It's broken...

I didn't realise the whole solar flask was empty. I knew one of the boys had tipped some out by accident Saturday but thought they'd refilled it. Not so.

I took the lid off which was a bit smelly. Like burnt plastic? Should've thought more...

Went to the tap to add water to it so I could make a cuppa... The water going in was sizzling... And then BANG! It exploded in my hand. So glad I was outside. So glad I wasn't injured. Just a sore back from all the picking up of debri. So glad the chooks and dog stayed away. I was able to pick everything up, with Tim's fantastic help... 

I see that the newer model has a pressure release valve. Its base is square and it fit in allot more water... Yep, I'm getting a new one... Best way to spend my spending money... ;)

Blessings,

On the roof...

Our solar hot water system has a couple of tubes, covered in insulation foam, sticking out of the panels. Transports water and moves it around. Russell noticed yesterday morning that one foam tube looked like it was breaking up...

After work, He and Tim got up on the roof and replaced both bits of insulation tubing. Lucky too as they were both falling off. That could have meant that the water would freeze up in the pipes and we loose the panels... Didn't realise that they weren't even held down with an tape. Well, they are now :)

Tim, off course had a ball up there... Russell was glad to get back down...

All fixed now ;)

Blessings,

Tea time...

Camomile tea is awesome, especially when the water is heated by the sun with out solar water heater... Yummy...

Blessings,

Cuppa time...

Love using my solar water heater :)

Cuppa coming up...

Blessings,

Solar lighting...

Saw this and had to try it out the side door. I have a little washing line out there and it gets lit up perfectly!

Blessings,

Couldn't resist...

On my way home this morning from work, I was basking in the most beautiful sunshine. Oh, what a glorious morning it had been...

When I got home I really wanted to use my solar cooker. Might as well make something for nothing with my beautiful cooker :)

Bimby, the Thermomix did a great job. In a few moments I had enough muffin mixture to make a cake and six trays of muffins! Woohoo!

First three layers are in there. Love it that the solar cooker is so big that I can fit in 3 dozen muffins at a time :)

Be a nice treat for the boys too, having muffins for school!

Cheers

Our Solar panels shine again...

Got our quarterly electricity bill on Monday... Our bill is awesome :) To think that we got our lovely six panels for nothing, as they were put on the roof because of a Federal Government grant, is amazing!

I really hope that the panels help our household for many, many years to come :)

Cheers

How much will fit???

I have worked it all out... I can get two dozen muffins in there and then another two cakes as well. I have the tiered trays so can get allot in there... Love to maximise my available space and time for that matter. :)

Cheers Damaris

First Solar Stew...

It was delish :)

I really wanted to try the Solar Oven out not only for baking muffins and cakes and the like but also for a dinner so I just did what I normally do... Bit of this and a bit of that...

The end result was amazing. The meat just melted in your mouth and the stew was cooked by the sun to perfection :) I was so happy with the end result that it has been done quite a few times since off course :)

Cheers Damaris

Solar Oven...

Yummm :)

So with the weather finally warming up and the sun being out just a little more than in Winter, I have finally been able to give it a good workout. Now whenever we have a sunny day, the Solar Oven ends up outside and get used :)

One thing you do have to get used to is that it doesn't make a crust on the top of the cake as in the oven when fan forced as this is only sun and no movement of air at all. Am loving the change :)

The boys love whatever comes out of it and so does anyone else that tries out what I bake :)

Love baking and not having it cost me a cent :) :) :)

Cheers Damaris

Very, very blessed...

Down comes the broken one :)

With Brian's wonderful help the new one went up :)

You may remember that over a year ago I had nothing but problems with our Solar Hot Water Panels... One broke due to frost. It has a thermostat which means that the pump should have pumped up warm water or taken all of the water out of the panel in the first place. It should never have busted in the first place...

Anyway, long story short I ended up organising to have the booster switch put on Tariff 31 which meant that it only heated during the night hours and at a fraction of day time hours power costs. Worked really well :) Then a lovely couple by the name of Michelle and Brian had exactly the same panels and set up as ours as we built with the same company at the same time... They had nothing but problems and had the electronics in their system die on them. It was going to cost them way too much to replace it all and in the end they found out that the company has gone into receivership anyway... So they went for Instant Gas Hot Water instead...

Glad they did too as we scored their two working panels. How lovely was that off them. Another member of our community ended up with their 400 litre tank :) How blessed are we all :) All cost nothing as these items would have only gone to the tip anyway. This way there was less landfill and I could organise for the panel that was broken to be replaced.

I did just that and within a week had our plumber our and Brian even helped to get the old one down and the new one up :) Now we are going to take the broken one apart and sell it for parts, especially the copper :) The other panel will stay with us as a spare :)

Love the community spirit in this place. :) Now I have two panels working and loving having my solar back on track :) :) :) :)

Cheers Damaris

I DID IT!!!!!

Proof of our wonderful achievement :)

One of my aims in life... (I know rather sad right???) I have always wanted to have a quarterly electricity bill of less than $100...

Well this last quarter I did it :) :) :) :) Our bill came in this week and it was $99.90. $73.31 without the ambulance levy... How fantastic is that??? I am soooooooo stoked :)

With the increase in electricity again in July I doubt I will have this low a bill again unless we start getting more of a rebate for our solar that we put into the grid or until I get more panels up on my roof... Will see. Just glad to have done it once at least...

