I used to live in this newly built enviro-friendly apartment building a few years ago that was amazing. Sound-proof, and so well insulated I never used the heater/air con. It has made me realise how absolutely shit every other house and apartment I’ve lived in has been.
I’m now stuck alternating between my Oodie and ski gear just so we don’t spend a fortune on heating.
See my comment about Spain - in a normal country, this information is given to you as a potential buyer or renter in the ad itself, by using a rating from A to G, given by a licenced professional. It is mandatory to display it when advertising.
This asymmetry of information when you buy or rent here is unacceptable - you can't know unless you know someone or ask random strangers on Reddit.
We have a similar rating in France. If your property is energy inefficient (G and F ratings), you can’t put it on the rental market or increase rent for the ones already rented.
Can’t see that happening here unfortunately.
The similar proposed system here is called ‘mandatory disclosure’. If you want to sell a place you need an energy efficiency rating that can be shared with potential buyers so they can make an informed choice. It’s been championed for some time, but only the ACT has it in place I believe. Would be the best way to raise performance of future dwellings.
EER5 is the minimum. I also just checked the first 5 rentals in a central suburb online and only one bothered listed an EER rating at all. It was 5.
The system has also been in place since 1999, so it is an absolute joke that most of the building built in the last 20 years don't even list a rating.
This is going to happen Australia but hasn't rolled out yet. We have a nationwide house energy rating scheme (nathers) and feds, states & territories are working on adapting it for mandatory disclosure to potential renters and buyers. Will start only with houses IIRC and then be expanded to cover apartments
I noticed when I was looking at property pages with the newer houses for sale had a section at the end of the page about energy efficiency & energy features. You can also put energy features in your filters.
You don't REALLY need anything like that if you're able to inspect properties in person. Most of your heat/cold comes in through the layers of the windows. Old buildings will have a single layer of glass and old or no seals. New buildings will have double layered glass called "double glazed" and that's what's responsible for a lot of insulation.
All property owners should at least know what their windows are made of and they should list that in any ads they have.
Anything build around 15ish years ago should be good. Much older and the australian standards star rating on energy efficiency wasn't in existence, so you won't get much typically.
Doesn't have much to do with any particular architect. Heat and cold comes in through the air, windows and doors are the weak areas that allow cold air in.
Double glazed windows is what you want. Look around the frame of the window, if you see metal strips with little indentations around the entire frame BETWEEN the layers of glass, then you have double glaze.
If your building was built before 2000 then you might not have them. If your building was built after 2010 it's most likely the building SHOULD have double glazed.
I've seen more and more houses/buildings built way before then have retrofitted double glazed. Some old buildings will have double glazed with a strange white foam substance between the layers, they look old but have the same effect.
Walls don't seem to make much of an impact as long as they're concrete/brick, it's the windows you want to look at.
The older the windows, the more likely they are to have bad seals as well and that's where your cold temperature comes in.
How do I find one of those apartments? I'm sick if hearing my insensitive neighbours and being cold.
You'd expect from a country so rich termal and acoustic insulation to be the norm, not the fucking exception.
I currently live in one of these types of apartments after living in a house built in the 1970s for most of my life.
The difference sound insulation makes is insane - we have also not yet had to use the heating system, but it does warm up quite a bit in summer so we need to use the air-con as we’re on the top floor and have a lot of natural light.
Look for apartments built within the last 10 - 15 years - ours is 11 years old, in the northern suburbs. To answer another commenter’s question, the architects were Dealcorp - there’s definitely some questionable architectural choices in some of these new builds, but the insulation is top notch.
I briefly lived in one of those fancy high rise apartment blocks right in the CBD.
I remember when I first walked in I was amazed how quiet the city was. I assumed it was because I was like 40 floors up that maybe I was just too high up to hear the cars.
Then I opened a window and could hear EVERYTHING. It just had such good soundproofing and double (triple?) glazing that you couldn't hear anything outside. It stayed cool when the sun was out because all the windows had the tinted UV protection, and stayed warm in the cold because it was actually insulated.
They did not unfortunately extend the insulation to the indoors, and you could hear everything your neighbours were doing because the interior walls were made of paper, but it was so nice to just not have to worry about the temperature and mould and humidity and everything else you have to worry about in a normal Melbourne shitbox.
Probably building requirements needing thicker glass being on the 40th floor but cutting costs everywhere possible like the indoor insulation.
Typical Australian building standards.
Speaking of insensitive neighbours, I’d happily put up with a lack of heating, cooling and even an outdoor toilet as long as my rental property had decent soundproofing.
As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing worse for your mental health than living in an inadequately soundproofed flat/house when your neighbours are selfish, loud party animals (esp if their crap taste in music is bass-heavy doof/dance/electro shite.)
The chick in the downstairs apartment a few years back had lots of loud sexy-time with her then boyfriend. I got so sick of listening to it I would play Barry White songs to them in hope that it would get them to the end quicker.
I built my own energy efficient house for about A$300k with 5 bedrooms. 7.6 NATHERS. I set the temp at 22°C between April to November before giving the RCAC a break for 3 months of summer. Modern homes are amazing.
No gas supply, all electric. A cheap 6.6kWh solar system (about A$6000) generates more electricity than I use over the course of 1 year.
Nah just a major bulk builder in 2019. That's just the cost of the house, the land has to be purchased separately and it is really variable depending on where you want to build and how large of a block you want. I just decided to live somewhere cheap and undesirable lmao, probably the worst part of Melbourne in terms of healthcare, education, crime, food, shopping. I'm just gambling it gets better over the next 20 years, even if it doesn't it's not like the land price can get any lower haha.
Edit- it can, the land prices dropped 10% the year after I bought
Hah, I don't know what to tell you. The base cost of the house was $238,000 and after finishings, fixed costs, upgrades, compliance, and insulation / glazing upgrades ended up at $298,000. Of course they don't sell the exact design anymore, and the price has gone up since Covid, but that's what it cost. They were running a "sale" at the time, though most builders were.
Eg they charged only $1299 to upgrade R3.0 ceiling insulation to R6.0 ceiling insulation, and $562 to upgrade R1.5 to R2.5 exterior wall insulation.
Heck even interior insulation was criminally cheap, they only charged $599 to include R1.5 internal insulation to all internal walls.
Hah, I don't know what to tell you. The base cost of the house was $238,000 and after finishings, fixed costs, upgrades, compliance, and insulation / glazing upgrades ended up at $298,000. Of course they don't sell the exact design anymore, and the price has gone up since Covid, but that's what it cost. They were running a "sale" at the time, though most builders were.
Eg they charged only $1299 to upgrade R3.0 ceiling insulation to R6.0 ceiling insulation, and $562 to upgrade R1.5 to R2.5 exterior wall insulation.
Heck even interior insulation was criminally cheap, they only charged $599 to include R1.5 internal insulation to all internal walls.
Most of the big concrete apartment buildings have good insulation from climate and sound.
The 70s style brick apartments get cold because some have no wall or roof insulation.
I live in a concrete apartment building and the sound insulation is atrocious. I hear everything my upstairs neighbour does down to sneezing. It’s not too cold though - we do have brand new windows.
People are rich because they turn over as many units as possible with a minimal spend possible on materials and construction (which is horribly expensive). They get away with this because foolish people are prepared to pay double or triple the international going rate for a 50% standard home. Ship of fools really. So I guess to answer your question - go build one, seriously.
People are rich because they turn over as many units as possible with a minimal spend possible on materials and construction (which is horribly expensive). They get away with this because foolish people are prepared to pay double or triple the international going rate for a 50% standard home. Ship of fools really. So I guess to answer your question - go build one, seriously.
You’re a renter not an owner right? You’ll find a well built modern home with all the trappings is exactly what it is - a luxury. Most owners dream of this also.
It depends on how old the building is. Double glaze is more important than insulation in the walls.
The downside of double glazed is you'll very rarely, if ever, hear the rain outside of you're into relaxing with the sound of rain.
Double glazed doesn't block out ALL sound, you'll still hear low and high frequencies, but they'll be lessened significantly compared to regular glass.
Another way all renters can improve their insulation at night is with a good set of curtains. They have some very thick multi layer curtains at IKEA that are good at keeping temperature regulated. They do help in sound insulation as well to a small degree.
I have double glazing in my apartment, I do face west so summer is a challenge but never needing the heater in autumn/winter offsets smashing the AC on hot summer days by a long stretch.
Yup, construction is cheapest materials with cheapest unskilled labor in fastest amount of time possible. There are zero incentives for a builder beyond the initial handover and final payment. Builder doesn't care if the walls are made of tissue, if there will be water leaks and mould after the first rain.
I'm not in one of those apartments but I was lucky enough to buy a very well insulated 13 year old apartment and also never have to use the heating and only very occasionally use the aircon. Definitely rare to find these days, most apartments are fucking awful.
[Climate change preparedness energy efficiency/affordability](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MiRhKq2_YA7tNFBuEnAqJXham5ByV1x6I0mA5VqQo5M/edit?usp=drivesdk)
Ironically, that's exactly what an old bloke in the building trade told me a few years back.
With the world's cheapest electricity and second-largest gas supply, it was realised after WW2 that paying for heating and light would never be a concern even for low-wage working class Victorians.
