Of our 7.5 years of stint in Australia, we’ve been (un)fortunate to sample 6 different rental properties. 5 in the upper north shore of Sydney, 1 (so far) in Adelaide. 5 out of 6 were new builds, as in, we were the first renters - nobody else lived there before.
In terms of energy efficiency, the new builds were not at all different from the single older one. All of them had gas for cooking and got water, and all of them had shit insulation and single glazed windows. I daresay it would be much-much easier to find a rental with a solar array on top (especially in South Australia) than one that provides for the best and cheapest way to save energy. You know, the kWh that you don’t consume.
I didn't realise you'd moved to Adelaide, hope you're enjoying it.
Things like insulation, window glazing, roof colour etc. seem to me to be the low hanging fruit and are important for comfort as well as energy costs. Since I wrote this, smarter people than me have pointed out the failures of all the moving parts that need to filter building standards into actual improvements e.g. training of builders, architects etc. and compliance frameworks.
Timely upgrades to rental property stock has been, and remains, a multi-generational problem. In Australia it’s been particularly exacerbated by the negative gearing mechanism, wherein a landlord can own an unprofitable investment property (e.g. rent income doesn’t cover mortgage & expenses) and claim the loss as a tax deduction). Thus, all other things being equal, such landlords literally have less spare cash available to fund upgrades, be they energy-efficiency related nor anything else. Negative Gearing began in the 80s as a way for Boomers (a massive demographic dwarfing all others & threatening to bankrupt developed nation governments with old-age pensions & health care costs) to start saving for their retirements, as they hadn’t had the benefit of decades of Superannuation savings, a scheme also begun in the 80s. NG has since become the 3rd rail of Australian politics: now that the Boomers have all retired, woe betide any government who tries to take away what’s effectively become middle-class welfare for Gen-Xers & even for wealthier Gen-Yers. Sorry to fellow comment-readers if all that sounds like Generation culture wars, but tell me it ‘ain’t true…
So you’re absolutely right, with that backdrop, and an utter lack of any incentives for landlords (further evidence of the great disappointment in Labor’s lacklustre energy & environmental plans), renters become the long-tail of poor energy performance in the domestic housing category. These things need to be chipped away at consistently over many years to make progress, the kind of thing you mention in the ACT, but which needs to be writ large. Don’t hold your breath…
As an energy guy with aspirations of owning a home, I get the double pronged joy of watching bubbling, stuttering housing and climate policies. I'm much more optimistic about effective climate policy than housing policy, which is saying something.
Of our 7.5 years of stint in Australia, we’ve been (un)fortunate to sample 6 different rental properties. 5 in the upper north shore of Sydney, 1 (so far) in Adelaide. 5 out of 6 were new builds, as in, we were the first renters - nobody else lived there before.
In terms of energy efficiency, the new builds were not at all different from the single older one. All of them had gas for cooking and got water, and all of them had shit insulation and single glazed windows. I daresay it would be much-much easier to find a rental with a solar array on top (especially in South Australia) than one that provides for the best and cheapest way to save energy. You know, the kWh that you don’t consume.
I didn't realise you'd moved to Adelaide, hope you're enjoying it.
Things like insulation, window glazing, roof colour etc. seem to me to be the low hanging fruit and are important for comfort as well as energy costs. Since I wrote this, smarter people than me have pointed out the failures of all the moving parts that need to filter building standards into actual improvements e.g. training of builders, architects etc. and compliance frameworks.
Timely upgrades to rental property stock has been, and remains, a multi-generational problem. In Australia it’s been particularly exacerbated by the negative gearing mechanism, wherein a landlord can own an unprofitable investment property (e.g. rent income doesn’t cover mortgage & expenses) and claim the loss as a tax deduction). Thus, all other things being equal, such landlords literally have less spare cash available to fund upgrades, be they energy-efficiency related nor anything else. Negative Gearing began in the 80s as a way for Boomers (a massive demographic dwarfing all others & threatening to bankrupt developed nation governments with old-age pensions & health care costs) to start saving for their retirements, as they hadn’t had the benefit of decades of Superannuation savings, a scheme also begun in the 80s. NG has since become the 3rd rail of Australian politics: now that the Boomers have all retired, woe betide any government who tries to take away what’s effectively become middle-class welfare for Gen-Xers & even for wealthier Gen-Yers. Sorry to fellow comment-readers if all that sounds like Generation culture wars, but tell me it ‘ain’t true…
So you’re absolutely right, with that backdrop, and an utter lack of any incentives for landlords (further evidence of the great disappointment in Labor’s lacklustre energy & environmental plans), renters become the long-tail of poor energy performance in the domestic housing category. These things need to be chipped away at consistently over many years to make progress, the kind of thing you mention in the ACT, but which needs to be writ large. Don’t hold your breath…
As an energy guy with aspirations of owning a home, I get the double pronged joy of watching bubbling, stuttering housing and climate policies. I'm much more optimistic about effective climate policy than housing policy, which is saying something.