fairsjk
Member
I am not sure whether todays announcement is by design or whether they don't know their head from the backside. Why on earth would you get a household assessment now if you are not able to get a green loan? Or is that the plan from the government, make it sound as though they are extending the number of assessments knowing full well that in reality they will now be paying for very few of them.
Don't let them get away with this bs
PeterReefman
Member
I'm not exactly sure why you feel the green loan component is essential. Getting an audit is (or should be) giving people the info they need to make the most effective and most economical changes to make their homes and lives more environmentally and economically efficient.
Getting $10k as a low interest loan to go towards a list specified options, and needing to pay that money back within four years isn't a 'must do' as far as most people are concerned, hence the extrememly poor takeup of the actual loans as we've seen in operation.
The only real thing people would save is the interest, which while being valued at around $2,000 - $2,500 (quite good!) may well encourage people to spend more based on the 'buy now pay later' mentality. If a householder got a quality assessment (which I'm sure virtually all assessors that use this forum would give), they could prioritise the lowest hanging fruit first and after seeing that success could then go on through the priority list at their own pace.
So even though I'm cynical and wonder if the Government can pull this one off despite the recent failures, I personally would support the new scheme.
fairsjk
Member
Peter I am sorry but you are living in dreamworld if you think the majority of people were getting the audit to just see where they could save money.You have also been taken in by the governments spin that the loan was unpopular. The reason why the take up was low is that there are tens of thousands possibly over one hundred thousand people who have had the audits and who have not received their report back, so they have not been able to get a loan. I know of people as far back as September or October. I have lost count of the people in December including my whole family and friends. I actually have not heard of one person who has had their assessment in January that has got their report back. The hotline has virtually been impossible to get through for about a month now.
And people were not all getting the loan for the full $10k but just enough to pay for the panels. I calculated that for a $3000 loan you were saving $1400 or $30 a month.
PeterReefman
Member
Fairsjk do you really think that most people getting a home sustainability audit WEREN'T doing it to show them where to save energy?
Okay, of the approximate 200,000 audits done so far, even if you take the view that 100,000 haven't had their reports back, that still leaves around 100,000 households with the ability to apply for a green loan. (Apparently) 1,000 loans have been taken out, which obviously means only 1% of people with reports have then gone for a loan. Hardly a dominant percentage.
Yes households can save real money from the interest, as you and I both said. In fact when I speak to people about the loans, I tell them to look at as an up-to $2,500 saving in interest if they're smart about what they buy and only getting things that will genuinely save energy/water in the long term.
I'm not defending the government one bit here by the way. I think they totally cocked-up a very good concept, and I don't have a much faith that they'll get it right with the changes either.
With the similarily cocked-up RET scheme, I hope you're explaining to people exactly how domestic PV and SHWS systems are flooding the market which is killing the large scale renewables industry, and that the best thing people can do in regard to domestic solar systems is to NOT purchase them under the current system but instead help lobby the government to fix the RET before that person would consider spending their own money, with or without a Green Loan.
I honestly feel there's value in simply showing people where they can best save energy, and with respect the only dreamworld I think is that every one of the 360,000 households were getting an audit TO get one of the 75,000 loans.
fairsjk
Member
I do think there is value in the audit if conducted properly but many assessors did not spend long enough in the house. Yes I am sure you and lots of others did but many didn't and I knew more about energy efficiency than my assessor and had to explain many things to her. With regard to the hundred thousand who have the opportunity to get a loan, I think that many got their loans knocked back for various reasons as well due to the banks lending policies.
Yes the flood of REC's on to the market have had a huge impact on many solar and wind projects making them no longer viable. We should go back to a means tested (say $150,000 and under means test) and give a rebate (around $6000).
cool at home
Member
I'm with Peter on this one. The take up of Green Loans SHOULD have always been low - most of what people need to go to get a more efficient and comfortable home does not require $10K investment - with the exception of window awnings, which were rarely returned on the GL Eligible Items Certificate anyway. The biggest leap in energy savings comes from behaviour (timers, thermostats, standby, short showers, etc), the next leap comes from low cost retrofits (thermal curtains, awnings, light bulbs, flow restrictors, high star rated appliances) with rainwater tanks, grey water recycling and solar power well down the list but high in price. Most people are pleased to find this out... who wants to spend thousands on solar power for savings they can get for free? Of course somee people do want to do both, and that is great - but really there is a lot of work to do before the majority of people are 'there'.