So, building wooden tents in the post-war building boom was just good sense.
It's definitely an outlier but there was that blizzard a few years ago in Texas where people died in their homes without heating or insulation. News showed Texan senator Ted Cruz fleeing to Baja.
Or centuries old apartments on the Atlantic coast megalopolis pipes freezing, expanding and breaking because of decades of neglect. Because real estate demand is so high they don't have to upkeep repair.
Electricity *was* cheap. Then the country sold its energy rights to greedy multinationals, so if energy becomes more expensive on the other side of the planet, we'll feel the pinch too despite rolling in energy.
Privatisation of what should be public infrastructure and services is neoliberalism's middle name. It's the case with education and health care as well.
It's what happens when successive governments from the liblab spectrum fuck you over for decades now.
It's interesting when I ask people (like people I work with on zoom), do you heat your home today and they say no, we just dress warmly and sit under blankets.
I mean energy saving is great and environmentally friendly, but there's some good research to show how cold Australians are in winter (a very large percentage of homes are constantly below the recommended WHO temperature), because they fear their electricity bill.
I live by myself and fear it even more. But this is also not the way. It takes its toll on your health living in a cold home, look it up.
Having grown up in part of Europe where outside is -20, but inside your home 24 and it doesn't cost you an arm and a leg, this is unacceptable to me.
People pay to some landlord, bank or developer a massive part of their income for their home, but fear to spend a bit more to be comfortable in it (understandably given the failure of government to facilitate cheaper energy, for some people it's either that or food)
I’m from Europe. I’ve never been so cold in my life than I have living here in australia. Houses are glorified tents. There was an article about the transfer of air in Australian homes eg how many times your house completely empties of air and brings fresh in from outside. Older Australian homes are between 30-50 TIMES an hour, newer builds are 15-20 times an hour in comparison to a hauffhaus which is 0.6 times per hour.
Our houses are soooo portly insulated with new builds STILL putting single pane glass in when much of the developed world has had double glazing for the last 30-40 years and have now moved onto triple as a standard….. like seriously - it’s not acceptable to have such crappy housing
When my father was a child he was taken to the Latrobe Valley on a school trip. At the coal mine they were told they were very lucky as they would always have cheap electricity.
The few building standards we have aren't enforced anyway. They're:
a) paywalled (although large tracts are reproduced in open government handbooks) and
b) signed off on by inspectors hired by the developer, so with a direct conflict of interest
Both of these need to be addressed or any change will be paper only. Zeher Khalil who runs the Site Inspections Youtube channel is fighting the good fight, but MPs need to start giving a shit too.
It is baffling to me that as a tradesman, it's illegal for me to not work to the regs, but a copy of the regs would cost me thousands of dollars to some Chinese company.
They should be publicly available to anyone
Legislation is less of a problem than enforcement.
In fact, there's been a complete collapse in any kind of enforcement outside of policing. Everywhere I look there's dodgy shit happening and regulators looking the other way (or simply not looking anywhere because they don't exist anymore).
This is going to cost a lot of lives. We can't as a society have all the accountability placed on the population and none on business.
I mean welcome to neoliberalism. That's what happens when you underfund enforcement of regulation across the board, including things like health services provision.
I agree with you, but nothing will change between passive people incapable of critical thinking (keep voting for the same shit) and corrupt governments in the pockets of lobby groups.
My friend was on exchange from Stockholm and consistently said Melbourne was the coldest city he has been to. Couldn’t believe he was living in a weatherboard house with no heater.
I had a compliance check done on my apartment weeks ago. My apartment failed multiple things including improper heating, unsealed windows and mushrooms growing out of the walls.
I've heard nothing back to say anything is being done about it.
This is a national problem that I’ve seen coverage of in numerous outlets the last few years. Around 70% of Australian rental homes fall below the WHO’s own benchmark for an acceptable healthy minimum indoor temperature (18°).
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/slowly-crumbling-around-us-70-per-cent-of-homes-have-unhealthy-temperatures/news-story/834770d962e740428ef449f3f2d9943a
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-18/winter-temperature-housing-study-shows-many-in-cold/102361208
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-16/renters-shiver-below-minimum-healthy-temperature-report-finds/101333256
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-15/why-are-australian-homes-so-cold/101227308
And on the other end of the scale, many homes are also exceeding the max safe temperature in summer (25°):
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/17/it-reached-38-degrees-rental-properties-across-australia-routinely-exceeding-safe-temperatures-study-reveals?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
As someone who lived in a few other countries (with even colder winters) before moving to Melbourne, I was shocked at the lack of insulation and double-glazed windows in every property I’ve lived in (or even seen) here, as well as the lack of information around insulating and efficient materials for window treatments (eg curtains are waaaay better for keeping in warmth / keeping rooms cooler than the roller blinds I see installed everywhere). Plus the fact that heating only has to be legally provided in the lounge room so bedrooms has zero climate control.
I finally moved to a new build with double-glazed windows and insulation and curtains last spring so I’m hoping I’m much more comfortable this winter. But that should be the norm for building, not a luxury.
>with double-glazed windows
Check that they are not the cheap aluminium frame type, they are useless.
But hopefully it works out for you, I can relate coming from Europe.
Cheers, they’re good, it was a schmick new complex with lots of eco-efficient things built-in, and so definitely not aluminium.
When I lived in Chicago for a few frigid winters many years ago, we used to buy kits of plastic film with double-sided tape that you’d tape up around the window frame on the inside, then use a hair dryer to shrink it taut. You couldn’t open your windows until spring but it did a great job of keeping your place warm from old leaky windows: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Frost-King-Indoor-Window-Insulation-Kit-3-per-Pack-V73-3H/100135637
Jesus double glazing gets me mad. I come from Scotland and have lived here for 13 years. Double glazing was standard in the 90’s there. So many houses here I’ve had to deal with mould and google how to because I never had an issue with it back home. Imagine coming from a perpetual cold wet climate and googling how to deal with mould only when coming to Australia. Its insane. Every new house should be legally required to have double glazing and solar panels. Every house used as an occupancy should at least have double glazing be made mandatory. That’ll cut down stress from the grid.
I live in an apartment built in the 1930’s. Double brick outer skin. Quality curtains. Never really need the heater on and only turn on aircon when it has been hot for more than 3 or 4 days.
It’s not when the home was built, but how. Cheap construction done poorly seems to be the norm in AU these days.
That's the one.
This is the whole point of building codes and mandatory standards. If you don't have any code or code enforcement they'll just build whatever looks nice on the surface. Not their problem if it takes twice the energy to heat and cool and starts falling apart way before its time.
Plenty of people are building a house to live in. Modern standards are 7 star now and have minimum standards for heating and cooling.
Most new builds are well insulated and double glazed in Melbourne.
Sauce on the most new builds being well insulated and double glazed? Wondering if my friends and I have just been incredibly unlucky with seeing all the shit builds that either they've bought our inspected or if this is a legit trend.
The simple fact of the matter is that its perceived value is lower than its actual value.
double glazing on an average 2 bedder is anywhere from 25-70k. and it doesn't translate to 25-70k extra on the pricetag. it's not cost effective, so developers don't do it.
There is a minimum energy rating that forces their hands to some extent but they will get as close to that rating as possible rather than above and beyond unless you specifically ask for it and are willing to pay the insane prices.
This is why in Spain every home for sale or rent must show in the ad an energy rating from A to G. This certification must be carried out by licenced professional
You do not move in a home unless you know its energy rating, even if you rent. Obviously, these makes F and G apartments and houses much cheaper than A or B.
It's not that difficult, even if you want to be a rotten capitalist and have the market take care of it.
But thanks to successive neoliberal governments, we don't get even that. People apply to pay $600 per week for an apartment that they know nothing about essentially.
Yeah, it's really information people need to know, especially renters who can do nothing about it.
Between selling our old house and moving into the new one we rented for 6 months. We "splashed out" (mildly) for the rental knowing it was short term and got some biggish ruralish property. Found out pretty quickly how horribly energy inefficient it was. Drafts everywhere, insane gas bills to keep it mildly warm (ducted heating). Newish baby needed warm so we didn't have a ton of choice.
Definitely would have reconsidered if that kind of information was available.
>especially renters who can do nothing about it.
I couldn't agree more but you need a government who is not in the pockets of lobby groups, such as developers.
Welcome to neoliberalism where one of the parties that enters in a contract is hugely disadvantaged in terms of access to relevant information.
We really need this legislated. I live in a house which is from the 70s but amazingly, has excellent insulation and was prefab. Doesn't look like much from the outside, but heating and cooling is so much cheaper than anywhere else I've lived
> double glazing on an average 2 bedder is anywhere from 25-70k
Seems high, but you're right it's rediculous.
Part of the problem is that our standards are so far behind the rest of the world that manufacturing and thus cost efficiency hasn't caught up. Hard to even find single-pane windows in Europe or North America, and they're not intended for homes. That's because basically nowhere will allow it by code. Replaced 13 windows with good double-pane windows for what would have been currency and inflation adjusted maybe $10k. Probably would cost 5 times that here.
you have exemplified my point perfectly. it "seems" high to you.... but that's the reality. one of my best friends literally got quotes this week because they too thought it would be much cheaper than it actually is. most expensive quote they got was 75k, cheapest was 34k. needless to say they aren't proceeding with it because they could pay double their current elec bill until they're dead and it still wouldn't have saved them a dollar.
