Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

All I can think about when I think of the silver balls running around is Terminator 2!

But maybe that is just me......

OK,,normal angries by those that claim:) to be green but are using heaps......,,next ,,,petrol,,gasoline/benzine,,,call it what you like,.....,what is your families average usage per week????

My family uses two cars ( YES WE BOTH WORK)....., but that is NOT the issue,,,we WE as a familyof five,,consume IN TOTAL,,35 litres of petrol per week. This includes travel to work,shopping,etc etc,,,but not annual holidays,.....
Once again I ask "who is really green?"

Other families usage rate input appreciated,.....

Not sure how useful your question is Chappo. People have to work, and for some they cannot live close, so they will clock up the miles if public transport is not an option…

I'm lucky enough to live about 5 km from work.

2 cars - Suzuki Sierra which I drive to work most days (I really do have to start riding again, but sometimes I have to carry excess gear…) - gets filled about once per month - 40 litre tank which is never run dry so at most 10 litres a week.

VW Jetta TDI - the fuel economy on this things is astounding (as well as the grunt of the turbo diesel through a 6 speed automatic manual gearbox) - 4 l/100km on the highway 6 l/100km at worst around town - we fill this up about every 1½ - 2 months - 55 litre tank, so I guess that's about 8 litres per week at worst.

So I guess that's a total of 18 litres per week, which I could halve if I start riding again…(Yes, the boss works, but not always every day).

Not sure how usefull my question is,,,or not sure you are not an energy abuser??
EXCELLENT choice on work near home,,plus TDI well known economy,,,lok forwardto others reply,,,


mylesau,,,interested to know why you consider this question's validity questionable??,,

My work ute uses around 150 liters of diesel per week, the family jeep uses around 20 liters a week, unless going to get fish

I didn't question it's validity Chappo, I questioned it's usefulness - I gave the reason?

A valid point here is that everybody finds themselves in different situations and greater use does not necessarily mean inappropriate or careless use.

I do not profess to be green in my energy use in any real respect - and it is something I need to work on. This aside - by choosing to live on 1 acre, we also chose to be further away from things like the children's schooling, public transport, shops etc. School is 20-25 km round trip (which of course needs to be done twice daily), railway station is a similar distance. Because we are out in the bush – even though only 23km from CBD, even the closest convenience store is a 10km plus round trip and the supermarket a 20km round trip. While we could throw the kids on a school bus that services the area and save some fuel doing that - I refuse to do this while my children are very young (safety concerns).

Anyway, all this inevitably means higher fuel use. While we try and plan trips in a way that avoids unnecessary journeys and do other things like this to conserve fuel use, I am not willing to turn into a hermit and stay at home all the time in order to conserve fuel.

I could of course take the view that we should live closer to everything and therefore in the inner city or at least in suburbia, but then we would miss out on the pleasure of living on acreage, including the ability to save on food miles etc by growing some of our own food, having chooks etc. Could also argue that I should work closer to home, rather than in the CBD, but this is not realistic. The career I have chosen necessitates that I work in CBD etc etc.

As to fuel use - I have noted that for each of the last 2 weeks I have used 30 litres. During that time I was driving to work and home each day (approx 46km round trip) rather than catching public transport (train) which would reduce my driving to a 25km (approx) round trip per day. Although I do have a car park assigned to my position at my work, I do not normally use this, preferring to make use of the public transport. I have however been driving while my leg has been in a cast (unable to walk from the station to my work) .

My fuel use is nothing compared to that of my wife - dropping kids off & picking up each day, shopping, errands etc etc etc. I do not track her fuel - but expect that it would not be unusual to use 50 litres or more petrol a week in the car she uses.

One problem is that our cars are both 6 cylinders (naughty, naughty bla bla). My car is old and I am in the process of running it into the ground before we are forced to replace it (something we can ill afford to do). I will be replacing it with as small and economical a car as I can manage. The main car (one wife drives) is a Ford Falcon Wagon. While this is a more powerful car and therefore uses more fuel, having this sized vehicle was a conscious decision. While having a tiny car may be great in theory, the realities are that when you regularly need to tow stuff around (like gravel for AP beds for instance ), fit kids bikes and all that sort of crap in etc etc - a small car is not really a favourable option (IMHO) for a young family.

