E100. Improving the energy efficiency on your existing home

In this milestone 100th episode of the Building Design, Prime Time Podcast, hosts Amelia and Frank celebrate their journey while diving into one of the most practical and timely topics for homeowners—how to make your existing home more energy efficient. Drawing from decades of building design experience and personal insight, Frank shares five key areas where improvements can have the biggest impact. 

Listeners are encouraged to start small—checking for drafts with a candle, sealing gaps, and replacing worn-out window seals. Frank highlights insulation as one of the most cost-effective upgrades, especially in the ceiling, while also acknowledging the importance of proper installation to avoid gaps that reduce effectiveness. The episode also covers underfloor and wall insulation, newer technologies like heat recovery ventilation (HRV) systems, and the pros and cons of window upgrades, particularly in older homes where retrofitting can be a challenge.

Beyond thermal comfort and energy savings, the conversation focuses on creating healthier homes by ensuring proper ventilation to reduce condensation and mould. They also touch on hot water efficiency, recommending heat pump systems and pipe insulation for older properties. With practical tips and product suggestions, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to reduce their energy bills and increase comfort and value in their home. Frank and Amelia’s message is clear: with the right advice and a bit of research, energy efficiency improvements are achievable for every homeowner. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode there's a new release each week! 

About us
Prime Design is a building design company locally owned and operated in Tasmania since 2004.  Our goal is to share as much valuable information as possible about the process of building design, extensions, and more. We will talk about a different topic each week. To suggest a topic you would like us to talk about contact us at info@primedesigntas.com.au

Disclaimer
The information provided on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, individual circumstances, or remedy. We strongly suggest you consult a qualified professional before taking any action based on the information provided in this podcast. The views, opinions, and information provided in this podcast are those of the hosts do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organisation, employer, or company. All content provided on this podcast is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this podcast and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, or damages arising from its use. We reserve the right to change content or delete any information provided on this podcast at any time without prior notice.

Transcript

E100. Improving the energy efficiency of your existing home

[INTRO] (0:08 - 0:24)

Hello and welcome to the Building Design, Prime Time Podcast, focused on providing valuable information for anyone looking to undertake a new build or extension project. We'll share our tips, tricks and stories from a building designers perspective.

[Amelia] (0:26 - 0:42)

Hello and welcome to the Building Design, Prime Time podcast. I'm your host Amelia and once again we're joined by Frank Geskus.

[Frank] (0:42 - 0:44)

Morning Amelia, how are we?

[Amelia] (0:44 - 0:45)

Good, how are you?

[Frank] (0:45 - 0:50)

Yeah good, a beautiful winter's morning here in Launceston. The sky is blue.

[Amelia] (0:51 - 0:51)

It is.

[Frank] (0:51 - 0:53)

Not a breath of wind.

[Amelia] (0:53 - 0:54)

It's a perfect winter day.

[Frank] (0:55 - 0:57)

It is, the sun is streaming in, it is beautiful.

[Amelia] (0:58 - 1:00)

I actually have an exciting announcement.

[Frank] (1:00 - 1:01)

You do?

[Amelia] (1:01 - 1:08)

I do. This is our 100th podcast. 

[Frank]

Oh wow!

[Amelia]

Yeah, how exciting is that?

[Frank] (1:08 - 1:09)

You could have told me that before.

[Amelia] (1:09 - 1:10)

I know, I thought I'd surprise you.

[Frank] (1:10 - 1:11)

Surprise.

[Amelia] (1:11 - 1:13)

Surprise. 

[Frank] (1:13 - 1:16)

Awesome. 100. Thank you very much Amelia for everything you've done for the podcast.

[Amelia] (1:16 - 1:17)

No problem.

[Frank] (1:17 - 1:18)

You've been an amazing host.

[Amelia] (1:18 - 1:24)

It's been a lot of fun. I love doing the podcast, probably one of my favourite parts of the week.

[Frank] (1:24 - 1:40)

It is, I really enjoy it as well. It's great and especially when we get special guests in and we've had some amazing people. We've got some other amazing people lined up.

[Amelia]

We do. 

[Frank]

So I look forward to doing those because I love learning off other people.

