Michael Green

Writer and producer

Star ratings on the ground

In Architecture and building, Environment, The Age on

HUNDREDS of thousands of new homes across the country are not performing at their promised energy efficiency rating, forcing residents to use up to double the predicted energy required for heating and cooling, experts say.

Research by air-tightness testing company Air Barrier Technologies has shown that air leakage in new homes is five to 10 times worse than expected under the star-rating scheme.

This means that an average five-star home is likely to perform only to a three-star level, potentially doubling energy bills for residents.

About 40,000 new homes are built in Victoria each year, and all must adhere to the five-star standard. This will rise to six stars from May.

But a group of industry players, including Henley Homes, who have been lobbying state and federal government and building regulators to crack down on the air leakage problem, say unless more action is taken, customers cannot be confident their homes meet the stated star rating.

“At the moment there’s an assumption that houses are built to a far tighter standard than what we believe they are in reality,” Adam Selvay, Henley Homes energy and sustainability specialist, told The Sunday Age last week.

The question of builder liability was raised in a meeting with the Federal Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency and the Australian Building Codes Board in April last year.

Following that meeting, Terry Mahoney, president of the Air Infiltration and Ventilation Association of Australia, emailed other attendees, as well as federal government ministers and senior public servants, criticising officials for failing to respond to the issues discussed.

“It became apparent that no amount of scientific evidence, or global best practice comparisons or safety and health risk concerns raised by the visiting group, would engender any action or urgency from either the [Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency] or the [Australian Building Codes Board] at this time,” he wrote.

Mr Mahoney noted the attendees’ view that there is “overwhelming evidence” that the current star rating method “proves grossly inaccurate when constructed homes are performance tested”.

Bruce Rowse, from building efficiency consultants CarbonetiX, said air gaps are common around doors, light fixtures, window- and door-frames, and places where pipes or cables enter the home.

“Sealing is very important and to do it properly is really laborious. And there’s no inspection for it,” he said.

He also expressed concern that the regulatory regime doesn’t ensure insulation is adequately installed. “The building inspector has no idea of what insulation actually goes into the walls,” he said. “It’s also very difficult to validate exactly how well the ceiling is insulated.”

Victorian Building Commissioner Tony Arnel denied there was a systemic problem with air leakage standards or insulation in five-star homes. He maintained that an auditing process had consistently demonstrated that new homes complied with regulations.

“But building is not necessarily always a perfect science. We did some research two years ago with Air Barrier Technologies and that did tell us that there was potentially an issue with draughts and gaps that we needed to continue to work with industry to ensure that quality is met,” he said.

Mr Arnel said if testing proved a home did not meet its star rating due to building deficiencies, the owner could take legal action against the builder “because presumably it hasn’t been built to the right specification”.

Housing Industry Association building and environment director Kristin Brookfield said the association was not aware of any specific research on air leakage but acknowledged that a building’s energy efficiency is affected if it is not properly sealed.

“It’s important that this is seen as an issue about the rating tools,” she said. “This is not an issue about the actual construction of the homes.”

Lin Enright, from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, said that concerns had been raised with the Department of Climate Change about air infiltration, but no complaints or inquiries had been brought to the attention of the consumer watchdog.

The issue was privately championed last year by former Victorian Planning Minister, Justin Madden. In July, he wrote to the federal Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, requesting that the Australian Building Codes Board consider testing for air leakage to ensure greater energy efficiency of housing and other properties.

Read this article at The Age online

Green renovations

In Architecture and building, The Age on

Whether you’re renovating for resale, rental or long-term liveability, every signal has turned green.

BY May next year, the state government will increase the residential energy efficiency standard from five to six stars.

The star rating system applies to all renovation projects that require a building permit, but varies depending on the size of the alteration. For larger additions the whole house must comply, while for smaller changes only the new part must adhere to the rules.

The state government will also soon phase-in compulsory eco-scorecards at the point of sale and lease. With more and more people seeking energy efficient housing, it’s wise to renovate green to make sure your home doesn’t fall behind.

Here are some principles to follow:

Orientation, glazing and thermal mass

“The primary aim of the renovation should be passive solar performance,” says architect Mark Sanders from Third Ecology in Geelong. “That means getting living areas facing north.”

If your block has a north-facing backyard (or, on a wide block, a north-facing side), you’re in luck.

