Apart from the passive solar design, we have tried to limit our ecological footprint in other ways. We have selected a Biolytix® water treatment system that uses little energy and disperses treated water into a new wetland area of the domestic zone. The solar hot water system and photovoltaic cells also harness the sunlight.

The house is designed to capture sun in the winter, while the eaves are designed to block it in mid summer. The concrete floor is "thermal mass" that absorbs heat during the day and releases it slowly at night. Our Luxaflex Duette® blinds (not shown) help to insulate the double glazed windows against heat loss at night.

The Biolytix® waste water system consists of a tank that houses worms and other organisms. Poo-cam is available to show how this system works (rated PG--pretty gruesome).

But we have a hold up: the grey and black water pipes from the house don't meet up with the input to the tank. A few phone calls soon provide a solution, the hole has to be 50cm deeper and we will use some of our cut timber to landscape around a small depression.

Our Edwards Solar Hot Water system lives just above the bathroom and kitchen. However, we chose to have in-line gas boosting, which had to be located on the back wall, so hot water has a longer journey and does not appear quickly much to our disappointment. There seem to be several safety rules that fly in the face of energy efficiency and the maxim "passive house, active managers". We wish we had understood some of these earlier and we may have made different decisions. But the good news is that the solar system does work well; on sunny days in winter the water is warm enough to use without additional heating.