[Amelia] (1:40 - 1:48)

Yeah and hopefully you guys are enjoying listening to some of the information that we share with people and our guests share with people.

[Frank] (1:48 - 2:02)

Yeah, we just want to educate everyone with housing so you don't have the same pitfalls that I've seen with other people and unfortunate directions that have gone in with their housing. So we want to help as many people as possible.

[Amelia] (2:02 - 2:05)

Yeah, avoid some of the things that can go wrong.

[Frank] (2:06 - 2:21)

Yeah, go wrong or wrong choices or lead up the garden path by the wrong people. Exactly. So again, we're going to do something similar today.

We're going to talk about how to make your home more energy efficient. Now this is spoken a lot about, especially in winter. Hey, we're in the middle of winter right now.

[Amelia] (2:21 - 2:22)

We are.

[Frank] (2:22 - 2:40)

Yeah, but it's still good reminders how you can make your house more efficient, saves you money but actually makes your house more comfortable. Thermal comfort, very important. You know, rather than buy yourself, you know, thermal underwear and boots and all that.

[Amelia] (2:40 - 2:42)

4,000 jackets and...

[Frank] (2:42 - 2:47)

Yep, I remember growing up, my house was like that because the energy was so expensive.

[Amelia] (2:47 - 2:47)

Yes.

[Frank] (2:48 - 3:04)

Now our energy is going ridiculously around Australia and I'm not going to get into my soapboxes but the prices have gone through the roof. I won't go into my thoughts on why but more the point is that means it really is important that you get the best bang for your buck for your power bill.

[Amelia] (3:04 - 3:08)

Exactly and if you can make some changes to your home to help with that.

[Frank] (3:08 - 3:09)

Yes, very much so.

[Amelia] (3:09 - 3:10)

You can make it better.

[Frank] (3:10 - 3:25)

And I've lived in a variety of homes. My very first home was over 100 years old and man, that was a shocker to try and keep warm. And then I designed my own home.

We make it thermally efficient, passive solar design. I'm still living in it now, 22 years later and it works well.

[Amelia] (3:25 - 3:31)

And that was, I guess, probably a pretty new thing, some of the things that you implemented at that stage.

[Frank] (3:31 - 3:36)

Yeah, it was more what I could afford as well at the time of what my budget was.

[Amelia] (3:36 - 3:36)

Yes.

[Frank] (3:36 - 3:45)

So I did spend money where I felt it was important and it was also of that age where everyone was putting in halogen downlights.

[Amelia] (3:45 - 3:45)

Yes.

[Frank] (3:46 - 4:11)

And all my mates go, why do you put downlights? We've got all these normal lights and all this. I don't want to put holes through my insulation because back then with these halogen downlights, you had to have, it was a 250 millimetre diameter circle of clear space around your light.

Now it wasn't until later we figured out because if you didn't, the house would catch on fire. And they were all having a go at me and I says, well, I wanted the insulation as one clean blanket.

[Amelia] (4:11 - 4:12)

Yes.

[Frank] (4:12 - 4:27)

No holes, no gaps, no nothing. And I read up on it a lot and improved the efficiency massively and it did work. And some of them go, it wouldn't make that much difference.

It makes a huge difference. A tiny gap in your insulation makes a massive difference.

[Amelia] (4:27 - 4:27)

Yes.

[Frank] (4:28 - 4:32)

Imagine someone putting a hole in your doona or your quilt on your bed.

[Amelia] (4:32 - 4:33)

Of course it's going to be cold.

[Frank] (4:34 - 4:35)

You're going to have one cold gap.

[Amelia] (4:35 - 4:36)

Bit drafty.

[Frank] (4:36 - 5:17)

Yeah. And you're all fighting on which side you want that side of the doona. But it's the same principle.

So we'll start there with ceiling air leaks. Now, depending on the age of your home, some are more leaky than others. The old homes, they're super leaky, but you can improve them.

And I would always recommend start with one room at a time. And you do the old candle test. So you wait for a little bit of a breezy day.

Doesn't have to be too much. And you run the candle around the house, down the skirtings, around cupboards, around doors, whatever, windows. And see if the flame moves.

