Project House Ecological Self

This blog is made by Ferry294 for a DigitalOpen Project, all the project is written by me and there is nothing that may violate the copyright of another person.

Nowdays, the power consumption of our homes is too high and we need to find solutions to reduce energy expenditure and therefore the CO2 emissions produced by power companies to produce renewable energy; in this sense, my project is about making an idea of a house from which we can create our own clean, renewable energy and waste water from the rain.

This would require:

-One-family house, 3 or 4 bedrooms, 2 toilets, garage .. (this would be one of the higher costs because an apartment is cheaper)
-Technology to produce energy-
-Appropiate electronic devices.

The house should:

-Be oriented to the sun
-Be isolated, to retain heat in winter and cool in summer
-Have double glazed windows to insulate the cold and also the sound
-Use of a passive solar energy system:
- Thermal Mass:
For the heat-storage would be desirable to orient the house or building accumulators walls, where the sun warms the walls during the day and release heat during the night.

House's Systems to obtain the energy would be:

-To have photovoltaic solar panels to obtain energy of the sun, specially if you live in a place where the sun is very frequent.

-Having 2 or 3 wind turbines, to take advantage of the wind energy during windy and storm times in which the house cannot take advantage of the solar power.

-In the garage, to have large batteries which can store enough energy for the days where the consumption be excessive or days in which be not obtained barely energy.these batteries are charged with the surplus of produced electricity.

-If you want to earn extra money, you can also sell your surplus electricity to the power company

-The ways to obtain energy change depending on the site where the house is; If you are in a place with many hours of sunlight , it enhances the solar energy, and if sunshine hours are not enough, we would enhance way to obtain energy investing in more wind turbines.

-Another possible way to obtain energy is through the hydrogen, making ourselves with electrolysis and then generating energy with a fuel cell, something more complex that I would not recommend whether other forms of energy are not sufficient.

-The solar-generated electricity is not constantly on sunny days where the electricity pass through a control box and this would organize the electricity, sending the remainder electricity that is not used, to the batteries in the garage; the same thing with the wind turbines, which in days of Strong winds can supply over the house.

Systems for saving and consumption of water:

-To have a thermal solar panel to heat the water which you take a shower with or to be used for heating, although to save, if you do not live in a very cold weather, I would not put heating.

-These thermal sola panels could be made with vacuum tubes which are innovative and have a higher efficiency (heat pipe solar)

-To have a collector of rainwater on the roof , to carry out the water the water to a container of water in the garage, and then a pump to carry water anywhere in the house, also with a filter to clean water.
-To have in the toilets a closed circuit water which consists in reusing the used water for washing hands in the toilet, thus to save water.
-To have a dehumidifiers to collect water from moisture, in time of drought when water is scarce.

-To place diffusers in all the faucets to save water
-Talking about residual waters, there are some water treatment equipment that are not too large and are composed of 1 tank of 250 l, 1 electropump, different filters and a UV disinfection.

Operation
The system is made by following these steps: polishing, biological oxidation and decanting.

Grinding: The thick solid drag water are intercepted by a grate at the entrance of the equipment.

Biological Oxidation: In the biological reactor is the biological decomposition of organic matter by the provision of air and the generation of aerobic microorganisms.

Decanting: The sludge from the decomposition of organic matter are reassured, deposited inside the vessel from which they are recirculated back to the biological reactor.

Talking about electrodomestics and lighting:

-The home must be installed with low-consume lighting (LED lamps or the lightbulbs of low consumption) The difference is big.

LED lamps:

Are very expensive
Its consumption is the lowest of all
Have a very long life (10 years or more)
Its light does not remove heat

For Example:

LED lamps:
Consumes-6W
Lighting-equivalent to a 60W incandescent bulb
The savings are significant saving 54W
Its price would be of 35 € the LEDlamps and 0,60 cents the incandescent bulbs.

The issue is that we need to save in watts, so we we could get it better with LED lamps; Now, the difference in consumption in a house with 30 bulbs:

-30 common Bulblight 80W___2400W
-30 Equivalent LED lamps (8W) ___240W

Now, talking about the electronic devices:

All-electric devices should have efficiency A or A +
Avoid some devices like the clothing-dryer and to use the sun to dry clothes.
There are also solar kitchens, but its performance is low.Since we are seeking a house to live all the life there, we could put a common kitchen.



Now let's talk about extras:

- To Put solar lights in the garden, which are loaded during the day and are lit at night.
-If we luckly have an electric car, it should be charged with a photovoltaic solar panel exclusively.
-To make an eco-garden in which be planted vegetables or fruits, as it can be a hobby for us it can also helps to generate food.
In that garden, the system is drip irrigation, a system which saves a lot of water, and this would be a small container to store rainwater.
-In order to get that the construction of the house was as ecological as possible, you could make some things such as:

• Ask for the distributors of wind turbines and solar panels to fabricate their products with recycled materials and asked to be transported by train (for me one of the more environmentally friendly transportation currently trading)

• Some materials of the house that can be recycled to the house (all the possible)

The cost of the house would be extremely expensive, especially for solar panels, which are currently very expensive. This is about doing an investment for the long term although if you are very good at DIY you could make your own photovoltaic panels, there is a tutorial where you teach:

Tutorial-how to make photovoltaic cell

This project is more than an idea for the near future; my idea for taking this project to the community would be to show it in different ways, in order that the whole world know that you can build a clean and generous house with the environment, while saving money on power and water.The idea, clearly would be completely free and could be modified adding a lot of other things according to the style of house you want, specially in the ways to obtaing energy although they be few.