Heating and cooling

Maintain a comfortable temperature inside

Insulation

Insulated floors, walls and ceiling make a huge difference to a home’s energy efficiency. In winter, 25–35 per cent of an uninsulated home's warmth is lost through the roof! Insulation keeps your home warm in winter and cool in summer.

Keep your home cool in summer

• During the day, keep your blinds down, curtains drawn and doors closed.

• External shade is more effective than internal, so consider installing external shutters, awnings, or eaves, and grow shady plants.

• Use a fan instead of an air conditioner. It uses about ten percent of the energy that an air conditioner uses.

• If you do use an air conditioner (a reverse cycle!), keeping it set about eight degrees lower - such as 32°C on a 40°C day - than the outside temperature will improve its efficiency.

Keep your home warm in winter

• During the day, open the blinds and curtains to let the sunshine in and help warm your home.

• Snug-fitting, heavy curtains keep warmth in. They don’t need to be thermal; as long as they are thick and lined, they’ll work well. Make sure they are floor length and overlap windows at the side, so no heat escapes. Rolling up towels and placing them along the top of the curtain rail will also help stop warm air escaping (and can work better than pelmets!).

• Cover cold, hard floors with thick rugs.

• Double or triple glaze the windows. If that’s outside your budget, or you’re renting, there are low cost hacks such as covering the glass with bubble wrap.

• When your heater is on, switch your fan to reverse mode. This pulls air up (instead of down, as it does in summer to create a cooling breeze), mixes it with the warmer air at ceiling height, and then pushes it down the walls. Your heater will not need to work as hard to keep the room warm.

• Set the reverse cycle air conditioner temperature to between 18°C and 20°C. Every degree higher can increase costs by ten per cent.