Energy House Trip

On Monday Room 32 went on a trip to the Energy House. It was near the train station. First we went near the train station to see the solar panels which provided the energy for the house. Then we were lead into the house and travelled up stairs to the wetback. Lots of people (including me) noticed it was warmer then the usual home.  Simon (the house owner) then explained how mostly every wall had 3 layers of insulation! Now that's warm. then we split up into our groups. I was in Jo's group. First we had a closer examining of the wetback. I thought you lit a fire in it because there was a large hollow like a fireplace. There were 2 thin pipes coming out the back which I thought the heat energy went and heated the hot water. There was also a very tall funnel coming out the top which I thought lead to the chimney. It didn't. Instead it lead to the hot water cylinder which is where most of the water for the house was kept. We had a look at the kitchen with it's radiator, fridge with the thickest walls for insulation, different types of solar panels on display on the bench and some different types of lights. There were some questions for us to answer; however, and some were tough. On the deck/veranda, though, more questions bombarded us! We went to go see the water cylinder buried under the deck/veranda, answered a question then went over to the other end were we saw some pipes. There we answered a question then headed back inside to the freezer which had walls which were noticeably thick. After that we waited for our turn to go up the ladder to the attic where we saw the hot water cylinder. It had wires from it leading to all the different places in the house. Then we went back to school

 

The pipes out the back of the wetback.

 

The buried water cylinder.

One of the many lights.

A solar panel.

 

By Matt