Andreas Chai can’t remember the last time he used heating in his home. It’s a comfort he has learned to live without, he says, as part of a personal commitment to a low-energy, sustainable lifestyle. But with the cost-of-living rising, it hasn’t hurt his budget either.
Chai lives in south-eastern Queensland where he works as an economist at Griffith University's Gold Coast campus. He acknowledges his heating choices would not be so easy in other parts of Australia, nor for those with health issues that can be triggered by unstable temperatures.
But Chai wants more of us to embrace a philosophical shift in the way we view things like body temperature which he argues has an important relationship with energy use.
“One of the biggest changes in human history has been around our increasingly sedentary lifestyle as well as how we think of our body temperatures,” Chai says.
“Humans used to be outdoors all the time in the fields, or hunting and gathering. One of the greatest changes we have gone through is that we're indoors a lot more as office workers, for example.”
If you’re wondering what this has to do with the cost of living crisis then Chai has a simple answer: “One of the results of that lifestyle change is that we’ve become more sensitive to small temperature shifts and regulating the temperature of our environments has become a widely accepted way to live,” he says. “Part of my philosophy is just to go out and get exposed.”
Chai believes many of us have forgotten how to live with the sort of mild discomfort that would have been common a couple of generations ago when a cold night called for an extra jumper or choosing to heat just one portion of the house before heading to bed with a hot water bottle.
But it’s not just winter that is under the spotlight.
Our modern society has tied the idea of a comfortable temperature with social acceptance and even status. It means that something as basic as sweating is often viewed as socially inappropriate, Chai argues, and our body’s core mechanism for reducing core temperature on a hot day becomes unacceptable. If we can’t sweat then we immediately become more reliant on cooling technologies to keep it at bay.
Where should you focus your energy-saving effort?
But reducing energy use in turn can reduce carbon emissions, and our electricity or gas bill.
Whether you are looking to save money to offset the rising cost of living, or keen to do your bit to slow climate change, keeping an eye on energy consumption in your home, cutting back where possible and developing new energy-efficient habits, can have a big impact, Chai believes.
Tim Forcey agrees.
Forcey left his career as a chemical engineer in the gas, petro-chemical and oil industry in 2010 to focus on renewables and energy efficiency. He is the founder of a thriving electricity efficiency community on Facebook where members trade energy-saving tips, and he now advises business and families on how to reduce energy consumption and costs.
Forcey says something as straightforward as understanding whether electricity or gas, for example, are more cost effective can have a big impact on the size of your energy bill.
“I used to work for BHP in the Bass Strait gas fields and now I tell people don’t use gas because you’ve got better options,” he says.
So what are those options?
Here, Forcey and Chai highlight five of the leading energy suckers in a typical Australian home – including two you may never have thought of — and offer tips on how to reduce your use, and your bill.
Staying warm and keeping cool
Keeping your home warm in winter and cool in summer is one of the largest energy costs facing most Australian households, according to Chai and Forcey.
And while Chai’s strategy of limiting the use of appliances like heaters, air conditioners and fans and instead learning to be comfortable with a little temperature-induced discomfort makes sense, it is not possible or desirable for all of us all the time.
However, if you are using heating and cooling appliances then there are some straightforward ways to ensure you are getting the most out of them.
For a start, the appliance you choose can make a big difference, says Forcey. “The simplest change is to find the remote to the air conditioner and push heat,” he says.
When it comes to heating your home, Forcey’s top tip is this: use an electric air conditioner, rather than a gas heater or even a plug-in portable electric heater.
“I often say the biggest cost saving is to heat your home with a reverse cycle air conditioner,” he says, noting this only works for those who already have air-conditioning installed or who plan to average out their costs over the long term. “I can’t believe how many homes I visit where air-conditioners are kept switched off in favour of other forms of heating. We have so thoroughly demonised the use of air conditioners that the message hasn’t got through: air-conditioning is the cheapest option."
He says this is because heating is a large expense when compared with annual energy costs.
“The good news is our research shows people can heat with their air conditioners for around one third the cost of gas heating,” he says.
Why is it so much cheaper?
“The magic of the heat pump which takes heat from outside and brings it into your home,” says Forcey.
The technology can feel counter-intuitive: if you want to heat your home on a cold day how can bringing air in from the outside be helpful?
Without getting bogged down in the details of this technology, the bottom line is that compressors, refrigerant and air from outside combine to deliver heat indoors at a lower cost than running a portable heater or gas central heating.
Forcey’s second is a tip so simple: clean the filter.
If you use an air-conditioner then making sure the filtration system is clean, allowing maximum flow of warm air into your home, is going to make a huge difference to how efficiently it works.
You might even find that once the space is warmed you can switch off the heating altogether for a few hours.
And that’s where curtains, carpet or rugs and draft-proofing comes in: block the warm air from disappearing again through the glass window, keep hard surfaces covered to absorb some of that heat and plug the cold air from sneaking in under the door.
How do you heat your hot water?
