latest update on the harvesting of the sun.
A full analysis will be available in early February at which stage we will have 12 months worth of results and a record of all Meridian bills etc...

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.