So I'm not sad to see the loan component oof Green Loans go at all. If it means that less people who are not genuinely interested reducing their carbon footprint take up an assessment then as a taxpayer I'm cool with that. Lost opportunity to convince them, sure, but most of the current pool of assessors weren't even trying to do that.
fairsjk
Member
Yes the Energy audit has a very worthwhile education component to it granted but a lot of people who have been assessed already know the basics. You will be very sad to see the loan component gone when your assessments dry up which they will do. I genuinely want to reduce my carbon footprint but ordered the report to enable me to get solar and insulation. We don't need assessors to tell us we should be taking shorter showers and buy more efficient appliances. We already know that stuff.
IgorD
Member
Hi All,
Peter Garret's lastest brainwave will give Assessors a weekly income of $600 less tax and Overheads until the end of 2010.After allowing the big Boys to rip the heart out of the Green Loans Program we are thrown the crumbs.
I wonder what Fieldforce made with it's direct link to DEWHA's booking computer?
Furthermore 2000 acredited Assessors will be axed and 2000 more still to be acredited will be culled.
4000 people on the Unemployment Pile.
So much for the Labour Party looking after the "Aussie Battler"
I have joined in a CLASS ACTION against DEWHA.
For some reason this site does not allow me to paste the link.I am propably doing something wrong.
When you do open the page look on the left hand side and find the register button. Click on that button and it will take you to the area.
http:/www.sustainabilityassessorsaustralia.com.au
Regards,
IgorD
fairsjk
Member
By not putting a cap on the number of assessors months ago they really have got themseleves into a no win situation. There is no way of appeasing everyone anymore, the band aid solution proposed by Garrett now is better than no solution at all but only just. Yes there will be more assessments conducted but by too many assessors hence the cap on the number of assessments done. It can no longer be a full time job just a job on the side. If they had done that from the start there would not have been a problem. I think the right thing to be done is to offer all assessors a refund on all their fees and training as there is no chance of the majority of assessors getting their money back.
Oh and of course the demand for assessments will now be next to nil.
greenvalue
Member
@ cool at home: "high star rated appliances" - no interest free loan needed for???
Have you actually looked up appliances prices recently, and then considered low-to-mid income earning households in rural areas??
A decent size fridge with the recommended 4-star rating will be at least $1,000, more likely $1,200 - $1,400 (and only if you shop around and forego stainless steel),
add to that a decent frontloader for around $800 to $1,000,
and replace the dishwasher with one of high rating (most 4 star WELS rated dishwashers are well over $1,000, most are $1,200++, or you take a Dishlex cheapie, which in daily use you cannot fill to capacity or it won't clean all plates = lost all efficiency!) your TOTAL will be easily $3,500 -
BEFORE you invest another $2,000 to have your electric hot water system changed to solar!!!
People in the area where I do my assessments don't have this sort of spare money!!
And natural gas as clean energy isn't available, LPG is way to expensive.
As a matter of fact: most are living very frugal lifes, drive 10+ years old cars, and haven't even found the money to replace their hot water system, although they know about the possible savings!!!
...talk about no need for Green Loans.
KarenS
Member
Totally agree with 'greenvalue' - I find myself with the kids now gone, and I am the proud owner of a 10-y-o 420l fridge. Mostly empty. And as a pensioner, there is no way I could have just gone out and bought a new smaller one, or even put it on a credit card - pensioners don't have credit cards with that much credit on them, if they already have their latest car service on it ... My Green Loan will get me one, though! AND I can take it with me when I downsize to a flat/unit too!
I have posted elsewhere further thoughts about the removal of the loans - see thread
"Is the green loans program going to run out?"
cool at home
Member
Greenvalue "@ cool at home: "high star rated appliances" - no interest free loan needed for???
Have you actually looked up appliances prices recently, and then considered low-to-mid income earning households in rural areas??"
Remember that you're only saving the interest, not the $10K. Interest on a $1400 fridge is not a lot, and while I know the cost of the fridge itself is a problem to lowere income households, the interest itself is unlikely people to tip over the edge. There is a HUGE problem for lower income households to get better appliances to reduce their footprint, but Greenloans is not the solution...
greenvalue
Member
O.k. - lets say you buy a 4-star fridge and a frontloader washing machine of a combined total of $2,000, which is kind of realistic, charge it to your credit card at 13.75% (av. rate, personal loans aren't much cheaper!), and pay it back over 4 years =
over this period you have to pay over $600 in interest...