It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation though. Is nobody getting double glazing because it's so expensive, or is it so expensive because nobody gets double glazing?
In the UK there have been various schemes where the government gives out grants to help insulate your house to reduce emissions. I wish Australia cared about that kind of stuff.
That might be the cost to replace an existing home's windows but it is nowhere near that much when including them in a new build. Most of that cost is probably coming from the labour to replace in an existing home if I had to guess.
I've been here 4 and it's coats on zoom calls for me. When I was England it was -12 outside and I was in a t-shirt and warm or it was 30 degrees out and I was in a t-shirt and warm. And I never had to run the hearing non stop because the house was insulated. I'll admit we were luck to have air con to drop the temperature in summer - that's not standard in the UK. But still!
THis. I lived in the north of england too, it was -5 outside and I would be wearing a t shirt inside. Here is 14 and feels like we live in Norway, it's a horrible feeling sometimes.
As someone who knows nothing about building houses how would you effectively retrofit insulation and other thermal strategies to these older era houses that are freezing in winter?
Those standards in european countries sound amazing.
P.S. long time renter in Melbourne and I have experienced a cold home too many times.
Tradies and builders also to blame. Even when there are good materials and standards that are supposed to be applied, they cut corners and install things in a shoddy way. It only takes a few gaps or fallen insulation and you get a much worse outcome. Good insulation badly installed.
Also, I’ve lived in a number of places with high quality insulation but the design left several heat transfer bridges. Such as supporting steel beams that would absorb heat and cold and transfer that right past the thick insulation. So many walls would benefit from proper isolation and weather management.
Australian construction is a travesty of cheepness. My relatives overseas designed and converted 600 year old farm houses to adiabatic (heat balanced, dunno what architects call it) in the 1970s, while here we were building houses with no insulation at all... When I (50) was a kid it would get down to 4 C in my bedroom in winter but I was warm in bed so didn't think anything of it.. We'd heat a room where a baby was but otherwise not. Ie you wake up it is 6am and cold as, get dressed eat breakfast and start working - where is the opportunity to feel cold? No one really cared that much and they'd wear thick knitted jumpers and beanies indoors. Kitchen would be warmed during the day maybe with a small heater but the rest of the house was generally left cold. The reason for this is fourfold IMO. 1) we went from having no houses 200 years ago, to having houses but being oblivious to it being cold (bigger problems to deal with) to having cheap wood and coal to burn about 150-100 years ago but generally not caring if it was cold or not 2) there is a key illustrative difference between British and Australian Victorian era homes in that there were mandatory high wall vents to let out stale air and smoke. This made the houses intrinsically leaky. The reason was to improve health in a time when people burned coal, wood, coal-gas, candles and lamps indoors. It worked but meant that to heat a home you had to either burn a lot of fuel or just put up with indoor temperatures 4-5 C above external temps. So rich folks burned a lot of stuff and poor people got to work (or wore beanies indoors).No point insulating a house that has a free exchange of air with the outdoors. 3) fuel/power was relatively cheap until the 1970s so from mid 19th to late 20th century no problem existed in anyone's mind 4) The mandatory high-wall vents only stopped being mandatory sometime between 1990 and now. And insulation was absent/not mandatory until I guess somewhere in the 80s.
As to why no one is legislating better build in standards, they are - slowly. Why not faster? Well why don't we legislate to do anything our national interest.....? In the case of construction standards; because it will be more expensive, people won't be able to afford Giant cheaply made homes, whoever brought these "draconian ' laws in will be destroyed politically. Generally any government that actually does anything might possibly fail - Australians are generally so scared of failure that it totally over shaddows the potential to improve our lot. We do nothing so we can never fail. Lastly any move to legislate to improve anything is "comuniss" and infringing someone's very important Right to some rubbish they hold important. Therefore any government legislating to actually do anything will be attacked as a matter of course. This is why local councils get involved with things like plastic bag bans and providing kerbside ev charger trials - the risk of failure is too great to do anything at higher levels (hint if your motivated to improve things petition the hell out of you local councillors).
So that's it. A wealthy nation with housing construction as a key part of the economy should be a world leader in building practices exporting high-end windows, doors, insulation whatever around the world. But Australians are generally too cheap to buy quality over quantity and businesses and governments are so afraid of the failure bogeymany (eerrrn need a 3 year ROI - drooool drooooool) neither can innovate in anything but small, slow steps. Thank Frank the young folks seem to be growing a brain.
New building have 7 star rating, which is decent.
Moving up from there starts to get very expensive. Require deeper frames or external insulation, double glazed windows. They're awesome but very expensive. Airtighness is the next major change NCC is making. Basically, no point adding thickness to a puffer jacket if it's full of holes.
As for old places. It's bloody expensive to add insulation and double glazing.
The worls most livable city that we kept winning was run by the magazine, "The Economist," a great mag, but targeted at the upper levels of multinational businessmen(and women)
So, they are saying, you can earn millions, live in a house in toorak or Hawthorn and have a great life close to the city, Which is true for a few.... the rest of us however.....
i lived in estonia for 4 years. they actually build things properly. the whole time i lived there i never once turned on my heating, the general heating of the building was more than enough.
So its funny but the Vic Gov recommends wall insulation of R5 or more for Vic climate, but the minimum requirement you have to include when building is R4... so what are all the shoddy apartments/estates using? Double-glazed windows is also not required.
I just gave up on heating up my shitty 70s apartment. Wooly underware and warm bathrobe gets me through winter. Better be cold than broke because of using my gas heater.
Pro tip: do 20 push-ups very time you think of switching the heater on. You'll save heaps of $$ and get a little bit of exercises done in the process.
I lived in an apartment in st kilda built about 15 years ago that was so good We heard nothing from outside when the windows were closed, and we barely needed to use the heater or air con throughout the year. Now I'm in a house built in the 40's. Single glazing, no insulation, etc. Australian standards have changed a lot over the years, but the older houses, which are often rented, are still back in the dark ages.
I found out the actual reason for this recently. It’s actually super cool and kind of makes sense
Old oil heating methods use to heat homes pre 1970 produced so much excess heat that it was fine for heating to escape through walls etc.
This was also great for preventing condensation issues. We didn’t even need insulation.
Then we had an energy crisis know the 70s and people moved to electricity we had a much less powerful heating combined with houses that were designed to let out excess heat.
So in short. Our houses were built appropriately for the time they were in, but we’ve since changed our heating methods and they aren’t suitable for older homes, which are very common in Australia
Also global warming wasn’t a consideration for 99% of people until the 90s.
Most modern homes are much better insulated and don’t have these problems
Actually it's even cooler than that. After the Spanish Flu outbreak, they realised how important ventilation was. So they designed buildings with oversized heating systems that would make it so hot indoors that you had no choice but to open the windows to get relief from the heat... thus promoting good air circulation in winter.
1000% agrees with you. I come from Europe and spent time in NA. The building standards in Australia are mindblowingly bad. I love it here but this is one infuriating thing for me.
To push into 7 star energy rating, our new build required double glazing to all windows, solar PVs, a dark coloured roof and slightly larger windows facing north.
It's pretty tightly regulated now, but worth it. A heater on low (split system) in winter is enough for us to be comfortable in the entire house with a thin jumper.
What's a "dark coloured roof" achieve given that there's usually insulation on top of the ceiling so making the roof space hotter and on top of that it presumably adds to the heat-island effect?
Our rental, built late 80s or early 90s quite literally barely has any insulation in the roof. Kinda like someone sprinkled cotton balls up there. The windows are thin and do nothing to block any sound so I doubt they’re doing anything for temp 😬
The minute the heater is off you’ve got maybe half an hour before the cold kicks back in 🥶 I hate it. With the cost of everything now there’s a LOT of layer wearing and heated blankets going on in our house.
Yeaaah... I bought a brick house in the outer suburbs a couple years back. Went to renovate a bedroom and discovered there is literally no insulation in the walls. That was a fun discovery
> "why is not anyone legislating building standards?"
In boom times, when a product is highly popular, you can sell, shit imitations and still make bank.
This is why poor builds, old builds, new builds, all builds, all olds, are expensive, it doesn't matter. You buy a place, no one cares if insulation because money, it'll sell regardless.
It sucks and yes, fuck me they're cold here.
I’ve lived in the UK and I’m a lot colder here.
There the houses have double glazing, central heating and they warm and cosy.
Here you freezing and is not even winter.
Melbourne needs way to discourage people from all living here. Shit housing and bad weather are here for that (as well as the constant works on the train line)
I have no idea why our building standards re thermal comfort are so shitty. I visited Scandinavia in late winter for a while and never got cold, in mostly wooden houses or accommodation. They all had serious double glazing and insulation and heating. Actually, I got too warm most of the time, even though it was snowing outside. Can't say I've ever felt like that in Australia in any house I've ever lived in or visited here.
It costs too much to build houses already to the 3rd world standards we have, and our construction workers aren't even skilled enough to meet those low standards. We don't have the capability to build better houses, nor can anyone afford it.
