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Latest Eco Homes

Passive House in NZ 19 Jan 12 Eco property for sale - Waiheke Island 18 Dec 11 Luxury brand new eco house with high R value for sale 1 Dec 11 Passive House Showhome 28 Nov 11 E2 24 Nov 11 Natural Intelligence 10 Nov 11 Strawbale house in Clutha For Sale 5 Nov 11 Cornerstone Building System choice for Ben Lomond Lodge 11 Sep 11 Profile your eco house

Latest Eco News

Three Car Free Days Planned in Response to the Tauranga Oil Spill, Over the Next Three Months 1 Nov 11 Deploying electric vehicles in New Zealand 27 Oct 11 Green Dream Launch Pad 8 Aug 11 Fracking for Gas in New Zealand 27 Jul 11 The Deepening of Green: Vastu Architecture 18 Jul 11 Submit news

Upcoming Events

7-Day Straw Bale Home Design & Construction Workshop 11 Feb 12 - 18 Feb 12 Kapiti Sustainable Home & Garden Show 24 Mar 12 - 25 Mar 12 Certificate in Applied Organics and Biodynamics 30 Mar 12 - 30 Nov 12 Oxfam Trailwalker 31 Mar 12 - 1 Apr 12 7-Day Straw Bale Home Design & Construction Workshop 3 Nov 12 - 10 Nov 12 Submit an event

Latest Articles

Solar Power in NZ - What is the payback? 14 Nov 11 A guide to micro-generation in New Zealand 13 Apr 11 3 stories of local eco-entrepreneurship 6 Jan 11 Sustainable living in a city 31 Aug 10 Building the Future - BRANZ 7 Dec 09 Livingroofs.org.nz - NZ guide to living roofs 7 Sep 09 Throw a Green Birthday Party 19 Aug 09 Good Wood Guide 22 Jun 09 Submit an article

Ecobob - Eco friendly living in NZ

Find information on eco houses, sustainable design and more. View our business directory of products such as rain water collection, solar hot water, photovoltaic panels and house hold items.

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This is the most common question asked on the subject of solar power systems. People are naturally curious about a technology that can produce a long-term supply of electricity with no continuous financial input, environmental side effect, or lifestyle change. Yet industry, consumers, and government only seem able to relate the value of the investment to its simple ‘payback’.

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Electric vehicles (EVs) are an emerging form of transport worldwide which could help New Zealanders meet their private transport needs while reducing their climate change impact.

The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) is assisting the introduction of EVs into the New Zealand market, by working to overcome barriers such as uncertainty and inconsistency around standards.

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There is nothing good that can be said about fracking. In what Naomi Klein calls "extreme energy" it is one of the ways in which humanity is taking extreme risks to get fuel. But in this case they are potentially deadly -to you. And I wish I was being alarmist, but I fear not.

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Vastu structures are vibrant connections to a universal-energy matrix. These structures resonate with the most sublime and powerful forces or “laws” of Nature, which are specified and generated by space/time/light.

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If our governments are sitting at the energy poker table with a full house in terms of renewables, why do they choose not to play their winning hand? There’s a hidden partner in this game, influencing their every move. Corporations, like casinos, are driven by short-term profit, not the long-term health of their customers. This isn’t just about greed; it’s enshrined in law.

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Australia's ABC Catalyst travels from Paris, to London, to the outer space like world that is deep sea drilling, to find out where we stand with our oil supply.

Watch the video
With the recent radioactive catastrophe at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan the merit of building nuclear reactors to meet our rising energy demands is again in question. Prior to Fukushima the world had gone on a nuclear spending spree and there are now over 440 nuclear plants dotting the planet with a further 65 plants under construction. The world currently gets around 13% of its electricity from nuclear sources.

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New Zealand is blessed with abundant renewable energy resources compared to many other countries, and this has helped achieve a high percentage of renewable generated electricity in our electricity grid. Large-scale renewable energy development, such as wind farms, geothermal, and hydro energy, already provides cost-effective and ‘clean’ electricity.

Another way of harnessing the power of New Zealand’s renewable energy resources is through small-scale generation, also known as ‘micro-generation’. This is renewable energy generation on a domestic or household scale.

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Open Source Ecology

The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is a modular, DIY, low-cost, high-performance platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a small, sustainable civilization with modern comforts.

Watch the video
It’s time to consider a better way to get from A to B. We’ve been chugging around in our combustion engine powered cars since the oil began pouring out of the ground and Henry Ford’s factories started mass-producing affordable cars back in the early 1900’s. Around 60% of our fossil fuel usage goes to powering our vehicles.

