The Greening of Gavin

All Good Things Come to an End

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Yes, dear reader, the time has come.  Everything in life has a beginning and an ending, and I believe that it’s time to wrap up The Greening of Gavin blog and podcast.  All good things come to an end (to quote a very famous Star Trek series)!

All good things

It’s with a homebrew beer in hand that I say goodbye.

All Good Things…

With no major greening projects on the horizon or further lifestyle enhancements planned, I’ve essentially run out of things to say, which after 1,870 posts and 132 podcast episodes is quite understandable.

I’m officially passing the baton to a younger generation of bloggers and influencers who may have better luck convincing the masses further to live a more sustainable lifestyle.

I know that I’ve played my part in the rebirth of the simple living revolution judging from the amount of feedback and emails I receive every day, so I feel very proud of that accomplishment.  I, like you, can make a big difference in the world.

What have we achieved?

During the journey, we’ve retrofitted the house with many green features, renovated the gardens into an organic food farm, and transformed the way we think and live.  All that, as well as starting a green business teaching others some simple living skills.

When I reflect back to that crazy day when my whole world was turned upside-down, I would never in a million years have thought that the blog would have come this far and how it would eventually have impacted our lifestyle for the better.

And to you, the reader.  I thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting and following my family’s journey and antics since February 2008 when I penned the very first post.  It’s been a wild ride, sometimes controversial, but always interesting and fun.

So where to from here?

Well, the blog posts and podcast episodes will remain online until either the internet is destroyed or peak oil begins to impact us all.  Just joking, it will still be here as a valuable resource for as long as there are bits and bytes.  Check out my archive for all the posts.

Also, I will still have a strong online presence as I will be maintaining the associated Facebook page and YouTube channel for The Greening of Gavin.  If anything exciting happens around here then that is where I will be posting this type of update.

Additionally, the YouTube channel, CheeseMan.tv, will continue to release a weekly cheese making video, as well as my cheese making blog and associated podcast at Little Green Cheese.

Little Green Cheese Podcast

Little Green Cheese Podcast

To cap it all off, our home business, Little Green Workshops, is still growing strongly and will more than compensate for any time I gain from ending the blog and the podcast.  We are still running cheese, soap, soy candle, and bath soak & scrub workshops each school term if anyone wants to learn these dying skills.  You can find all the details of these courses on our workshops calendar.

Little Green Workshops - end of year update

Click Through to the Shop!

Adieu

So dear reader, this is it.  Once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the support, and I hope to see you on my other blogs and YouTube channels in the very near future.

Goodbye, my friends and keep on striving for a more sustainable world.

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Back on Solar – Inverter Replaced

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As at 3pm on Saturday 16th July and $3400 poorer, we are now back on Solar!  Let me tell you about it.

The electrician turned up about 10am to swap over the inverter and a few other bits and bobs.  The old Fronius IG30 was to be taken off the wall and replaced with a Fronius Galvo 3.0.  Also due to changes in AS/NZ electrical standards the isolation switches had to be replaced.

I did get a couple of quotes which were all within a $100 or so, so I chose to go with the original quote as I was comfortable and knew the installer.

Fronius IG30

Old and very dead Fronius IG30

 

Inside the Fronius IG30

Inside the Fronius IG30

The DC isolation switches were replaced for each of the two 8 panel strands.

DC Isolation Switches

DC Isolation Switches

As well as the one located next to the Inverter.

DC Isolation Switch

DC Isolation Switch

Then it was a simple job of taking the old inverter off the wall and replace it with the new one.

Inverter replaced - Fronius Galvo 3.0

New Fronius Galvo 3.0 with WIFI!

Now as we all know nothing like this runs smoothly.  They soon found that the cabling from the isolation switches on the roof was not compliant with regulations, so it was replaced.  So was the wiring from the breaker box in the carport to the Inverter.

So after about 5 hours of work, it was finally up and running.

Fronius Galvo installed on Carport wall

Fronius Galvo installed on Carport wall

It was a bit overcast so I didn’t expect much output from the system.  However I was pleasantly surprised when the system showed it was generating over 1kW.

Fronius Galvo Display

Fronius Galvo Display

As part of the installation, just about everything had to be relabeled (new regulations, of course).

IMG_1622

A bit silly really when anyone with common sense could actually look up and see the panels and the thumping big inverter about 1 metre from this switchboard.

IMG_1624

This one made more sense I suppose.  Not that there wasn’t already a red sign on the outside of the main meter box.  You can’t have too many signs apparently.

