If you’d like to see some practical ways to save energy, water and significantly reduce your electricity, gas and water bills, then you should visit 39 Smart Street Hawthorn (Melway 45:B9) on Sunday 30 August 2009 from 10am – 4.30pm.
The Street family, Broderick, Vivienne and Alexander, will open their sustainable home for a fee of $10 to help fund the Erasmus Primary School’s ‘Save 2 million black balloons’ project.
Erasmus School is raising money to replace 181 ceiling lights with energy efficient globes.. Compared to the old globes, 76,000 kWh of electricity will be saved, resulting in a reduction of 100 tonnes in greenhouse gases over the life of the new fittings. If each black balloon represents 50 g of greenhouse gases, 100 tonnes of greenhouse gases = 2 million black balloons”:
On show is a living example of how to transform a dark and cold 1890s brick cottage into a restful place, with abundant natural light and air and clever use of space. This inspirational small home was altered in 2002 so that most of the family’s energy and water needs come directly from the sun and rain.
The open house will allow you to see:
• passive heating and cooling design
• 1000 litre greywater treatment system using a non-toxic ‘foam fractionation’ process to produce very high quality for toilet and garden.
• 9000 litre rainwater storage
• 1.35 kW ‘grid-connected’ photovoltaic panel system and solar hot water system.
Other sustainability features in this home include a greenroof vegetable garden, hot water recirculation plumbing, DIY solar hot water reflector, radiant heat barrier roof paint and extensive use of recycled building materials.
Even Melbourne’s record dry this year is not a problem for the Streets. This family of three used only 26 litres per person per day of mains water from 1 January to 31 July 2009 by using filtered rainwater twice.
As you walk through the house Brod and Vivienne have labelled their appliances and provided graphs to show annual energy and water consumption.
With the new Victorian Premium Solar Electricity Feed-in-Tariff, Brod and Vivienne will not pay any more electricity bills.
The more technically-minded can also see how the entire house is independently monitored to record information accessible over the internet. This allows the family to track their use of virtually every last watt of power or litre of rainwater, greywater and mains water.
Bookings essential: phone 9815 3858
FACT SHEET
1 January 2009 to 31 July 2009
39 SMART STREET HAWTHORN
39 Smart St Hawthorn Rest of Melbourne for same period
House Roof area
110 sqm
? size for new homes
Number of occupants
3
2.67 average per house
Water
Mains water use
16,800 litres
91,185 litres
Mains water use/person/day
26 litres
166 litres
Rainwater used
22,500 litres
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Greywater treated and recycled for toilet and garden
16,600 litres
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Energy
Gas use
6 GJ
35 GJ
Electricity import
916 kWh
3,400 kWh
Solar electricity export from a 1.35 kW system
692 kWh
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Hot water use/hh/d
100 litres
187 litres
Yearly solar credits of 1200 kWh
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