Greg and Anita in Clifton Hill
Greg is an electrical engineer working in the energy sector. Greg and partner Anita have lived in their Clifton Hill house since 2012 and, with a growing family, are working through options for extending and renovating it and so are in the planning stage of their electrification journey.
The journey so far
“We bought this house in 2012, but had bought a previous house in 2002 where we did substantial renovations.
This house is 120 years old but unfortunately has had all of its heritage ripped out in the ‘70’s - so it has all the challenges of an older house. As a result, we’ve been reluctant to make minor improvements knowing there will be some structural things we need to take into account when we renovate or rebuild and electrify. The house has insulation in the ceiling but without insulation in the walls, it’s like a pizza oven after a few hot summer days.
We learned a lot from our previous house - we put R7 insulation in the ceiling and R3.5 in the walls. We also installed double glazed windows and thermal blinds, shading for North, East and West windows and draught-proofed the house. That house was really comfortable - it only needed winter heating for a few hours in the mornings and evenings, and was very comfortable in the summer heat, despite being two stories with no air conditioning.
We also learned:
Quality really matters when it comes to double glazing.
Insulation is relatively really cheap when you are renovating. Use a lot!
Shading can make a big difference. With climate change we need to consider shading for both the west and east facing windows.
While we installed a few electric panel heaters and a gas cooktop back then, now we would do things differently.
Why are you planning to electrify your home?
In no particular order -
Respond to climate change - massively reduce our emissions and play our part in the massive energy transformation we need through household energy production, which is a really important part of the transformation.
Cut our cost of living by lowering our energy bills
Help to build the groundswell of support to reduce gas consumption and accelerate electrification.
What’s on your electrification wish list?
For future renovations, we want to take everything we learned in our previous house, but also add;
Heat pump reverse cycle air conditioners for heating and cooling
Heat pump hot water
An induction cooktop for cleaner, more efficient cooking
Thoroughly insulate and draught proof - R8 in the ceiling, R4 in the walls and install underfloor insulation.
A solar including switchboard capacity and wiring for a battery even if we don’t install a battery initially. On installing a battery we would set it up so the house could work in ‘island mode’ - that is, run off its own stored energy even if the grid went down.
Plan for the windows carefully. Depending on the location of the windows we might need to use different specifications of glass - so, on the west facing windows, we could use glass that filters or reflects all UV energy. Whereas on north-facing windows, we would use mostly shading for the windows rather than reflective or filtering glass, so we could take advantage of passive heating in winter.
Try to find ‘smart’ appliances, so wherever possible we can utilise our installed solar or shift our electricity demand to off-peak times.”