You can't feel the breeze, but the leak, the air will go out. So you heat that room up, it's going out.

[Amelia] (5:18 - 5:18)

Yes.

[Frank] (5:18 - 5:34)

So once you've figured out where they are, let's start with windows. You could have aluminium windows, old aluminium windows. And if they're old, you need to check all the rubber seals.

Because they don't last forever. They may perish. They go hard and brittle and then they don't seal properly.

[Amelia] (5:35 - 5:35)

Yes.

[Frank] (5:36 - 5:50)

And aluminium's also got a slight other problem when it's really cold here in Tassie. You get a nice minus four night, you'll see that inside your house, the aluminium will condensate on the inside. So it'll get wet on the aluminium frame.

[Amelia] (5:51 - 5:52)

It does. Yes, I've seen that.

[Frank] (5:53 - 6:18)

Yeah. And you can actually feel it standing next to it. You can feel the coldness between the two.

And that's why having really good curtains or blinds to help with that as well. Does make a difference, surprising amount of difference. So aluminium windows, look at replacing rubbers.

If that's too hard, you might have to look at a future upgrade of windows. We'll talk about that a bit later. Timber windows.

They can be a bit tougher, but they're always loose and rattly.

[Amelia] (6:18 - 6:19)

They are.

[Frank] (6:19 - 6:24)

And some people have the old way of dealing with it, where they just painted them all shut. You couldn't even open up a window.

[Amelia] (6:24 - 6:26)

Why call them windows if they're painted shut?

[Frank] (6:26 - 6:28)

Well, openable windows anyway.

[Amelia] (6:29 - 6:29)

You can't open them.

[Frank] (6:29 - 6:46)

Yeah, but it's pretty pointless because you need to ventilate your room. So this is a fine balance. You need to vent your room to get all the dirty air out and moist air out.

And you've got to do that on a regular basis. And if you don't, you get mould, mildew, and you get sick. It's not for a very healthy environment.

[Amelia] (6:47 - 6:48)

Oh, definitely not.

[Frank] (6:48 - 7:35)

But timber windows, you can buy seals, Raven seals, whole bunch of guys, and you can seal around the windows and make them relatively airtight and improve that. Skirtings, architraves, you can cork those up is one way. Or you can under doors if you need to.

Internal doors, not so much. External doors, door sweeps. Foams, draft stoppers, that type of thing.

They're not perfect, but they'll help improve it. So then just recheck with your candle to see if it's improved it. Sometimes it's not always easy to figure that out.

It's pretty easy to do this stuff, you know. And I'd encourage anyone to have a crack of it if you've got an older home. Just start with one room at a time.

And also good curtains and stuff. But the caveat here is condensation.

[Amelia] (7:36 - 7:37)

Yeah, once you seal everything up.

[Frank] (7:37 - 7:50)

Well, even if it's partly sealed, you've got to get quite a number of air changes in each room. And it's under the building code, the National Construction Code, you need X amount of air changes in your room just to stay healthy.

[Amelia] (7:51 - 7:51)

Yes.

[Frank] (7:51 - 7:56)

You've got to open your windows and let it out. Now, in the middle of winter, that ain't real pleasant.

[Amelia] (7:56 - 7:57)

Not here in Tassie, no.

[Frank] (7:58 - 8:30)

No. So obviously, you may not occupy your house all day and the kids are out of school, you might be working, open the windows, get fresh air into the house. Get home, yes, it's a bit cold, close it all up, heat up the home.

Now, some people keep the heaters on 24-7 and cost them a bomb. I don't believe that's a really good idea. You need to be able to get air changes because heat pumps, air conditioners, we call them heat pumps in Tassie because that's how we use them.

They are your reverse cycle AC units. They don't change the air.

[Amelia] (8:31 - 8:31)

No, they don't.

[Frank] (8:31 - 8:52)

No, same air goes right through it. So its job is there. Now, there are ceiling cassettes that will bring fresh air in and take old air out.

[Amelia]

Yes. 

[Frank]

But they're not hugely efficient in that regard. So venting your rooms, your house is very, very important. And the most important one is your wet areas.

[Amelia] (8:53 - 8:58)

Oh, I keep my bathroom window open 24-7, just a little bit.