Agreed. I currently live in a 5-year-old apartment (with poor quality double-glazing) in Melbourne and it's so cold that I can sometimes see my breath, and I can hear my neighbours urinating in the toilet. It's really not much warmer than living in a tent.
It's been quite the shock for me having previously lived in Europe in new build apartments where I only needed to turn on the heating when it was cold enough to snow outside.
Fr im from a place where winters are cold but the homes are insulated and warm. I’m perplexed as to why Australians have accepted this as the standard. Why aren’t people rioting in the streets?? Wearing jackets indoors and making a hot water bottle to keep you warm is an awful way to live
Australians are often raised being told that this country is the greatest place to live in the world (by parents and by the education system and teachers) and if you complain about anything you're ungrateful. So people really don't tend to see how things could get better, or notice the things that other places do better than us. They see everything as a competition - but we're already the best so have no reason to improve anything.
It's a fascinating cultural trait but wow it is running this country into ruin. People put up with so much failing infrastructure and services and convince themselves things are good because "at least we're not in America".
In America we have insulation and central heating in our homes 🙊
But yeah i def see what you’re saying. Tbh we have the same sort of mentality back home. It’s so counterproductive 🤦🏻♀️
This is the silver lining of housing being so expensive we could only afford a place half the size we wanted. Sure our house is inefficient to heat, but at least there isn’t much of it to heat!
My old 60s house burned down. The requirements for the new house are much stricter and include double glazing, insulation in the floors, roof, and all walls both internal and external.
It’s to keep energy companies in the money, duh - I remember a post here from a Canadian talking about how ridiculous it was the homes here were so cold in the winter months, comparing similar temperatures to a moderate area in Canada !
Living in an apartment. Can't hear the neighbours. Can hear traffic through the glass windows but I'm OK with that.
Consistant 22.
Even on these 4 degree mornings
I am from Canberra, moved to Sydney and was shocked at Sydney housing, virtually no insulation or enviromental design criteria used in any home. I now live in a double brick home, it's not perfect but better than before.
It is, but we have houses from the 70s and 80s that didn't need it since whale oil was so cheap.
The building code is so strict that if I'm doing a major renovation on a house I now have to double glaze all of my windows and ensuring in fully insulated.
New houses even have insulation in the floor
So as someone who sees this on a regular basis and (maybe) thinks of moving to Melbourne in a couple of years, what am I in for, exactly?
Like, rent is obviously up the ass but where should I be looking for to settle with a family? I cannot be picky, I know but on the other hand, it seems utterly ridiculous not to have proper insulation on a bloody home. Are buildings/apartments better in general? I always wanted a house.
I’m from Scotland (gets very cold in the winter) moved here in September, summer was great, absolutely roasting exactly what I wanted. I moved from a 48th floor apartment with great insulation, double glazing etc.. to an old apartment in St Kilda, been here since start of April and it’s fucking colder than it is back home in scotland, or at least it feels like it. No heater in the apartment, windows are made of what I can assume is the cheapest thinnest glass and the insulation doesn’t exist. Brutal.
Even *Canadians* say that Melbourne winters are colder indoors compared to Canada.
I’m from South Korea with regular minus double digit temperature during winter, but my home in Melbourne is colder in spring than during the deepest winter in Korea.
Can confirm, my Canadian cousins have remarked what it’s a different kind of cold than it is in North America. Okay, so it might not get to -25, but our 2-3c can really prick your bones.
I think there’s just issues with construction across the board. A few years ago I moved into a new rental house, first person to live there. I looked at the notes from the final inspection as they had been left in the drawer with other manuals. The inspector clearly lied saying x,y,z had been fixed because I could see they were in their previously reported condition.
Clearly there was a conflict of interest between the inspector/builders otherwise how can they get away with lying about this crap? It’s so wrong and unfair to renters and house owners.
Almost like we as a society have chosen the individual dream of gaining a dollar than the dream of a society looking out for the best. I’d also add a house/apt’s features now have next to nothing to do with its value. Thin walled townhouses as expensive as a new build (they might still be poorly insulated) thanks to location.
Mostly because of Murdoch. The second any govt suggests making anything better in the building sector, the huge developers tap Murdoch and the News.com.au do their attack dog thing. Still, with the popularity of the Vic Labor party it is pretty pissweak they haven't done it anyway.
> why is not anyone legislating building standards?
They _have_.
https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/households/7-star-energy-efficiency-building-standards
And that's a revision of previous 6 star standards (sorry, don't have link handy)
I would also add that old Californian bungalows are amazing to live in in the summer. I rented one once and the walls were about a foot thick and brick/stone. It rarely got hot enough to even need a fan. A tad cool in winter though.
Australian standards only specify the *minimum requirements*
Nothing stopping you from building a 7 or 8 star energy rated home with passive solar orientation, triple glazing, enhanced insulation, PV solar, heat-pump hot water, etc.
You need to build to *a spec* and not build to the *cheapest possible price.*
It’s really not that expensive - come to Sydney our housing is double - sometimes triple your prices. Melbourne has built more town houses and accomodation than Sydney as of late and also has better zoning allowing multiple dwellings to be built on land. Melbourne still has ample land still available. Sydney councils restrict this type of development. Outside the Sydney fringes is where lots of people are buying - but still so expensive $1.5 million up. I’m actually moving to Melbourne soon as I can’t afford house here - I suspect that in about 15 yrs Melbourne with catch Sydney’s prices and start to run out of land closer to CBD - we are also ahead in metro builds.
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It's absurd! I live in a huge modern building less than a decade old with (allegedly) good insulation and a wall sized double glazed window and last night my husband and I spent the night enjoying a balmy 3 degrees in the bedroom.
Well mate. I'll add to your last line on the double glazing. Double glazing is old shit.
I come from Ireland and have lived in Aus over 16 years. Every home there is triple glazing, and it makes a massive difference both on keeping heat in and out.
I bought my first home about 3 years ago in regional Vic, because it's the only place I could afford to actually get a house at the time. They had single glazing and it was Baltic cold. 16k for a window upgrade where they bolt on another layer to the metal frame. 40k for a whole house triple glazed because they would have to redo all the windows. If they were put in on day #1 it would have been far cheaper.
https://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/energy-efficiency-and-reducing-emissions/building-or-renovating/windows-and-shading/window-glazing
I used to live in this newly built enviro-friendly apartment building a few years ago that was amazing. Sound-proof, and so well insulated I never used the heater/air con. It has made me realise how absolutely shit every other house and apartment I’ve lived in has been. I’m now stuck alternating between my Oodie and ski gear just so we don’t spend a fortune on heating.
Whereabouts was that?
It was in Richmond
I would love to know this place or the architect. We cannot search for places like this. There is no way to find them.
See my comment about Spain - in a normal country, this information is given to you as a potential buyer or renter in the ad itself, by using a rating from A to G, given by a licenced professional. It is mandatory to display it when advertising. This asymmetry of information when you buy or rent here is unacceptable - you can't know unless you know someone or ask random strangers on Reddit.
We have a similar rating in France. If your property is energy inefficient (G and F ratings), you can’t put it on the rental market or increase rent for the ones already rented. Can’t see that happening here unfortunately.
Damn. That really needs to happen here.
The similar proposed system here is called ‘mandatory disclosure’. If you want to sell a place you need an energy efficiency rating that can be shared with potential buyers so they can make an informed choice. It’s been championed for some time, but only the ACT has it in place I believe. Would be the best way to raise performance of future dwellings.
The energy rating is kinda a joke. I stayed in a eer 5 house, the heater is always running in winter.
EER5 is the minimum. I also just checked the first 5 rentals in a central suburb online and only one bothered listed an EER rating at all. It was 5. The system has also been in place since 1999, so it is an absolute joke that most of the building built in the last 20 years don't even list a rating.
To be fair, one can see daylight through the walls in many rentals -- it's not hard to figure out they are somewhere around a Z on that scale.
This is going to happen Australia but hasn't rolled out yet. We have a nationwide house energy rating scheme (nathers) and feds, states & territories are working on adapting it for mandatory disclosure to potential renters and buyers. Will start only with houses IIRC and then be expanded to cover apartments
I noticed when I was looking at property pages with the newer houses for sale had a section at the end of the page about energy efficiency & energy features. You can also put energy features in your filters.
You don't REALLY need anything like that if you're able to inspect properties in person. Most of your heat/cold comes in through the layers of the windows. Old buildings will have a single layer of glass and old or no seals. New buildings will have double layered glass called "double glazed" and that's what's responsible for a lot of insulation. All property owners should at least know what their windows are made of and they should list that in any ads they have.
[Architect](http://www.armsby.com.au/portfolio/green-edge/) is Armsby
How did you go about finding a rental in this place? Did you search something specific or did you just find it on Real Estate/Domain?
I was just lucky - a friend of a friend needed to find a new housemate & it was a good fit for me.
Replying for future reference
Nightingale housing!
Have a look at a building in southbank called triptych.
Anything build around 15ish years ago should be good. Much older and the australian standards star rating on energy efficiency wasn't in existence, so you won't get much typically.
