We planned our current suburban house to be Zero Energy (8 years before it was just a Marketting term).
There were some roadblocks, especially with the Site Supervisor not understanding what we were trying to do. (He just couldnāt comprehend, and decided to make unauthorised changes because he āknew betterā.
We planned no gas to site, white (heat reflective) roof, lots of insulation, AC condensers on the south (leeward) side of the house, etc. The builder had a promo on a free PowerWall and the maximum legal amount of solar for a residential property.
We even had SECCCA liaise with us to do a case study on everything we were doing and the effects on energy usage.
They tried to steal defeat from the jaws of victory at every turn. The wrong colour roof was installed, they ran gas to site and tried to bait and switch us with āElectric Assistedā hot water rather than an Electric boiler, incorrectly wired PowerWall circuits so we couldnāt take advantage of the extra power and the AC technician insisting that the Condensers had to be installed in full sun, because installing them in the shade was too much hard work for him.
There were structural issues too, but they were not related to Zero Energy.
We persevered and after they fixed all the issues, we ended up with a 10 star house.
Nowadays (or recently, before the building industry crash), Zero Energy and a rating above 7 stars are table stakes for a builder and most are happy if the customer pays a bit more to boost it to 8 or 9 stars.
There are plenty of people who love to help with Off-Grid, but the key thing to remember is that anything you currently get piped in and out to your house (gas, electric, fibre, water, sewerage) will need to be carted in, or you will have to do without.
You will need to do the maths on how much power you typically use, how much solar/wind/hydro your new house can be configured to generate and how much storage you will need.
No hair dryers, curling irons or hair straighteners.
You will also need to store enough electricity to see you through.
You will need to find a Fixed Wireless Internet Service Provider in your area with line-of-sight to where your antenna will be.
There are other alternatives to a septic tank like composting toilet or incinerating toilet, but you will need to determine if they are right for you.
My advice is to watch as much Off-Grid YouTube as possible; keep in mind that different markets will have different products and solutions.
Off-Grid service providers do realise that they may be the only option available and will charge appropriately. There is a reason why we live in societies.
Other problem is that you canāt get pseudoephedrine without picking up in person.
Phenylephedrine tablets were recently classed as a Placebo by the FDA, so it is a waste of time.
Phenylephedrine nasal treatments are reported to work.
I have a 12 mini.
I got it when my eyesight was as better and I could read the screen easily.
I took mum to get her phone checked out the other day and had a look at the new ones.
Nah, Iāll stick to the mini with the little screen. I love the compact form factor and I reckon that I will get a battery replacement and get another 4 years out of it.
The best solution is DuckDuckGo.
You can use DDG as your primary search engine and when it (or Bing, which is its backend) fails to find what you want, you can add āg!ā to your search to look it up in Google.
What DDG needs to do is modify the G! switch to include ā&udm=14ā.
The reason you canāt go off-grid in suburbia is because you need to own a generator to work as a backup in case your off-grid system goes off-line.
The problem is that you canāt have a generator within a specified distance from a permanent dwelling, which is conveniently more than the size of a typical suburban block.
This is despite modern generators being practically silent.
We have a neighbour (in outer-suburban Melbourne who complained to the council about our other neighbour whoās kid wants to one day play NBA.
As a result of this, every other surrounding house started bouncing basketballs for all hours during the weekends? Just to spite them.
This is also the lady who complains to council about leaves from her neighbours trees falling into her pool, but refuses to get a pool cover for aesthetic reasons and complained about a house on the hill being visible from her back yard.
Seriously though, Iām not sure whether to keep my (not quite so) old Surface Pro 4 on Windows 10 or use it as a Linux tablet.
Iām finding that tablets are much more practical with cats on the house, it is much more difficult for them to mash keys when there isnāt a keyboard.
A party is a party, and whether you socialise or just lurk, it is often good to be around other people, especially when the weather is difficult to deal with.
We had an 80th here yesterday afternoon.
Lunch was rotisserie Bolar Blade and roasted Pork Neck on the BBQ, accompanying salad bought by old people.
Our house has very good thermal
Insulation, but very bad acoustics so within an hour it sounded like the scene from Sneakers with the geese, but much more humid.
Outside was much nicer, with the dry heat, tasty food and peace and quiet, even when some of the other guests came out to join me.
Now we have cleanup day today, but this is why we built our house.
It shouldnāt take long.
We have a 1st and an 18th this year and a 21st and a 50th in 2026, and we will probably have all the minor birthday parties too!
We planned our current suburban house to be Zero Energy (8 years before it was just a Marketting term).
There were some roadblocks, especially with the Site Supervisor not understanding what we were trying to do. (He just couldnāt comprehend, and decided to make unauthorised changes because he āknew betterā.
We planned no gas to site, white (heat reflective) roof, lots of insulation, AC condensers on the south (leeward) side of the house, etc. The builder had a promo on a free PowerWall and the maximum legal amount of solar for a residential property.
We even had SECCCA liaise with us to do a case study on everything we were doing and the effects on energy usage.
They tried to steal defeat from the jaws of victory at every turn. The wrong colour roof was installed, they ran gas to site and tried to bait and switch us with āElectric Assistedā hot water rather than an Electric boiler, incorrectly wired PowerWall circuits so we couldnāt take advantage of the extra power and the AC technician insisting that the Condensers had to be installed in full sun, because installing them in the shade was too much hard work for him.
There were structural issues too, but they were not related to Zero Energy.
We persevered and after they fixed all the issues, we ended up with a 10 star house.
Nowadays (or recently, before the building industry crash), Zero Energy and a rating above 7 stars are table stakes for a builder and most are happy if the customer pays a bit more to boost it to 8 or 9 stars.