Ideas for eco-friendly houses

[lizzie]

Included everything heating, cooling and hot water, as it's all inter-connected anyhow ... including trenching and pipe laying, running ducted outlets, condensors, pump etc (trenching is cheaper than drilling if you have the space).

But - as I said - at $1600/yr electricity bill currently, it would take us 20 years to pay it off - and solar panels covers "all" electricity use rather than just heating/cooling/water.

Was just disappointed as expected around $20k (based on nothing)

 

[Ocean Architect]

In my great learning on other threads, I picked up a great trick on how to be eco friendly. Apparently, there is an old invention that has become fashionable again called an "outdoor loo" with this special technique called "putting the nightsoil in the fallow part of the veggie patch".

While this might sound strange, apparently it is great for the soil, cuts down on sewerage costs, food bills, and if you put the device on the far end of your property, means that you'll save on gym memberships because going to the bathroom involves a 1.5Km jog.

If you're serious about saving the planet, I suggest that you think about it.

Juuuuuust sayin

 

[kathryn d]

In my great learning on other threads, I picked up a great trick on how to be eco friendly. Apparently, there is an old invention that has become fashionable again called an "outdoor loo" with this special technique called "putting the nightsoil in the fallow part of the veggie patch".

While this might sound strange, apparently it is great for the soil, cuts down on sewerage costs, food bills, and if you put the device on the far end of your property, means that you'll save on gym memberships because going to the bathroom involves a 1.5Km jog.

If you're serious about saving the planet, I suggest that you think about it.

Juuuuuust sayin

We housesat in Goulburn,NSW a few months ago, and they had an indoor, compostable loo. It had a fan underneath, so there were no odors.
It turned in 3 stages I think..so by the time it was turned completely, it came out as compost.
The house was off grid, and was solar and wind generated..and they used a generator 1 hr a day.(because they ran their coffee machine and vacuum cleaner) Heated with wood kitchen stove. Not very efficient, because it really needed a non electrical fan...even when we looked in the local stores, we couldn't find them.

 

[Angel13]

Have a look at these guys http://www.insulliving.com.au/insulliving/home.php

Were recently on Today Tonight. Say they take 2 months less to build, 8 star rating and cheaper to build than a normal home.

I saw this on Today tonight too. We looked at their website, my b/f is a builder and a building designer and he thinks it look really promising. Green can be done easily if you want to spend the extra dollars.

But this insulliving product seems unique in that they say it actually cost around 20% less. If this is true we'll probably build our next home with it.

We want have a chat to these guys some time in the next few months to find out more.

 

[Ocean Architect]

We housesat in Goulburn,NSW a few months ago, and they had an indoor, compostable loo. It had a fan underneath, so there were no odors.
It turned in 3 stages I think..so by the time it was turned completely, it came out as compost.
The house was off grid, and was solar and wind generated..and they used a generator 1 hr a day.(because they ran their coffee machine and vacuum cleaner) Heated with wood kitchen stove. Not very efficient, because it really needed a non electrical fan...even when we looked in the local stores, we couldn't find them.

I bet it was crappy compost

 

[kathryn d]

I bet it was crappy compost

I bet you're right

 

[HiEquity]

one thing to remember for sustainability is size

Absolutely - this is by far the biggest thing to remember for a new build. The sustainability of a new home fundamentally depends on its size - the smaller the more sustainable.

Light recycling can help a little with the energy use

Or heavy recycling. The most sustainable solution would be to buy an existing small house and save it from demolition, while installing the right insulation (including windows) and efficient appliances / lights etc.

Building new gives you an insurmountable disadvantage in sustainability - it means you can never get over the embodied energy of the building materials you use. The existing product alternative will always be more sustainable even if just lightly insulated and poorly positioned because no new bricks / concrete etc had to be manufactured to make it! Concrete, timber and bricks aren't exactly environmentally friendly to make...

So maybe sustainability isn't the main priority? It's good to be clear on what are really the priorities or your head will end up exploding going around in circles with this stuff...