The task is more difficult if you want to extend to the south. One solution is to design a courtyard between the old and new parts of the home, thereby creating a northerly aspect and allowing the sun into the extension.

Mr Sanders says it’s crucial to combine smart orientation with appropriately shaded windows that allow the sun in during winter, and block it out over summer. “We also try to incorporate a concrete slab to the north, so we’ve got thermal mass to store and re-radiate the heat,” he says.

One result of the step up to higher building efficiency standards may be that designers pay closer attention to the placing and quality of windows. To lift the overall performance, choose fewer, smaller or better windows for the southern and western sides of your home. “It’s preferable to use double glazing,” Mr Sanders says, “or single glazing with decent window coverings.”

Insulation

Mr Sanders recommends householders commission a star rating of their home early in the planning stage. It’ll help identify weaknesses in the performance of the existing building fabric, and pinpoint how they can best be remedied.

“It’s not a compliance requirement, but we just think it’s an important part of a holistic review,” he says.

He used the process for his own house, a Victorian-era home he lifted from zero to six stars. “That meant insulating the walls and floors and doubling the insulation in the ceiling,” he says.

Wall insulation is essential to achieve high star ratings, and a renovation can provide a rare chance to install it relatively cheaply. Mr Sanders’ method was to cut out a section of plasterboard in the middle of the walls. “We slipped insulation up and down and re-plastered without touching the cornices and skirting boards,” he says.

Heating, cooling and ventilation

There’s a wide range of heating options, and the one you choose will depend on the your house. But according to sustainability consultant Malcolm Wilkie, zoning is non-negotiable. “Heat the living room and close off the areas you don’t need. Bedrooms and hallways don’t need to be heated.”

Mr Wilkie says air conditioning isn’t necessary in a house that has been renovated to provide good orientation, shading and insulation. “If you’ve got the house right, all you need is a little bit of air movement on really hot days, and fans will do that.” Be sure that your windows can be opened for cross-ventilation at night or when a cool change comes through.

Lighting

When it comes to lighting, Mr Wilkie has one golden rule: “Don’t install low-voltage halogen downlights.”

Despite their popularity, halogen downlights are terribly inefficient, expensive to run and need gaps in ceiling insulation to reduce fire risk.

He suggests pendant fittings or wall-mounted up-lights instead. “It’s better to use bright task lighting only where you need it, like over a reading chair, and not to flood the whole room with light,” he says. “It’s more creative and creates a much nicer ambience.”

Mr Wilkie also recommends that renovators let in as much natural light as possible. With a combination of skylights and roof windows, he says, “during the day you shouldn’t need to have any artificial lighting on at all.”

Water

If you want to save water, time and money, your pipes and plumbing mustn’t be an afterthought. Stuart McQuire, author of Water Not Down the Drain, advises early planning for water tank placement and use.

“If you’re re-doing spouting or guttering, direct it towards a place where you can fit the tank, and get as much of your roof going there as possible,” he says. “Sometimes a renovation opens access briefly, so you might need to order it before you put the frame up.”

Rainwater can be used for the garden, or connected to toilets, the laundry, hot water, or even the whole house – depending on how much you can collect.

“If you want to water your garden, get the biggest tank you can fit and afford. When there’s an extended dry spell, that’s when you’ll appreciate it,” Mr McQuire says. “But if it’s just for toilet flushing or even for the laundry, you don’t need a huge tank.”

Even if you aren’t installing tanks or connecting toilets and greywater immediately, a little extra plumbing up front will leave your options open – and save a lot of hassle later on.

“If you are renovating the bathroom, put the plumbing in so you can run rainwater to the toilet. It’s a lot harder to do once the walls and floors are there. The same thing applies to greywater, because it might be impossible to do later without pulling your bathroom and laundry apart,” he says.

When you choose fittings for the bathroom, laundry or kitchen, look out for the Water Saving and Efficiency Labels and Standards (WELS) scheme. The labels include a star rating – up to six stars – and a flow rate in litres. Good fittings will save you hot water, and therefore, energy too.

For even better hot water efficiency, Mr McQuire recommends householders opt for a solar water heater, if they’ve got a roof that isn’t too shaded by trees or neighbours.

For more tips, see the Your Home Renovator’s Guide. 

Contact Malcolm Wilkie.

