Solair

By Lisa McLaren

PledgeMe.Project

Community,



NZ $6,040 pledged


52 people pledged


Closed


NZ $6,000 minimum target


100 100% Complete

This campaign was successful and closed on 23/05/2014 at 9:31 PM.

Make a Pledge

About

Solair

Project 2014-04-01 18:21:21 +1300

curated

Collab Project with Smart Energy Challenge

Wellington City Council is teaming up with some of Wellington's brightest social entrepreneurs from Enspiral, Generation Zero and PledgeMe, to bring local Smart Energy projects to life. They've joined forces to find and support community-led projects designed to reduce energy use and increase clean energy in Wellington. Wellington City Council will match dollar for dollar the target amount of each successful project. This means that every dollar you pledge towards these projects will turn into two dollars! Let's get smart energy humming in Wellington.

In your city, in your suburb, people are struggling. This could be your elderly neighbour, the young family across the street, the guy in your sports team, your colleague at work, or the person you sit next to at church.

New Zealand’s poor housing stock causes significant challenges for thousands of people, with issues such as high electricity bills, high medical bills, lost days at work or school, and serious illnesses.

Many of our cities' most vulnerable people go to bed at night too cold to get any sleep in their own home. This is not a new problem. In 2004 it was estimated that 375,000 children lived in dwellings that were cold, damp and expensive to heat. Imagine having to choose between providing food for your children or heating their bedroom at night.

 

Our Solair space heater is a simple, affordable solution to help solve this complicated problem.

Six reasons why the Solair space heater is so impressive:

- Once installed it has no ongoing running costs! This provides the dwelling with warm, dry air for no cost.

- Insulating cold, damp homes only traps in this unhealthy air. The Solair unit adds an injection of warm, dry air to displace this.

- It’s simple! The Solair can be installed in around two hours and is fully self-contained. With only one moving part, it doesn’t take an engineer to understand how it works or how to install it

- It is also great peace of mind for landlords knowing that their building will be ventilated; even if their tenants do not actively do this.

- It boosts renewable energy! Each unit installed means less reliance on centralised electricity generation, which corresponds to less stress on our rivers and natural environments.

- Who wouldn’t want to come home from work to a cosy warm house this winter?! The Solair unit can produce heat over 40C on a typical cold but sunny 10C Wellington day!

 

Our goal is simple.  We need to raise $6000 in the next 6 weeks. At the end of this challenge, each dollar we raise will be matched by the Wellington City Council, so for every dollar you donate you are effectively donating two. We only get this money if we reach our $6000 target. We want to use this money install our Solair space heaters into low income households, schools, student flats, or community buildings in Wellington this winter – benefiting those who need it most.  At the same time we’re helping them get through a cold winter, we’ll have the product tested for New Zealand conditions and conduct R&D on the product to make it even smarter and more efficient.

Get your friends, whanau or community group together and nominate a building to take part in the challenge. Email us with the name of the household or organisation you want to nominate, plus a quick description of why you think they would be perfect candidates to receive a crowdfunded Solair heater.

Share this video. To create positive change in our community we need as many people as possible to view this video- email it to your friends and family, or your community leaders. Share it with your social media connections. Like our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter @solairNZ.

 

Please Pledge! The only way we are going to get these initial units installed is with the kind support from you, our crowd. We have some fantastic rewards and you can even buy a Solair unit for your home at a 20% reduced rate.

 

Whether you can pledge a little, or a lot, you can help to make real change for real people today. 

 

 Pictured here is an installed, wall-mounted Solair unit. It can also be mounted on rooftops.

The system works by attracting solar radiation to the black panel in the box. There is a strip of photovoltaic cells at the top of the unit that powers a fan, which blows the hot air created in the box into the building.

There is a thermostat for temperature control that is part of the system. Therefore, the entire system is completely separate from the home's grid and able to operate even in the absence of centralised power generation.

The graph below details typical heat output of the system shown above, related to air temperature.


 For further technical details, please email questions to:

[email protected]

Comments

Updates 4

A huge thank you from team Solair!

08/06/2014 at 10:27 AM

Kia ora,

Thank you so much for your kind generosity during our Solair PledgeMe campaign. We have raised the funds needed to put some of the Solair units into houses in Wellington!!! 

The cookies are in the oven, the groceries are heading for the foodbank and sewing machine is putting the final stictches onto the draft excluders. Your reward will reach you within the fortnight so keep an eye out in your inbox or mailbox!

Follow us on Facebook to keep updated with our progress as we install the units.

Lisa and the Solair team

You need to pledge to see this update.

Half way point!

