Three weeks in and we’ve finished construction, we’re partway through touring, and we’re about to start the competition phase of the Solar Decathlon – it’s is all starting to heat up! For those that haven’t read my last blog post, I am the House Functioning Team Leader for the Desert Rose House and the contest that I am most interested in is Contest 6: House Functioning. This contest involves measuring the functionality of the house and its appliances by monitoring certain aspects of the appliances and the degree of success in completing the required tasks.

Today I tested the appliances to ensure they don’t freeze up during the actual competition period. This included our extremely efficient washer dryer combo with heat pump technology (sponsored by Electrolux Australia), our cool refrigerator and freezer and dishwasher (sponsored by Winning Appliances), and our one-of-a-kind induction cooktop.

 

Here are the main objectives of these house functioning contests:

Sub-contest 6.1: Refrigeration – Maintaining a temperature between 1°C and 4.5°C

Sub-contest 6.2: Freezing – Maintaining a temperature between -29°C and -15°C

Sub-contest 6.4: Clothes Washing – Reaching a temperature of 36°C

Sub-contest 6.5: Clothes Drying – Load weighing less than before washing

Sub-contest 6.6: Dishwashing – Reaching a temperature of 49°C

Sub-contest 6.8: Hot Water Draws – 50L of water with temperature more than 43°C in 10 minutes

Sub-contest 6.9: Cooking – Evaporate 2.3kg of water in 2 hours

To measure temperatures, we put two iButtons in the refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher and washing machine over a period of time or throughout a standard wash cycle. Using the Edo ExpressThermo software, we were able program and extract data from each iButton. All of which were measured to meet the objectives of the contests.

We also filled an esky full of hot water from our shower and used a hand-held thermocouple to measure the temperature of the water. The temperature exceeded 43°C and we were successfully able to fill the esky with 50L of water in less than 10 minutes.

We already knew Dubai was boiling, but we needed to make sure that the Desert Rose could also boil. We used our induction cooktop to trial the task of evaporating 2.3kg of water. At the same time, we used our heat-pump dryer to dry our load of washing. Everything went to plan.

We have ensured the house is able to not only accommodate couples, but we also wired it to accommodate thermocouples. The fridge, freezer, dishwasher, oven and washing machine will be fit with thermocouples tomorrow ready for the first day of competition on Sunday. With all the testing that we have completed today and back in Australia, we are well on our way to clean up this competition.

– Mandy Li, Building Services Team, House Functioning Team Leader