Not bad for four people... And just because Russell is not here three nights a week... Trust me he makes up for it on the weekends... :( Anyway I did it and am really proud of our efforts. :)

Cheers Damaris

1500kWh produced... :)

Loving the solar panels :)

Our panels have produced that many kWh's. Very happy about that. We have used about two thirds of that. As of this morning have exported 583kwh into the grid. Very happy to use my own sun :) :) :) Here is to many more kWh's. :)

Cheers Damaris

Look at what we got...

Solar iPhone, etc charger. :)

Recycled Cardboard Speakers...

Solar Speakers...

Our new LED Solar Lantern

I hate to brag but have to in this case... All things solar... Russell came across this wonderful site and bought up big. :)

When we go camping now or anytime for that matter we can charge our iPhones or iPods or iPad for that matter... All with the sun's help.

We can use the recycled paper speakers. They work great. They are made from old phonebooks, pizza boxes and cardboard...

The solar speakers work even with Bluetooth. They are fantastic.

Can't wait to use the solar lantern :) It is very bright and will be used not only for camping but also during the week instead of candles. :)

How cool is that??? No power needed for any of these things. :) Win, win I reckon. :) Can't wait to try them over the next few days. :)

Cheers Damaris

Pool time :)

Indoor swimming area...

Timothy in the foreground...

My busy day while they were swimming...

Joshua's hands at the end... :)

Chilling at Lesley Park :)

Yesterday the boys and I had to venture into town. Must say I don't like to at this time of year as it is madhouse wherever you end up going. I had a 9am appointment with the Optometrist though so had no problem getting a park. Even undercover. :)

After our appointment had to get a couple of things and then we spent a good 4.5 hours in the pool. Our local pool in heated and under cover. Run by the Council and very, very cheap. Boys cost me $3.20 to get in :) :) Gotta love that price. :) They have it all there... Normal size pool for laps and diving, rapids, baby wading area, deeper pool but not diving depth and a huge spa. :) Needless to say the boys had a ball combing the whole area, many times. There were nowhere near as many people there as I thought there would be. Then again most probably were shopping. :) Good for us either way. :)

They had a ball in the water and I stayed out as I have just had my piercing done and has not completely healed as yet. So with some Scratchies that I scored from Russell's Mum for Christmas on the weekend... I cashed them in ($17) and got myself an Earth Garden Magazine. My winnings also paid for the boys to go swimming. :)

I sat there happily watching them from the Cafe area which has huge glass panels so you can see the pool area but without all the horrible chlorine smell... Was very happy about that. :)

Joshua made a new friend, Cooper and we hope to see him after Christmas. :)

In the end the boys were soooo wrinkly that even the tops of their feet looked like 'old man's feet'. Was very funny to see...

We also spent some time at Lesley Park which was nice. Was nice to sit in the sun... The shade was rather chilly. :)

After that we went and got milk on the way home and got home just before 4:30pm. Long day but the boys had a ball and were rightly exhausted... Not much arguing went on that night. hehe

Another fantastic thing that happened yesterday also was that our 6 little solar panels produced 8 kWh and 6 of those went into the Grid. Gotta be happy about that :) :) :)

Cheers Damaris

Joshua using the Sun...

Clever boy using the sun to power his toy :)

This afternoon the sun was out in all its glory... Not a cloud in the sky, which was amazing as we got 10mm yesterday from all the clouds that were around then :)

So he started tinkering with his balls and made some bits spin very, very fast. Pumped by the sun off course. Meanwhile out the back the sun was doing a great job drying my clothes on the line... :)

Cheers Damaris

Another Milestone :)

Well I took readings again today, as I do every day and today was a rather special one :)

Today I read that 700.8kWh have been produced by our Solar Panels since 20 January 2010. And the other good news was that today we had a total of 200kWh go into the grid since connection to it.

I really do wish I had more panels and trust me I am working on it but for now I am very happy that we have had 500kWh of free power. :) Thank you Sunshine :)

Cheers Damaris

Loving my power bill...

Got my bill on Tuesday... for 90 days it came to $121.80. Woohoo... and that is with boosting half a dozen times too... Had that not have happened I reckon we could have been around $100. Never mind. That is the target for next bill...

So I must say that I am very happy with my panels up on my roof. :) They are doing a great job.

Cheers Damaris

My Solar fettish rubs off...

One of Joshua's creations...

On my boy that is. :) Joshua loves making things run on solar power. This enthusiasm has been harnessed by my Dad and Step Mum very well. For Christmas Joshua got a great Solar construction set and again for his Birthday he got a different one just a couple of days early.

Joshua is not 11 till tomorrow but my Dad came over for a while on Friday and ended up staying for dinner. It was such a nice time I must say... I think he will be back at night time too as he loves to watch the stars spread over the sky from one side of the mountains to the other with no lights or buildings obstructing your view. :) One of the many reasons why we love it out here. The vast openness, the sky, the air, the sun. I can go on but won't...

My darling doesn't though follow instructions much... He ended up putting both lots of pieces all together into one container and then created all sorts of creatures out of what he had. Then he would periodically go outside and try them out, come inside again and retry something else.

He loves it and loves to see the creations take shape also. :)

Cheers Damaris

Solar update...

Very exciting news... On Wednesday we reached 100kWh put into the grid. Woohoo... Very excited about that. I usually use most of what we produce and only have about 1kWh go in a day, sometimes a bit more...

Can't wait for my next power bill. hehe

With our family going Failsafe we are cooking everything from scratch and that is certainly having me to use the oven more but must say that the Thermomix is doing a fantastic job... Wouldn't be without it. :)

Cheers Damaris