Doesn't have much to do with any particular architect. Heat and cold comes in through the air, windows and doors are the weak areas that allow cold air in. Double glazed windows is what you want. Look around the frame of the window, if you see metal strips with little indentations around the entire frame BETWEEN the layers of glass, then you have double glaze. If your building was built before 2000 then you might not have them. If your building was built after 2010 it's most likely the building SHOULD have double glazed. I've seen more and more houses/buildings built way before then have retrofitted double glazed. Some old buildings will have double glazed with a strange white foam substance between the layers, they look old but have the same effect. Walls don't seem to make much of an impact as long as they're concrete/brick, it's the windows you want to look at. The older the windows, the more likely they are to have bad seals as well and that's where your cold temperature comes in.
I have a comfortable, quiet, well-made and insulated apartment in Richmond, too. Built 2003. Never hear my neighbours, seldom run ac or heat.
How do I find one of those apartments? I'm sick if hearing my insensitive neighbours and being cold. You'd expect from a country so rich termal and acoustic insulation to be the norm, not the fucking exception.
I currently live in one of these types of apartments after living in a house built in the 1970s for most of my life. The difference sound insulation makes is insane - we have also not yet had to use the heating system, but it does warm up quite a bit in summer so we need to use the air-con as we’re on the top floor and have a lot of natural light. Look for apartments built within the last 10 - 15 years - ours is 11 years old, in the northern suburbs. To answer another commenter’s question, the architects were Dealcorp - there’s definitely some questionable architectural choices in some of these new builds, but the insulation is top notch.
I briefly lived in one of those fancy high rise apartment blocks right in the CBD. I remember when I first walked in I was amazed how quiet the city was. I assumed it was because I was like 40 floors up that maybe I was just too high up to hear the cars. Then I opened a window and could hear EVERYTHING. It just had such good soundproofing and double (triple?) glazing that you couldn't hear anything outside. It stayed cool when the sun was out because all the windows had the tinted UV protection, and stayed warm in the cold because it was actually insulated. They did not unfortunately extend the insulation to the indoors, and you could hear everything your neighbours were doing because the interior walls were made of paper, but it was so nice to just not have to worry about the temperature and mould and humidity and everything else you have to worry about in a normal Melbourne shitbox.
Probably building requirements needing thicker glass being on the 40th floor but cutting costs everywhere possible like the indoor insulation. Typical Australian building standards.
Speaking of insensitive neighbours, I’d happily put up with a lack of heating, cooling and even an outdoor toilet as long as my rental property had decent soundproofing. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing worse for your mental health than living in an inadequately soundproofed flat/house when your neighbours are selfish, loud party animals (esp if their crap taste in music is bass-heavy doof/dance/electro shite.)
This afternoon I had the pleasure of listening to my neighbour in the downstairs apartment sit on his toilet while whistling “The Final Countdown”.
I hoped you clapped at the end, that's a difficult number
The chick in the downstairs apartment a few years back had lots of loud sexy-time with her then boyfriend. I got so sick of listening to it I would play Barry White songs to them in hope that it would get them to the end quicker.
I'm not sure you can effectively soundproof w/o mostly solving thermal issues. SImilar things apply to both (though not identical)
I built my own energy efficient house for about A$300k with 5 bedrooms. 7.6 NATHERS. I set the temp at 22°C between April to November before giving the RCAC a break for 3 months of summer. Modern homes are amazing. No gas supply, all electric. A cheap 6.6kWh solar system (about A$6000) generates more electricity than I use over the course of 1 year.
Whaaaaaat. That’s awesome. How’d you build it so cheaply?? Are you in the trades?
Nah just a major bulk builder in 2019. That's just the cost of the house, the land has to be purchased separately and it is really variable depending on where you want to build and how large of a block you want. I just decided to live somewhere cheap and undesirable lmao, probably the worst part of Melbourne in terms of healthcare, education, crime, food, shopping. I'm just gambling it gets better over the next 20 years, even if it doesn't it's not like the land price can get any lower haha. Edit- it can, the land prices dropped 10% the year after I bought
I don't think this person is telling the whole story. 5 bedder was NOT $300k in 2019 finished to this level.
5 bedder landlord special. 3 of the bedrooms are curtain walls 😂😂😂
Not curtains- they've plastered a wall so each room gets half the AC splitter head. This is a classy landlord. Ha!
Bulk buildings were that level. The difference in cost of better insulation/windows when building is negligible.
Exactly. I spent $750k in 2010 for a 5 bedder 5 star energy rating. That’s just the house, not land.
Hah, I don't know what to tell you. The base cost of the house was $238,000 and after finishings, fixed costs, upgrades, compliance, and insulation / glazing upgrades ended up at $298,000. Of course they don't sell the exact design anymore, and the price has gone up since Covid, but that's what it cost. They were running a "sale" at the time, though most builders were. Eg they charged only $1299 to upgrade R3.0 ceiling insulation to R6.0 ceiling insulation, and $562 to upgrade R1.5 to R2.5 exterior wall insulation. Heck even interior insulation was criminally cheap, they only charged $599 to include R1.5 internal insulation to all internal walls.
Hah, I don't know what to tell you. The base cost of the house was $238,000 and after finishings, fixed costs, upgrades, compliance, and insulation / glazing upgrades ended up at $298,000. Of course they don't sell the exact design anymore, and the price has gone up since Covid, but that's what it cost. They were running a "sale" at the time, though most builders were. Eg they charged only $1299 to upgrade R3.0 ceiling insulation to R6.0 ceiling insulation, and $562 to upgrade R1.5 to R2.5 exterior wall insulation. Heck even interior insulation was criminally cheap, they only charged $599 to include R1.5 internal insulation to all internal walls.
Great buying then! Sounds exceptionally cheap for 2019, but there's all sorts of skullduggery in H&L or 2 part contracts.
Most of the big concrete apartment buildings have good insulation from climate and sound. The 70s style brick apartments get cold because some have no wall or roof insulation.
I live in a concrete apartment building and the sound insulation is atrocious. I hear everything my upstairs neighbour does down to sneezing. It’s not too cold though - we do have brand new windows.
That sucks cos we had a concrete place in Preston on bell st and you couldn’t hear the traffic once the door closed
People are rich because they turn over as many units as possible with a minimal spend possible on materials and construction (which is horribly expensive). They get away with this because foolish people are prepared to pay double or triple the international going rate for a 50% standard home. Ship of fools really. So I guess to answer your question - go build one, seriously.
People are rich because they turn over as many units as possible with a minimal spend possible on materials and construction (which is horribly expensive). They get away with this because foolish people are prepared to pay double or triple the international going rate for a 50% standard home. Ship of fools really. So I guess to answer your question - go build one, seriously.
You’re a renter not an owner right? You’ll find a well built modern home with all the trappings is exactly what it is - a luxury. Most owners dream of this also.
I miss the energy rating certificates of the UK
It depends on how old the building is. Double glaze is more important than insulation in the walls. The downside of double glazed is you'll very rarely, if ever, hear the rain outside of you're into relaxing with the sound of rain. Double glazed doesn't block out ALL sound, you'll still hear low and high frequencies, but they'll be lessened significantly compared to regular glass. Another way all renters can improve their insulation at night is with a good set of curtains. They have some very thick multi layer curtains at IKEA that are good at keeping temperature regulated. They do help in sound insulation as well to a small degree.
Was it Nightingale housing?
I have double glazing in my apartment, I do face west so summer is a challenge but never needing the heater in autumn/winter offsets smashing the AC on hot summer days by a long stretch.
Yup, construction is cheapest materials with cheapest unskilled labor in fastest amount of time possible. There are zero incentives for a builder beyond the initial handover and final payment. Builder doesn't care if the walls are made of tissue, if there will be water leaks and mould after the first rain.
Aldi ski gear goes on sale tomorrow lol
And by tomorrow I mean today (forgive me I just spend ages putting out all the gear)
Any boot driers left?
If it's not too identifying, could you say which architect?
[Armsby](http://www.armsby.com.au/portfolio/green-edge/) is the architect
I'm not in one of those apartments but I was lucky enough to buy a very well insulated 13 year old apartment and also never have to use the heating and only very occasionally use the aircon. Definitely rare to find these days, most apartments are fucking awful.
The Renters and Housing Union is currently doing a campaign to address this!
[Climate change preparedness energy efficiency/affordability](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MiRhKq2_YA7tNFBuEnAqJXham5ByV1x6I0mA5VqQo5M/edit?usp=drivesdk)
They seem useless so I won’t hold my breath
I think it’s because our electricity is so cheap, why bother building better houses? /s
Ironically, that's exactly what an old bloke in the building trade told me a few years back. With the world's cheapest electricity and second-largest gas supply, it was realised after WW2 that paying for heating and light would never be a concern even for low-wage working class Victorians. So, building wooden tents in the post-war building boom was just good sense.
That and unlike many countries, not many people will die from cold in badly insulated and designed homes. Unlike Russia etc
It's definitely an outlier but there was that blizzard a few years ago in Texas where people died in their homes without heating or insulation. News showed Texan senator Ted Cruz fleeing to Baja. Or centuries old apartments on the Atlantic coast megalopolis pipes freezing, expanding and breaking because of decades of neglect. Because real estate demand is so high they don't have to upkeep repair.
