Moderator: Peak Moderation
And ("Only in Australia")In nearby South Australia, the state capital Adelaide became the hottest city on earth, with temperatures in Roseworthy exceeding 46°C. (That's over 114.8°F if you don't follow Celsius.)
It became so hot that the Australian Open tennis competition had play stopped after players collapsed and hallucinated cartoon characters.
Do you have scope for water retention and storage?BritDownUnder wrote:It was 42 degrees C here today and 17C early in the morning. Late evenings are hot as I don't put the air conditioning on when the solar doesn't generate. Eventually I hope to have my house totally 'passiv'.
House insulation is going well and the garden is thriving with a lot of watering. A worrying lack of rain in what should be one of rainiest months. I am experimenting with different types of insulation and shade sails and window shades.
The coal trains keep on rumbling by. People are still not making the connection. I can't understand why solar is not more widespread. I can heat all my water for all except 20 days a year and generate 20 - 30 kWh per day on most days. Use plentiful biomass for the cloudy cold days. Biomass which would otherwise burn in bushfires anyway. Sadly a total lack of will on a national scale.
Yes I have a 4500 litre and 3000 litre tanks collecting water from the roof.peaceful_life wrote: Do you have scope for water retention and storage?
Yeah, with plenty of mulch.BritDownUnder wrote:Yes I have a 4500 litre and 3000 litre tanks collecting water from the roof.peaceful_life wrote: Do you have scope for water retention and storage?
Both are near empty now due to my having used a lot for watering in the expectation of rain that never arrived. I shall have to invest in drip irrigation to reduce water usage.
That seems a bit odd. What precisely did you say that they could object to?PS_RalphW wrote:I post ed on a grauniad comment page that this was chickens coming home to roost for the aussies given their high co2 emissions and coal exports. The comment was removed.
I don't have a lot of land. I am located in the a small town so my land area is about 550 sq mtrs. Mulch is something I need to do some more work on in the future.peaceful_life wrote:
Yeah, with plenty of mulch.
Maybe some swales with planted shade, do you have a lot of land?
I guess you know all this?
Right on all counts. The house is timber, one storey and low thermal mass. It is raised in brick piers about 70cm above ground level and the bare earth underneath stays reasonably cold even on the hottest days.kenneal - lagger wrote:BDU, Aussie houses are normally very lightweight, being timber framed and built for a tropical climate. If you've got solar powered aircon you could benefit from some thermal mass to carry you over the evenings until the outside air temperature cools down. If you're getting temperatures of 17C at some time during the night you can use night time cooling of thermal mass combined with insulation and air tightness to keep the house cool during the day. The shorter the period of cool temperatures the more forced air movement would be required to cool the thermal mass.
A fan used to move cool air through the house would use less electricity than an aircon unit so, with a combination of thermal mass and fans you could keep the house cool during the day and use significantly less solar electricity during the day. Some of that electricity could be used to charge batteries to run the fans at night and the rest exported for sale.
The nation's electricity system faces a "death spiral" that could drive up prices even further and leave States, particularly WA, facing huge bills that may have to be paid by taxpayers.
The independent Grattan Institute think tank, in a report to be released today, says even though power demand across the country is falling, prices are going up as infrastructure companies scramble to protect their bottom lines.
And it warns that the advent of wide-scale solar rooftop systems, a key element of the Federal Government's direct action policy, is exacerbating the situation.
The institute found electricity consumption across the country has fallen since 2009.
Despite the overall fall in consumption, prices have rocketed - on average by 85 per cent or more than $700 a year.