And you can always just buy green energy from your electricity company instead of stuffing up your roof with panels etc...

 

[lizzie]

Juuuuuust sayin

haha - touche ... however ... will be on biodynamic septic so my worms will be happy.

The poop I'll be putting on the compost, and garden, will be chook, horse, sheep and cow ... the ducks will scatter their own as they will be encouraged in the vege patch to eat the snails and slugs.

Walked over the block again today. Very excited - but a lot of work to bring the land up to quality.

Don't mind covering my roof in panels.

My cousin and his wife are totally off grid too - have solar and windmill and combustion fireplace for heating and wood oven.

What am I trying to achieve? A house that has no ongoing footprint - and returns more than it takes from the grid/environment.

 

[bbmick]

I am wanting to build something as modern looking, but eco friendly, as possible.

I know you wanted modern looking, but what about something underground like this http://www.realestate.com.au/property-other-sa-clarendon-7302843 or this http://sale.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/jim-builds-his-house-in-the-hill/286640.aspx

I have always yearned for an underground one in the bush. Might have to wait until retirement though.

 

[AlmostBob]

trenching a site is a 10x more expensive than drilling, but only consider trenching if there is not ground water to extract (and return no water is consumed) so there is no alternative perhaps for this site
geothermal is more efficient than solar, (than anything, efficiencies of 500% are easy, up to 700% in the showplaces) the proposal for our eleven unit building to use geothermal heat, is run by a 375 watt fridge motor, even the waste heat from the motor would be recovered as heat, so wouldn't take much panel to power it
solar heat can only get out what is in the sun, least in mid winter when you need most, most in summer when you need none,and would need a lot of panels, a lot of storage tanks, to store the hot water
solar electricity to run a much smaller heat pump is viable
Our costs/quotes are much lower because the piping and radiators are installed
but damn, 20k is a lot
real insulation would help, the heat pumps required would be smaller, airtight in walls floors and ceilings instead of the gappy crappy missing jobs I have seen here, [noparse][rant] foil is not insulation, you cook with it, so it aint heat-proof [/rant][/noparse]. Like this insulation, if Aus gets holmes on homes TV fixit show, you see it every episode

not 15[sup]o[/sup] as a heating temperature, 100billion tonnes @ 15[sup]o[/sup] of heatsink for the refrigerator motor to pull heat out of, or push heat into when heating cooling,
the kitchen freezer does not need -5[sup]o[/sup] it just pushes heat from the cold box to the outside, ditto as I understand it

If using a combustion stove, water jacket the chimney for extra hot water supply, (my grandma's house) may as well use all the old good ideas as well as the new good ideas

Building new gives you an insurmountable disadvantage in sustainability - it means you can never get over the embodied energy of the building materials you use. The existing product alternative will always be more sustainable even if just lightly insulated and poorly positioned because no new bricks / concrete etc had to be manufactured to make it! Concrete, timber and bricks aren't exactly environmentally friendly to make...

get abused by rabid greens when I say something similar, green but want carbon-fiber windmills, PV panels. Support the coal-fired power industry, melt tonnes of sand, electrically purifiy it, dope it with toxic metallic poisons, wrap it in a coccon of refined metal and oil-base polymer, to be environmentally responsible?
do it because you want to, because there are no ongoing expenses, because soon enough there may not be an alternative, but 55 years payback time, dont crack a panel, do it to cap expenses.

this is one link to the no-electricity heating fan LadyLove mentioned in her post,

 

[HiEquity]

do it because you want to, because there are no ongoing expenses, because soon enough there may not be an alternative, but 55 years payback time, dont crack a panel, do it to cap expenses.

Hi AlmostBob

Just in case someone might take you seriously on the 55 year thing, I thought I should point out that the current energy payback period for industrial scale wind turbines is between 3-6 months and for "conventional" solar panels is realistically 1-3 years. The smaller payback periods in those ranges apply to Australian wind and solar resources while the longer ones apply to German / Chinese wind and solar resources. And yes I recommend anyone who really likes the idea of solar to go watch how silicon gets made... personally I much prefer large scale wind - the point is hard to argue at less than half the price of solar in Australia. The price of solar keeps dropping of course but it has a fair way to go yet. And there is plenty of room for more wind.