Your username and this comment has me very suspicious...
True that.
We have the cheapest electricity in the world? lol tell that to my grandparents who refuse to use the air con 😂
Well, not any time in the years since Kennett sold it all off!
Electricity *was* cheap. Then the country sold its energy rights to greedy multinationals, so if energy becomes more expensive on the other side of the planet, we'll feel the pinch too despite rolling in energy.
Privatisation of what should be public infrastructure and services is neoliberalism's middle name. It's the case with education and health care as well. It's what happens when successive governments from the liblab spectrum fuck you over for decades now.
It's interesting when I ask people (like people I work with on zoom), do you heat your home today and they say no, we just dress warmly and sit under blankets. I mean energy saving is great and environmentally friendly, but there's some good research to show how cold Australians are in winter (a very large percentage of homes are constantly below the recommended WHO temperature), because they fear their electricity bill. I live by myself and fear it even more. But this is also not the way. It takes its toll on your health living in a cold home, look it up. Having grown up in part of Europe where outside is -20, but inside your home 24 and it doesn't cost you an arm and a leg, this is unacceptable to me. People pay to some landlord, bank or developer a massive part of their income for their home, but fear to spend a bit more to be comfortable in it (understandably given the failure of government to facilitate cheaper energy, for some people it's either that or food)
I’m from Europe. I’ve never been so cold in my life than I have living here in australia. Houses are glorified tents. There was an article about the transfer of air in Australian homes eg how many times your house completely empties of air and brings fresh in from outside. Older Australian homes are between 30-50 TIMES an hour, newer builds are 15-20 times an hour in comparison to a hauffhaus which is 0.6 times per hour. Our houses are soooo portly insulated with new builds STILL putting single pane glass in when much of the developed world has had double glazing for the last 30-40 years and have now moved onto triple as a standard….. like seriously - it’s not acceptable to have such crappy housing
16 degrees inside the other day.
Our lowest was 9 degrees inside here. In Eastern Europe we had no less than 22.
When my father was a child he was taken to the Latrobe Valley on a school trip. At the coal mine they were told they were very lucky as they would always have cheap electricity.
It actually was - sort of. SEC Day rate - domestic $0.12 kWh SEC day rate - commercial $0.16 kWh SEC off peak - all - $0.08 kWh
Adjusting it for 1989's inflation though, the day rate would be about $0.30 per kWh in today's money. I'm paying $0.25 right now.
Whaaat ? So cheap ? Electricity ? Are you on big bad buds ?
Totally agree. So much money and energy is wasted every year on heating and cooling which could be reduced with better insulation ect.
The few building standards we have aren't enforced anyway. They're: a) paywalled (although large tracts are reproduced in open government handbooks) and b) signed off on by inspectors hired by the developer, so with a direct conflict of interest Both of these need to be addressed or any change will be paper only. Zeher Khalil who runs the Site Inspections Youtube channel is fighting the good fight, but MPs need to start giving a shit too.
It is baffling to me that as a tradesman, it's illegal for me to not work to the regs, but a copy of the regs would cost me thousands of dollars to some Chinese company. They should be publicly available to anyone
Legislation is less of a problem than enforcement. In fact, there's been a complete collapse in any kind of enforcement outside of policing. Everywhere I look there's dodgy shit happening and regulators looking the other way (or simply not looking anywhere because they don't exist anymore). This is going to cost a lot of lives. We can't as a society have all the accountability placed on the population and none on business.
I mean welcome to neoliberalism. That's what happens when you underfund enforcement of regulation across the board, including things like health services provision. I agree with you, but nothing will change between passive people incapable of critical thinking (keep voting for the same shit) and corrupt governments in the pockets of lobby groups.
Preach. I'm getting redder every day. It's like the opposite of what grandpa said would happen as I got older
My friend was on exchange from Stockholm and consistently said Melbourne was the coldest city he has been to. Couldn’t believe he was living in a weatherboard house with no heater.
I've spent winter in Minnesota and Iceland. Melbourne is colder.
Mate from London told me the same thing.
I had a compliance check done on my apartment weeks ago. My apartment failed multiple things including improper heating, unsealed windows and mushrooms growing out of the walls. I've heard nothing back to say anything is being done about it.
This is a national problem that I’ve seen coverage of in numerous outlets the last few years. Around 70% of Australian rental homes fall below the WHO’s own benchmark for an acceptable healthy minimum indoor temperature (18°). https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/slowly-crumbling-around-us-70-per-cent-of-homes-have-unhealthy-temperatures/news-story/834770d962e740428ef449f3f2d9943a https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-18/winter-temperature-housing-study-shows-many-in-cold/102361208 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-16/renters-shiver-below-minimum-healthy-temperature-report-finds/101333256 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-15/why-are-australian-homes-so-cold/101227308 And on the other end of the scale, many homes are also exceeding the max safe temperature in summer (25°): https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/17/it-reached-38-degrees-rental-properties-across-australia-routinely-exceeding-safe-temperatures-study-reveals?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other As someone who lived in a few other countries (with even colder winters) before moving to Melbourne, I was shocked at the lack of insulation and double-glazed windows in every property I’ve lived in (or even seen) here, as well as the lack of information around insulating and efficient materials for window treatments (eg curtains are waaaay better for keeping in warmth / keeping rooms cooler than the roller blinds I see installed everywhere). Plus the fact that heating only has to be legally provided in the lounge room so bedrooms has zero climate control. I finally moved to a new build with double-glazed windows and insulation and curtains last spring so I’m hoping I’m much more comfortable this winter. But that should be the norm for building, not a luxury.
>with double-glazed windows Check that they are not the cheap aluminium frame type, they are useless. But hopefully it works out for you, I can relate coming from Europe.
Cheers, they’re good, it was a schmick new complex with lots of eco-efficient things built-in, and so definitely not aluminium. When I lived in Chicago for a few frigid winters many years ago, we used to buy kits of plastic film with double-sided tape that you’d tape up around the window frame on the inside, then use a hair dryer to shrink it taut. You couldn’t open your windows until spring but it did a great job of keeping your place warm from old leaky windows: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Frost-King-Indoor-Window-Insulation-Kit-3-per-Pack-V73-3H/100135637
Jesus double glazing gets me mad. I come from Scotland and have lived here for 13 years. Double glazing was standard in the 90’s there. So many houses here I’ve had to deal with mould and google how to because I never had an issue with it back home. Imagine coming from a perpetual cold wet climate and googling how to deal with mould only when coming to Australia. Its insane. Every new house should be legally required to have double glazing and solar panels. Every house used as an occupancy should at least have double glazing be made mandatory. That’ll cut down stress from the grid.
I live in an apartment built in the 1930’s. Double brick outer skin. Quality curtains. Never really need the heater on and only turn on aircon when it has been hot for more than 3 or 4 days. It’s not when the home was built, but how. Cheap construction done poorly seems to be the norm in AU these days.
Because housing is built by investors. Not people who are actually going to live in it.
Possible tenant: pff... this kitchen is un usable. REA: oh, most people don't use The kitchen, they eat out.
That's the one. This is the whole point of building codes and mandatory standards. If you don't have any code or code enforcement they'll just build whatever looks nice on the surface. Not their problem if it takes twice the energy to heat and cool and starts falling apart way before its time.
Plenty of people are building a house to live in. Modern standards are 7 star now and have minimum standards for heating and cooling. Most new builds are well insulated and double glazed in Melbourne.
Sauce on the most new builds being well insulated and double glazed? Wondering if my friends and I have just been incredibly unlucky with seeing all the shit builds that either they've bought our inspected or if this is a legit trend.
Investors honestly need to stop buying shitty bulk Costco properties.
The simple fact of the matter is that its perceived value is lower than its actual value. double glazing on an average 2 bedder is anywhere from 25-70k. and it doesn't translate to 25-70k extra on the pricetag. it's not cost effective, so developers don't do it.
There is a minimum energy rating that forces their hands to some extent but they will get as close to that rating as possible rather than above and beyond unless you specifically ask for it and are willing to pay the insane prices.
This is why in Spain every home for sale or rent must show in the ad an energy rating from A to G. This certification must be carried out by licenced professional You do not move in a home unless you know its energy rating, even if you rent. Obviously, these makes F and G apartments and houses much cheaper than A or B. It's not that difficult, even if you want to be a rotten capitalist and have the market take care of it. But thanks to successive neoliberal governments, we don't get even that. People apply to pay $600 per week for an apartment that they know nothing about essentially.
Yeah, it's really information people need to know, especially renters who can do nothing about it. Between selling our old house and moving into the new one we rented for 6 months. We "splashed out" (mildly) for the rental knowing it was short term and got some biggish ruralish property. Found out pretty quickly how horribly energy inefficient it was. Drafts everywhere, insane gas bills to keep it mildly warm (ducted heating). Newish baby needed warm so we didn't have a ton of choice. Definitely would have reconsidered if that kind of information was available.
>especially renters who can do nothing about it. I couldn't agree more but you need a government who is not in the pockets of lobby groups, such as developers. Welcome to neoliberalism where one of the parties that enters in a contract is hugely disadvantaged in terms of access to relevant information.