[Frank] (8:58 - 9:00)

Keep your fan on for 10 minutes after it's been used.

[Frank] (9:00 - 9:02)

Yes, that's a really good idea.

[Amelia] (9:02 - 10:16)

Close the door, open the windows, get the fan going, make sure the fan doesn't vent to the roof. It goes outside through the eaves or through the wall and dry out that room. Yes.

Get the moisture out. All right, next one we're going to talk about is insulation. So upgrading or re-establishing insulation is really important.

So the best bang for your buck you're going to get is insulation in your ceiling. Heat goes up, there's your blanket. Exactly.

You want a nice warm doon or above view at your ceiling. But even if you've already got it, it's worth going up there and checking it. Go through your manhole or access hatch, whatever you want to call it.

Go up through there and go into your roof space and have a look. Because depending on the type of roof you have, the wind can go through and flip the bats up. Yes.

So they're dislodged, they need to be put back. So it forms a nice even surface with no gaps. You've got to look for no gaps.

I've seen some people put thinner bats, like R2 bats, and they put them all in between the ceiling joists or the trusses. And then they put another set of bats, and they could be two or three R's, and cross lay them.

[Amelia] (10:16 - 10:17)

So they're overlapping.

[Frank] (10:18 - 10:18)

Overlapping.

[Amelia] (10:18 - 10:18)

Yes.

[Frank] (10:19 - 10:24)

So then it not only helps hold them down, but also deals with quite a number of gaps.

[Amelia] (10:24 - 10:28)

Even making sure they've been installed properly. Because isn't that one of your pet hates that it's not checked?

[Frank] (10:29 - 10:29)

Yes.

[Amelia] (10:29 - 10:31)

On a new house?

[Frank] (10:31 - 10:43)

Yes, it's not checked. It's the most dumb ass thing out there. You pay for a house that needs minimum six star, and no one is actually checking if you've got the right size insulation or it's been installed correctly.

[Amelia] (10:43 - 10:44)

Yes.

[Frank] (10:44 - 10:50)

Because you scrunch them up to fit in a space, they're not as efficient.

[Amelia] (10:51 - 10:52)

Exactly right.

[Frank] (10:52 - 11:20)

They're like a big lamington. You can't squash it. It's got to stay the right shape.

You've got to cut them to fit the space. You squash them, they don't work. I've seen builders put them up against block walls, you know, down in basements, put a few batons on, and they squash them down to 50 millimetres, where they need 200 millimetres to actually be efficient.

[Amelia]

Yes. 

[Frank]

To get their rating. So really important to make sure they're installed properly. I'll still fight that fight with new builds, because what are you paying for?

[Amelia] (11:21 - 11:21)

Exactly.

[Frank] (11:22 - 11:27)

So if you're going to put insulation, have a look. You might have the old blow-in stuff, what we used to call the Charlie fluff.

[Amelia] (11:27 - 11:29)

Yes. I've seen that around.

[Frank] (11:29 - 12:01)

And the problem with that, it doesn't hold its shape. You know, it compresses and you've got this matte of fluffy. It's not real fluffy.

It's matte and stuff. It doesn't look very nice. Get it sucked out, get rid of it, and look at options.

Put bats or blown-in polyester insulation. We did that in our office here, and we put R4. So it was about 200 millimetres thick, and it was blown right through the whole top of the ceiling.

And yeah, got really good coverage, no gaps. That's good. But we did find gaps where some of the downlights that were installed blew through the downlights.

[Amelia] (12:01 - 12:02)

Oh, wow.

[Frank] (12:03 - 12:18)

You've got to be careful of that. So you've got to put a shroud around them and stuff like that. So really important.

There are many options for insulation. There's heaps of specialty companies out there that do this. Bang for your buck. That is one of the best things you could do to your house.

[Amelia] (12:18 - 12:19)

Yes.

[Frank] (12:19 - 12:32)

The next option is go under your floor. If you've got a timber floor, if you've got concrete, not a lot you can do. And in our current world of six- and seven-star houses all around Australia, we're now insulating the underside of concrete slabs.

[Amelia] (12:32 - 12:37)

Is that the hydro ones? You know how you put water through it? No?

