Naked old houses swelter in summer, freeze in winter
How can we reduce energy costs at home and energy demand across the state? Insulate, insulate, insulate.
When I am running community events to help people reduce their energy use and environmental impact, one of the most basic and effective measures we talk about is making sure you have ceiling insulation in your home.
Ceiling insulation works on the same principal as wearing a jacket in winter: it holds warm air where you need it to keep you comfortable. You don’t go outside naked in winter no matter how good your body looks, because you need insulation. That’s effectively what our houses are without ceiling insulation: naked.
Ceiling insulation can reduce by 30 – 40 percent the energy used for home heating, and it also provides significant savings in summer air-conditioning costs. Properly insulated buildings also mean huge savings for the community and environment because we need to generate less power for air-conditioners and heaters, particularly during the peak times that place our generation capacity under such stress.
Every new home built in Victoria, that’s 100,000 plus per year, is fitted with ceiling insulation. It is illegal not to, and it’s done safely and efficiently. The same thing needs to happen with our older homes. Ceiling insulation needs to be part of any government scheme to meet energy efficiency targets.
It’s only in the weird world of political blame games that safely and effectively insulating our older homes could be seen as anything but an essential step to ease cost of living pressures and help the environment.
- Make changes at home
- Sustainable lifestyles
- Act
- Learn
- Carlton Eco-Neighbourhood
- Community action plan
- Families go green
- Flemington Green
- Green town
- One Million Homes
- Seniors eco-wise action
- Youth eco-challenge
- Melbourne
- North-east Victoria
- South-east Victoria
- West Victoria
- North-west Victoria
- South-west Victoria
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