The 35th Week: our new home!

We are in the fortunate position of having access to the premium solar feed-in-tariff, the contract for which doesn't expire for another 10 years or so. We had been given advice that it was possible to relocate our existing system to the new house and retain the premium tariff, under certain conditions. The main requirement was that the system components are still listed on the CEC's current list of approved systems. Our system is now a few years old, so no longer qualifiees. This led to a bit of a scramble to secure a PV system for our new home. We considered a battery, but even with the generous ACT government rebate, batteries don't quite make economic sense at this point in time. Now everyone who lives in the ACT knows about the "Canberra tax" whereby 'Berrans pay a premium on just about everything from groceries, petrol, cars, rents, tradies and yes, solar systems. There are a number of solar retailers operating in the ACT, however previous experience h

Events seem have seem to have snowballed very quickly in the past few weeks, most obviously the fact that we now have a front door! We had another site visit where we met with the electrician to discuss all things electrical from the number and location of power points to lighting options, home security and solar provisions. Power points and light switches are essential in any home, but it's not something we usually give much thought to on a daily basis, but when you are building a home, there are a seemingly endless series of combinations and permutations. How many do you want? Where do you want them? How high do you want them? What style? What colour? Backlit? USB? Dimmer? Sensor switch? It's electrical overload - figurately and literally (we needed an extended electrical box to accommodate everything). And then there were the lights.  Stair lights? Pendants? Feature wall lights? How many? Where do you want them? On the left wall or the right wall?  At least on the ques

So this is Christmas. And what have you done? (built a bloody house that's what...) Another year over. And new ones just begun... We came back from our break to record temperatures, surrounded by raging bushfires and the worst air quality in the world. We drove past the site and nothing much had changed. The builders understandably stopped work during the hazardous air conditions, but it should be full steam ahead from next week. Here's a pic of the state of play in 2020.