Preface
Whether you are a boatman or not, when you sail or fish, everyone realizes the importance of keeping the water outside. The fewer leaks on the ship, the less you need to rely on equipment such as bilge pumps to float. What does this have to do with housing? Well, as we all know, Australian houses “leak”-allowing heat to flow into and out of the building uncontrollably. Our answer is to install more and more pumps in the form of air conditioners. It is usually advertised as a function, not as an indicator of poor building quality! This creates problems for everyone.
We all know that in a heat wave, some houses are hotter than others, and well-insulated and well-designed houses have much lower operating costs throughout the year because they do not rely heavily on air conditioners or heaters to provide comfort. But did you know that relying on air conditioning to keep cool in the hot summer will affect the annual electricity price of everyone? Extracting heat from one place to another requires a lot of energy, which makes air conditioners especially power-consuming appliances. The more water leaks in the house, the more heat needs to be extracted. In hot weather, when many air conditioning units are operating at the same time, this poses a challenge to the power infrastructure.
It costs money to build a grid that can handle these peaks in demand. This cost is recovered through the unit cost of electricity (per kilowatt hour minute). We will pay for this in every electricity bill; in fact, the cost of meeting peak summer demand accounts for about 25% of retail electricity costs. This is more than twice the combined solar feed-in tariff, renewable energy target and previous carbon tax. This means that people living in houses built to adapt to the local climate can effectively help people living in poor-quality buildings, and they rely solely on air conditioning to keep them cool. Perhaps even more unfair is that those who cannot afford air-conditioning and have to deal with overheating also pay for this subsidy through the electricity they use. All this is because many people still live in leaky low-quality buildings.
Does this mean that the air conditioner is evil and should never be used? Of course not-in extreme weather conditions, very efficient air conditioners (heat pumps) will work. But this does raise some interesting questions. Can we design and build houses that are suitable for living and do not cost the earth to operate? And, if so, why are these houses not the norm, and not the exception?
Get what you want
The good news is that comfortable, high-quality houses are bound to put minimal pressure on the grid. We need to design with the local climate, appropriate building materials and high-quality construction codes. Under the same climatic conditions, some houses consume less than one-fourth of the energy of contemporary generations-frustratingly, they are not common.
In the past, the housing industry would say that it was just building the houses people wanted-Australians were mainly interested in the size and location of the house, not the energy performance. However, recent research seems to indicate that the views of real estate agents and other real estate practitioners may limit how or whether they can improve energy efficiency and other sustainability characteristics for potential customers. Or is it to make Australians obsessed with granite countertops, the shiny golden surfaces of theater rooms or automatic gadgets? Are we starting to consider heavier issues, such as operating costs, flexibility and comfort? Or do we wait until the first heat wave or the first electricity bill to realize whether our purchase decision is good or bad?
Some savvy home buyers (before signing the contract) began to ask about insulation, rather than asking more basic questions, such as “How hot is this room?” or “Can I afford this house?”. The housing department seems to think that if you don’t explicitly ask for something, it doesn’t matter to you. They still seem to use building codes as the standard, despite the fact that building codes are minimum requirements, not best practices for comfort and value. Some people also actively lobbied to lower the standards, believing that energy efficiency has “doubtful benefits” and requiring that information be passed on to consumers is an “unnecessary burden”.
Buyer
What does it mean? When buying a used car or a new mobile phone, it is relatively easy to obtain the required information-and there are considerable consumer protection laws. However, when we inspect the house to be sold or rented, we can see the number of rooms, test the faucet and light switch, and measure the distance to the shop, school or workplace, but we can’t pay a lot to see and not be told . The behavior of the real estate agent is not in the interest of the potential buyer (not even necessarily in the interest of the seller). The seller wants to get the highest price in the shortest time, and the agent wants to get the largest commission with the least effort. Contrary to the European Union’s approach, in most areas of Australia, no one is obliged to tell prospective buyers or renters the operating costs of the house.
The state government tries to ensure that home buyers and renters can obtain information about comfort and operating costs when buying or renting. Success and failure. The “Declaration of Sustainability” launched by Queensland in 2010 was very short-established, and the incoming new government declared it a “useless red tape festival.”
In contrast, since 1999, the Australian Capital Territory government has provided energy efficiency ratings for the sale or lease of residential properties, and several reports have shown a reduction in property value and operating costs. New South Wales plans to introduce a voluntary disclosure scheme in 2018 and make it mandatory in 2020. These plans not only make it easier to identify houses with lower operating costs, but they can also drive demand for energy-saving renovations and put downward pressure on electricity prices. The distribution of information about Australian housing is flawed. Real estate agents, valuers, financiers, and operators in the power industry are making decisions based on little or no information about how the quality of houses affects their customers, their business processes, and power infrastructure investments.
Most importantly, homeowners and tenants were not informed about the quality of the houses they were buying or renting, and the impact that specific houses would have on their health, comfort and wallets.
What can you do?
Is the housing department correct? Do you care about the quality of the buildings you live in? What is a wisely designed and carefully constructed house that is worth it to you? How many dollars have you invested in health, safety and comfort? What is the value of your family because you save on electricity bills so you can cope with the heat wave or pay off your mortgage faster?
It may also be useful to request thermal imaging reports and air leak reports. These are the tests that builders can use to prove the quality of their construction. For existing houses, you can ask the seller for a general certificate, a copy of their energy bill, or evidence of features installed to enhance the comfort of the house. Houses (such as receipts for insulation or window tinting).
