Power your place with the sun

Power Australia with the sun

Buy in bulk – be one of over 30 off the grid solar energy buyers

Cut your purchase price by a HUGE amount  by buying in bulk

Stop burning coal for your place

Please join me and about 30 others at my place for an information evening about using solar energy to power your home or business.

• Date: Monday 25 May 15
• Time: 630 for light supper, information and discussion concludes at 9 pm
• Place:  58 Myrtle Street, Chippendale
• RSVP: to Michael@sustainablehouse.com.au  – BY Monday 18 May with numbers of guests.
• NOTE: Numbers limited: first 30 folk to register will share the fun

If you know of a friend of yours who may wish to go solar, too, please ask them to come with you, too.

I’m suggesting this idea to you and at least one friend of yours as I wish to bring down the individual purchase costs for you for a solar system.  That will happen if a minimum number of us buy in bulk.

The preferred installer, Australia Wide Solar, will present information about the options.

I’ll talk openly about my experiences, successes and failures, and show you the system at my place.

I disclose that I will receive a commission of a maximum of $1000 on sales if over 30 people agree.

As part of the information time we will test a qualifying customer survey.  We don’t wish to waste your time or ours. With your feedback on it, the survey will be published on the internet for you to complete in your own time.  The survey will help you qualify and choose one of the three options:

1. Stay connected to the main grid using solar only  – if you already have solar panels, that’s fine
2. Stay connected using solar with batteries
3. Disconnect using only solar and batteries

To qualify for a one or more of the three options you will need to have, or choose to achieve, some maximum or minimum requirements at your house or business, particularly for the area of sunlit roof and for the average daily energy use.  The survey will spell out the maximum and minimum energy requirements.

If you don’t qualify because your roof or energy use or some other factor puts you outside the survey, but wish to, the survey prompts you to choose some solutions. Depending on the solutions you choose either or both myself and AWS will help you implement the solutions at no cost to you for our advice.

Once 30 or more folk complete the survey and qualify for 30 sales of systems we will  then offer you the choice to commit as a member of the bulk purchase group.

If we don’t reach 30 sales there will be no reduction in price and no bulk sale arrangement.

Let’s have some fun.

Warm regards,

Michael

It’s magic.

It pumps water up to 200 metres above itself without electricity.

Video Glockemann pump

It uses the energy of flowing water to pump the water.

I’ve stood in a very slow flowing creek at the bottom of a valley and seen it pump water up 65 metres to a rain tank at the top of the hill. It doesn’t pump fast but continuously.

Wonderful design, wonderful ‘eyes’ in the designer for the gifts Earth has for us if we will look for them.

Don’t you love good design?

Enjoy,

M

With the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australia and others I’ll be presenting a seminar on how to build and operate sustainable public infrastructure.  The first one is in Sydney on Wednesday and Thursday 26 and 27 March. Country seminars will follow later in the year.

The seminar is called, Sustainable Public Infrastructure and you may register there.

IPWEA is going on the front foot to work with councils, elected folk and communities and engineers to get infrastructure into the sustainable mode.  CEO John Roydhouse, has already spoken to The Fifth Estate about the Institute’s initiatives in this field.

The seminar will involve a rich mix of councillors, engineers and research bodies where the focus will be on projects, leading examples from engineers and local government.  More on who will be presenting and the topics in a later post.

M

A new commercial project extracts carbon from Earth’s air to make plastic products.

The ‘biocatalyst” commercial machine takes carbon from landfills and other polluting sources and mixes it with air in a reactor and makes it into a liquid which pulls carbon out of air and makes it into plastic.

The two people behind the US business are Mark Herrema and Kenton Kimmel and their business is called Newlight Technologies.

They’re making chairs and cell phone cases, food storage containers, films and a range of things from air.  It’s a market-driven carbon capture project that’s taking more carbon pollution out of the air than the process causes.

Cause for hope for us, our cultures and Earth.  Thank you fellas,

M

There will be three blocks of uni, each of a day and a half.

I’ve described it like this on the enrolment site:

The link to enrol is here.

The dates are:

You’re welcome to ask questions on this blog or contact the uni directly at the enrollment page.

See you there,

Michael

Hello Michael

I met you while hiking in the Blue Mountains in 1991 or 1992. I read Sustainable House and was hooked on building something some day based on your principles.

I eventually decided to build in Bali because of fewer zoning requirements and cheaper labor than where i live in Seattle.

I completed the house last week and other than telling GREEN magazine (hoping to expand the likelihood of others building sustainably) a few minutes ago I wanted to let you know you were the inspiration.

