Recycled Wine Bottle Building Wins Energy Grant



An organic winery in Western Australia recently became the recipient of a $20,555 AUD grant from the state’s Sustainable Energy Development Office (SEDO). The money will be used to fund a thermal imaging monitoring program for a cellar-door outlet made from water filled wine bottles. The owner of the winery, Peter Little, a former architecture lecturer and long time passive solar design advocate, noted, "Water is probably, I think one of the miracle building materials of this century which nobody is using. From our point of view it can store more energy, heat or cool than any material we know.” It seems the structure will use about 13,500 wine bottles.

Building with bottles is not new, nor is filling them with water for insulation. There are many eclectic buildings made with bottles. What appears to be worthy of a grant is the thermal imaging monitoring that will occur.
The farmland on which the winery is sited is already the winner of a national recognised Banskia Award in ‘Environmental Leadership in the Rural Sector’.

(Resource: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/03/recycled_wine_b.php)

Jin Yanni