Buying or building a home in Australia? Here are the energy efficiency features worth paying for

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When the summer sun beats down on the west-facing windows of our 20-storey apartment in Melbourne, my resolve to turn on the air-con soon falters.

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I crank up our energy consumption at the same time as everyone else, adding more demand to an already strained grid. Even though we're paying for 100% renewable energy, I still feel guilty about it.

"I will stop using single-use coffee cups and switch to reusable ones." - Michael, Perth

Fans are cost-effective to operate and, when paired with air conditioning, reduce the energy required for cooling.

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Unfortunately, our blinds are black and soak up more heat than they reflect. Our next investment will be blinds with a thin layer of reflective aluminium. The suppliers say they can bring down temperatures by up to 8 degrees compared to rooms without window treatments.

Aluminium can handle the heat when it's paired with a thermal break, but in other situations, it conducts heat like a superconductor. Our windows have double glazing, but the aluminium frames act like hotplates.

This could've been sorted with a gasket installed.

since 2015.

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Our high-rise building was built back in the 1990s, so you might understand if the builders didn't think to insulate the window frames at the time, but McLeod reckons thermal breaks should be a standard feature in any new apartment these days. The extra cost of including them is easily offset by the energy savings, and it's dropping rapidly as these frames become more widespread.

It's best to use outdoor blinds or awnings to stop the sun's rays from hitting our apartment windows in the first place.

But Melbourne is a windy city, and the wind gets stronger the higher up you go. “There's a lot of nervousness about attaching a shade sail to a high-rise building,” McLeod says.

Good engineering and sensors that pull in the blinds in strong winds might overcome this issue, but building regulations stop us from changing the exterior of the building. The rules can only be altered at an annual general meeting or by a special resolution, requiring the backing of 75% of unit owners.

Shading windows with umbrellas or using cardboard to block out the sun's rays when temperatures soar.

She warns that climate change makes heatwaves more deadly, but the effects aren't spread equally, as renters are more likely to live in houses that aren't well-built or insulated, or don't have air conditioning.

Then there's location to consider. "Lower-income suburbs have a higher heat island effect," says Bacon. "The hotter your suburb is, the more likely it is to be poorer," she says.

“Planting trees on a street can lower the urban heat island effect by a few degrees. And if your street is three degrees cooler, your home will be three degrees cooler as well.”

Fair dinkum, Bacon reckons the scale's gone out of whack because it's calibrated to old climate data from back in the day, not the scorching hot summers we're gettin' nowadays.

She identifies key things to watch out for when considering building or buying a house in a suburban growth area.

“First off, it's about taking simple, common-sense steps, like the colour of the roof or whether there's any room around the house for planting some trees,” she says.

can save Aussie households almost $700 a year in power costs.

Another factor is the direction a house is orientated, which affects how hot or cold it can get.

Then there's energy efficiency, like good insulation, deep eaves for shade, solar panels and double- or triple-glazed windows.

Bacon reckons getting a home to beat the heat can mean putting pressure on developers.

“Priorities of the building industry aren't necessarily to let customers know what it'd be like livin' in the house in terms of thermal comfort or energy efficiency.”

While acknowledging that housing is already overpriced, Bacon reckons opting for affordability over thermal comfort is a false economy.

“Without good thermal efficiency and high design standards, more expensive housing will become a reality, not just for households slugged with high energy bills, but for all of us through increased carbon emissions.”

“There are heaps of options that are a fair dinkum easier to sort out when you're building from scratch rather than trying to fit them in afterwards.”

That's something I think about every time I turn on the air conditioner.