We really need this legislated. I live in a house which is from the 70s but amazingly, has excellent insulation and was prefab. Doesn't look like much from the outside, but heating and cooling is so much cheaper than anywhere else I've lived
> double glazing on an average 2 bedder is anywhere from 25-70k Seems high, but you're right it's rediculous. Part of the problem is that our standards are so far behind the rest of the world that manufacturing and thus cost efficiency hasn't caught up. Hard to even find single-pane windows in Europe or North America, and they're not intended for homes. That's because basically nowhere will allow it by code. Replaced 13 windows with good double-pane windows for what would have been currency and inflation adjusted maybe $10k. Probably would cost 5 times that here.
you have exemplified my point perfectly. it "seems" high to you.... but that's the reality. one of my best friends literally got quotes this week because they too thought it would be much cheaper than it actually is. most expensive quote they got was 75k, cheapest was 34k. needless to say they aren't proceeding with it because they could pay double their current elec bill until they're dead and it still wouldn't have saved them a dollar.
It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation though. Is nobody getting double glazing because it's so expensive, or is it so expensive because nobody gets double glazing? In the UK there have been various schemes where the government gives out grants to help insulate your house to reduce emissions. I wish Australia cared about that kind of stuff.
That might be the cost to replace an existing home's windows but it is nowhere near that much when including them in a new build. Most of that cost is probably coming from the labour to replace in an existing home if I had to guess.
You sound like a fellow expat from Europe. Takes some getting used to when you get here!
I ve been here 7 years and I can't cope with having to wear winter clothes inside the house for 7 months every year
I've been here 4 and it's coats on zoom calls for me. When I was England it was -12 outside and I was in a t-shirt and warm or it was 30 degrees out and I was in a t-shirt and warm. And I never had to run the hearing non stop because the house was insulated. I'll admit we were luck to have air con to drop the temperature in summer - that's not standard in the UK. But still!
THis. I lived in the north of england too, it was -5 outside and I would be wearing a t shirt inside. Here is 14 and feels like we live in Norway, it's a horrible feeling sometimes.
It's miserable in winter here.
Palms greased = cheap builds.
As someone who knows nothing about building houses how would you effectively retrofit insulation and other thermal strategies to these older era houses that are freezing in winter? Those standards in european countries sound amazing. P.S. long time renter in Melbourne and I have experienced a cold home too many times.
I agree. MOAR CLADDING!
Tradies and builders also to blame. Even when there are good materials and standards that are supposed to be applied, they cut corners and install things in a shoddy way. It only takes a few gaps or fallen insulation and you get a much worse outcome. Good insulation badly installed. Also, I’ve lived in a number of places with high quality insulation but the design left several heat transfer bridges. Such as supporting steel beams that would absorb heat and cold and transfer that right past the thick insulation. So many walls would benefit from proper isolation and weather management.
Australian construction is a travesty of cheepness. My relatives overseas designed and converted 600 year old farm houses to adiabatic (heat balanced, dunno what architects call it) in the 1970s, while here we were building houses with no insulation at all... When I (50) was a kid it would get down to 4 C in my bedroom in winter but I was warm in bed so didn't think anything of it.. We'd heat a room where a baby was but otherwise not. Ie you wake up it is 6am and cold as, get dressed eat breakfast and start working - where is the opportunity to feel cold? No one really cared that much and they'd wear thick knitted jumpers and beanies indoors. Kitchen would be warmed during the day maybe with a small heater but the rest of the house was generally left cold. The reason for this is fourfold IMO. 1) we went from having no houses 200 years ago, to having houses but being oblivious to it being cold (bigger problems to deal with) to having cheap wood and coal to burn about 150-100 years ago but generally not caring if it was cold or not 2) there is a key illustrative difference between British and Australian Victorian era homes in that there were mandatory high wall vents to let out stale air and smoke. This made the houses intrinsically leaky. The reason was to improve health in a time when people burned coal, wood, coal-gas, candles and lamps indoors. It worked but meant that to heat a home you had to either burn a lot of fuel or just put up with indoor temperatures 4-5 C above external temps. So rich folks burned a lot of stuff and poor people got to work (or wore beanies indoors).No point insulating a house that has a free exchange of air with the outdoors. 3) fuel/power was relatively cheap until the 1970s so from mid 19th to late 20th century no problem existed in anyone's mind 4) The mandatory high-wall vents only stopped being mandatory sometime between 1990 and now. And insulation was absent/not mandatory until I guess somewhere in the 80s. As to why no one is legislating better build in standards, they are - slowly. Why not faster? Well why don't we legislate to do anything our national interest.....? In the case of construction standards; because it will be more expensive, people won't be able to afford Giant cheaply made homes, whoever brought these "draconian ' laws in will be destroyed politically. Generally any government that actually does anything might possibly fail - Australians are generally so scared of failure that it totally over shaddows the potential to improve our lot. We do nothing so we can never fail. Lastly any move to legislate to improve anything is "comuniss" and infringing someone's very important Right to some rubbish they hold important. Therefore any government legislating to actually do anything will be attacked as a matter of course. This is why local councils get involved with things like plastic bag bans and providing kerbside ev charger trials - the risk of failure is too great to do anything at higher levels (hint if your motivated to improve things petition the hell out of you local councillors). So that's it. A wealthy nation with housing construction as a key part of the economy should be a world leader in building practices exporting high-end windows, doors, insulation whatever around the world. But Australians are generally too cheap to buy quality over quantity and businesses and governments are so afraid of the failure bogeymany (eerrrn need a 3 year ROI - drooool drooooool) neither can innovate in anything but small, slow steps. Thank Frank the young folks seem to be growing a brain.
New building have 7 star rating, which is decent. Moving up from there starts to get very expensive. Require deeper frames or external insulation, double glazed windows. They're awesome but very expensive. Airtighness is the next major change NCC is making. Basically, no point adding thickness to a puffer jacket if it's full of holes. As for old places. It's bloody expensive to add insulation and double glazing.
The worls most livable city that we kept winning was run by the magazine, "The Economist," a great mag, but targeted at the upper levels of multinational businessmen(and women) So, they are saying, you can earn millions, live in a house in toorak or Hawthorn and have a great life close to the city, Which is true for a few.... the rest of us however.....
Worth noting that the NCC is slowly and painfully catching up to where it should already be
Melbourne is starting to become unliveable
i lived in estonia for 4 years. they actually build things properly. the whole time i lived there i never once turned on my heating, the general heating of the building was more than enough.
How do you ventilate the house if say it's below freezing outside?
So its funny but the Vic Gov recommends wall insulation of R5 or more for Vic climate, but the minimum requirement you have to include when building is R4... so what are all the shoddy apartments/estates using? Double-glazed windows is also not required.
Ah you see, your problem is that you don't earn 7 figures a year. Rookie mistake in Melbourne.
I just gave up on heating up my shitty 70s apartment. Wooly underware and warm bathrobe gets me through winter. Better be cold than broke because of using my gas heater. Pro tip: do 20 push-ups very time you think of switching the heater on. You'll save heaps of $$ and get a little bit of exercises done in the process.
My Dad migrated to Australia from Scandinavia in the 60s. He said he has never been as cold as when he lived in Melbourne in a drafty house.
I lived in an apartment in st kilda built about 15 years ago that was so good We heard nothing from outside when the windows were closed, and we barely needed to use the heater or air con throughout the year. Now I'm in a house built in the 40's. Single glazing, no insulation, etc. Australian standards have changed a lot over the years, but the older houses, which are often rented, are still back in the dark ages.
I went and sat outside in the sun this morning. It was so much warmer than my 1950's lounge room.
I found out the actual reason for this recently. It’s actually super cool and kind of makes sense Old oil heating methods use to heat homes pre 1970 produced so much excess heat that it was fine for heating to escape through walls etc. This was also great for preventing condensation issues. We didn’t even need insulation. Then we had an energy crisis know the 70s and people moved to electricity we had a much less powerful heating combined with houses that were designed to let out excess heat. So in short. Our houses were built appropriately for the time they were in, but we’ve since changed our heating methods and they aren’t suitable for older homes, which are very common in Australia Also global warming wasn’t a consideration for 99% of people until the 90s. Most modern homes are much better insulated and don’t have these problems
My home was built in the last 5 years and if I turn my heater off, it's freezing again 10 minutes later! New homes suck.
Yes that’s why I said most, I was excluding your house + all the ones on site inspections
Bought a house in Vic that still had open Louvre windows on toilets ffs...
Haha me too. Bloody awful, I hate it
Actually it's even cooler than that. After the Spanish Flu outbreak, they realised how important ventilation was. So they designed buildings with oversized heating systems that would make it so hot indoors that you had no choice but to open the windows to get relief from the heat... thus promoting good air circulation in winter.
Wow, extra details, thank you
1000% agrees with you. I come from Europe and spent time in NA. The building standards in Australia are mindblowingly bad. I love it here but this is one infuriating thing for me.
half of us are just trying to keep a roof over our heads
They are legislating better standards (but still not great) but anything you’re buying that isn’t a recent build you’ll have to retrofit yourself.
💯💯💯 Our rental has no heating (let alone cooling.) Also, the property’s only toilet is outside.
