General News
1 November, 2024
Barry's Corner
This is the time of the year when we can cop all seasons in a day. It might be cold in the morning and quite warm in afternoon and cool down in evening. It is jumpers on and jumpers off; hard to know which way to go.
House builders can pick up good information about the type of heating that would be most useful for that building, such as orientation towards the sun and it could save many dollars for the life of the house in energy costs.
There is a simple formula for house design, solar collection. In our part of the world we can catch a lot of heat by having windows to the north, perhaps complete with curtains and blinds. Place the bigger windows on the north side and catch the light as well. It can make a difference to your energy bill.
If the structure can be set to face north the next plan is to design the bedrooms to the south side where it is not crucial to catch the daylight and sleeping over night needs to be cooler. The living rooms are better placed along the northern aspect.
The narrow and tiny blocks of land available in some of the newer subdivisions does not provide much scope for correct orientation and that makes it hard to get it right.
So much work has been going on over the decades including from the CSIRO and it is not hard to seek out.
The whole exercise will be making a place that is comfortable and useful. There is no regulation that says we have to build something that uses a lot of electricity when a bit of thought going into the process beforehand could save dollars.
A lot can be learned from the hot countries with cooling air by gravity without the need for power hungry systems.
Having a set of solar panels can reduce bills but they do not to be installed on a roof. Take a look around they will work just as well on a frame on the ground; easier to install and keep clean. In a quiet place a small wind generator could supplement the solar. Working on the theory when the sun goes down the wind could blow a few amps. Many European countries have been busy installing panels and wind turbines.