GreenChoice Declines, quelle suprise.

che, I believe the rebate you get is $500, and you get it as long as the 2 grand you spent was spent on implementing a recommendation that came out of your energy audit.

Mael, so is my place, but as long as its screened from the street they were happy to rubber stamp it,

just had to fill in the forms, take them in and then got an email later that arvo saying approved

Nice for you Che, understandably I was quite surprised to find out that 3 sides of my house are ‘front’.

I’m getting a rain water tank for the garden and toilet flush set up next week, and the solar hot water should be coming in the next 2 weeks or so

from what I’ve found you only need planning permission for a tank if it goes in the front yard, and even then they just rubber stamped my plans as the tank would be shielded from the street by trees

the govt rebate on tanks only comes if you hook them up for flushing the toilet, and the rebate on solar hot water only comes if you are converting from electricity to solar, not if you go from gas to solar

you can get an energy audit done of your home for $30 where-by if you then spend over $2000 on a home energy improvement/saving device you’ll get some form of rebate back on that also
not exactly sure how much or what the rebate is but will hopefully more come Monday when they do the audit

Roland GRNS – send them a membership form!

For once I wish you were both in the Assembly!

i would mandate all newly built dwellings to have the roof space to be covered in solar cells, solar hot water and rain tanks (connected to toilets).

It’s not only the green electricity that is at issue here, if you’re a greenie you’ve probably thought of catching water off your roof and tanking it, grey water reuse, water tune-up etc etc.

This government puts out the rhetoric that they are trying to be green, yet in reality they remain unfriendly to the average householder.

For example (cause I know you will all ask for proof if I don’t provide it) the government says you should install a rainwater tank to water your garden etc, and it’s an integral component to any water conservation scheme you may be considering for your property, yet the government will sell you a hot water cylinder or an airconditioning unit (you can even put it on your actewagl bill conveniently), but not a simple plastic tank.

Then if you want to install one, reminding everybody that there is a drought on at this juncture, you need planning permission to do so!

If they were serious about people conserving water, they would have granted blanket permission under a set of rules for installation (possibly even by actewagl – conveniently recouping the money off the bill), resulting in more people saving water, and the fish having something to swim in at Googong.

Trying to be a greenie in Canberra is a joke, any savings you make will be gobbled up by your wasteful neighbour.

If the government cross subsidised green electricity for example, to make the scheme equivalent to paying for conventional electricity, I’m sure a lot more people would sign up for the scheme, but they aren’t exactly standing up and volunteering for the job are they ?

Looking forward to more rhetoric…