Inside The Roof Space Of The Solar Energy House At 19 Manapau Street, Meadowbank, Auckland, New Zealand...

Yep, that is me, Simon Cope - the owner of the Solar Energy House at 19 Manapau Street, Meadowbank, Auckland peering out from amongst a plumber's delight!

The hotwater system was expertly designed by David Howell of GasLab Ltd. David has been designing systems like this for more than a couple of decades and although it looks complicated, he is a firm believer of the motto - KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) or is it 'Keep It Simple Simon'?

What Are Those Cables Behind Your Head Simon?

I thought you might ask that question! There is actually 4 groups of cables/wires..

• The blue wires are CAT5E. These are commonly used in the computer industry to carry any manner of communication signal. We use them for the computers throughout the house which are either standalone PC's (i.e. work computer), or for the eventual connection of appliances to the internet which is starting to occur in Europe... Why? Click here to learn more.
• The white wires are BURGLAR alarm cables - every external door and window in our house are wired up so if we are home we can have the alarm activated if necessary, but more useful is when we leave the house we can see exactly which doors, windows have been left open by us or the kids... (and do something about it).
• The purple wires are STEREO cables. Most rooms in the house have a set of high quality speakers in the ceiling - for the eventual installation of a distributed stereo system...
• The black wires are VIDEO cables. This enables us to monitor the closed circuit TV in the kids room and rumpus room from any room i the house (just kidding!), but it does enable us to monitor the close circuit TV out by the front door/gate and to distribute movies/broadcast TV to any room in the house...

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