Yeah, I guess for some that's peanuts - for others it makes all the difference!
whatcouldyoubesaving
Member
Yes and cool at home has a green loan..
Also a very concerned tax payer.... That has a green loan and earns money from a government paid program.. Who claims tax offsets for her business...
Not a JIBE or a personal attack just a FACT...........
Sorry to be harsh.......
KarenS
Member
CNCandy,
Thanks for the interest! The wretched window has always had a sun blind on the outside (except when it blew off, which has happened twice, LOL), and the current one works quite well - having been brought up in a weatherboard house, we always knew that keeping the sun off in the first place was a far better solution than trying to get the heat out after it had got in, LOL.
However the problems with the window also involves radiant heat, glare on winter days, serious haemorrhaging of heat on winter nights, and the standard inefficiencies of aluminium sliders!!
Because the window needs to open (cross ventilation), needs to be either a slider or awning, (because of the short-arm blind, and awning windows don't let much air in), can't have heavy curtains etc on it (it is immediately above the sink and food prep area, and almost above the stove - grease, and fire hazard), and is positioned so far above the ground on the outside, and there is only about 15 cm between the top of the window and the underside of the eaves on the outside, coming up with some do-able solution to both the summer AND winter problems has been difficult.
When I posted before, although I mentioned the winter heat escape problem as well as the summer heat ingress problem, most people seemed to fix upon the heat coming in, not the heat going out!!!
Anyway, I have a green loan approved (sign the paperwork etc next week sometime), and I have now had a builder with impeccable green credentials come and actually LOOK at the whole shebang, as well as some other less difficult but still needy windows, and an insulation issue inside the roof.
The Eligible Items Cert says that one should 'obtain appropriate professional advice before ... undertaking any actions as a result of the information in this report', and we have come up with a solution involving getting the west window double-glazed in a particular manner, and putting a close-fitting roman blind on the inside as well, and we have solutions for the other windows and the insulation stuff too. So when it all happens, it will be All Good, as the kids say.
The Green Loan will pay for all the window stuff, including assorted tinting, stick-on stuff, curtaining and pelmets in various combinations for various other windows. I might be able to justify the insulation stuff too (it was started 2 or 3 years ago, WAY before the current insulation stuff-up), and also the builder's 'professional consultation' costs. Seeing as my mad EIC tells me to do 2 different things with my hot water service, neither of which are appropriate anyway, and says much non-specific stuff about heating and cooling, (eg 'reduce costs' ... 'reduce requirements') I reckon I could easily argue a case for all this stuff, should I be required to at any stage.
Glad your sun blinds are working - back in the olden days when I used to rent, many of us used to get those el-cheapo bamboo blinds (the wider the slat the better), and hang them outside any sun catcher windows - you could hang them with absolutely minimal 'damage' so the landlord didn't get too upset, and they would last a couple of years at least, so if you moved elsewhere, you could take them with you if they would fit, but it wasn't the end of the world if they didn't, and you left them behind. In fact I still have one on a bungalow at the back of my house. Amazing how much difference keeping the sun off/out in the first place makes, eh!!
Once one owns a house, it is still often necessary to have sunblinds all over the place, but if it's your own house and garden, you can also take a longer view and look to planting shady trees or bushes etc. But where that's not possible or for a quick fix, and for renters, some form of sunblind is essential!
greenvalue
Member
Karen,
re. the westerly shading: I'm about to make up my own solution for a west facing window, so let me explain a little as I'm sure a good carpenter can construct something similar in your situation... Just make sure to use good hardwood, so things don't rot or warp to soon.
I will bring a timber frame down from the fascia (that's the board at the end of the eaves) and attach it with a bracket to the wall below the window. Inside this outer frame I will build two hinged frames (so I can completely open them in winter, and to reach the window for cleaning) which will be filled with adjustable timber louvres. The louvre mechanics can be purchased ready-made at some local window manufacturers; the cheaper ones are made from black plastic; you then slip the thin timber slats right into them (instead of glass). That way we hopefully can adjust them for ventilation AND shade, get some light in, and look out between the slats. Although: our construction will be for a bedroom where the looking out part is of less concern.
