Advent Calendar

It's been a little while since I posted any pictures, but there's been a lot going on! I had hoped to be able to put some more photos up of the interior of the office/studio building that we're moving into in a few weeks' time, but the painters were up there today and everything had been shrouded in protective plastic so it didn't look very photogenic... the upside to that is when we're next up there the shrouds will have come down and the paint will be dry! Meanwhile, we've been busy chosing LED light fittings and thinking about the kitchen in the main house.

Tomorrow we'll be up at the block all morning: Michael will be supervising the sewerage people as they dig the trenches (and the big hole) for our Biolytix system which is being connected, and after I've dropped darling daughter off at school I'll be joining him to meet a local kitchens company to talk about interiors and measure-up.

















This view is slightly out-of-date as the support timbers for the front verandah have now gone up, as you'll see in subsequent photographs. But it gives you an idea of what the completed house will look like from the office/studio!
















This photograph is taken from the top of the slope in front of the front door (which you can just see on the very left hand edge of the shot, draped in plastic to protect it). The verandah shades the huge stacking glass doors of the main living area. The large 'planter box' made of besa bricks on the left side of the verandah as you look at it here will be lined and turned into a pond. The smaller one you can see on the right side of the verandah, just in the shot, will be planted up with culinary herbs.





















The 'pond' will be over 3m long! We'll be putting native fish in it to eat the mosquito larvae.

















Under the special render on what will be darling daughter's bedroom is a special foam block insulation: easy to construct, very well insulated, and coated with a solar-proofed paint... once we decide on colours!

















Remember our comments about the outline foundations in a previous post making the place feel small...? Not any more! This is a view down on the roof of the main house with 74,000 litres of water tank at the back of the house. It's huge.






















I took this photo half way up one of the drainage benches at the rear of the property because I wanted to see the effect of the 'pop-up' roof. The clerestory windows are louvred to allow a free flow of air through the house as we won't have air-conditioning.





















The solar panels are going up on the arrays, as well as on the shed roof.











































This is what the house looks like from the bottom of the block, next to the arrays. Although the benches in the hillside appear quite stark against the green I don't think the house intrudes too much into the landscape.
















And this is what both buildings look like from the bottom of the driveway. In a couple of years' time, when we've planted around the house, they will almost disappear...

Good news!

All the best things happen while I'maway, I'm convinced of it... There's a conspiracy there somewhere!

I rang home yesterday and Michael told me that not only has our mortgage been approved (phew!) but our solar rebate has also been approved. This means that we will get back 50% of the money we're paying out for our solar electricity system, and I can't tell you what a relief that is. For starters, we're intending to put the rebate straight back into our mortgage to reduce our monthly payments, so this is REALLY good news.

Solar power for gadget freaks

OK, here's some funny stuff. We've been having a lovely conversation with Steve from Bellingen Solar, who is a very nice chap who came round and smiled at us again yesterday. I do think we must be a great source of amusement locally, for all sorts of reasons.... especially this one.

When you embark on the whole road-to-Damascus-solar-conversion thing you have to take a stock of your current electricity consumption in order to determine the necessary size of your save-the-planet solar power system. This exercise requires a small gadget that plugs into your power points and appliances and laughs itself silly at the resulting HUGE consumption figures. Wonder why we've been delaying this part of the process? Anticipatory embarrassment, that's why. Only now we're up to genuine embarrassment because we've discovered that our 52" plasma TV consumes ONE THIRD of our total electricity.

ONE THIRD. By itself. Not even counting the media centre and the sound system.


No #1 daughter's expression is incidental. She's indicating scale, not humour


This is really embarrassing. Our TV consumes FOUR TIMES MORE POWER than Michael's powerful server uses. TWICE what our fridge and freezer combined use when they're drawing full power from the system on a hot day with their doors open.

What does this mean, apart from the fact that we clearly have a very large TV screen? Well in solar electricity terms it means we need a $40,000 stand-alone system JUST TO POWER THE TV.

What does that mean in financial terms? We'll be selling the TV shortly. And please don't talk to me about things like under-floor heating for the bathrooms OR air-conditioning, because right now these items can't squeeze onto the "if my wish-list had a wish-list..." list. Instead, we're going to be SO green we won't know ourselves, and we'll be replacing said LG plasma screen TV with an LCD screen TV very shortly on the basis that even if we can't sell the plasma TV the LCD screen replacement will pay for itself immediately by NOT costing $40,000...