Back then it made sense. Oil was cheap and abundant – if you drilled a shallow well in parts of Texas the black gold would pour out with very little effort. You would get around 100 barrels of oil from a well for every 1 barrel of oil (energy equivalent) used to get it out. These days it takes a lot more effort to extract and we’re hunting for the black gold in increasingly remote areas of the world and using increasingly damaging means to get at it.

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With the recent destruction in New Zealand’s second largest city it’s a good time to think about sustainable town planning. While existing cities often require expensive ‘retrofits’ of environmentally friendly features, there is an opportunity in Christchurch to begin with a semi-clean slate.

Town planning is often short-sighted and does not take into account inconvenient truths such as peak oil (and the general rise in the cost of energy). Given the amount of information there is on peak oil it’s obscene that often we don’t this into consideration.

New Zealand’s urban structure is generally characterised by sprawling suburbs surrounding concentrated commercial centres. Our public transport systems are mostly inadequate with the bulk of commuters relying on private cars to get around. In the near future the rising cost of energy is going to put a lot of pressure on our poorly designed cities.

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Clean coal - The answer to our energy needs?



Upcoming event - Keep The Coal In The Hole

Our homes, our egos, and our environment

I think I’ve discovered the root cause of all our environmental ills. Okay, that might sound like an outrageous claim, but let me explain. The particular villain I blame for mankind’s relentless attack on the planets eco system is our Collective Ego.

The more I investigate, the more I see the fingerprints of this villain everywhere. Take for example the average New Zealand home. Not so long ago we were satisfied with a modest house, big enough to fit our family, the dog and a television. But somewhere along the line our egos became restless; we needed bigger, fancier houses. We wanted to outdo our neighbours – out-build them, out-furnish them and over-impress our dinner party guests.

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Kai Rakau Project

The Kai Rakau Project, currently being developed by Emma Williamson and Savannah Carter-Green, is a community based project with view to create a “Mother Orchard” of 3000 fruiting trees and native plantings, in Sanders Reserve, Paremoremo, Auckland, New Zealand.



More here...

Dealing with Christchurch Earthquake Sewage

This is a message to all those in Christchurch without adequate sewerage from Transition Towns NZ. "I have asked a permaculture teacher if there is a better way to deal with it than by burying in it or digging a long drop or using a chemical toilet. The answer from Bryan Innes is this, so please pass it on to anyone you know.

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Urban Forests

Forests provide invaluable ecosystem services. These include sequestering carbon, filtering pollution from air, limiting extremes in temperature, reducing stormwater runoff and increasing precipitation, to name a few.

In urban settings these kinds of services are especially important in counteracting the detrimental effects of city living to both health and psychological well-being. Trees can also be of economic benefit to a city by providing shade to the north and west of buildings during hot summers thereby reducing the amount of energy used for cooling, and raising the value of properties.

Read more on Urban Forests...

Too much building waste

Construction, maintenance and renovation of buildings account for around 40 per cent of the world's material flows, so it's always sad to see an old building reduced to a pile of rubble...

More about building waste...

Connected communities

Over the past century, unprecedented technological breakthroughs have advanced the development of cities and promoted a move away from agricultural lifestyles. In urban areas, people have become increasingly dissociated from the source of their food and completely dependent on monetary systems as their primary resource.

Read about connected communities

Disastrous consequences?

For more than ten thousand years the earth has been in a relatively stable state - a unique period called the Holocene, which has allowed civilization to evolve into what it is today. This desirable state is now under pressure from what scientists say is largely human driven change. The question is: how far can we go before our actions cause disastrous consequences, or is it already too late?

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Seed store to save the world

Genetic diversity is the stuff that evolution is made of. It allows a species to survive by adapting to a constantly changing environment. When a species population size decreases, some of the building blocks of that species are lost, and hence some of its ability to adapt to change is lost. This diversity within crops is the biological foundati...

More about the saving seeds

'Green roofs' - An eco friendly covering

What if a city could support natural ecosystems? What if it could blend into the rural surrounds, manage some of its own byproducts, clean its own air and even produce its own food? Such a city would use green roofs.

Read the article on green roofs

Rubbish good for building your house

People have been building dwellings for over 14,000 years, largely using materials accessible in their immediate environments. Whether that be wood, stone, clay, reeds, or ice, the practice has always been to use what's available and abundant. It's only since the advent of modern industry and mass production that we have been using products that are mass produced, and then transported over often vast distances to reach our doorsteps.