[Frank] (12:37 - 12:38)

No, that's hydronic. That's a heating.

[Amelia] (12:39 - 12:40)

Oh, that's heating. Okay.

[Frank] (12:40 - 12:42)

Beautiful form of heating.

[Amelia] (12:42 - 12:44)

Yes, it does sound rather nice.

[Frank] (12:44 - 12:49)

But you really want to insulate to the ground, so you don't have the coldness of the ground going up into your concrete.

[Amelia] (12:49 - 12:50)

That makes sense.

[Frank] (12:50 - 12:58)

But some houses we've had to upgrade and put high-density foam and the house is sitting on the high-density foam. 

[Amelia]

Really? 

[Frank]

To get it to comply.

[Amelia] (12:58 - 12:58)

Wow.

[Frank] (12:59 - 13:10)

Very expensive. But it's a beautiful way. Imagine sealing your whole floor, your concrete floor, wrap it up in foam. Because concrete absorbs heat.

[Amelia] (13:10 - 13:11)

It does, yes.

[Frank] (13:11 - 13:14)

And it heats the earth. It dissipates through the earth. It's quite simple.

[Amelia] (13:14 - 13:25)

It must be challenging for those houses that have to get their energy assessments redone if they're doing a significant renovation, I believe. Is it a net 50% or something?

[Frank] (13:26 - 13:36)

In Tasmania, the rules are if you go over 50% of extension to your house, you have to upgrade the whole house. Thermally, bushfire, a whole range of things.

[Amelia] (13:36 - 13:42)

Yes, that must be really challenging because you have limitations as to what you can do sometimes.

[Frank] (13:43 - 13:52)

Oh, that is true. You've got to strip out the walls, new insulation, floors, etc. But a lot of the time when you go down that track, they're doing a massive reno already and they're going to upgrade the whole house.

[Amelia] (13:52 - 13:53)

True, yes.

[Frank] (13:55 - 14:04)

So, insulation, bang for your buck, is fantastic. And you can do this yourself in the ceiling and the floor. I must say, the floor's not real pleasant.

Crawling in under the floor.

[Amelia] (14:04 - 14:06)

Oh, that wouldn't be fun at all. All the spiders.

[Frank] (14:06 - 14:45)

You clean that out first. 

[Amelia]

I hope so. Stuff like cobwebs through the hair.

[Frank]

It's all the other surprises under there and hopefully it's not too damp. So, yeah, insulation in your floor is very, very important. But you need to do that with sealing your house as well because if you've got air gaps, you lose the level of efficiency with your bats that you're installing.

So, next tip is a nice easy one too, is changing your lighting. I think most people are doing this now, is they're replacing their lighting with LED. And some of them come with smart controls.

It's very cool. And the cost of running your lights has dropped dramatically.

[Amelia] (14:46 - 14:47)

Certainly has, yes.

[Frank] (14:47 - 14:51)

But if you've got an old place, and I'll just do it over a period of time, you know.

[Amelia] (14:52 - 14:54)

As they slowly die, just replace them.

[Frank] (14:54 - 15:01)

But if you've got halogen down lights, replace them now. They have been the cause of many house fires.

[Amelia] (15:02 - 15:02)

They have.

[Frank] (15:03 - 15:15)

So, if you're not sure, get someone to have a look or pull them out. Halogen are very different to LEDs. There are some types of old halogen bulbs we can rip out and put an LED globe in there.

[Amelia] (15:16 - 15:16)

Oh, okay.

[Frank] (15:17 - 15:24)

You can actually replace it, but that's not all of them. I've done that myself. Yeah, and then slowly but surely upgrade all your lighting to LED.

[Amelia] (15:25 - 15:25)

Yes.

[Frank] (15:25 - 15:45)

And that's an easy one to do over a period of time. You go to most of the hardware stores. I'm amazed at the type of lighting that's available now.

I was just saying in my garage, I've just got all batten holders and I just had fluoro lights and I found these LEDs. They looked like dinner plates. And you put them into your batten holders and the light they produce is amazing.

[Amelia] (15:46 - 15:51)

Yeah, they're quite bright. And a lot of them you can change whether you want them the warm light or a white light.

