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I'm right there with you. The southern outpost has very poor insulation, and single pane windows that are pretty, but don't really seal up well - we get wind and sometimes water through them (when the water is sideways outside...). Fortunately, the climate is perfectly comfortable 10+ months of the year with maybe an extra month of high humidity. But I'll often run the Mini Splits with the doors and windows open, just to get a little extra cool breeze in the warmer months. It cost nothing, and makes the space nicer, so why not. I also have a high efficiency pool pump that is sitting in the bodega, waiting to be installed. The current one is a pig, but it works and I haven't felt the need to swap it because it costs me nothing. The new one will probably be part of an equipment relocation now and I'll just valve over to it. I have a really nice high efficiency water pump. But I got it more for the variable speed, space savings and digital integration.
High quality panels are under 0.65$/watt now. It's crazy how cheap and effective this can be. Our neighbors paid almost 10K$ for a backup generator that is only useful during power outages. He's paying another ~ $4K / year in power bills. for 25K$ he could comfortably power his whole house and not worry about blackouts. I don't understand his logic.
I do think sealing up the draughty leakage is worth it here. Cold draughts feel nasty, even if overall the place is warm. And one of the main reasons I put weather seal around my doors was to keep out the insects. Also may help save the house if there is an ember attack from a bushfire. But I have a large number of weep holes in the brick so who knows? Proper door construction would be much better = we have to really push to shut a couple of the doors.
A friend was without power for a couple of weeks after a fire burned through just south of him and took out the power lines, not to mention the radio and television transmission for the entire area. His generator wouldn't start. Luckily his son's mate had a huge generator for work and lent him that. I'd probably have enough solar in summer to limp along.
ha, this makes me smile, being a kiwi living in Germany I'm very familiar with both sides of this. My brother in law (NZ architect) was astonished by the sheer mass that goes into German buildings. 8" solid walls covered by another 3" of polystrene insulation. Triple-glazed windows that weigh a ton and are lined with silver for extra insulation and the gaps filled with argon (and correspondingly expensive). We also have a green roof that is amazingly effective in summer (currently nearing 100°F). Nevertheless, our house cost AUD 900k / USD 630k in 2019 (new build) .. just under 2000 sq.ft.
I can only guess that the cost efficiency comes from economies of scale. Everything is normed here down to really close tolerances, making building so much more standardised.
OTOH we have virtually no solar influx (for PV purposes) from October through March and our monthly heating bill stands at roughly 140⬠(district heat/underfloor heating). We are going to be screwed if natural gas prices keep rising.
And the carbon footprint from all the concrete that has gone into this place is probably multiples higher than an Australian house.
At the risk of repetition: my favorite comment on NZ housing comes from a Canadian journalist:
"You know, in Canada, we tend to think of the weather as an outdoor phenomenon."
edit: to your point: some of my neighbours who have installed large PV systems on their roofs have started installing AC for the really hot days as they have surplus free power to use. We don't really need it as our interior temperature stays pretty constant at 24°C / 75°F even on days when its 40°C/100°F outside.
Not even sure if those are available over here. We recently completed replacing all 23 windows in our 99 year-old house with double-glazed windows. That, along with fully insulating our attic (it had none) has made an enormous dent in our energy usage and made the house much quieter and more comfortable. I wanted to insulate our floor too - house is built on a crawlspace - but didn't get that far before retiring. It might still happen, tho.
ha, this makes me smile, being a kiwi living in Germany I'm very familiar with both sides of this. My brother in law (NZ architect) was astonished by the sheer mass that goes into German buildings. 8" solid walls covered by another 3" of polystrene insulation. Triple-glazed windows that weigh a ton and are lined with silver for extra insulation and the gaps filled with argon (and correspondingly expensive). We also have a green roof that is amazingly effective in summer (currently nearing 100°F). Nevertheless, our house cost AUD 900k / USD 630k in 2019 (new build) .. just under 2000 sq.ft.
I can only guess that the cost efficiency comes from economies of scale. Everything is normed here down to really close tolerances, making building so much more standardised.
OTOH we have virtually no solar influx (for PV purposes) from October through March and our monthly heating bill stands at roughly 140⬠(district heat/underfloor heating). We are going to be screwed if natural gas prices keep rising.
And the carbon footprint from all the concrete that has gone into this place is probably multiples higher than an Australian house.