So short answer - I do not weigh up favourably in many respects, but in others I score well in terms of footprint, such as growing my own food, solar hot water, 40k plus of rainwater tanks (currently installing) etc.

[quote"Chappo"]WE as a familyof five,,consume IN TOTAL,,35 litres of petrol per week. This includes travel to work,shopping,etc[/quote]

35 litres a week.... that's 5 litres a day.... about 50km a day, between the two of you....

You're obviously very lucky to have both work and shops vitually around the corner Chappo... especially in Sydney....

Jezz, you could burn 5 litres a day just struggling trying to get to town and back along Grande Parade....
Luck also that your family is very young and not going to school, sports, shopping, friends etc...

And lucky your inlaws don't live any distance away....

I'd use 35 litres a week just driving my 16 year old around......

Apparently it is pretty hard to get poisoned by elemental (liquid) mercury. Vapor and various compounds (think of folks eating fish full of methyl mercury or "mad hatters" who worked with mercuric nitrate in the felting process) are much more problematic. I'm not sure about the various compounds and amounts in a CFL.

According to my research the safe/toxic line for mercury is 50nmol/liter of blood. 1 mol is 350grams, so a nmol is 350x10^-9. Assuming (yes, unwarranted, I know) that mercury is equally distributed throughout the body (or at least that blood is average), then a 50kg person would need about 1mg of mercury to reach that level, so you would need to absorb 1/4 of the mercury in that broken CFL. I would say it is pretty safe; just don't go breaking the things on purpose and, if one does get broken sweep up carefully before using anything that would raise the dust (like a vacuum), and open the windows and leave for a while if you broke one that was lit-up (vaporized mercury). And don't worry too much....

I work from home, the shops/town/schools/sports/ is 9K from home...
Boodj is working 5 days week, so 2 trips/day!(18K)...x 5 =90k Commodore or lancer.(20/10L)
Since I am a contractor that works all over the place ( upto 7 days a week)
my fuel use is huge prolly close to OBs but not diesel...(hilux)130ltrs pw
then there are another 7 cars on the road 5/6 days a week, but thats another story!

Oh...right...the topic...power use...

Fam of 3, all electric, about 42 kW*hr/day. This includes a well (ok, bore) that serves us and landlord. Given the tiered pricing we have here, a power bill can come to $300! Embarrassing.

H - What kind of Aircon do you have?

OHHHH dear,,,,we discover more excessive use of the worlds resources.And this from the HONEST ones who replied..

Let's get a few things clear,,,simple reality,,hard, honest REALITY!!!

There are ONLY 3 things you HAVE to do,.....
1) Be born ( or you would not be here)
2) take up space ( Physics)
3) Die ( I'm trying to find a way round this one)

EVERYTHING else is, choice,consequence,result.

CHOICE,CONSEQUENCE,RESULT.

Hard reality isn't it??.....

I had to get divorced???

I had to get a divorce,,my first wife was horrid and i didn't want a life of suffering.
REALITY,, I chose divorce,,consequences included seperation from children and financial ruin. Result,.....,after all these years,,I'm still financially ruined,,ex-wife is rich,,but we have all ended up happy.

For now,,my mind sit's comfortably with our decision to use some of the world's resources to heat a tank in order to have our profered variety of fish available,year round.

We,have CHOSEN to live, near our work,near a school , near the shops. CONSEQUENCE,,, our land is NOT large,,our use of petrol is NOT large,,RESULT,, we harm the environment much less than others.

"H - What kind of Aircon do you have?"

AHHHHH , Aircon,,,you environmental Nazists,.....,

Aircon ,,,we CHOOSE not to have such a device,,,,result,,we don't abuse power use,.....,Result,we use less power.

MMMM, 1 XR8 ute = $20 a day if I stick the boot in (and lets face it I do) 1 Harley = nothing as it's yellow sticker'd and KIA at the moment.

Sad thing is I enjoy walking to work (25min at a good pace) and home again but once at work I often need my car to run around.