26 April 2013

Is your place is the coldest in Canberra?

| Barcham
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SEE-Change

SEE-Change is holding a contest to find the coldest house in Canberra, and plan to then fix the place up for the lucky winners.

My last share-house would have won this easily, then gone on to win the ‘mouldiest’, ‘least secure’, and ‘most full of millipedes all the time’ competitions too.

Ahh I miss that old place…

“We are a local ACT company and over the years we have seen homes where it is colder indoors than outdoors; homes where people have to get dressed in bed under the doona before they can get up and start the day; and homes where people are wearing multiple jumpers in order to simply sit in their living room and watch television,” Alexander Watson Chief Executive, Jeremy Watson said.

“It is dreadful to think there are people toughing it out in a freezing cold house when we know that some simple improvements to energy efficiency can increase the inside temperature by up to 15 degrees.

“So we have decided to go on the hunt for Canberra’s coldest home and give the winning house a complete overhaul to make it toasty warm. This could be worth up to $20,000.”

To enter the Coldest House in Canberra Competition people simply need to log on to the coldesthouseincanberra.com page and fill in an entry form. The first 300 entrants will receive a free home energy assessment with thermal imaging (normally valued at $99).

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Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd9:40 pm 08 Jul 13

Russ said :

Watson said :

There double glazing is the norm for example. Makes a world of difference and would make even more sense here where we also get hot summers.

It’s important to note that while double- (or triple-) glazing is excellent in winter, it’s a bit of a double-edged sword in summer – double glazing is highly effective at blocking the transfer of ambient, convective heat, but does *nothing* to stop radiant heat (i.e. the sun shining through the window). For that you either need a fancy reflective film on the window, or awnings or some kind of *external* shading device (shade cloth etc.) – curtains don’t work as all they do is heat up and radiate the heat inside.

You must have a laminated glass as one of the panels at the very minimum.

No point having a igu consisting of only toughened or float.

Watson said :

There double glazing is the norm for example. Makes a world of difference and would make even more sense here where we also get hot summers.

It’s important to note that while double- (or triple-) glazing is excellent in winter, it’s a bit of a double-edged sword in summer – double glazing is highly effective at blocking the transfer of ambient, convective heat, but does *nothing* to stop radiant heat (i.e. the sun shining through the window). For that you either need a fancy reflective film on the window, or awnings or some kind of *external* shading device (shade cloth etc.) – curtains don’t work as all they do is heat up and radiate the heat inside.

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd6:17 pm 08 Jul 13

Watson said :

gentoopenguin said :

Yet we continue to build homes with little insulation or regard to the environment in which they are built….and then complain when the energy bills skyrocket! We’ve got it all backwards here. Places like Germany are about 20 years ahead of us.

What do you mean? All new houses have to have a minimum 6 start energy rating. It would be very hard to achieve that without putting in roof and wall insulation.

I do agree that we’re decades behind on Europe. There double glazing is the norm for example. Makes a world of difference and would make even more sense here where we also get hot summers.

Yeah but it’s incredibly easy to game the system. You can install windows with float glass installed as long as you use enough insulation to reach 6 stars. Most thermal transfer is via flimsy aluminium frames with float glass. What’s the point of insulating the crap out your house if heat/cold just transfers easily through windows?

gentoopenguin said :

Yet we continue to build homes with little insulation or regard to the environment in which they are built….and then complain when the energy bills skyrocket! We’ve got it all backwards here. Places like Germany are about 20 years ahead of us.

What do you mean? All new houses have to have a minimum 6 start energy rating. It would be very hard to achieve that without putting in roof and wall insulation.

I do agree that we’re decades behind on Europe. There double glazing is the norm for example. Makes a world of difference and would make even more sense here where we also get hot summers.

AlexanderWatson said :

Finalists for Coldest House in Canberra have been announced! Check them out and vote online at http://alexanderwatson.com.au/newsite/coldest-house-in-canberra-finalists/

404

I couldn’t enter as my fingers won’t work in the cold, and my magic dictation monkey was on a cruise.

