Your house

Many homes in New Zealand waste energy.  They are badly designed and constructed, have inadequate insulation, are difficult to heat properly without using large amounts of energy and generally require a lot of energy to run.

New Zealand homes account for about 13% of the country's total energy use. In 2007, $2.3 billion was spent by households just on electricity.[1]

In this section:

Energy uses in your home

Problems in existing New Zealand homes

Benefits of a healthy and energy efficient home

Taking action to make your home healthy and energy efficient

Energy uses in your home

The average family household uses energy for the following:[2]

Graph of household energy use - Space heating 34%, Hot Water 29%, Range 6%, Refrigeration 10%, Lighting 8%, Other 13%

Electricity accounts for the majority (69%) of household energy use in a typical New Zealand household. Solid fuels (wood, etc) account for 24%, gas 9% and LPG 2%.[2]

Problems in existing New Zealand homes

Many existing New Zealand homes, especially older homes, are cold, damp draughty and expensive to heat. In many cases this is due to a small number of common issues.

Poor design

A lot of our houses are badly designed. Simple things, such as making the most of the sun, haven't been included.  Many construction techniques used in the past result in very draughty houses. It's pointless trying to heat a house when every room has a breeze blowing through it.

Poor insulation

The lack of insulation in New Zealand homes is a major energy and health issue. Home insulation only became mandatory in 1978, so homes built before then often have no, or substandard insulation.  Insulation also degrades over time so even if your house has been insulated in the past,  it may need to be upgraded.

Research indicates that around 900,000 New Zealand homes have substandard insulation.[3]

Insulation also needs to be installed carefully to work properly. Badly installed insulation will only work half, and probably a lot less, as well as it is supposed to. 

Damp and mould

Moisture and mould problems are common in New Zealand homes, due to substandard construction, insufficient ventilation of crucial areas people not knowing what they need to do to control moisture in their homes.

Too much moisture inside a house:

  • Is unhealthy, particularly for people with respiratory problems 
  • Can damage the structure of your house
  • Makes rooms harder to heat (because heat energy is absorbed by moisture before the temperature can rise).

In any house with a damp problem it is always best to fix the cause of the problem rather than treating the symptoms with a ventilation system.

Poor quality heating

Many homes don't have adequate heating, and the heating they do have is often inefficient - open fires are a good example. Open fires can make your house colder overall. Research shows they can be detrimental to your health and the health of people who live in the area around your house.[4]

Benefits of a healthy and energy efficient home

An energy efficient home is more comfortable to live in. Its warmer and drier year round and that has a major impact on the health of the people who live there.

An energy efficient home costs less to run. And using less energy means you reduce your carbon footprint which benefits our environment.

Taking action to make your home healthy and energy efficient

This site has lots of information to help you make your home more energy efficient. Work your way through the following topics:

  • Ways to reduce the amount of energy you use in home lighting
  • Make significant savings to your energy bill by finding out the best options for heating and cooling
  • Look at the range of options to help you reduce your bill for hot water
  • Find out how you can make your home easier and cheaper to heat in the section on insulation
  • There are ways to reduce your electricity usage when using and buying appliances
  • Get expert advice about the best options for making energy efficient home improvements and assesses your home's energy use with a home energy rating
  • Look at using renewable energy in your home under generating energy.

More information

Notes:

[1] Energy Information and Modeling Group. 2008. New Zealand Energy Data File. June 2008. Wellington: Ministry of Economic Development.

[2] Isaacs, N.P (ed). 2006. Energy Use in New Zealand Households: Report on Year 10 of the Household Energy End-Use Project. Wellington: BRANZ.

[3] Clark, S.J., Jones, M. & Page, I.C. 2005. New Zealand 2005 House Condition Survey. Wellington: BRANZ.

[4] Fisher, G., Kjellstrom, T., Kingham, S., Hales, S., Shrestha, R., et al. 2007. Health and Air Pollution in New Zealand. New Zealand: HAPINZ.

From the Resource Centre

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