Solar Connected

We entered into a contract with Solar Connections and the solar panels went on the roof on July 2012, however at this time we had no walls, only the timber frame so Paul from Solar Connections had nothing to attach the inverter to. The walls were completed in February 2013, but we wanted to render the walls first before the inverter went on. However, we ran out of time as the system had to be fully installed by 30 June 2013 to take advantage of the government incentives that were in place when we entered into the contract for our system, but ended in January 2013. On the first day John did some rendering I got him to do a patch of render on the external wall where the inverter would go. It turned out that the patch of render was only just big enough. On 24 June 2013, with a week to go, Paul put the inverter in and got the solar working. We then needed to get a Level 2 service provider to change the meter over so that we could record the electricity we generated.

Wayne from FAW Electrical, who had originally hooked up the power for us came back and added an extra meter to measure the electricity we export to the grid. Unfortunately we missed out on the government feed in tariffs for solar electricity generation, so we have what they call net metering. This means that if we use electricity we have generated it is not recorded on either meter. If we generate more than we use this is exported to the grid and recorded on the export meter and when we use electricity at night or when we are not generating enough electricity to cover our needs we use electricity from the grid and this is recorded on the normal import meter.  

John the renderer only had half a day to work on the rendering and got one of the internal walls of the front bedroom done. The timber window reveals that has been set 10mm in from the hemp walls provided good render stops  and the avoidance of having to use trim around all the windows gave the simple unfussy look we are after. Rendering down to the slab and up to the ceiling and creating neat edges at these joints was a bit more time consuming.

Wet render

As the wall dried it began to look a bit patchy. this is probably because of the slightly different moisture in the walls making the render dry at a different rate. We are not concerned as we watched this process on the render on the inside of the wardrobe and it dried to an even colour. The week of solid rain that the occurred immediately before the rendering of this wall probably made everything a bit moister than normal.

Partially dry render a week after being done

The wardrobe render was dry but had a wet patch on it probably from the several days of torrential rain the Shoalhaven area had, as the wall just outside this area was one of the few places that the eaves do not cover, this will be solved as thee wall will be covered when the sheeting goes on the awnings. It was hard to work out what colour the render was. In the early morning it looked quite yellow, but in the middle of the day the green plastic covering the rest of the windows in the room created an odd light. We reused the plastic bags the ceiling insulation came in to cover the windows. Although after many weeks of trying to get the right colour for the render, it is clear that the same amount, proportionally, of oxide in the mix has not resulted in the same colour we chose from our tests. It looks like we will just have to be satisfied with the colour we have got.

Windows taped up ready for rendering

Casting an odd green light

Wardrobe rendered

There were big seas in the wake of the winter storms, but watching the waves crash over rocks that normally stand proud of the water was awe inspiring and a great way to wind down after a weekend of building.

Electricity Connected, Frame Ordered and Mixer Purchased

Last Friday my excavator dug the trench down the battleaxe driveway to run the electricity and water connections. Unfortunately I could not be on site on that day, but having waited a little while for the excavator and there being a run of good weather I was not going to give up the opportunity to get the job done. Len my plumber had left the water pipe on site ready to be laid and I lined up FAW Electrical to arrive on site to put the electrical cabling in when it was anticipated that the excavator would have the trench ready. Brummy, my excavator reported that digging was tougher than expected due to more tree roots, but the trench was dug and the electricity and telstra cables and water pipe were laid.

FAW were back on Monday to hook up the pole and the flying fox to the wires in the street. The electricians set up the meter box on a temporary post right were it will be placed on the house, so it can be easily placed on the house. The pole from the street is much taller than I expected, but it looks like it was necessary so as not to interfere with the neighbours connection. Finally we have power on site.

 

Last week I ordered the frame from Truss-T-Frames and spent a couple of days this week ironing out a few problems. I drew the plans but they needed a few adjustments and Colin from Truss-T-Frames was very patient with me as we spent several phone calls discussing wall heights and roof pitches. I redrew the plans to match the adjustments made and they all fitted perfectly, except the roof pitch over the front bathroom was less than the minimum 5 degrees. The interconnection of various aspects of the roof and awning made it difficult to change too much as each change had flow on effects. Finally Colin came up with a cleaver idea to raise the pitch without altering the awning height or the gutter height, by moving the ridge on that section back slightly and trimming the corner off the top rafter.

However the changes to plans that have been made will increase the wall volume, so I have had to make a small increase to hemp and binder I am ordering to ensure that I will have enough walling material.

To get ready for the hemp walling. I bought a 111L mortar mixer (which I call a pan mixer, but it is the same thing) from Aardwolf Australia. It was made in Vietnam and came all wrapped up and in its own crate. When unwrapped we tried it out, the first appliance to use our electricity connection. The mixer was beautifully quiet, a great benefit since we will probably spend many hours working with it. However we tested it out empty, I just hope it is as quiet when it is full of hemp walling mix.

Mixer all packed

Mixer unwrapped

Back on site we covered the polished slab with black builders plastic then some of the sheets of OSB we had that were not good enough to use as formwork. We moved 3/4 of the mulch pile, using it to cover up the area beside the drive that had been dug up for the electricity and water. This was to make more room for the frame that will be delivered next week. In further preparation for the hemp walls I bought two boxes of M8 100mm hex head coach screws and cut up some scraps of conduit I had in the shed and was given by my father into 55mm sections to use as spacers for the formwork for the walls. The walls will be a total of 200mm thick (plus 10mm render each side) formed up using the sheets of OSB I have attached with a 55mm spacer and a coach screw into the 90mm frame, the same will happen on the other side giving a total wall depth of 200mm.

Covered slab ready for the frame

Once was conduit now are spacers