Building with rubbish

Couple builds an off grid sustainable earth house
Couple builds an off grid sustainable earth house They decided to design and build a home that was eco-friendly and could generate its own electricity. They used rammed earth for the walls, mixed with concrete – it is 450mm thick. 16 solar panels sit on the roof, generating electricity and another eight solar panels heat the hot water. The eco house is very well insulated with double glazed window...
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Greywater expert backs Council approval
Greywater expert backs Council approval The Kapiti Coast District Council’s decision to approve Plan Change 75 and make the fitting of a greywater system and/or rain tank compulsory in all new dwellings has been applauded by an expert in greywater irrigation. Steven Roberts, Managing Director of Kapiti firm Watersmart, says legislating for the re-use of water from washing machines and...
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Smart choices indoors will help the great outdoors

Smart choices indoors will help the great outdoors While we can't all afford to build our dream "green" home, we are able to retrofit and apply practical eco-logic, making our homes more eco-friendly, with a smaller environmental footprint. Some houses tend to be easier to retrofit than others, and others are inherently greener and healthier, despite not being "consciously" b...
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Developing sustainable cities - Living Roofs
Developing sustainable cities - Living Roofs A critical element to achieve environmentally sustainable design is the incorporation of living roofs as a fundamental design principle to development in New Zealand. Living roofs have been demonstrated to reduce stormwater, enhance biodiversity, reduce energy requirements through enhanced thermal insulation, increase Green Star NZ score, provide h...
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The Ultimate Living Show
The Ultimate Living Show You are invited to participate in a unique expo, featuring products and services that are natural, ethical and sustainable, the inaugural Ultimate Living Show. Food - wine - health - beauty - fashion - home - beverages - gardening - investment - appliances - renovation: all these will be on show. With 25 years in the expo business, our busines...
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A primary school with a green roof
A primary school with a green roof A New Zealand green roof company has put a small Queenstown Primary School on the international map by becoming the first school in New Zealand to wear a ‘green roof’. Remarkables Primary School, a newly built enviro school, is one of a handful of schools throughout the world who can boast a green roof, which doubles as an outdoor classroom. ...
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Sustainability explained through animation
Sustainability explained through animation A short animated movie which explains sustainability.
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Clean Energy Expo 2011
Clean Energy Expo 2011 Take a tour of the NZ Clean Energy Centre and see: - 3 solar hot water systems in action - 2 solar photovoltaic systems (solar electric) in action - A geothermal heating system in action - An electric vehicle charging station (go for a ride in an electric car) - A micro hydro system being demonstrated - A fabulous example of green, energy...
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Eco Houses

Do you own or live in an eco house? You can list your eco house on Ecobob for others to view. You can even sell your eco house.

You can make it easier for people to live in a sustainable way by listing your house as an example.

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Latest Forum Posts

Post a topic or ask a question

Hello Solar Chris, Ok Chris, my mistake, I will put it into a more easily understood format. I am da...

@seeker, We're at 39 degrees latitude so our panels are marginally summer biased.

Thanks nofear - will have a look at links. Harm Less Solutions: did you summer bias or winter bias y...

Makes me wonder why we do not get ahead. a lot of arguments and no solutions. sounds like politician...

Quote "I do not treat the Meridian 1 to 1 buy back as a subsidy – only their difference in exp...

This sounds like a great idea, though I would just make one further comment about drawing in 'fresh'...

Panels are BP 3215B's. They are angled at 37 degrees without adjustability - too much hassle and pot...

Really nice looking system. Those panels look like thin film? It doesn't look like it, but can you ...

Goldenage, as you well , this world is upside down. Free trade...There is no such thing. I remember ...

Seeker, the solar cooler sounds great. the link for steam engines I was mentioning earlier is in fa...

Hello again Solar Chris, The basic characteristic of all subsidies is to reduce the market price of ...

Rex I do know the difference between capital expenditure on development and subsidy expenditure h...

Rex Quote "but would the capital cost of a million PV installations, equate to the capital cost...

Guess what?, How many times do I have to tell you – I do not approve of subsidies. If Spain wants to...

Hello Solar Chris, Ah, now we are having a debate on the issue. I am very supportive of you finding ...

Rex, so you think we don't use subsidies? Of course we do? Are we cleverer than Europe? Definitly ...

How about doing a practical thing and Buy an electrical car run it off Solar Panels and do your bit ...

Hello Guess what? I was about to compliment you on attempting an answer, but you blew it. Always th...

Has anyone experience with the zingbokashi stuff? Or is it better to use a worm farm ? Or is there...

Third time lucky ??

Hopefully the photo will 'stick' this time ;)

Thank you nofear, Because of the complexity and the International flavour of the NZ Food Bill I figu...

Thank You for your contribution Goldenage. Codex is a Draconian Bill that would grant excessive powe...

Rex - I won't take the bait. I said - I'm not interested in a nonsense climate change debate. This t...

If had read my post you would have noticed that I said that we don't need to subsidise power generat...

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