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Nerdishness and Solar power

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
@Pfitzy, I see that you have relented on the external shading.
Why is that?


Because wife. And finance. But mostly, wife.


I have a high fence and at least one member of the household who has above average ability with a rifle. And a psychopath of a cat. Prioritised.


That cat will run out on you as soon as that shit comes down. And rifles require ammo.

Get yourself a patang and a less fussy pushbike with panniers or a trailer ;)
 

boyo

Mark Ella (57)
So it was SWMBO who relented.

Does your house have dark-coloured roof tiles, and no eaves, a la McMansions?
 

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
Colourbond steel in white - sort of white. I have eaves all around at 400mm. I shudder to think what it would be like without them! Single storey

And that is only ONE awning over the garage. The front of the house is sacrosanct.
 

ChargerWA

Mark Loane (55)
Do you air condition the whole house? It might be cost effective to get a smaller split system put in and only cool one area. We have splits in all of the bedrooms and one in the living area. When it's hot, the living area goes on and if the kids want to be cool they come out of their rooms and interact with their parents as human beings.

I guess it depends on your layout. It works for us as our main living/kitchen can be shut off as its own area.
 

boyo

Mark Ella (57)
@Pfitzy, you may want to install a Whirlybird or a solar powered exhaust fan so that your roofspace doesn't overheat. IIRC some solar powered exhaust fans have a temperature sensor to ensure that the fan activates only above a certain temp. This will require air vents to be installed in the eaves.
 

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
Do you air condition the whole house? It might be cost effective to get a smaller split system put in and only cool one area. We have splits in all of the bedrooms and one in the living area. When it's hot, the living area goes on and if the kids want to be cool they come out of their rooms and interact with their parents as human beings.


Have a look at the latest post on the website to look at my west-facing windows and, in a similar vein to what you've posted, the current practice is to shut off the hot room in the afternoon and use open windows to keep the air moving if its cool enough.

The ducted has three zones:

1) Living area - including the boy's room (which was the study when we moved in) and the kitchen area which is one of those combined kitchen/dining/family areas in modern houses. This is the middle part of the house.

2) Rumpus room - the room at the west end of the house which is basically the source of the heat issues.

3) Bedrooms - the office, master bedroom, girl's room, spare room, all on the eastern half of the house, with the office having a north-facing window, the master bed having a glass sliding door facing east which only gets limited sun due to neighbour's block being elevated. Warms up quickly though.

Thing is, it doesn't matter which zones you turn on or off, because the grunt from the unit is dependent on ambient temp versus requirement temp. The unit spins up to over 5kW and stays there, pretty much. Does a great job cooling, mind.

I'd love nothing better than to sell this ducted piece of shit at cost and buy two split systems - one for the east end of the house (master bedroom), and one for the west end of the house (rumpus room). There is a ceiling fan in each of those rooms that could push the cooler air through the rest of the house.

Problem is, I've got 10 holes in the ceiling for the ducts throughout the house. It would be ideal if a more efficient system could re-use these, or I'll be adding the cost of the plaster repair or perhaps tying off the ducts somehow.

But the capital cost of doing so would offset any financial gain for another couple of years. Keep in mind I've already outlaid a significant sum to get the system on the house. If I need to pull a few extra kWh in summer a couple of times a week, for now I have to live with it.
 

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
@Pfitzy, you may want to install a Whirlybird or a solar powered exhaust fan so that your roofspace doesn't overheat. IIRC some solar powered exhaust fans have a temperature sensor to ensure that the fan activates only above a certain temp. This will require air vents to be installed in the eaves.


Like this one?

http://solatube.com.au/roof-ventilation/whirlybirds/

Yeah installed in December. Very efficient and effective. Didn't bother with eave vents because I got an adjustable vent in the garage to pull heat out of it more quickly. I went up there on a hot day and it was hardly roasting. Spins like a dervish as soon as it gets any light on it and so much better than conventional whirlybirds.

I may consider putting eave vents on the south side of the house but for now the ceiling space is decently vented and, most importantly, has a path of least resistance through the garage to keep that air moving.
 

boyo

Mark Ella (57)
@Pfitzy, do you have Sisalation installed and does the Solartube fan have the thermal switch?
 

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
No switches - just runs free as required, when there is enough light. Temperature controlling it wouldn't offer much in the way of benefit.

Not sure if the foil sarking I have against the metal is Sisalation brand or not. But its there, and according to all the tradies who have been in there, its a top job.

The only thing I can do better with my roof space is get the fkn ducted air OUT of it and replace with something else, but the capital outlay can't be justified at this point.
 

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
:mad:

Wife decided to bake a thousand cookies today. So the oven was roaring, and of course the house heats up, air con goes on. Battery empty now, not even sundown, so now I'm just another common grid user like the rest of you peasants...

I wouldn't mind so much but SHE is the one criticising the boy for eating too much sugar, then she gets THAT shit out.

Fuck's sake!
 

ChargerWA

Mark Loane (55)
She would have emptied that one as well!

MOAR SOLAR PANELZ!!!
It's going to be interesting what the network power authorities do about PV generation system sizes allowed and batteries.

Here in WA they are severely limiting the size of systems you can install in some areas to protect the grid. A lot of people are finding they can only have 2kW. With a battery, you should be in theory able to have a much larger system as a chunk of the generation will go into charging the battery.

But will they work on that theory or will they say worst case scenario the battery could be full and will then export to the grid 100%. I expect long term it will work it's self out, but short term I can see them being draconian and not offering any advantage for having a battery.
 

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
2kW??? That is fucked. You're the sunniest fucking state in the universe.

Mining boom is DONE. Your government need to move on because renewables jobs will be the next big thing for R&D.

Redirect the mining subsidies into renewables. WA coast has wind, inland has sun. Fucktons of it.
 

terry j

Ron Walden (29)
just whilst this is going, I want to give a big thumbs up to the article linked earlier on Alon Musk. Was a very interesting read, I highly recommend it if you have not already looked at it.

Then it moves on, in depth, to the tesla etc etc.

The space stuff I have not read yet, no doubt 'saving humanity as the universe dies around us' stuff. I kinda don't think we are that worthy of saving, so not that interested.

Anyways, huge thumbs up for that link pfitzy, and a lot of other good stuff on that site to waste time.
 
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