Episode 8 – We need to talk about shower heads

How sustainable is your daily shower? Most shower heads at Christie Walk are WELS 3 standard, running at about 9L/minute. They were the best that were readily available when construction of our eco-village was completed in 2006. Older shower heads … Continued

Episode 7 – Battery storage – Tesla Powerwall 2

2020 – Battery options modelling In the middle of all that work on evacuated tubes, we learned that change was imminent in the SA Government Home Battery Scheme. To qualify for the maximum $6k subsidy, applications had to be lodged … Continued

Episode 6 – More evacuated tube solar hot water boosters

Adventures with an environment-conscious inner-urban community 2020 This was the crisis year for so many people – bushfires, COVID, job losses – and it also happened to be the year of our most adventurous emissions-reduction planning, carrying out 2 major … Continued

Episode 5 – Finalist – Carbon Neutral Adelaide Awards

Adventures with an environment-conscious inner-urban community 2016 to 2019 – Carbon Neutral Adelaide Since 2016 we’d had regular contact with the Carbon Neutral Adelaide team, culminating in our carbon emission inventory for the 2017 year. I’d also attended the Carbon … Continued

Episode 4 – Major PV upgrade

2019 For years we’d been tossing around options for increasing our solar performance without losing our high feed-in tariff (56c/kWh) for the 4.8kW PVs that were installed when the Christie Walk community built the Sturt Apartments in 2006.  But by … Continued

Episode 3 – Evacuated tube solar hot water boosters

Adventures with an environment-conscious inner-urban community May 2018 We started investigating the retrofit option for our hot water system: installing solar collectors as boosters to our existing heat pump hot water. One company stood out as a solid option: RunOnSun, … Continued

Episode 2 – Doing a carbon inventory

Adventures with an environment-conscious inner-urban community November 2017 I received an email inviting me to a meeting with the Carbon Neutral Adelaide team. They were scoping out a number of sites for selection as a possible “Carbon Neutral Showcase Site” … Continued

Episode 1 – In hot water again

Adventures with an environment-conscious inner-urban community April 2016 Our apartment building (Sturt Apartments at Christie Walk) was nearly ten years old. It was time to start thinking about sustainability upgrades to reduce our carbon footprint. Lighting was an easy place … Continued

Aiming beyond NetZero at Christie Walk

Adventures with an environment-conscious inner-urban community I’m fortunate to live at Christie Walk in Adelaide. It’s a community of 27 homes and gardens on 2,000m2. It was initiated by Urban Ecology Australia in 1999 as a demonstration project, to promote … Continued

Eco-city dreaming comes true

The facilitator – Jacqui Hunter of Hunter Gatherings – asked us to do some dream-work.  That’s normally not so hard, but there we were, standing in an awkward-shaped T-allotment strewn with bits of broken glass and featuring some derelict out-buildings.  … Continued