Green renters

In Environment, The Age on

Apartment renters can make the most of their limited eco-options.

WHEN Nina Bailey moved to her rented flat in Thornbury two years ago, the first thing she missed was her compost heap. “I suddenly had to throw food in my bin and I hate doing that – I’m very conscious that rubbish bins are generally half full of food,” she says.

The next glitch was greywater. “There are lots of ways to harvest and distribute grey water, but when you don’t have a garden, what can you do?” she says. “Most of the sustainability things I was doing seemed to be related to having a garden.”

Eco-wise renters may find the going tough in detached houses, but life can seem even browner in an apartment, according to Chris Ward, from the Green Renters blog and tenant education service.

As well as the usual struggle to communicate with landlords and avoid making structural changes, apartment renters are usually lumped with a lack of outdoor space and restrictions imposed by the body corporate. “Even something as simple as hanging your washing out on a balcony might not be allowed,” Ward says.

Nevertheless, he maintains there’s plenty of action to take. “As with the rental community as a whole, many of the things you can do are more related to your habits and where you spend your money, instead of big, conceptual changes.”

Standard retrofitting practices all apply: vigorous draught sealing, thorough light globe swapping and careful water-efficiency re-fitting. And when you sign up for electricity, be sure you choose 100 per cent GreenPower.

Flat dwellers can compensate for lack of a yard by employing extra tricks, such as flushing the toilet with greywater from the shower, and growing a lush balcony garden. “You can use all sorts of things as pots, from wheelbarrows and boxes to baskets and bags, and then take them with you when you move,” Ward says. “You can compost in an apartment as well – Bokashi Buckets are the best option and they work well indoors.”

When it comes to bigger changes, tenants can use scheduled maintenance or conked-out appliances as eco-pressure points: try requesting water- and energy-efficient upgrades. “A lot of renters are fearful, but often, if you just ask you’ll be surprised how many landlords will say yes,” he says.

“You have to be firm, friendly and confident. If you’ve been a tenant for several years you can use that as leverage.” It’s also wise to cultivate a good relationship with your real estate agent – sometimes they’ll be in a better position to push landlords on your behalf.

In Thornbury, Bailey decided to be upfront about her green ambitions – at work, she’s the sustainable living program manager at Environment Victoria. She got over her no-backyard blues by rigging up a funnel and pipe system to shift greywater from her shower to the shared garden.

It’s difficult for renters to join the body corporate, but there are other ways to influence decisions. “I talked to other residents about composting,” Bailey says, “and one of the owner-occupiers convinced the body corporate to buy compost bins.”

Environment Victoria has just updated its Victorian Green Renters’ Guide, which includes a comprehensive list of retrofitting advice and a summary of the rebates now available. For flat tenants, it suggests encouraging the body corporate to install low-energy globes and timers for external lighting.

Bailey has found an unexpected upside to apartment living: reducing her overall consumption. “I only have a small amount of space, so I have to reduce clutter. It makes me focus on not building up too much waste or junk, and on reusing as much as I can.”

‘Cash for clunkers’ is a lemon

In Environment, The Age on

THE old warning about Detroit’s auto factories went like this: bad cars were built on Mondays and Fridays. The slackers on the assembly line didn’t show up for work and quality control was low.

So buyers beware: Monday and Friday’s cars were lemons. But the trouble was, buyers had no way of knowing which day their prospective model was manufactured.

During elections, policies keep on coming, like cars on a production line. And more often than not, it seems as though no one’s checking their quality. But unlike car buyers, voters are in luck – we can tell if the product’s a dud.

Labor’s ‘cash for clunkers’ scheme was launched on Saturday. I’m guessing it was manufactured on Friday. Let’s pop the bonnet, just to be sure.

From January 1, Labor will gift $2000 to owners of pre-1995 cars who buy a new car. It’ll spend $394 million dollars on the scheme, money hinged from three other climate change policies – the solar flagships program, the renewable energy bonus and carbon capture research.

To be eligible for the payout, old-car owners must purchase a new car that has a greenhouse rating of at least six out of ten on the government’s Green Vehicle Guide website. Labor’s policy fact sheet lists seven of the eligible cars, including the Ford Falcon EcoBoost and the Toyota Hybrid Camry.