So for true "sustainability", it is far better to just buy renewable energy from the grid (most of which is supplied by large scale wind) than putting solar panels on your roof... In buying from the grid your retailer must, each year, buy from the wholesale market additional renewable energy equal to your consumption.

On geothermal, that's a very tough gig in Australia for an individual residence. I haven't seen a profitable job yet. Lots of promise and hype but also a lot of angry purchasers. Stuff on the scale of 50m swimming pools can work (there are a couple in Perth) but even then it can end in a lot of tears... as the new owners of one recent installation have found out... The capital cost of the drilling just kills it on a smaller scale unfortunately. And if you don't go deep enough your heat sink no longer sinks the heat! Unless you have the water table moving under you or some such to assist with heat rejection.

BTW foil + batts is a significantly better insulator than batts alone in high insolation environments. The utility of foil depends on the amount of radiant heat. But yes, foil alone is definitely no substitute for batts!

As for most things there is no one size fits all - it all depends on the climate in question. But to my mind if you are going to build new there is one construction method that kills them all for low embodied energy and thermal performance - the straw bale house. Having been in a large one sitting around in shorts at circa 20 degrees inside when it was -5 degrees outside, all courtesy of the smallest pot belly stove I have ever seen, the thermal performance is second to none!

But again, I doubt sustainability is really the main priority, when push comes to shove....

 

[ashilleong]

A few things to look at...

Some sewerage/septic systems are better than others. Some require regular maintinance from the company which can really add to the cost. Some actially run the rish of contaminating the groundwater you have. The benefit of some is that you can recycle your greywater into the loos for flushing (we don't actually need to flush A grade drinking water!)

The best ones I've seen are the composting toilest as there are some systems that can be used indoors and have zero smell (and what little maintainence there is you can do yourselves. there are Australian stockists of this brand http://www.sun-mar.com/ and prices vary.

Waste from those loos can't go directly onto the garden but must be buried for 6-12 months depending on the state you live in.

 

[kathryn d]

Hi AlmostBob

Just in case someone might take you seriously on the 55 year thing, I thought I should point out that the current energy payback period for industrial scale wind turbines is between 3-6 months and for "conventional" solar panels is realistically 1-3 years. The smaller payback periods in those ranges apply to Australian wind and solar resources while the longer ones apply to German / Chinese wind and solar resources. And yes I recommend anyone who really likes the idea of solar to go watch how silicon gets made... personally I much prefer large scale wind - the point is hard to argue at less than half the price of solar in Australia. The price of solar keeps dropping of course but it has a fair way to go yet. And there is plenty of room for more wind.

Rob isn't referring to recouping the cost thru saved electricty.
We have this conversation at home a lot

It is the manufacturing of the solar panels and wind turbines, he is mostly referring to. They pollute during manufacturing, in the factories.

That is why he states, if saving on electricty is the main motive to recap expenses, go for it.

 

[HiEquity]

Rob isn't referring to recouping the cost thru saved electricty.
We have this conversation at home a lot

It is the manufacturing of the solar panels and wind turbines, he is mostly referring to. They pollute during manufacturing, in the factories.

That is why he states, if saving on electricty is the main motive to recap expenses, go for it.

Hi Kathryn

I'm not referring to financial paybacks either - they are a lot longer!

I'm referring to how long it takes a wind turbine or solar panel to produce the energy required to make it in the first place.

 

[kathryn d]

Hi Kathryn

I'm not referring to financial paybacks either - they are a lot longer!

I'm referring to how long it takes a wind turbine or solar panel to produce the energy required to make it in the first place.

I'll let Rob argue this one, if he chooses to.
He is quite knowledgeable about this stuff....

