Greenifying Sydney's Town Hall

Was reading my Energy Matters newsletter and there were two interesting things to note:

1) Energy matters was nominated for a Telstra small business award!  So I quickly lodged my vote in for that one
2) Town Hall in Sydney had solar panels installed on the roof as part of the Town Hall upgrade!  I like that for good use of space. 

You can read the full details here:
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/development/CityImprovements/BuildingsAndFacilities/TownHallUpgrade.asp

I got credit on my electricity bill!

Wow this is the first time I got a decent credit on my electricity bill!  There is $260 credit on my bill so hopefully enough money to last through the summer with no extra payments on it!  I think that's rather cool.  I wonder if I'll be able to get enough in the summer and autumn months to be able to have a cost free electricity.

Rockin Green Laundry Powder - I want to try some!

Saw heaps of posts about Rockin Green Powder on nappyaddicts forum - it's a laundry powder that has been designed especially for use with cloth nappies.  Phosphate free and supposedly eco friendly it has been getting rave reviews that I want to get some now too to try!  People have been doing soaks and been amazed about how much crap is coming out of the nappies even after they're clean.

Link to Rockin Green on Facebook!

Unfortunately it's sold out from ecocubs.com so they won't have any till mid June.  Can't wait to get my hands on a sample and see for myself how great it is.

Rentachook - Chickens in Suburbia

Watching all of this River Cottage stuff with hubby makes me want to grow my own food and have my own chickens.  There is a guy in Sydney who rents chicken coops and chickens (Rentachook), and for $380 you get a chicken coop for 2 chickens, 2 chickens, and some feeding things for the chickens.  After 6 weeks if you don't want to keep the chickens you give it back, and you get $280 back.  So basically $100 for 6 weeks!





I'd like to give it a go.  But mum says that chickens are messy and make poo everywhere and thinks it's a bad idea.  One of my colleagues at work also told me that there are lots of diseases that chickens can get that you have to be aware of and one of those includes some kind of mites the chickens get on their feet, which ended up with that person's kids having bites all over their legs.  Eeew.  So at this stage it looks like there will be no chickens.  Hopefully when the kids are a bit bigger we can have chickens and then have some eggs too.  And I was so looking forward to having chickens.

Wattson - energy monitor for home

I thought that the wireless monitor that came with the solar panels also could monitor your electricty usage but it actually doesn't.  Wattson, by DIYKyoto does and it's pretty cool!  Look at the video and it will tell you all about it.  And it can do it for 3 phase power too with an extra clip.

It's on sale at Neco for $199.  I think I might get one.

Solar Panels with Energy Matters

Well I finally got a call back from the Energy Matters people and I'm going ahead with my solar panels!  I paid a deposit on the spot and they gave me a free wireless monitor.  How cool!  I am going to get a 2.5kW system with a 3kW inverter just in case I decide to upgrade later.  Hubby doesn't mind because with the gross tariff feed-in system in NSW (60c per kWh!) we could pay off our system in about 4-5 years!

I can't wait!  Keep an eye on this post for more updates!

A green Fridge!

Electrolux has a very enviro-friendly fridge that I saw in my inbox today - it's on sale at Appliancesonline.com.au.  I have never seen a 5 star rating fridge before!

See it here on the electrolux website.

I want one of these!  It only uses 406kWh per year!  My current one uses 700+.  The problem is it's a bit pricey at $1500+

How I wish I could be more Green

In this age of eco friendly, carbon neutral, recycle and reuse, there are so many things I wish I could be doing. Unfortunately though, when you're married your partner has to be in on them too!

Electricity
I would love to install solar panels. The cost of it doesn't really worry me, but my husband refuses to buy them because they're not value for money. Sometimes I think, shouldn't we all be doing our bit for the environment? Despite the cost? Before June 2009, you could get $8000 back in rebates for installing a solar energy system under the SHCP (Solar home and communities plan). But the government dumped that and is in the process of replacing it with solar credits. Which is good because that is not means tested (the original one was). So I would love to get a 1.5kW system on my roof - but that would cost me about $16-17K. That's not including rebates. Or any money I would get from putting energy back into the grid.

At the moment this is a very energy inefficient household. We use about 21-27kWh per day, and the average house uses 16kWh. There are a number of things which contribute to this!

• Computers - our computers are on A LOT. I love my computer. I do run 2 LCD monitors off mine and my husband has his one as well.
• Ducted air conditioning - though we did our best to buy what we thought to be the most energy efficient on the market (Advantage Air) it still uses a lot of energy. And we spend a lot of time warming/cooling the house because of the baby, so she doesn't get too hot or cold.
• Halogens - this house is FULL of halogen lights. They're in the bathrooms, kitchen, hallways.

Composting
I don't know much about gardening and things. I should invest in a worm farm or a compost bin, but getting my husband to put food scraps into it may be a bit of an issue! This is one area I'll be looking into later when I have more time. These are the things I'm going to investigate at a later stage:







Recycling
Gee we generate lots of rubbish. I do try and recycle as much as I can, but I'm sure I could do more. I threw out a chocolate box yesterday because it didn't have the recycling symbol on it and my husband scolded me, saying "You want to be environmentally friendly? You don't even recycle!" I don't want to try to recycle things which aren't recyclable, that makes more work for the people at the recycling place!

Water recycling
It would be nice to get laundry and other grey water back into the garden. But I hardly water my garden and the raintank outside takes care of that anyway so I don't think that it's really needed at this stage. Perhaps when I get a bigger house. We already have water efficient things all through the house - shower heads, toilets, front loading washing machine.

Growing your own vegetables
Now this would probably make a tiny difference in my carbon footprint! Think of all the transport of produce I would save... and not to mention home grown stuff! At the moment I only have herb type things such as coriander, chilli, lemongrass, kaffir lime, chives. But other things I would love to plant would include basil, lemons, tomatoes and sugar snap peas!