Sustainable House

Mount Olive, Upper Lansdowne

An attempt to build a comfortable sustainable house which belongs in the landscape.

The House is a classic north- facing passive solar load bearing mudbrick home, though due to our valley location, and driven by our views, we have been able to use larger windows than normal. A more detailed description of the home is here, while the passive solar high thermal mass construction is described here.

A reedbed sewage system was installed, and has proved extremely successful. More details here.

The photovoltaic system generates almost all our electricity, and is described here.

The solar hot water system is boosted by a heat exchanger on the wood burning stove as well as the normal electric boost which is hardly ever used. It is described here.

Our electricity usage and attempts at greater efficiency are described here.

The orchard, veggie patch and chickens are described here.

Lastly please look around the rest of the site, which summarises the current state of Global Warming Science and suggests some simple things you can do about it. The menu has links on the science, some easy and more difficult actions you can take, and further reading as well as recent news.