Here's a link to ready-made COMPLETE timber louvre windows:
http://www.vantagealuminium.com.au/louvre_residential/timber.htm
kalindriel
Member
I think you must be mad if you think that the 'loan' part of the green loan scheme (From 22 march presumably it will be called the 'green' program) is non-essential.
Surely, no one who has seen a home assessment report could actually think that they have intrinsic merit.
Like Karen, i found that the report I recieved may well have referred to some other house rather than mine. It made various, contradictory and irrelevant recomendations and made mutually exclusive statements (that we could be more efficient by using our inefficient washing machine less often, but congratulating us becuase we didnt use our efficient washing machine until it was full.)
While the actual assessment was sensible and not a complete waste of time, it baffles me that anyone would think that it is cost effective to spend $250 to tell a house holder that its a good idea to turn things off at the wall, and that using a clothesline is better for the environment that the dryer. How dumb do they think the average australian is?
I dont think there was any value at all in using the assessments as a vehicle to show people how to save energy. Particularly not the way they have been done. I mean my assessor seemed to know his stuff, but the report was a complete waste of time.
The loan element is absolutely crucial. It means that people with very limited means can afford to get a solar PV system, with 4 years (and all the savings from its production) to pay it off. It also means that people can use the loan to cover the short fall while they wait for their rebate applications/ solar credits to be processed.
I think the slow take up on the loans is probably more to do with the delays in getting the reports out, and the time frames associated with doing research and getting quotes. I had my report done in late July, didnt get my assessment report back until november and wasnt ready to have the loand written until mid Janaury. Chances are people who had their assessments done after september, are still waiting to get their reports back.
fairsjk
Member
And the bloody media have done nothing to highlight this problem. I emailed Insiders yesterday and was told that they were going to talk about the Green Loans and nothing was said. Heard nothing from any other media program ACA, Lateline or nothing. Fran Kelly on Radio National had Garrett on this morning NOT ONE MENTION OF GREEN LOANS. Bloody useless.
Karen, Why not use some of those bamboo blinds on the outside and attach them to the top of the wall perhaps on the roof overhang on a bracket say out 6 inches from the wall so it doesn't flap against the window like mine does?
Blinds on the outside are far better than blinds on the inside as it then won't heat up the wall, another option would be the beige shadecloth attached in the same way.
I'm lucky in that I have a landlord who's quite open to idea's not that he want's to pay to put PV panels up, put is open to me putting them up ( and taking them down ) when I leave.
KarenS
Member
greenvalue, and CNCandy,
Thanks again - the other MAJOR problem with this window is heat egress in the winter.
It also has a glare problem all year round.
It already has a satisfactory sunblind/awning on it (which is polyester canvas and better than bamboo blinds, which I have elsewhere)
I do not wish to attach things to the wall other than the existing window frame as this will make un-fixable holes in the vinyl weatherboards, which are placed over the original weatherboards.
There used to be a blind attached to the fascia - it blew off when a particularly fierce sou-westerly change went through.
None of these things stop the radiant heat in the summer, and none of them address the
heat loss problem in the winter.
Wooden anything on this window will be a problem due to it's exposure. This was why I put the vinyl weatherboards on - we had to paint the whole wall every 5 years before that. The vinyl weatherboards unexpectedly provided excellent insulation - about 5 degrees cooler in summer down that side of house.
Pictures of offending window at http://www.flickr.com/photos/karenknits/
NB there is about 6" between top of window and eaves. Bottom of window is approx 2.5m above ground. Top of fence is below sill level of window. Fence is metal. Drive is very narrow.
The baseboards have now been replaced (photo was taken during restumping).
I am leaving the outside as is for the moment. I am using some of my Green Loan to replace the window with a double-glazed one, and will put a close-fitting roman blind on the inside. Anything inside has to be detachable and washable, and not a fire hazard, as the window is immediately above the sink and food prep bench, and the stove is right beside it.
I will let you all know how the proposed solution works when it has been done!!
cool at home
Member
For Karen S: If the west window is a horror, consider double glazing with argon gas (rather than air). Much more expensive but apparently much more effective too. If it's just one window that needs doing, it might just make financial sense...
dymonite69
Member