At the risk of repetition: my favorite comment on NZ housing comes from a Canadian journalist:
"You know, in Canada, we tend to think of the weather as an outdoor phenomenon."
edit: to your point: some of my neighbours who have installed large PV systems on their roofs have started installing AC for the really hot days as they have surplus free power to use. We don't really need it as our interior temperature stays pretty constant at 24°C / 75°F even on days when its 40°C/100°F outside.
Wow, your house sounds amazing. I don't think people are building houses like that in even the coldest parts of N America. And I love the idea of a green roof. Not sure about all that concrete and I always thought underfloor heating wasn't that efficient, although nice on the toes.
The guys who installed my system all got in on the earlier, bigger battery rebates and have about twice the storage I do. They were out after about a week of overcast and fog down around your ears and one showed me his battery was empty. But that's pretty unusual. I have been using the grid on quite a few winter days, especially in the morning. You can watch the coffee maker come on. and can see when the door is opened to let the dogs out to wee.
Europeâs solar uptake is experiencing a historic boom, with solar PV recently supplying a record 25% of the EU's monthly electricity. Cumulative installed capacity has surpassed 406 GW. Germany, Spain, and Poland lead the expansion, while adoption spreads to unexpected regions like the Nordics
TL/DR: using more energy might be more cost effective than building better houses.
Just musing, but I think I may have undersized my solar, not because we were so far off with our usage estimates, but because that was based on being cheap bastards in a typically shitty Australian house construction. We probably should have based it on the usage that would keep us more comfortable. I'm starting to get the data that shows when various appliances suck energy. With leaky single pane windows and doors, we have become used to huddling in hoodies and under throw blankets in winter. Blinds are kept down in summer to try to keep the heat out. Australians love big windows, but what's the point when the heat pours in or out so you would have to spend a fortune on heating/cooling to be truly comfortable. (Aside: the old place had an evaporative cooler that was pretty good as long as the humidity was low).
Things get compounded by the lack of availability and expense of good double pane glass, good doors and better insulation, along with the cost of having tradies do anything. Watch a lot of British home reno shows and they are doing whole houses for about the cost of a bathroom reno here.
Solar changes the picture completely. I seriously expect I could double the size of my system, even having topped out the government rebates for the cost of replacing windows and doors. Just crank up the heating/cooling to comfortable levels with the free energy. Hmm...
Sure the financial equation is different elsewhere, but I can see the balance shifting worldwide. I mean, after a certain point, there isn't much else you can do to your house to survive frequent 45 C / 110 F days.
I'm right there with you. The southern outpost has very poor insulation, and single pane windows that are pretty, but don't really seal up well - we get wind and sometimes water through them (when the water is sideways outside...). Fortunately, the climate is perfectly comfortable 10+ months of the year with maybe an extra month of high humidity. But I'll often run the Mini Splits with the doors and windows open, just to get a little extra cool breeze in the warmer months. It cost nothing, and makes the space nicer, so why not. I also have a high efficiency pool pump that is sitting in the bodega, waiting to be installed. The current one is a pig, but it works and I haven't felt the need to swap it because it costs me nothing. The new one will probably be part of an equipment relocation now and I'll just valve over to it. I have a really nice high efficiency water pump. But I got it more for the variable speed, space savings and digital integration.
High quality panels are under 0.65$/watt now. It's crazy how cheap and effective this can be. Our neighbors paid almost 10K$ for a backup generator that is only useful during power outages. He's paying another ~ $4K / year in power bills. for 25K$ he could comfortably power his whole house and not worry about blackouts. I don't understand his logic.
Which explains why the US and Europe haven't embraced solar - they're owned by oil companies.
not entirely true:
Europeâs solar uptake is experiencing a historic boom, with solar PV recently supplying a record 25% of the EU's monthly electricity. Cumulative installed capacity has surpassed 406 GW. Germany, Spain, and Poland lead the expansion, while adoption spreads to unexpected regions like the Nordics
TL/DR: using more energy might be more cost effective than building better houses.
Just musing, but I think I may have undersized my solar, not because we were so far off with our usage estimates, but because that was based on being cheap bastards in a typically shitty Australian house construction. We probably should have based it on the usage that would keep us more comfortable. I'm starting to get the data that shows when various appliances suck energy. With leaky single pane windows and doors, we have become used to huddling in hoodies and under throw blankets in winter. Blinds are kept down in summer to try to keep the heat out. Australians love big windows, but what's the point when the heat pours in or out so you would have to spend a fortune on heating/cooling to be truly comfortable. (Aside: the old place had an evaporative cooler that was pretty good as long as the humidity was low).