EcoBoost-Hybrid – wow! That sounds green, right? But it neglected to mention those other – ahem – icons of fuel efficiency, the Toyota Prado 4WD, or the Hilux 4X4 ute, which are also eligible.

On closer inspection, over half of the 1800 new models sold in this country will qualify. Far from being an ambitious target, a greenhouse rating of six equates to the average performance of the entire Australian fleet, as it stands.

New vehicles here just aren’t very efficient. According to report released by Environment Victoria this year, new cars purchased in Australia are about 41 per cent more polluting than those bought in Europe.

When a similar ‘cash for clunkers’ scheme was wheeled out by the British motor industry last year, journalist George Monbiot described it as “the worst scam of all”. He analysed the cost of carbon reduction under the proposed scheme, and observed “you’d get almost as much value for money by reclassifying ten-pound notes as biomass and burning them in power stations”.

On Labor’s estimate, its policy will cost $394 per tonne of emissions abated. Environment Victoria claims that under a basic emissions trading scheme, it would cost just $20 to save a tonne of carbon dioxide emissions.

Monbiot identified other flaws that also apply to Gillard’s payout. Firstly, there’s the ‘rebound effect’. Typically, gains in efficiency are offset by increased consumption – when driving costs less, people tend to drive further. Any benefit is cancelled out, at least in part.

Secondly, many people who drive old models would have bought new ones anyway. Under cash for clunkers, they’ll get money for nothing.

Thirdly, some people who would otherwise have given up their car may decide to buy a new one instead. After all, $2000 is a hefty incentive to drive. In those cases, the policy will actually increase their personal emissions.

And it gets worse. There’s some research to suggest that scrappage schemes increase greenhouse gas emissions overall.

A Dutch study, published in the journal Transportation Research in 2000, concluded that “reducing the age of the current car fleet may result in an increase of life-cycle CO2 emissions”.*

The researchers argued that because about one-fifth of the energy consumed by a car over its lifetime is burnt in manufacturing, the optimal car lifetime is 19 years. They also found that the owners of new cars drove more than twice the distance each year than people with cars more than ten years old.

When our politicians set the course for our transport future, money spent on cars is money that hogs the road from the alternatives – public transport, bicycles and walking.

But if the Labor Party really wants to improve the efficiency of our car fleet, it should impose strict fuel efficiency regulations, not give away wads of cash to a select few for no demonstrable gain. Japan and the EU are phasing in standards that equate to almost half the fuel consumption of an average new Australian car.

As an advocate for action on climate change, Gillard does a perfect impression of a shonky used-car dealer. Sure, she’s put ‘cash for clunkers’ through a greenwash, but it’s a lemon. Don’t buy it. 

Read this article on The Age website.

* B. Van Wee, H. Moll, J. Dirks, ‘Environmental impact of scrapping old cars’, Transportation Research, Part D, 5 (2000), 137-143.

Meet your neighbours

In Environment, The Age on

From backstreets to the big end of town, there’s reason for neighbours to become good friends.

Last year, my neighbour and I leafleted houses in the streets nearby. We proposed something unusual. On our flyer, we wrote, “…we’d like to set up a system to share some of our resources and build a friendly local community”, and then we promised all manner of neighbourly fun, including street parties, movie nights, swap meets and veggie sharing.

And now, our block in Carlton moonlights as a ‘sharehood’.

The Sharehood is a social networking website that shows you everyone with a profile who lives within 400 metres of you. It includes lists of things to borrow and lend and a forum for upcoming events. The first one was set up in Northcote in 2008, but it works no matter where in the world you live.

The Sharehood’s creator, website developer Theo Kitchener, says connecting online can help meeting face-to-face. “It’s all about encouraging neighbours to get to know each other in real life – all kinds of good things can come from that.”

So, aside from a sensible impulse to borrow a circular saw rather than shell out for one of my own, what’s behind my wish to know my neighbours?

Associate professor Kathleen Hulse, from Swinburne University’s Institute for Social Research, says knowing our neighbours not only makes us feel safer, but also meets our deep need for a sense of place. “Being connected locally is strongly associated with a sense of belonging, and we all need to belong somewhere. It’s a profound thing – that is what a home is about.”

According to Gilbert Rochecouste, from placemaking consultants Village Well, there’s been renewed interest in “caring for place”. Governments, councils and property developers are all aiming to strengthen local communities. “People are changing their priorities,” he says. “We’re seeing that with developers building ‘neighbourliness capital’ into projects.”

