EcoLiving Retrofit work at the Community Complex
During the last two weeks of October you might have seen Kevin Jacka up on the roof of the Community Complex, cleaning the roof, then painting it with heat reflective paint. Heat reflective paint is now used a lot in inland and outback Australia, in hot climates with not very well insulated buildings.
Well, that's us in summer and that describes our community complex. Difficult to insulate, so we are trying this heat reflective paint to see if it reduces the heat coming through the ceiling.
If you used the Kitchen and Supper room, you will have noticed a hole in the roof. We are putting roof windows into the ceilings of both those rooms, to give light, ventilation when desired, and solar warmth during winter. Trevor Northey has been very obliging and is doing his best to work around prior bookings for those rooms.
Also to reduce the heat coming through from the ceiling Trevor will be putting cover strips up on the ceilings of the Hall, Foyer, Supper Room and Library.
These go over the internal exposed edges of the steel roof purlins, to reduce the heat and cold that they radiate inside. [There will be some timber left over from the packs Trevor bought for this, please see the For Sale ad in this issue.]
Ken Whyte is installing the wood heater/ 'baker's oven' in the Community House. There will also be a new evaporative airconditioner for the activities room of the Community House.
Did you see the new solar hot water collectors on the Early Childhood Centre roof? The glass evacuated tube collectors are very efficient at heating water even in cool, sunny winter weather. You can see these from the Hall carpark.