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SYDNEY'S SUSTAINABLE TERRACE HOUSE

Sydney’s Chippendale Terrace House – Sustainable Housing

This is a very interesting and thought provoking project. In Sydney there is a self-sufficient house at 58 Myrtle Street, Chippendale ,2008, New South Wales , Australia. The two storey inner city terrace house is on a 130 square metre site (including 48 square metre garden), 2 kilometres from Sydney's central business district
A solar energy system that puts back surplus solar energy into the main electricity grid. The solar system puts the house's power bills into a credit with the local power company. Each year, the house will be a net exporter of clean energy to the main grid. It produces 3610 kilowatts of power a year.
A waste treatment system that treats washing, kitchen and household waste to tertiary quality levels for treatment and re-use. It uses natural, self-adjusting, biological process, not chemicals. Yet the house appears the same as any other, having the usual flush toilet, and typical clothes and dish washing machines.
A rainwater harvesting system that catches rainwater from the roof and stores it for use, and filters out metals and other pollution.
There's a little wetland that provides a safe house for frogs (which eat the mozzies), insects, native birds.
Although one may think that a sustainable house is more suitable in remote areas which are cut off from public infrastructure and utilities, this house demonstration shows that technology and knowledge of basic sustainability requirements are available for implementation.
The Universities, NSW Health and South Sydney Council there have verified of zero faecal coliform counts for wastewater each fortnight. No sewage has left the site. Almost no storm water has left the site.

Sustainable House Details
* solar panels on two north facing roofs * excess wastewater is discharged along the side passage of the house and runs down a reed bed * the round rainwater tank is buried in the ground below the deck * the deck is made of radialyy-sawn hardwood timber ( radially-sawn timber yields about 85% of the timber in a log compared to traditional sawing methods which only get about 55% of the timber).
* all toilet, kitchen and washing waste is put in the long, narrow waste management concrete tank on the boundary,then that water is recycled for flushing the toilet, washing our clothes and watering the garden - and it's testing at zero faecal coliform each fortnight * the mini-wetland, about as big as a large dining room table holds any overflow rainwater and any overflow wastewater.
* No sewage leaves the site and the house is not connected to the town water or sewage pipes. * the site is 5 metres wide, 35 metres long, with terraces on similar-sized lots either side; the terraces were built in the 1890s.


Each year Sydney's Sustainable House...
Saves 102,000 litres of water which is left in the Shoalhaven river and Warragamba Dam
Keeps >60,000 litres of sewage out of the Pacific Ocean
Produces >100,000 litres of clean water
Saves 4.3 tonnes of coal from burning
Reduces carbon dioxide pollution from power stations by 8.3 tonnes. So the house cuts greenhouse pollution
Cuts Council's waste by several tonnes. The waste system recycles newspaper, kitchen scraps, compost
Produces $1119.30 of clean energy a year, or $3.06 a day
Keeps >80,000 litres of stormwater out of Sydney Harbour