[Frank] (15:51 - 15:52)

Yeah, you can actually change them.

[Amelia] (15:52 - 15:53)

It's very cool, yes.

[Frank] (15:53 - 16:00)

It's pretty wild. Okay, the fourth one is wall insulation. We're going up in cost here, by the way.

[Amelia] (16:00 - 16:01)

Yes.

[Frank] (16:01 - 16:58)

So, wall insulation. This one's a hard one. If you're renovating your house and your plaster's a bit hairy going, you could rip off the plaster, put insulation in and put permeable membrane in there as well, which will help.

But in some cases, there's nothing wrong with it. So, there are companies that will pump in insulation into your walls which will then be fully insulated walls. But there again, there's a few caveats with that.

Some of it's a foam, some is polyester and they're going to drill holes either externally or internally to be able to get it in there. The expanding foam system, I've seen that around. You've got to be careful of what type of wiring you have because it can actually have a chemical reaction against the outer coating of the wiring, especially the really old black stuff, apparently.

But the newer white coated stuff that we use, been using for the last 30-odd years, is generally quite compatible.

[Amelia] (16:59 - 17:07)

I actually wonder if you wanted to upgrade your wiring after you've put that new insulation in the walls, can you still run cable?

[Frank] (17:08 - 17:33)

I believe so. You can still push through, as I understand it. But also, they pull all the power points and put covers on the back of them as well.

But some sparkies may tell me that you can't do that with the foam. I don't know, but I know with the polyester you can with normal batts. But it's very difficult for sparkies to get a power point.

You go from the ceiling all the way down. It's really hard. That's why they're experts at what they do.

[Amelia] (17:34 - 17:37)

Yes, so if you're looking to upgrade your wiring, maybe do that before you pump.

[Frank] (17:37 - 17:40)

Is it upgrading or just adding extra power points?

[Amelia] (17:41 - 17:42)

Yeah, exactly.

[Frank] (17:43 - 17:51)

Something like that, you need to talk to your sparkies about that. Now, the fifth one, and this is by far the most expensive, is upgrade your windows.

[Amelia] (17:51 - 17:53)

Yes, that is expensive.

[Frank] (17:53 - 18:06)

But I know a number of people that have done this and they've either gone, not just for the normal double glaze, they've gone either thermal broker or UBPVC, and they reckon the change has been unbelievable.

[Amelia] (18:06 - 18:06)

Really?

[Frank] (18:08 - 18:17)

Even more so they weren't, I know in one case, they weren't able to do the installation because the house was a double concrete block.

[Amelia] (18:18 - 18:20)

Yes, we have that downstairs at our house.

[Frank] (18:20 - 18:23)

So they couldn't do it. So they upgraded the windows, and they said that alone made a massive difference.

[Amelia] (18:23 - 18:25)

Wow, that's interesting.

[Frank] (18:25 - 18:28)

But you're paying a lot of money in your payback period.

[Amelia] (18:29 - 18:29)

Yes.

[Frank] (18:30 - 18:38)

But you could have one of those really old homes where it's concrete and stuff, and it's got the steel framed windows, and they're the worst because they're just...

[Amelia] (18:38 - 18:40)

Oh, they would, yes.

[Frank] (18:40 - 18:46)

The old case was steel framed. It's funny how the steel frame are coming back, but not for exterior.

[Amelia] (18:47 - 18:48)

Ah, okay.

[Frank] (18:48 - 18:51)

Because they just conduct heat. They're just hopeless.

[Amelia] (18:51 - 18:51)

Yeah.

[Frank] (18:52 - 19:21)

So you find usually aluminium or PVC or timber windows. So you can look at that upgrade. It's quite an expensive one.

But one thing from a resale point of view, if you've upgraded your windows, people see that. And if it's been done well, I mean done well, not buggered up architraves and your reveals and all. I've seen messed up ones, and it looks like rubbish.

But when it's done well, done professionally, people take notice of that. That means you've upgraded the house firmly.

[Amelia] (19:22 - 19:22)

Yes.