Keeping your water hot also uses a lot of energy and is a key area to watch out for, say Chai and Forcey.
Luckily there are ways to keep the cost down.
First of all, check your temperature setting. If your water is being heated on demand to a level substantially higher than you need then you are using extra electricity or gas to keep it there. Dropping the temperature of continuous flow systems, even by a few degrees, can make a difference to your energy requirements. If your hot water is stored in a tank then you need to consider Legionella bacteria can be a risk if the tank temperature falls much below 60 degrees celsius but make adjustments to the temperature delivered to the tap to avoid scalds.
Another tip is to check how your water is being heated. These days electricity is generally cheaper than gas for the same result, Forcey says.
And finally, chat to your energy company about when your hot water is being heated. If you are signed up for off-peak water heating then you will be charged at a lower rate than if your water is being heated on demand or during peak periods.
Forcey also suggests exploring what federal or state government rebates may exist to help with upgrading your hot water heater.
“These days hot water heat pumps exist using similar technology to reverse cycle air conditioners,” he says. “These extract free heat from the air and put it into your water. Very attractive rebates mean you may be eligible to replace your inefficient system with this one for very little outlay.”
Keep an eye on appliances that are on all the time
A clue as to areas of your home that are likely to be demanding a lot of energy are simply those that are on all the time.
We have all read stories about how turning off appliances at the point, instead of leaving them on stand-by, can save a few hundred dollars a year.
But what about appliances that can’t be turned off so easily? Typical offenders include your fridge, a stand-alone freezer or your pool pump.
There is only so much you can do to cut the cost of running some of these appliances – with your fridge being a stand-out example.
But if you also run a second fridge to keep cold drinks at the ready, or a separate freezer to store food long-term, ask yourself if this is an occasional convenience or if it is really necessary? If you live in a remote community, or have other transport difficulties, the answer may be yes. But for many of us the savings from bulk-buying, or the convenience of pre-cooked meals, may be undermined by the additional cost of energy.
If you can’t do without your deep freezer or your extra fridge, options for cutting energy may be to replace your fridge with something more energy efficient when it comes time to buy a new one, ensure things like seals are firm to lock in as much cool air as possible, reducing the need for the motor to kick in to generate more.
To keep track of what you are using, get your hands on a free electricity monitor, Forcey advises.
“You can see in real time or over the course of the day or week how much electricity you’re using and cut back if you can,” he says.
The food you eat, what you waste and where it comes from
Another significant energy sucker is the food you buy. You may not be paying in a bill to your energy company but you will be paying in the cost of your groceries.
Choosing to buy fruits and vegetables that are out of season demands extra infrastructure like glasshouses or transportation and all of this is reflected in the price you pay. While it may be nice to eat strawberries or asparagus all year around take note of how the cost changes at different months of the year.
If you overbuy food that isn’t used then the cost of travelling to the supermarket and storing the food (perhaps in that unnecessary second fridge or freezer), or throwing out what isn’t eaten, is costing you money.
Meal planning can help keep track of what you buy, as can learning to cook most meals from scratch and hunting through cupboards to make a meal from ingredients you had forgotten were there.
If you do have to throw out food, consider composting. This means nutrients are able to be put back into the soil, cutting the amount transported to rot in landfill. Or it may inspire you to start up a little veggie garden and grow some of your food for next to nothing.
The energy-saving tip you probably didn’t think of: time
If Chai’s concept of a philosophical shift around how much discomfort from heat or cold you are willing to accept seemed left field, then he has a second idea for how to cut your energy use that at first appears to have nothing to do with cost-saving at all.
It is time.
Busy lifestyles increasingly rely on strategies to pack as much as possible into a day. But many of those things are also increasing our energy use, he argues.
Relying on the clothes dryer to finish the washing cycle is super helpful on a wet day but how many of us use this energy sucking appliance even when the sun is shining?
The extra time it takes to hang clothes on a line or a drying frame and then wait for the sun and wind to do their job can feel impossibly slow for those of us rushing from task to task.
What about walking to drop the kids to sport training, or up to the shops to buy a few extra groceries for dinner, instead of jumping in the car? If only there was time.
Time also allows us to cook from scratch – cutting the cost of takeaway or home delivery, even ingredients like pasta or curry sauces that are more expensive, and often less healthy, than doing it yourself.
Is there a role for technology?
Using solar technology as a way of generating low-cost electricity is one method for keeping energy bills down.
But Chai says “smart systems” are not within reach of all of us.
“Smart systems like solar are good because they mean you can cut down on your energy usage, but it also means spending more money to have them installed,” he says. “Right now a lot of people don’t have money to do that so although they are an option I don’t like to emphasise those things.”
Instead, Chai returns to his philosophy of questioning your energy use patterns.
“Be mindful of your energy use. Sometimes saving energy is as simple as questioning your daily routine,” he says. “What is the temperature in the air? What are your other transport options? We should build a habit of asking ourselves 'Is there another way of doing it?'.”