AlexanderWatson3:30 pm 08 Jul 13

Finalists for Coldest House in Canberra have been announced! Check them out and vote online at http://alexanderwatson.com.au/newsite/coldest-house-in-canberra-finalists/

We brought a house 6 years ago built in the 70’s. While it was crap the first few winters with only a wall heater in the living room, My Mum made curtins that where floor length for the living and dining room and long for the bed rooms.

In the 6 years we’ve been here, we have saved up (yes we went without luxuries, like going out clubbing, eating lots of stir fry like dishes and sausages) and have been able to lay hard wood floor boards (as we had floor drafts with the carpet), have wall insulation out in, updated the hot water to gas and put ducted gas heating in.

Now all we need to do it replace the doors so there are no windows in them, update the windows (as they are drafty) to double glazing and put on external shutter blinds.

The heater does not go on til April 25th and 6 months later is turned off. The house is only heated to 18 degrees we sit in trackies, jumpers, socks and slippers and if we are cold, put a blanket over us or go to bed. The heater is on for only a short while in the morning when we get ready for work and does not turn on again until 6pm as we usually finish work around this time and come home to a warm house, which means we can get straight into cooking up dinner (the oven is also a great house warmer).

We are Canberra breed and have lived in Europe and know they are worlds ahead of us. After this season the ‘upgrades’ we have done to our home will have paid for themselves in the savings we have made from our bills!

gentoopenguin said :

Yet we continue to build homes with little insulation or regard to the environment in which they are built….and then complain when the energy bills skyrocket! We’ve got it all backwards here. Places like Germany are about 20 years ahead of us.

^ That.

How about this: declare any owner-occupied home with less than 4 stars as unsuitable for human habitation and limit the allowable rent for any rental property with less than 4 stars to no more than $10 per month.

I thought I had this all sewn up, but it sounds like I’m a helluva lot better off than a lot of other people in this town. At least my olive oil flows freely on the chilliest mornings. 🙂

I do remember living in my sisters place in Kambah around 1993 when we had minus 8 one September morning, and I had to go out with her hair dryer on an extension lead to warm up the pipe where the water came into the house because it had frozen solid.

I agree that much house design in Canberra is atrocious when it comes to heating and cooling. But I’ve spent some terribly cold nights in “Queenslander” houses in Brisbane, which are built on the assumption that it’s blazing hot all year round in QLD, which ain’t necessarily so.

Many years ago we lived in a rental in Swinger Hill. It had vaulted ceilings, no insulation, and one very small, mostly nonfunctional electric heater on the wall in the lounge. We had a tiny little blow heater and in winter we used to bundle up on the couch under a feather doona and point it underneath because otherwise we would have been frozen solid.

I remember waking up in the wee hours one morning with a damp pillow and realising that no, I wasn’t dribbling in my sleep…there was dew falling in the bedroom.

Will never understand why the extremely easy-to-understand and institute principles that make for a warm/cool house appear to have always been ignored in this city…

Damnit……I am sitting here with no heater on & just a pair of trackies & a polo shirt……bloody insulation!

Holden Caulfield7:25 pm 24 Apr 13

dreamlikecheese said :

The crowning glory was the fact that for 2-3 months of the year our olive oil froze.

Haha, that is impressive!

Winner’s speech: As the owner of a monocrete cottage, I would like to thank the post-war boom, the idiots who chose this site for Canberra, and God, for creating Winter. (Smiles ruefully at the roof.)

Can I have the $20,000 in a cheque, incidentally? I promise to buy the new Stolichnaya heating system.

dreamlikecheese6:15 pm 24 Apr 13

I’m pretty sure my previous rental has this sewn up. A house built in the 50s, never renovated, with no insulation and no heating. We sewed and hung up curtains to halve the size of the living room so we could warm it enough with oil heaters to sit there at night with multiple jumpers and blankets on. The pipes would freeze up, as would any water left out over night. The crowning glory was the fact that for 2-3 months of the year our olive oil froze.

gentoopenguin5:30 pm 24 Apr 13

Yet we continue to build homes with little insulation or regard to the environment in which they are built….and then complain when the energy bills skyrocket! We’ve got it all backwards here. Places like Germany are about 20 years ahead of us.

Holden Caulfield2:43 pm 24 Apr 13

In my last rental, which was over a decade ago thank goodness, we could breathe cold air inside the bedroom during the winter and the water pipes would regularly freeze in the morning.

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