I attached a generic write up, i.e. from a layman’s point of view and some photos.

Regards

Michael Huffman

Michael has provided a detailed list of materials, design ideas and background information which is a useful resource so I’m copying it here.

”

MICHAEL HUFFMAN’S GREEN HOME –

Nyuh Kuning, Ubud, Gianyar, Bali Indonesia

Featured in April 2013 in: greenasiaforce.com…

Recent Photos: www.airbnb.com…

This home represents my quest to build a green, eco-friendly house in Bali, Indonesia. The goal was to use all natural materials from within a 50 mile radius of the house project instead of the energy-intensive concrete block, unsustainably-harvested tropical wood, and tile roof villas most commonly built by foreigners in Bali that are as energy intensive to build as they are to maintain.

One of the main philosophies in Bali is ‘Tri Hati Karana”, i.e. ‘do no harm to each other, to the earth or to God’. Building this house was my attempt to embody those principles and to set an example for green building in S.E. Asia. The goal was to make the house look modern and as a design element to be totally surrounded by water to have the feeling of being on a boat to clearly delineate the living space as a private retreat.

STRUCTURAL + DESIGN:

1. Rammed Earth Walls : Four Hand Designed, one-of-a-kind for structural support and/or architectural interest reminiscent of the interior of the Grand Canyon. Walls use only 5-8% Portland cement, limestone, pigments and soil (tanah) from the job site so we did not need to truck/lorry the soil to a landfill. A Rammed Earth specialist from Vancouver designed and built the walls with a workshop with builders from Norway and Victoria, B.C.
2. Energy Efficient by Design:
   1. Maximizing airflow and ventilation with West to East wind dynamic from curved upturned edges of ferro cement interior ceiling.
   2. The architect created a roof cavity between the concrete flat roof and the ceiling by designing the ceiling to be curving upward to ensure the thermal performance of the house. The cavity acts as a buffer to prevent strong sun heating up space underneath.
   3. The house is mainly naturally ventilated. Air-conditioning is used only in master bedroom.
   4. Key Learning: While main design consideration was for cross ventilation and so the edges of the roof were curled up, seasonal rains were not accounted for so bamboo blinds (Kray) with canvas on the exterior were added.
3. ‘Green concrete’ to minimize amount used of energy intensive concrete.
   1. Bamboo reinforced concrete roof that uses less concrete by volume and the top concrete roof layer has a lighter weight.
   2. Ferro cement interior curved roof ceiling. A thin coat of Portland cement was applied by hand to woven metal mesh, which is lighter and stronger than solid concrete. Local Balinese ferro cement statue artists were employed to make the ceiling. This was a slightly more expensive method because of manual application but uses less cement.
4. Local Balinese Bamboo used for: structural columns, walls, shelving, cabinets and furniture. Bamboo is a renewable, local grass considered a ‘carbon sink’ because it grows faster than trees and takes a lot of carbon dioxide out of the air releasing ample amounts of oxygen.
5. Grey Water Treatment:
   1. Kitchen: Grease trap from kitchen (2 recycled plastic trash cans filled with coconut fiber (ejuk) act as pre-filter cleaning before being added into fish pond
   2. Bathroom: Wetland area uses tropical plants (kaladi), gravel and sand as a sub-surface filtration process before the fish in the surrounding ponds glean nutrients from any residue from the organic soaps.
6. Rainwater Harvesting directs roof runoff for garden use during the not-as-wet season and to feed overflow to the pond system as well. Ponds do not need well water used for the main house and do not deplete water table which is rapidly depleting in Bali due to over development of non-sustainable methods.
7. Tanah Taro Perimeter Walls: Earth used from site taken during excavation was used for adobe-effect on perimeter property walls made of cement block instead of using high VOC paints.
8. Antique, Teakwood Joglo bedroom with morning porch. This is an example of a re-using an antique building that would have otherwise been burned as fuel. Wood windows that can be closed if raining or open for ventilation.
9. Impermeable Pavers for parking and near temple
10. Reclaimed tough and weather-resistant ULIN wood steps, bridges and dining room table.
11. Low consumption flourescent light bulbs. Natural daylight management  is done using bamboo kray roll up blinds on both sides of the house.
12. Durability – Lesson Learned: Initial floor was bamboo but it was not properly installed (lack of cement sub floor) so it was removed after four months and a cement and terrazzo floor was laid to give the otherwise floating structure grounded solidity and durability.

