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Making your home water and energy efficient

Making your home water and energy efficient

Tips from the BASIX team, NSW Department of Planning

September 2005

For all homes – existing or new:

1. One of two things that make the biggest environmental impact for the smallest cost in any home is a water efficient showerhead (3 A-rated is the highest rating). This is an unsung hero of a product! Very affordable to buy and install, it saves significant amounts of energy and water and therefore bill costs. In addition, many states and/or water utilities offer assistance packages to encourage water efficient showerheads that make it free or less than retail cost to purchase and/or install.

2. The second is the compact fluorescent lamp, another unsung hero of a product. Over the 5-10,000 hour lifetime of a compact fluorescent globe, it will save you up to $60 in electricity bills and reduce emissions by 0.5 tonne of greenhouse gas. For an initial investment of $6-8, this investment pays for itself ten times over. Again some states such as NSW have incentive programs to make the purchasing of these lamps very cost effective (NGACs scheme). In addition, new products on the market provide warmer and more pleasant lighting than the early models.

Energy smart lighting isn’t just about using compact fluorescents. Ordinary flouros are energy smart too and not just those industrial looking strip lights. You can get circular flouros in oyster shell fittings that last and last and look great. Also, don’t forget to keep your light fittings clean to get the most out of your light globe and energy!

3. Everyone knows about how front loading washing machines are gentler on your clothes, but most don’t know that they can reduce your household water consumption by more than 10%. Apart from a low flow shower head, the 4 A-rated front loader is any home’s best way to reduce water consumption.

4. A well-ventilated refrigerator space can save a lot of energy. Most home refrigerators sit in a tightly-fitted cupboard in the kitchen that might look nice but allows heat from the motor to warm up the whole cavity thus making the fridge work doubly or triply hard to keep food inside cool or frozen. Designing or selecting a well ventilated refrigerator space is not only more environmentally friendly, it will save you money on your energy bill, is quieter and will help your refrigerator work better and last longer.

5. Insulation in the ceiling – Anyone can do it and it will save a bundle in heating and cooling costs while providing a much more comfortable living space. There are great products out there for all kinds of spaces. Shop around.

6. Foil insulation under roofs – foil sarking under tiled roofs and foil- backed blanket under metal roofs used to be more common than they are now due to cost cutting measures. However this is an extremely short-term view because foil or foil backed blanket willreduce as much as 20 degrees to the roof space temperature and 9-10 degrees to the top floor rooms in summer, saving money on A/C and reducing night time discomfort. Multi-layer foil products and foil backed boards are now available for super performance.

7. Remember the outdoor clothes line? Old fashioned, maybe but this simple and inexpensive way to dry clothes is now often overlooked. And if a homeowner doesn’t organise this before or soon after moving into a new home, it’s easy to slip into energy intensive clothes drying such as using an electric dryer. You don’t have to use the old Hillshoist, which takes up lots of garden space. There are fence-attached and retractable options too.

8. Pool covers can reduce the water lost through evaporation by as much as half. In addition, pool covers reduce water loss through wind sheer and keep pools cleaner which reduces the amount of times you need to backwash your pool. Finally, for heated pools, covers insulate against heat loss meaning less energy is needed to keep the water temperature warm.

9. Water leaks – studies show that 1 in 10 toilets leak with an average leakage of 30 litres per day! And that’s just toilets. Household wide, leaks are a major reason for water waste. The cost of periodic plumber checks pays for itself in water bill savings and could save significant amounts of water as well.

New homes, renovations and additions:

10. When designing a new home or making significant changes to an existing home, passive solar design, better thermal density and the inclusion of shading and eaves are essential for a cost effective and energy efficient approach. Above all else, talk to your architect or designer about how best to consider these areas from the outset.
    
11. Designing small and smart – No matter what lot space you have, designing small and smart with energy and water use in mind (not to mention cleaning time!) will result in a more sustainable home and one that is likely to be much more liveable. It’s a fallacy that big is better from a living point of view. Communal rooms that act as living and dining areas next to kitchens tend to be the most used rooms in a home, particularly when well designed and attached to an outdoor area (see below).

12. Maximising good “inside/out” design – Spending a bit on windows and doors that allow better use of outside space as living areas means that more housing space is available for much less. The irony of the McMansion that uses every available inch of lot space for the home rather than having a good sized deck and/or garden is that it is much more expensive to heat, cool, run and clean and provides only one type of space – indoor. Good designs that allow outside spaces to be used as living areas save money, particularly during the hottest months when cooling is expensive, and provide more variety and adaptability.

13. Natural ventilation and lighting – Having windows that open in your bathroom/s, kitchen and laundry provide great amenity, natural light and ventilation. You don’t have to rely on a motor-driven exhaust fans and artificial light and you can say goodbye to mould problems. This can save significant money in energy costs in any home, big or small. If you can’t fit a window, a skylight is also a great natural light option.

14. Pergolas –Most common pergolas aren't particularly good at providing shading with standard construction. Battens fixed to the primary structure should be spaced closely together near the wall/glazing or they can be angled to allow the winter sun in but reject the high summer sun.While most pergolas are built by carpenters and/or come as part of a standard house design, there are better and more passive solar products on the market. Again, shop around.

15. Performance glass & double glazing – there are a number of good glazing products on the market that fit into standard window frames, yet have good sun control properties without a heavily tinted appearance.New advances in glazing technology mean you can have good natural light with much less unwanted heat in a west or east facing window. Double glazing when used cleverly can allow you to have the views you want without overheating in summer or freezing in winter.

16. Doing away with the “Gone with the Wind” entry way – Eliminating the giant, all glass, grand (read void) entry space in new home designs will reduce energy waste related to heating and cooling these spaces. They are popular but are basically a bad design for a climate such as Australia’s – too hard to keep warm in winter and cool in summer and an energy drag on the whole house because they can’t usually be sectioned off from the living areas.

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