How To Reduce Your Home Heating And Cooling Costs

I just spent a whole HOUR with a salesperson.

I am normally leery of telemarketers and door-knockers. When I get cornered into a conversation with one, I find myself chafing and wondering how to get away without being rude. Those that read from canned scripts and won't pause to let you get a word in are the worst. Next to those who pretend not to understand the meaning of "I'm really busy right now".

With those companies that play the green washing game, it's worse. They're always trying to convince you that if you switch from your current utilities provider to theirs, you'll get an x% discount on your bill.

After a while, it can get pretty confusing, and I'm sure that's the caller's intention. I mean, unless you have your bill handy, how many of us know how much we pay per MJ of gas consumed, how much is the service charge, freedom discount etc, and what all the info means?

The conversation with Nick from HRV was different though.

He was here to talk about how I could:

• save at least 50% on our gas bills by capturing some of the free heat that's trapped in the roof cavity and using it to keep our home at a comfortable and steady temperature throughout the year, esp in winter
  
• reduce moisture from condensation and keep my house low-maintenance for longer
• improve the quality of the indoor air supply so I can have a healthier home
  

Energy saving is a very relevant consideration here because energy costs are rising all the time and VIC is still suffering from drought, which makes water a precious (and expensive) resource.

Being at the mercy of energy providers by continuing to live the way we do is simply not sustainable in the long term.

Nick walked around our place with a thermal scanner and showed me how the temperature in different parts of our house varied. Our home is not exactly 5-star energy efficient, and there are many days when it actually feels cold indoors even though it's nice and sunny outside.

When he lifted the manhole cover with a broomstick and pointed the scanner at the ceiling, the temperature was an astonishing 27.5 deg, a whole 10 deg warmer than the indoor (ambient) temperature.

And this was an overcast day.

How the HRV system works is this (you can also watch the video):

In winter, it draws the heat from the sun, filters the heated air to remove most of the dust mites and other particles that cause allergies and asthma, and pushes the filtered air downwards along the walls and floor and distributes it evenly around the house. It even improves the heat retention capability of the house by keeping the walls and floor warm, so that you wake up the next morning to a nice cosy home.

The HRV system costs $0.10 a day to run, uses the equivalent of 75W and will pay for itself in 3-5 years.

What HRV does is send someone over to install a little 30x50 cm ventilation unit in the roof apex where it's warmest, which takes half a day, and then depending on the size of your home and the number of living areas, a number of outlets are installed in the ceilings of your living areas.

We were given a quote for a 2-fan system with 8 outlets at a cost that works out to about $12 a day over a one-year period. The system has been certified independently by GECA and Nick was able to provide plenty of testimonials and even utilities bills from happy customers showing the savings gained.

Now to explain all this to hubby...