Things get compounded by the lack of availability and expense of good double pane glass, good doors and better insulation, along with the cost of having tradies do anything. Watch a lot of British home reno shows and they are doing whole houses for about the cost of a bathroom reno here.
Solar changes the picture completely. I seriously expect I could double the size of my system, even having topped out the government rebates for the cost of replacing windows and doors. Just crank up the heating/cooling to comfortable levels with the free energy. Hmm...
Sure the financial equation is different elsewhere, but I can see the balance shifting worldwide. I mean, after a certain point, there isn't much else you can do to your house to survive frequent 45 C / 110 F days.
ha, this makes me smile, being a kiwi living in Germany I'm very familiar with both sides of this. My brother in law (NZ architect) was astonished by the sheer mass that goes into German buildings. 8" solid walls covered by another 3" of polystrene insulation. Triple-glazed windows that weigh a ton and are lined with silver for extra insulation and the gaps filled with argon (and correspondingly expensive). We also have a green roof that is amazingly effective in summer (currently nearing 100°F). Nevertheless, our house cost AUD 900k / USD 630k in 2019 (new build) .. just under 2000 sq.ft.
I can only guess that the cost efficiency comes from economies of scale. Everything is normed here down to really close tolerances, making building so much more standardised.
OTOH we have virtually no solar influx (for PV purposes) from October through March and our monthly heating bill stands at roughly 140⬠(district heat/underfloor heating). We are going to be screwed if natural gas prices keep rising.
And the carbon footprint from all the concrete that has gone into this place is probably multiples higher than an Australian house.
At the risk of repetition: my favorite comment on NZ housing comes from a Canadian journalist:
"You know, in Canada, we tend to think of the weather as an outdoor phenomenon."
edit: to your point: some of my neighbours who have installed large PV systems on their roofs have started installing AC for the really hot days as they have surplus free power to use. We don't really need it as our interior temperature stays pretty constant at 24°C / 75°F even on days when its 40°C/100°F outside.
TL/DR: using more energy might be more cost effective than building better houses.
Just musing, but I think I may have undersized my solar, not because we were so far off with our usage estimates, but because that was based on being cheap bastards in a typically shitty Australian house construction. We probably should have based it on the usage that would keep us more comfortable. I'm starting to get the data that shows when various appliances suck energy. With leaky single pane windows and doors, we have become used to huddling in hoodies and under throw blankets in winter. Blinds are kept down in summer to try to keep the heat out. Australians love big windows, but what's the point when the heat pours in or out so you would have to spend a fortune on heating/cooling to be truly comfortable. (Aside: the old place had an evaporative cooler that was pretty good as long as the humidity was low).
Things get compounded by the lack of availability and expense of good double pane glass, good doors and better insulation, along with the cost of having tradies do anything. Watch a lot of British home reno shows and they are doing whole houses for about the cost of a bathroom reno here.
Solar changes the picture completely. I seriously expect I could double the size of my system, even having topped out the government rebates for the cost of replacing windows and doors. Just crank up the heating/cooling to comfortable levels with the free energy. Hmm...
Sure the financial equation is different elsewhere, but I can see the balance shifting worldwide. I mean, after a certain point, there isn't much else you can do to your house to survive frequent 45 C / 110 F days.
"After passing that milestone in 2022, the world added its second terawatt in 2024 and its third in 2026, Bloomberg reports."
And what about China?
"China, which is responsible for more than half of all solar installations globally, doubled its battery storage capacity last year, according to data from energy think tank Ember."
"And in its latest Five-Year Plan, it set a goal to ramp up the use of renewable energy by deploying yet more storage."
Off the charts!
So where does that leave Europe and the United States in the clean energy race?
"After passing that milestone in 2022, the world added its second terawatt in 2024 and its third in 2026, Bloomberg reports."
And what about China?
"China, which is responsible for more than half of all solar installations globally, doubled its battery storage capacity last year, according to data from energy think tank Ember."
"And in its latest Five-Year Plan, it set a goal to ramp up the use of renewable energy by deploying yet more storage."
Off the charts!
So where does that leave Europe and the United States in the clean energy race?
Pakistanâs solar miracle â how the hell did they do it?
Faced with constant electricity blackouts and a failing grid, people in Pakistan took matters into their own hands. The result is a lesson for the rest of the world, and also a warning
Pakistanâs solar miracle â how the hell did they do it?
Faced with constant electricity blackouts and a failing grid, people in Pakistan took matters into their own hands. The result is a lesson for the rest of the world, and also a warning
