Have your home pay you to live there

17 August 2011

Energy Efficiency, at its essence, is doing more with less. Many people immediately conjure up bleak images - sitting in a cold, dark room reading by soy candles. What nonsense. Blast those images from your mind. Now imagine your cosy, warm home with the dishwasher humming after dinner and the washing machine doing its thing, while you sit with your feet up enjoying your favourite show. OK. So what makes this energy efficient? Simple.... 60% of your energy consumption comes from heating and cooling your home. Retaining that ‘conditioned air’ will reduce your heating and cooling costs significantly. How do you do that? By improving the thermal performance of your home – draught proofing, ceiling insulation, underfloor insulation and window treatments.

 

Lyn Beinat is the Chief Executive Officer of ecoMaster Pty Ltd. Together with her husband Maurice, they co-founded and run one of Australia's first green home retrofit businesses. Their aim was, and continues to be, to create an ethical, high quality, trusted assessment and green retrofit service that provides a wide range of cost effective solutions.

 

Australian homes are draughty – we need to convert uncontrolled draughts into controllable ventilation. Draught proofing is the single most effective thing you can do to your home to make it energy efficient. Unfortunately many people think ‘sticky stuff’ around doors, or door snakes. These are things many of us have tried and, for the majority, they don’t work well. Professional draught proofing utilises a range of around 400 products for sealing doors, windows, gaps and cracks, vents, exhaust fans etc. The change in your home after a professional has completed draught proofing is astonishing. The impact is immediate.

You can save up to 50% of your conditioned air by effective draught proofing. Ceiling insulation is a no brainer. For every $1,000 you spend on heating, $350 goes straight through an un-insulated ceiling. Many people have some insulation, but very few people know what level of cover they have and how well it is installed. Install high quality insulation that performs in summer and winter. Guaranteed for 50 years!

Underfloor insulation is toasty! Anyone who has had their timber underfloor insulated properly, raves about the change in their home and how much more liveable it is. Window treatments range from effective window covers (sorry – verticals and venetian blinds don’t cut it thermally) and pelmets are a great way to help retain your conditioned air. An even bigger difference you can make, is to have double glazing.

Now, before you leave this article, with cries of ‘I don’t have the money for that’, think about secondary glazing. Secondary glazing is about 1/3 to ½ the price of double glazing, looks beautiful and is just as effective as replacing all your windows with double glazing. ecoGlaze is a secondary glazing system, Australian owned and manufactured product, right here in Victoria! All the benefits of double glazing, without the fancy price tag.

So, once you’ve tackled draught proofing, ceiling and underfloor insulation and window treatments, your home should be feeling much more comfortable. It will also be MUCH more energy efficient. We have become a nation obsessed with changing light bulbs and shower roses – and whilst that improves energy efficiency, it’s not the main game!

So change those over, if you haven’t already, and then get on with the next biggest consumer of power in your home - appliances. When your appliances need replacement, select energy efficient models and run them sensibly (i.e. only when full). It will save you huge sums. Turn off all appliances at the power point will then eliminate your ‘stand by’ power usage.

Get on with installing your solar hot water system (around 25% of your energy bill). Once that is done, install solar panels on your roof sufficient to cover all your (now significantly reduced) energy needs. So your home can power you! That will future proof your home from power bills forever, so you can get on with your life, without worrying about the cost of power, or the price of soy candles! Smart.

You can watch an in-depth video interview with Lyn Beinat covering all of these points during the recent , visit the ecoMaster website here.

 

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