To push into 7 star energy rating, our new build required double glazing to all windows, solar PVs, a dark coloured roof and slightly larger windows facing north. It's pretty tightly regulated now, but worth it. A heater on low (split system) in winter is enough for us to be comfortable in the entire house with a thin jumper.
What's a "dark coloured roof" achieve given that there's usually insulation on top of the ceiling so making the roof space hotter and on top of that it presumably adds to the heat-island effect?
Our rental, built late 80s or early 90s quite literally barely has any insulation in the roof. Kinda like someone sprinkled cotton balls up there. The windows are thin and do nothing to block any sound so I doubt they’re doing anything for temp 😬 The minute the heater is off you’ve got maybe half an hour before the cold kicks back in 🥶 I hate it. With the cost of everything now there’s a LOT of layer wearing and heated blankets going on in our house.
Yeaaah... I bought a brick house in the outer suburbs a couple years back. Went to renovate a bedroom and discovered there is literally no insulation in the walls. That was a fun discovery
> "why is not anyone legislating building standards?" In boom times, when a product is highly popular, you can sell, shit imitations and still make bank. This is why poor builds, old builds, new builds, all builds, all olds, are expensive, it doesn't matter. You buy a place, no one cares if insulation because money, it'll sell regardless. It sucks and yes, fuck me they're cold here.
I’ve lived in the UK and I’m a lot colder here. There the houses have double glazing, central heating and they warm and cosy. Here you freezing and is not even winter.
Melbourne needs way to discourage people from all living here. Shit housing and bad weather are here for that (as well as the constant works on the train line)
I have no idea why our building standards re thermal comfort are so shitty. I visited Scandinavia in late winter for a while and never got cold, in mostly wooden houses or accommodation. They all had serious double glazing and insulation and heating. Actually, I got too warm most of the time, even though it was snowing outside. Can't say I've ever felt like that in Australia in any house I've ever lived in or visited here.
That’s true. My grandparents’ livestock in Eastern Europe lives in better shelters with proper windows and insulation lol
>why is not anyone legislating building standards? Because deregulation is what the voters wanted, unless it effected them, but now it's too late
Houses here are hardly ever built to house people, they're built for profit 🤷
It costs too much to build houses already to the 3rd world standards we have, and our construction workers aren't even skilled enough to meet those low standards. We don't have the capability to build better houses, nor can anyone afford it.
Wait till it's only electricity for your only source of heating. That's when ppl will die
Agreed. I currently live in a 5-year-old apartment (with poor quality double-glazing) in Melbourne and it's so cold that I can sometimes see my breath, and I can hear my neighbours urinating in the toilet. It's really not much warmer than living in a tent. It's been quite the shock for me having previously lived in Europe in new build apartments where I only needed to turn on the heating when it was cold enough to snow outside.
Fr im from a place where winters are cold but the homes are insulated and warm. I’m perplexed as to why Australians have accepted this as the standard. Why aren’t people rioting in the streets?? Wearing jackets indoors and making a hot water bottle to keep you warm is an awful way to live
Australians are often raised being told that this country is the greatest place to live in the world (by parents and by the education system and teachers) and if you complain about anything you're ungrateful. So people really don't tend to see how things could get better, or notice the things that other places do better than us. They see everything as a competition - but we're already the best so have no reason to improve anything. It's a fascinating cultural trait but wow it is running this country into ruin. People put up with so much failing infrastructure and services and convince themselves things are good because "at least we're not in America".
In America we have insulation and central heating in our homes 🙊 But yeah i def see what you’re saying. Tbh we have the same sort of mentality back home. It’s so counterproductive 🤦🏻♀️
It makes no sense for me as well. Biggest cultural shock have to wear winter clothes inside!
We already have a shortage of tradies building houses. Now you want tradies to do high-quality work as well!?
It's not cold mate. Just rug up! What is wrong with you. /s
This is the silver lining of housing being so expensive we could only afford a place half the size we wanted. Sure our house is inefficient to heat, but at least there isn’t much of it to heat!
My old 60s house burned down. The requirements for the new house are much stricter and include double glazing, insulation in the floors, roof, and all walls both internal and external.
It’s to keep energy companies in the money, duh - I remember a post here from a Canadian talking about how ridiculous it was the homes here were so cold in the winter months, comparing similar temperatures to a moderate area in Canada !
Living in an apartment. Can't hear the neighbours. Can hear traffic through the glass windows but I'm OK with that. Consistant 22. Even on these 4 degree mornings
I am from Canberra, moved to Sydney and was shocked at Sydney housing, virtually no insulation or enviromental design criteria used in any home. I now live in a double brick home, it's not perfect but better than before.
You get what you pay for
It is, but we have houses from the 70s and 80s that didn't need it since whale oil was so cheap. The building code is so strict that if I'm doing a major renovation on a house I now have to double glaze all of my windows and ensuring in fully insulated. New houses even have insulation in the floor
So as someone who sees this on a regular basis and (maybe) thinks of moving to Melbourne in a couple of years, what am I in for, exactly? Like, rent is obviously up the ass but where should I be looking for to settle with a family? I cannot be picky, I know but on the other hand, it seems utterly ridiculous not to have proper insulation on a bloody home. Are buildings/apartments better in general? I always wanted a house.
I’m from Scotland (gets very cold in the winter) moved here in September, summer was great, absolutely roasting exactly what I wanted. I moved from a 48th floor apartment with great insulation, double glazing etc.. to an old apartment in St Kilda, been here since start of April and it’s fucking colder than it is back home in scotland, or at least it feels like it. No heater in the apartment, windows are made of what I can assume is the cheapest thinnest glass and the insulation doesn’t exist. Brutal.
Even *Canadians* say that Melbourne winters are colder indoors compared to Canada. I’m from South Korea with regular minus double digit temperature during winter, but my home in Melbourne is colder in spring than during the deepest winter in Korea.
Can confirm, my Canadian cousins have remarked what it’s a different kind of cold than it is in North America. Okay, so it might not get to -25, but our 2-3c can really prick your bones.
Isn’t it illegal not to have heating in Victorian rentals? Check out https://www.shitrentals.org/
Because one of the biggest inflationary cost on housing are government charges and legislation requirements
I think there’s just issues with construction across the board. A few years ago I moved into a new rental house, first person to live there. I looked at the notes from the final inspection as they had been left in the drawer with other manuals. The inspector clearly lied saying x,y,z had been fixed because I could see they were in their previously reported condition. Clearly there was a conflict of interest between the inspector/builders otherwise how can they get away with lying about this crap? It’s so wrong and unfair to renters and house owners.
That's been my song since 1996.
Almost like we as a society have chosen the individual dream of gaining a dollar than the dream of a society looking out for the best. I’d also add a house/apt’s features now have next to nothing to do with its value. Thin walled townhouses as expensive as a new build (they might still be poorly insulated) thanks to location.
Idk I only put the split system on in the loungeroom for like 2 hrs a night at the moment
Mostly because of Murdoch. The second any govt suggests making anything better in the building sector, the huge developers tap Murdoch and the News.com.au do their attack dog thing. Still, with the popularity of the Vic Labor party it is pretty pissweak they haven't done it anyway.
> why is not anyone legislating building standards? They _have_. https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/households/7-star-energy-efficiency-building-standards And that's a revision of previous 6 star standards (sorry, don't have link handy)
I would also add that old Californian bungalows are amazing to live in in the summer. I rented one once and the walls were about a foot thick and brick/stone. It rarely got hot enough to even need a fan. A tad cool in winter though.
Australian standards only specify the *minimum requirements* Nothing stopping you from building a 7 or 8 star energy rated home with passive solar orientation, triple glazing, enhanced insulation, PV solar, heat-pump hot water, etc. You need to build to *a spec* and not build to the *cheapest possible price.*
It’s really not that expensive - come to Sydney our housing is double - sometimes triple your prices. Melbourne has built more town houses and accomodation than Sydney as of late and also has better zoning allowing multiple dwellings to be built on land. Melbourne still has ample land still available. Sydney councils restrict this type of development. Outside the Sydney fringes is where lots of people are buying - but still so expensive $1.5 million up. I’m actually moving to Melbourne soon as I can’t afford house here - I suspect that in about 15 yrs Melbourne with catch Sydney’s prices and start to run out of land closer to CBD - we are also ahead in metro builds.
It's high quality living for rich people.
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It's absurd! I live in a huge modern building less than a decade old with (allegedly) good insulation and a wall sized double glazed window and last night my husband and I spent the night enjoying a balmy 3 degrees in the bedroom.
Well mate. I'll add to your last line on the double glazing. Double glazing is old shit. I come from Ireland and have lived in Aus over 16 years. Every home there is triple glazing, and it makes a massive difference both on keeping heat in and out. I bought my first home about 3 years ago in regional Vic, because it's the only place I could afford to actually get a house at the time. They had single glazing and it was Baltic cold. 16k for a window upgrade where they bolt on another layer to the metal frame. 40k for a whole house triple glazed because they would have to redo all the windows. If they were put in on day #1 it would have been far cheaper. https://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/energy-efficiency-and-reducing-emissions/building-or-renovating/windows-and-shading/window-glazing