27/04/2014 at 11:28 AM

Wow, what a fantastic first three weeks we have had! Thank you so much to everyone that has jumped on board with us and helped to raise the first $2000! We even sold our first Solair unit! We have added new rewards so please consider sharing the page with your networks and help us build our crowd. Bring on the final three weeks!!

Lisa

Wow!

07/04/2014 at 4:24 PM

Thank you sooo much for all the pledges! $480 raised in our first 3 hours is amazing! We look forward to keeping you updated on our journey over the next 6 weeks. Please share this link with your friends and whanau to help us build our crowd. This project really can be as big as we make it!

Lisa

    Pledgers 52

    Alli
    23/05/2014 at 9:31pm
    Anonymous pledger
    23/05/2014 at 6:58pm
    sarah firth
    23/05/2014 at 6:26pm
    Nigel McTaptik
    23/05/2014 at 6:25pm
    Alice
    23/05/2014 at 4:15pm
    Tui
    23/05/2014 at 2:34pm
    Anonymous pledger
    23/05/2014 at 12:45pm
    Kate Beecroft
    22/05/2014 at 9:36am
    Marina Kuri Adams
    21/05/2014 at 3:35am
    Anonymous pledger
    20/05/2014 at 11:19am
    Anonymous pledger
    20/05/2014 at 11:18am
    Anonymous pledger
    20/05/2014 at 11:16am
    Wendy Henry
    19/05/2014 at 10:37pm
    Wendy Henry
    19/05/2014 at 10:28pm
    Anoushka Isaac
    06/05/2014 at 11:32am
    sofia
    26/04/2014 at 9:07am
    Anonymous pledger
    22/04/2014 at 10:21pm
    Brendon Nevin
    22/04/2014 at 7:19pm
    Patricia Kane
    20/04/2014 at 8:04pm
    L
    19/04/2014 at 2:16am
    Zach Rissel
    18/04/2014 at 10:05pm
    Anonymous pledger
    18/04/2014 at 10:25am
    Anonymous pledger
    18/04/2014 at 10:24am
    Catherine Leining
    18/04/2014 at 10:08am
    Stephanie Zeier
    18/04/2014 at 9:13am
    Anonymous pledger
    17/04/2014 at 7:32pm
    Anonymous pledger
    17/04/2014 at 3:15pm
    Tim Jones
    14/04/2014 at 6:27pm
    Maureen Mooney
    14/04/2014 at 10:05am
    Don Simon
    14/04/2014 at 9:29am

    Followers 13

    Solair

    Project 2014-04-01 18:21:21 +1300

    curated

    Collab Project with Smart Energy Challenge

    Wellington City Council is teaming up with some of Wellington's brightest social entrepreneurs from Enspiral, Generation Zero and PledgeMe, to bring local Smart Energy projects to life. They've joined forces to find and support community-led projects designed to reduce energy use and increase clean energy in Wellington. Wellington City Council will match dollar for dollar the target amount of each successful project. This means that every dollar you pledge towards these projects will turn into two dollars! Let's get smart energy humming in Wellington.

    In your city, in your suburb, people are struggling. This could be your elderly neighbour, the young family across the street, the guy in your sports team, your colleague at work, or the person you sit next to at church.

    New Zealand’s poor housing stock causes significant challenges for thousands of people, with issues such as high electricity bills, high medical bills, lost days at work or school, and serious illnesses.

    Many of our cities' most vulnerable people go to bed at night too cold to get any sleep in their own home. This is not a new problem. In 2004 it was estimated that 375,000 children lived in dwellings that were cold, damp and expensive to heat. Imagine having to choose between providing food for your children or heating their bedroom at night.

     

    Our Solair space heater is a simple, affordable solution to help solve this complicated problem.

    Six reasons why the Solair space heater is so impressive:

    - Once installed it has no ongoing running costs! This provides the dwelling with warm, dry air for no cost.

    - Insulating cold, damp homes only traps in this unhealthy air. The Solair unit adds an injection of warm, dry air to displace this.

    - It’s simple! The Solair can be installed in around two hours and is fully self-contained. With only one moving part, it doesn’t take an engineer to understand how it works or how to install it

    - It is also great peace of mind for landlords knowing that their building will be ventilated; even if their tenants do not actively do this.

    - It boosts renewable energy! Each unit installed means less reliance on centralised electricity generation, which corresponds to less stress on our rivers and natural environments.

    - Who wouldn’t want to come home from work to a cosy warm house this winter?! The Solair unit can produce heat over 40C on a typical cold but sunny 10C Wellington day!

