21 November 2010

Beat the heat

| Woden SEE Change
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Woden SEE Change invites you to share a drink with us and beat the heat by sharing your ideas on how to make your home more thermally efficient and keep your home cool through a long hot Canberra summer!

    • Add to our growing list of hot tips to stay cool
    • Hear expert advice on thermal efficiency
    • Share your experiences with like minded people

With a presentation from the Home Energy Advice Team on how to prepare your home for Canberra’s climate, thereby reducing energy intensive cooling and heating costs.
$5 entry ($2 for members) Main Hall, St James Church, 40 Gillies St, Curtin

Contact Woden SEE Change at woden.seechange@gmail.com or call Audrey on 0437 673 431 for more information and to RSVP.

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eyeLikeCarrots10:25 am 22 Nov 10

indigoid said :

I read somewhere, I think on a Googler’s blog, that in Switzerland there are rather severe limitations on air conditioning, presumably to save energy. Not an outright ban, but something more along the lines of “no more than N degrees below outside ambient temperature.” I imagine that this has inspired people to build more efficient houses there

My partner is German. For the time that she was over here I was living in a house and she would frequently talk about how tougher the building requirements for housing insulation are in Europe. Like 40cm thick walls, that sort of thing. Goes hand in hand with energy effeciency I guess.

Unfortunatley I will soon be moving back to a house with even less insulation than my current abode.

After the 2003 fires I observed a rebuilt house in Duffy being rendered a rather dark shade of grey. Then, when the next summer rolled around, it very quickly sprouted a large air-con unit on the roof.

People are stupid.

The house is still the same dark grey colour.

My father’s house (also rebuilt after the fires) has no air-con and only a small, rarely-used gas heater in the lounge area and maintains a comfortable 18-23C all year ’round. Oddly enough it isn’t dark grey on the outside 🙂

I read somewhere, I think on a Googler’s blog, that in Switzerland there are rather severe limitations on air conditioning, presumably to save energy. Not an outright ban, but something more along the lines of “no more than N degrees below outside ambient temperature.” I imagine that this has inspired people to build more efficient houses there

A few cents worth of alfoil on my west facing windows kept my flat a LOT cooler in the latter 2/3rds of last summer than it was in the first 1/3rd.

One of my neighbours suggested buying water-based window tinting sheets off of eBay.

Unfortunately most people who care about such things happen to be renters and as such are limited to options such as these in order not to break our lease conditions and lose our bonds. Home owners have it easy by comparison as any number of socially acceptable options exist for them.

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