Mr Rochecouste points to Delfin’s Laurimar estate, past Epping in Melbourne’s north, which includes a town centre lined with local stores within walking distance of all the homes. “People meet in main streets, that’s where the heart is,” he says.

Also at Laurimar, a community worker is employed to organise activities. “In greenfields developments like that one, we’re starting to see place managers who coordinate community gardens, events and food swaps,” Mr Rochecouste says. “To build citizenship you’ve got to invest in it.”

The trend isn’t limited to the urban fringe. Sue West from the McCaughey Centre at the University of Melbourne says that over the last decade, state and local governments have supported more and more initiatives to build community resilience. Now, about eight in ten local councils say they fund projects of that kind, be they community gardens, local action plans or activities to bring different cultures together.

“There’s been growing interest in programs that involve communities in getting to know each other,” Ms West says. “The research was showing that a country or a community can be doing really well economically, but people’s wellbeing is beyond just money and the economic measures. It’s about the connections people have with each other.”

Ms West coordinates Community Indicators Victoria, a set of measures gauging social, economic, environmental, democratic and cultural wellbeing in local council areas. “Feeling connected to neighbours does contribute to wellbeing. It can be really important in difficult times, like the one we’ve just been through with the financial crisis, and the ones we continue to go through because of climate change and drought,” Ms West says.

Improved neighbourliness also goes hand-in-hand with environmental gains. As well as The Sharehood, there are a large number eco-friendly neighbourhood groups across our suburbs, such as Sustainability Street (a group training program in eco-living) and community gardens. There were 75 community gardens in Melbourne at last count, in 2006, and interest has been flourishing since then.

Transition Towns is another grassroots eco-development movement. The people in each location determine what they’ll do, but generally speaking, the goal is to live better with less – to re-make your area into a food producing, low-energy, low-emission, tight-knit community. It was founded in England in late 2006 and there are already over similar 250 initiatives worldwide. In Australia, 27 groups have officially signed on and dozens more are joining up, including seven in suburban Melbourne.

Razia Ross is convenor of Transition Town Boroondara, which traverses inner-eastern suburbs from Kew East to Ashburton. She says the threats posed by climate change and peak oil will change our relationships with people nearby. “It seems to me that we really need our neighbours in a way we didn’t before.” For now, her group is scheming for community gardens, orchards and guerrilla gardening.

The good news, according to housing researcher Dr Hulse, is that we have a strong base of neighbourliness to build on. “I think that the connections in suburbs are underestimated. Special initiatives like community gardens are important, but they wouldn’t work if there wasn’t already a fabric there,” she says.

It’s true in my block. At our sharehood events, long-term residents pass on local folklore to newcomers – yarning, for example, about the old Maltese man who built a boat in his backyard (too big for the yard, it jutted over the footpath) then set sail for Malta. It’s all part of the sharing.

A new nature strip

Depending on how you look at it, Gilbert Rochecouste and his partner Amadis Lacheta have either taken their work home, or their home to work. They run Village Well, a placemaking consultancy that works on relocalisation and civic renewal.

And on the nature strip outside their house in North Coburg, they’ve planted a community herb garden and installed a seat, among other things. “The old ladies who get off the bus pause and sit down and we’ve gotten to know them,” Mr Rochecouste says. “They’re so appreciative – sometimes they drop over pickles.”

He says neighbourliness turns a street into a meeting place. “There are eyes on the street. It helps breaks down the fear culture – you feel comfortable to knock on someone’s door and meet together. And it’s much more fun.”

Read this article on the Age website.

Village Well’s 10 ways to be neighbourly:

1.     Say hello to your neighbours when you pass.

2.     Organise a potluck lunch, dinner or picnic and invite people in your street.

3.     Plant a community herb garden on your nature strip

4.     Organise a neighbourhood swap – share and exchange clothes, garden produce, plants, books or skills.

5.     Organise a neighbourhood ‘salon’ – share music, food, poetry or stories.

6.     Install a seat on your nature strip for neighbours to sit and chat.

7.     Organise a yearly street party.

8.     Do some street beautification or community art.

9.     Create a community garden or green area.

10.  Put a free table on your nature strip and give away food, books, furniture and bric-a-brac.