[Frank] (19:22 - 20:24)

So there's five tips on how to look at increasing the efficiency of your home. Now, I just want to chuck in an extra thing here, and I've spoken about this before, and it continues on about condensation, ventilation. I seriously would love everyone, if you're looking at making your house more efficient, but also thinking about your health, look at heat recovery ventilation systems.

Because if you seal it up too tight, you're going to have condensation and all the rest of it. The heat recovery ventilation systems, the European thing, their winters are a little bit harsher than ours. Yes.

They can't open their windows the same weekend. Their power is more expensive and all the rest of it. But they have these heat recovery units, and they suck the dirty, moist air out.

It still may be warm, though, because you've heated it. You'll take 80, 85% of that heat, transfer it to the air that's sucking from the outside coming in, and transfers that heat into the air coming in. So you have this constant change of air inside your house, which will actually make a healthier home.

[Amelia] (20:25 - 20:26)

Makes sense.

[Frank] (20:27 - 20:35)

And there's a couple of different brands out there you can look at. I would suggest everyone does their own investigation on that. But think of fresh air in your home all the time.

[Amelia] (20:36 - 20:39)

You just replace the filters on those every now and then.

[Frank] (20:39 - 20:44)

Yep. It's like everything's got a filter. You've got to change it, no different.

You've got to clean out your range hood.

[Amelia] (20:44 - 20:47)

Yes. Everything has maintenance.

[Frank] (20:47 - 20:57)

Everything has maintenance. Unfortunately, some people don't do that with their homes, and they don't maintain them properly. It's a bit like your car.

Don't change the oil. Don't expect the engine to last a long time.

[Amelia] (20:57 - 20:57)

Exactly.

[Frank] (20:58 - 21:49)

So there's quite a number of things here you can have a crack at doing yourself. And I spoke about this again. Have a go.

YouTube's fantastic. YouTube is the best resource out there. Have a crack.

Seal air gaps. Put insulation in. Doesn't sound hard.

Changing globes. But for some people, it is. But there are even more other ideas you're going to find on YouTube on how to improve the thermal efficiency of your home.

One we didn't touch on is water heating. You know, your hot water sauna, how to make that more efficient by insulating the hot water pipes. You know, new homes, that's really hard to do because they're all through the walls.

But some of the older homes, the pipes go up through the ceilings and whatnot. If you can wrap those in a foam, an insulation foam, and that will save you money as well.

[Amelia] (21:50 - 21:50)

Yes.

[Frank] (21:51 - 22:01)

So you might have a really old hot water sauna. I had one that lasted nearly 18, no, 19 years. And we upgraded to a more modern one.

And they're more efficient again.

[Amelia] (22:02 - 22:02)

Yes.

[Frank] (22:03 - 22:07)

If you can afford it, look at a heat pump style hot water sauna.

[Amelia] (22:08 - 22:09)

Yes, I've heard of those too.

[Frank] (22:10 - 22:16)

Yeah, they're very good. But make sure they're rated to minus, I think it's minus five or six.

[Amelia] (22:16 - 22:17)

Okay.

[Frank] (22:17 - 22:20)

So they will still operate and give you hot water at minus six.

[Amelia] (22:21 - 22:21)

Yes.

[Frank] (22:21 - 22:23)

Which I find absolutely amazing.

[Amelia] (22:23 - 22:24)

It is amazing.

[Frank] (22:24 - 22:30)

And there's quite a few brands there. So do your research on that. So this will then reduce the amount of energy you're paying.

[Amelia] (22:32 - 22:37)

Yeah. Which is, you know, more money in your pocket and a more efficient home.

[Frank] (22:37 - 22:38)

And hopefully a healthier home.

[Amelia] (22:39 - 22:39)

Exactly.

[Frank] (22:39 - 22:54)

So takeaways, seal up the house, upgrade your insulation or put new insulation in. Look at changing your lighting to more efficient lighting. Wall insulation, if that's an option for you.

Investigate that and window upgrades and then your hot water sauna.

[Amelia] (22:54 - 22:59)

What a great place to wrap up. Thanks for listening to the Building Design, Prime Time Podcast.

[Frank] (22:59 - 22:59)

Catch ya’s later.

[OUTRO] 

You’re listening to the Building Design, Prime Time Podcast.