IMG_1625

And then when I opened the box door, there were more signs.  Can’t be too safe.

Anyway, it’s all working brilliantly now and as I hinted at before, it has WIFI!  Well to be exact, it accesses our home WiFi so that it can send monitoring data to a central place so I can monitor it via any web browser.  A pretty cool feature.  Here is the Windows 10 app I have on my desktop.

Solar Web app Windows 10

Solar Web app Windows 10

It also comes with an app that I can monitor via my smart phone.  At least I know now when its working when I’m at work.

As it starts clocking up the kilowatt-hours I can post snapshots here on the blog which is more than I can say about the old one.  We estimate that during its lifetime, it helped to generate about 3 Megawatt hours of electricity over the 9 years it was in operation.  Unfortunately that is as accurate as it gets because before I realised it was on the blink, the display died first and I couldn’t take a reading.

So at least the system is back up and running.  It will take a while for the replacement inverter to pay itself back, but as long as it keeps working there are at least another decade or three of electricity left in those panels!

Save Money with Solar Power system

Save Money with Solar

And the big question is, of course, do I regret my decision all those years ago to purchase the PV system?  Not for a second!

It has been one of the best investments of our sustainable living journey.  It has reduced our GHG emissions and helped us conserve energy without drawing much from the grid.

I would do it all over again, even though back in 2007 it cost four times the amount a comparative 2.8 kW system does today.  I’m just glad that so many followed in my footsteps and put their very own clean power station on top of their roofs.

Clean, renewable energy from the biggest nuclear reaction in our solar system.  The Sun.

Little Green Workshops – End of Year Update

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Many of you may know that Kim and I run a small home based green business called Little Green Workshops.  We teach cheese, cold processed soap, soy candle, and bath soak & scrub courses at our local community centre.  We also sell kits, supplies, and gifts for anyone who is not close by.

We got the inspiration to start this venture because many of you asked for more information about how we make and do some of the things we perform on a weekly basis, living a more sustainable lifestyle here in the ‘burbs.

Many of you may be wondering how it is all going.  Well let me give you an End of Year update.

This financial year (1 July 2015 – 30 June 2016) we clocked up the following stats;

  • Workshops taught: 27
  • Private Classes: 6
  • Students attended: 247
  • Website page views: 180,355
  • Website orders dispatched: 650
  • Countries shipped to: 6
  • YouTube Videos Tutorials created: 36
  • YouTube views: 815,331
Gavin and Kim

Gavin and Kim

We are pleased with these statistics, especially when it is only our 1st full year and 20 months of operation.  We are also very proud of what we have achieved so far and are seeing sustainable growth month on month (besides the Christmas spike).

You know I’m a fairly modest bloke, but it’s taken a lot of hard work to get where we are today.

They say that many small business tank in the first five years due to debt overload and other factors.  We haven’t taken out loans or borrowed to support the business.

I’m one who believes that debt is a form of slavery in disguise, so we have avoided this as we’ve started up.  And because of it, we sleep better at night!

Thankfully due to the low startup cost of setting up and maintaining an eCommerce presence on the Internet, and in part this blog and our YouTube channels, we have been able to reach a wider audience of students than we would normally have been able to.  Students who are keen to learn and create their own sustainable products, knowing exactly what goes into them and keeping it all natural.

We also began regular shipping to five new countries besides Australia this year due to demand; New Zealand, Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, and South Africa.

Little Green Workshops - end of year update

Click Through to the Shop!

All in all we are ecstatic that we’ve kept managed to our core green values in every business decision we make.  Sustainably sourced packaging, avoid single use products and plastic, run a carbon neutral worksite and websites, and sell products where others can make and do instead of just consume.

So as a special thank you and a gift for you, and to share in the success that you have helped to create, we have just launched a limited two-day sale over at Little Green Workshops, offering 10% off all products (excluding course bookings).  Sale ends at 2359 hr (midnight) 30th June 2016 Australian Eastern Time.

You can use the coupon code in bold below in your cart or checkout to apply the discount;

eofysale2016

Thank you once again for reading, watching, and listening to our blog posts, podcasts, and videos during the last 12 months and following our sustainable living journey.

Without you regularly visiting this site, I would still be a conspicuous consumer, unmotivated to strive to be greener, stuck in the rat race, plodding through life in misery.

By being able to share our sustainable living journey with you, I’ve given myself permission to live, love, and enjoy life to the fullest!