Another red letter day - first sheet of gib up!

Okay, so its only the lining on the hot water cylinder cupboard (for the solar system) but its certainly a step along. Spent some of yesterday afternoon shifting gib boards for our end of the house from the trailer to the garage (boy those bracing sheets are heavy [xx(]), then moving 64 silage bales - I must be getting stronger because I kept up my end and no ill effects today.

The brickies, bless their cotton socks, are finished, so peace and quiet will reign here for a while now. Plastering and painting of the outside will have to wait until after Xmas while we regroup as far as finance and bills go and get ready for the early New Year onslaught.

The insulation (EcoWool) arrived late Friday, what lovely stuff to handle

This coming week will be plumber to do the piping to the water tanks, sparky to get the power points and remaining wiring in. The solar system is also going in, ready to be hooked up.

Those are the three big things to do that are vital: the installing of insulation, doors, and gibbing of our end will be up to us, then the gib stopper will be in followed by painter to do their thing on our end of the house. We're also getting the carpet in our end laid, as once that is done, we can unpack a fair whack of what is being stored in a hired portacabin - namely books, CDs and clothes!!!

I can't believe its only 5 weeks to Xmas and the date to actually be camping in the 'big house'. The race is now on!! []

Wow, sounds like you are moving forward quickly.

It's exciting.

And photos please when you can.

Excellent stuff! Going great guns aren't ya! I've painted a wall today, that lovely 'pink' one on our bedroom!! Ugh!

Great news Tigger, and the weather is being relatively kind as well for building works. [8D]

What hot water cyl. did you end up going for? We have been asking left, right and centre re the greenglo but no one seems to know anything about it, apart from what is on the websites. Even suppliers!

We're getting a single coil greenglo - plumber groaned when he heard as apparently extremely heavy [}] but I think in this case the rep will be asked to deposit it in its own cupboard when it arrives. Single coil as we're not likely to have power source other than solar and electricity. The double coil allows much more flexibility re wetbacks, stoves, gas etc.

Will get shots up when I get back from down south.

tigger;216085 wrote: We're getting a single coil greenglo - plumber groaned when he heard as apparently extremely heavy [}] but I think in this case the rep will be asked to deposit it in its own cupboard when it arrives. Single coil as we're not likely to have power source other than solar and electricity. The double coil allows much more flexibility re wetbacks, stoves, gas etc.

Will get shots up when I get back from down south.

would it be rude to ask how much please Tigger? and how did you go with the height issue?

Ours is going in a cupboard in the hallway so height not an issue. I have heard of people putting them up in their ceiling to get pressure but wouldn't want to try that, and you'd need to make sure the framing was reinforced to hold it, I'd imagine!!!

The entire system (greenglo, piping, solar panels) is costing us $8500, minus the $1000 EECA refund (gotta get in quick in case anyone decides to muck around with that!).

Solar is disgustingly expensive in NZ compared to elsewhere, it's shameful. An Israeli friend was gobsmacked at the price here, as over there almost every house uses it so govt doesn't have to invest so much into power schemes etc - what a sensible idea, pity its not on the radar at the priority level it should be here!!

everything seems to be happening for you so fast. With our place it seemed to take an age to get it finished

Tigger the architect for our place said one of his relos bought their solar stuff in from aussie, far cheaper. not that this helps you right now, and I am not sure what customs would think of it re GST duty either, or whether the suppliers arranged for the freighting. I might look into this...

your not having a wetback if I recall correctly? (not that my memory is reliable right now).

No, no wetback. ONe guy is already importing from Aussie - whatpowercrisis.

I have imported stuff from Aussie before (mind you, that was a mascot costume, long story!) and they add the GST on, plus freight of course, plus duty - a $6000 costume ended up being over $8000...I am sure there would be a sneaky way around it, but the chances of being stung mean it just isn't worth it. At least this way we have the warranty through the rep we are using...

My understanding is that the Aussie subsidies, which were quite generous, have been hacked and slashed and pretty much gone now...?

We'll need one that can handle hot water being heated by a woodstove. They had some nice ones at the Fieldays. Reasonable sized oven in them and can heat enough water for the hot water cylinder and radiators to keep the house warm. In the Summer, the solar panels should be enough as we don't use huge amounts of hot water. I would like a small cylinder under the kitchen bench though. Its so nice having almost instant hot water in the farm cottage. Unlike the Auckland house, where you have to wait for 5-10 mins before you get hot water, by the time its meandered all around the house to get to the kitchen.

We haven't started planning the new house yet. I've got ideas on bits I'd like to have in it, but still foggy on how its all going to go together. Wonder how long the paper work is going to take? Still have to sell the Auckland house first though. No point in getting excited really. One day.....

Well you've already got 2 wall lights Inger!!

The greenglo tank is here, swaggie, and yes, it is tall!

Sparky is on his way today to go over where all the switches and plugs need to be and get cracking on the wiring. Almost all recessed lighting so that is easy []

Once he is finished it will be all go from our side of things getting the ecowool in and gibbing the rooms we need for us to move in before Xmas, as the plumber has already done all his piping inside, bar the greenglo...

I can see some busy evenings coming on...

Can I ask some advice from you guys as it sounds like Tigger et al are renovating and dealing with same issues as we are.

We currently have a wetback and a bore fed gravity fed system. Current problems are the pressure upstairs is pitiful and we get a lot of scale from high silica in the water.

As we are renovating we thought we would deal with this issue before putting in new bathroom suites etc and so we want to move to rainwater, mainspressure (if poss) but keep the wetback as we already have the woodburner.

I want to be as self sufficient as poss. but hubbie baulks at the price. What I like is that our current system means we have hot water when the power goes off for as long as the header tank has water in it. To move to rain water mainspressure means we would lose this ability.

What is a greenglo? What do you think the most efficient cost effective solution for us would be?

ok MM i wanna see a pic of these wall lights