1. Air Flow – Wet areas such as kitchen, shower and toilet are semi-opened thus ensure free-flow air circulation.

LOCATION:

1. ‘Inner-village building site’: The land for the project site was not previously used for rice or vegetable production prior to building which is typical of foreigners looking for ‘rice field views’. The small inner city lot was one of only a handful remaining within walking distance to the organic yoga village of Ubud.
2. Convenient Local Location that encourages use of bicycles and walking to Ubud instead of car or motorbike further reducing fossil fuel consumption.
3. Nyuh Kuning is a safe, clean village on the other side of Ubud protected from the ‘green lung’ of the Ubud Monkey Forest, recently voted by the Indonesian Government as the cleanest village in Indonesia.

LIFESTYLE:

1. Minimal Footprint Living. Simple, efficient design with no wasted space. Maximize appearance of open space with open dining and living room areas while minimizing overall size to give ‘just right’ size.
2. Entertaining-focused kitchen with rammed earth island wall containing a premium butane gas range, extra large local Bali green stone countertop, bamboo countertop breakfast bar/observation seats, spot lighting over sink and stove, and small energy-efficient refrigerator
3. Rain from the roof empties into bamboo gutters and then is channeled down rain chains above pool for a Japanese aesthetic.

LOCAL ECONOMY:

1. Built primarily by human labor with minimum power tools.
2. Ninety-percent of the labor was done by carpenters, cement craftsmen, bamboo workers from Nyuh Kuning and paid fair wages that are higher than cheaper labor imported from Java. Using local Balinese encouraged the artisans to keep up their generational artisan crafts instead of becoming ‘taxi/transport’ drivers.
3. Material Delivered was from local suppliers: river stone, gravel, bricks, bamboo.

”

• The Narara Ecovillage Co-op is set up to build a world class ecovillage community to integrate social, ecological and economic sustainability.
• The site is the former Gosford Horticultural Institute – the photos show it has a mix of hills, fields, woods, houses and is a rural haven.
• Their website is the best reference to learn more about the aims and aspirations.
• They’re using a co-operative structure instead of a company because it more fully reflects their values as shown on their website.
• Members are the investors, the shareholders, the designers, the developers, the future residents. And it is the members who decide how to use the profits resulting from the project.
• people join the co-op by making a commitment to buy a lot (at some point), buying $20,000 in shares, and agreeing to do some volunteer hours for the co-op.
• When titles are available after the DA is approved, their shares will count towards their lot price.
• Choice of lots is mostly determined by the priority in time of purchase.
• The development will be in three phases, with Stage One house building to start around mid 2014.
• People pay an additional $30,000 to reserve a lot in Stage One, now about three quarters full.
• Members who want to be in Stages 2 or 3 need not pay any additional now, but will still be fully part of shaping the community.
• Average lot prices are expected to be around $250,000.
• Currently there are about 40 ‘memberships’ translating to about 80 members (singles, couples and families). The eventual population is expected to be between 3-400.
• For those that are wondering if this might be something that they want to pursue, there are two formal documents explaining the project and how to join the co-op: a Disclosure Statement (like a prospectus) and the Co-op Rules.

The project is being funded by those buying shares and is therefore an example of a village being developed by self-funding means.  It’s interesting that folks are prepared to buy into this project without knowing where their lot will be; that suggests to me that those buying are primarily buying ‘the dream’ and Lyndall agreed with me.

Let’s see if the project solves the urban heat island problem (which typically drive up subdivision temperatures by over 6 to 8 degrees), the typical up front costs for unsustainable road, water, sewage and energy infrastructure.

In my book, Sustainable House, there’s an example where I reduced developer charges from $27,500 to $7000 a lot in a Port Macquarie project in NSW by using sustainable road design and water, sewage and energy infrastructure.  Although that’s a bush fire problem area the roads are only 5 m wide thereby increasing lot yield and amenity.

Folks will be able to live there for energy and water bills less than $300 a year no matter how many people live in the house, just as I do in my house, Sydney’s Sustainable House.

And it will be interesting to see if the project matches the VicUrban (now, Places Victoria) Meridian project where low cost road design creates self-irrigating drains for over 12,000 fruit trees planted in the drains; details are in my book, Sustainable Food.

With large developers such as Investa (see, for example:  http://www.thefifthestate.com.au/archives/42612/) now publishing data on their journey to reduce energy and water use in their offices and shopping centres it would also be handy if all new projects seeking to be sustainable published data on costs, performance, living expenses, food sources and such.

Good luck to the Narara venturers,

M