     

    Our goal is simple.  We need to raise $6000 in the next 6 weeks. At the end of this challenge, each dollar we raise will be matched by the Wellington City Council, so for every dollar you donate you are effectively donating two. We only get this money if we reach our $6000 target. We want to use this money install our Solair space heaters into low income households, schools, student flats, or community buildings in Wellington this winter – benefiting those who need it most.  At the same time we’re helping them get through a cold winter, we’ll have the product tested for New Zealand conditions and conduct R&D on the product to make it even smarter and more efficient.

    Get your friends, whanau or community group together and nominate a building to take part in the challenge. Email us with the name of the household or organisation you want to nominate, plus a quick description of why you think they would be perfect candidates to receive a crowdfunded Solair heater.

    Share this video. To create positive change in our community we need as many people as possible to view this video- email it to your friends and family, or your community leaders. Share it with your social media connections. Like our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter @solairNZ.

     

    Please Pledge! The only way we are going to get these initial units installed is with the kind support from you, our crowd. We have some fantastic rewards and you can even buy a Solair unit for your home at a 20% reduced rate.

     

    Whether you can pledge a little, or a lot, you can help to make real change for real people today. 

     

     Pictured here is an installed, wall-mounted Solair unit. It can also be mounted on rooftops.

    The system works by attracting solar radiation to the black panel in the box. There is a strip of photovoltaic cells at the top of the unit that powers a fan, which blows the hot air created in the box into the building.

    There is a thermostat for temperature control that is part of the system. Therefore, the entire system is completely separate from the home's grid and able to operate even in the absence of centralised power generation.

    The graph below details typical heat output of the system shown above, related to air temperature.


     For further technical details, please email questions to:

    [email protected]

    Comments

    A huge thank you from team Solair!

    08/06/2014 at 10:27 AM

    Kia ora,

    Thank you so much for your kind generosity during our Solair PledgeMe campaign. We have raised the funds needed to put some of the Solair units into houses in Wellington!!! 

    The cookies are in the oven, the groceries are heading for the foodbank and sewing machine is putting the final stictches onto the draft excluders. Your reward will reach you within the fortnight so keep an eye out in your inbox or mailbox!

    Follow us on Facebook to keep updated with our progress as we install the units.

    Lisa and the Solair team

    You need to pledge to see this update.

    Half way point!

    27/04/2014 at 11:28 AM

    Wow, what a fantastic first three weeks we have had! Thank you so much to everyone that has jumped on board with us and helped to raise the first $2000! We even sold our first Solair unit! We have added new rewards so please consider sharing the page with your networks and help us build our crowd. Bring on the final three weeks!!

    Lisa

    Wow!

    07/04/2014 at 4:24 PM

    Thank you sooo much for all the pledges! $480 raised in our first 3 hours is amazing! We look forward to keeping you updated on our journey over the next 6 weeks. Please share this link with your friends and whanau to help us build our crowd. This project really can be as big as we make it!

    Lisa

      Alli
      23/05/2014 at 9:31pm
      Anonymous pledger
      23/05/2014 at 6:58pm
      sarah firth
      23/05/2014 at 6:26pm
      Nigel McTaptik
      23/05/2014 at 6:25pm
      Alice
      23/05/2014 at 4:15pm
      Tui
      23/05/2014 at 2:34pm
      Anonymous pledger
      23/05/2014 at 12:45pm
      Kate Beecroft
      22/05/2014 at 9:36am
      Marina Kuri Adams
      21/05/2014 at 3:35am
      Anonymous pledger
      20/05/2014 at 11:19am
      Anonymous pledger
      20/05/2014 at 11:18am
      Anonymous pledger
      20/05/2014 at 11:16am
      Wendy Henry
      19/05/2014 at 10:37pm
      Wendy Henry
      19/05/2014 at 10:28pm
      Anoushka Isaac
      06/05/2014 at 11:32am
      sofia
      26/04/2014 at 9:07am
      Anonymous pledger
      22/04/2014 at 10:21pm
      Brendon Nevin
      22/04/2014 at 7:19pm
      Patricia Kane
      20/04/2014 at 8:04pm
      L
      19/04/2014 at 2:16am
      Zach Rissel
      18/04/2014 at 10:05pm
      Anonymous pledger
      18/04/2014 at 10:25am
      Anonymous pledger
      18/04/2014 at 10:24am
      Catherine Leining
      18/04/2014 at 10:08am
      Stephanie Zeier
      18/04/2014 at 9:13am
      Anonymous pledger
      17/04/2014 at 7:32pm
      Anonymous pledger
      17/04/2014 at 3:15pm
      Tim Jones
      14/04/2014 at 6:27pm
      Maureen Mooney
      14/04/2014 at 10:05am
      Don Simon
      14/04/2014 at 9:29am
      This campaign was successful and got its funding on 23/05/2014 at 9:31 PM.