 

[HiEquity]

There are a number of studies for it on solar panels. This summary of them is a little dated (2006) - the performance of PV panels has improved markedly since then. But you can get the idea about the range I gave...

There are similar studies for wind turbines that I can't be bothered googling right now. Energy paybacks for them are pretty tiny because of their ever increasing size and swept area, which is a squared relationship with diameter. And the fact that no silica had to be melted to make them!

 

[lizzie]

Yep - as much as we looked into building a straw house, and liked what we saw, we just don't have the time to do so ... so ... it's a case of therefore living as sustainable as possible and ensuring that the property doesn't incur any further damage to the environment in it's lifetime.

And that the methods employed for such, will cover thr manufacturing costs by putting back into the grid/system.

Bob, I can't believe that to install geothermal for you unit block is so cheap!

We, in Australia, get so ripped off on the cost of energy efficient, enviromentally friendly products. If the price was more comparable to what they pay in the UK etc, then everyone would be installing everything they could get their hands on, instead of building these energy guzzling monoliths.

 

[kathryn d]

Bob, I can't believe that to install geothermal for you unit block is so cheap!

It isn't a quote..more in line what they said it could cost.
Hoping to get more of a quote within the next few months.

Also, we have most of the stuff there already. Boiler, water pipes all thru the building now etc. We aren't starting from scratch.

One of the nieghbours around the corner from where we live in canada, put this system into their apt building. Hoping we can get some feedback from him.

 

[AlmostBob]

3 years, is the repayment for thin-film solar panels, Thin film cells are not yet easily available

The two overwhelming advantages of thin film panels is their low embodied energy and the ease and speed at which they can be produced, which is in a roll-to-roll process similar to newsprint.
Within three years, a thin film panel will repay its original 'energy debt' (the amount of energy embodied in its production), and the operational lifespan of the new 'UNI-SOLAR' modules is in excess of 20 years.

The term “Embodied Energy” captures this idea. PV systems typically pay back the production energy within one to three years, depending on cell type and location.

and location:NOT the hunter, North of 20[sup]o[/sup] lattitude
depending on cell type: not the crystalline cells sold

each generation of solar panels produces more energy for less industrial cost, rigid amorphous panels imported from China and sold with most of the advertised packages (that I have browsed, there may be some selling up-to-date stuff) are many generations outdated,.
still apply to rigid solar panels, amorphous polycrystalline or single-crystal

Next generation(or the one after) will be 1/10th cost to buy, make & everything, they are the ones to wait for, or look for now, to be green.
thin film cells can be used for walls roofs

Geothermal technology can provide energy efficient and renewable energy based central heating and cooling systems that can cut up to 70% from your energy bill, whilst reducing your carbon footprint by minimising pollution.

Geothermal energy is extracted from a reasonably constant earth core temperature of 12.2° to 13.3°C. Running a thermal loop to this constant core temperature by drilling wells vertically or horizontally allows this heat to transfer to a medium in pipes. These pipes contain fluid from which either cooling or heating is extracted. In cooling mode a compressor works less hard when it is exposed to 22°C from the ground instead of 38°C from the outside air; in heating it will work easier when exposed to a ground temperature of 18°C instead of a cold night air temperature of 2°C.

Geothermal energy is a type of renewable energy that encourages conservation of natural resources. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, geo-exchange systems save homeowners 30-70 percent in heating costs, and 20-50 percent in cooling costs, compared to conventional systems. Geo-exchange systems also save money because they require much less maintenance. In addition to being highly reliable they are built to last for decades.

bold by Bob
The bolded part above is probably why it is a better option in colder regions. Anybody have a lodge at Thredbo?

more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell

 

[lizzie]

Next generation(or the one after) will be 1/10th cost to buy, make & everything, they are the ones to wait for, or look for now, to be green.
thin film cells can be used for walls roofs

Yep - being developed at Newcastle University ... so us local's are rather proud.

Still a few years off and can be added to existing systems. Looking forward to them coming online.