Kiwis can’t afford heating
When Andrea emigrated from Canada to Dunedin she was stunned at how cold our Kiwi homes are in winter.
Bringing up a family with Kiwi husband Matt in a large old Dunedin villa, she says she found it hard to heat the house.
‘‘I come from Canada where houses have central heating and are much warmer,’’ she says. ‘‘It’s difficult to find anything like that in Dunedin.’’
And in Canada there is often deep snow for months on end – the average outside temperature in Calgary in January is minus 15 degrees Celsius.
‘‘We have been living in Dunedin trying to heat old villas for the past 10 years,’’ says Matt.
‘‘Our last power bill was around $500.’’
The latest State of the Home Survey for the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and home ventilation company HRV shows, that skyrocketing power bills and poor insulation mean more than a third of Kiwis are not using their heaters this winter.
Almost half of the 1040 respondents said cold, damp and condensation inside their home increased the cost of heating it and 40 per cent said they chose not to have the heater on to save money.
The survey showed heating costs hit renters the hardest with
‘‘New Zealand's housing stock is substandard...’’ Charles Crothers
almost half saying their power bill is excessive in winter and over half using as little heating as possible to reduce costs.
‘‘New Zealand’s housing stock is substandard and while rentals need bringing up to standard, it’s key for existing houses to be brought up to standard and that new builds are made to a high quality,’’ AUT Professor of Sociology Charles Crothers says.
‘‘Only 60 per cent of those surveyed, and just 36 per cent of renters, had insulation in their homes, which is not great because that is where a warm dry home starts,’’ he says.
And for Andrea and Matt’s family, which includes children Daniel, 9, and Gemma, 3, the solution is a move to the new High Street Co-housing development and a brand new townhouse that will be built to German Passivhaus standards.
‘‘This means they (the properties) will have triple-glazed windows and five to six times the insulation of the average house,’’ says Andrea.
‘‘Even with no heating, the temperature is expected to sit around 20 degrees right through the year.’’