Author: Hanz Moleman, Australia
We’ve reached peak cold of 2016, and the warm summer months are but a fond memory. During summer we dreamed of the cool, easy sleeping nights of winter, but now it’s here, the only thing in mind is restoring warmth to frozen fingers and toes. The days of rising at 5 am in June to deliver papers on our trusty BMX are long gone. I don’t remember my hands and feet being this ridiculously cold back in the 1990’s. Perhaps that’s due to being chased relentlessly by the local hounds while pitching rolled up Herald Suns across the frozen lawns of Kilsyth six days a week.
Who would think that
something as boring as cost comparisons between home heating appliances would
take up most of my Saturday? Why would anybody waste a day studying this? The
teenage me would be shocked. The thirties meis
shocked. But here I am. If your energy bills are as stupidly high as mine, it
should be a day well spent. I don’t wish to spend my forties working for the
power companies profit alone.
What I have found is
surprising to say the least. Heating one’s home or living spaces is far more
complex than electricity or gas costs alone. So I’ve decided to condense all the
information onto some graphs and approximately 1200 words to save the rest of
you some Saturday time to yourselves. You could try googling, researching,
calculating as I have done, or you could simply look at these pretty colours
and graphs, make a decision and spend the rest of your weekend doing something
fun. I know which I would choose.
Household Power Consumption
breakdown
The chart shows the four
areas of your homes electricity consumption. Keeping your home at a comfortable
temperature consumes nearly seven times the power that lighting does. Reducing
power consumption must start here.
Appliance
heating costs per hour to bring inside ambient temperature to
21
C from an outside temperature of 10 C
*Costs averaged over a
standard 4 bedroom single story home with 2 main living areas plus master
bedroom heated to 21C using heating types described. Tests conducted in South
Australia May 2014
What’s
the most energy efficient way to warm you home?
A wood fireplace maybe?
It seems that all the energy that goes into producing, felling, distributing, and
then chopping again, makes wood only the third best option. Even if you live on
a farm and chop your own wood, when time and costs are accounted for, it’s
still not as efficient as Geo thermal or electric powered reverse cycle air
conditioning. So unless you live in a volcano or on one of New Zealand’s
thermal underground steam pump up things, your best bet is a Reverse Cycle air
conditioner. Technically called a heat pump, these machines can cool, heat,
reduce humidity, plus clean and filter the air throughout a home. They are what
this author would suggest, one of the only must – have appliances for any
modern house. Only a refrigerator and a coffee machine could possibly be more
important.
Forget those portable
space heaters, so often left on to dry clothes. It used to be that gas heating
whether ducted or wall heaters were the most efficient in all the country. But
once they discovered that selling gas to Chinese manufacturing companies
could triple the profit on natural gas and LPG, guess who decided that
Australian families should be paying international ‘market rates’ for gas
instead of just a fraction over what it cost to produce? Yep. Our Traitor
politicians in Canberra thought – correctly - that they could slide this one
past us without an armed rebellion.
Reverse
Cycle Air Conditioning
It isn’t surprising that
these magical comfort machines are selling in excess of one hundred million
units per year throughout the world. With that many being made and installed in
every country, the impressive feats of modern manufacturing really shine
through. The top manufacturers, nearly universally agreed to be Mitsubishi,
Panasonic and Daikin are consistently producing machines that last 15 years
plus.
That aspect is impressive alone, but when you take into account they are
exposed to all sorts of horrible weather, regularly infested rodents and bashed
about in transit, these remarkable machines really do deserve our admiration.
With costs as low as 11 cents per hour to run a bedroom split on maximum
heating, and only 31.4 cents per hour to heat an entire home, Reverse Cycle Air Conditioning should be the first
choice for all modern homes heating requirements. Best of all, it’s just as
good in summer to keep the temperature low enough to get any work done.
Air
Conditioner Installation
Getting your air conditioner installation done by professional tradesman is nearly as important as
your choice of brand. The best brand on earth will perform poorly if installed
in the wrong location. Similarly, if the unit is not of correct size rating for
the area, it won’t matter how much you spent on it. The thing won’t do what
it’s designed to do. If you are new to air conditioning selection, or just need
some help choosing which size and location is best for your home, there’s
dozens of resources online to help you with this decision. A reliable rule of
thumb is read a few opinions from reputable sources, correlate the information,
and use that to form your own opinion.
What some of you might not know about
search results on google and other engines is that : very few erroneous or made
up fact sheets make it to the first few pages of google results on any topic.
Some do get through. But when researching such common topics as air
conditioning or even car exhaust performance, the sheer number of people
competing for your business ensures that only the reputable and longest
established websites and businesses get to make it near the top.
Sources
:http://www.auroraenergy.com.au/your-home/prices/heating-cost-comparison
https://www.bsria.com/news/article/world-air-conditioning-market-grows-thanks-to-hot-spots/
https://www.sa.gov.au/topics/water-energy-and-environment/energy/saving-energy-at-home/check-and-reduce-your-energy-use/appliance-running-costs
:http://www.auroraenergy.com.au/your-home/prices/heating-cost-comparison
https://www.bsria.com/news/article/world-air-conditioning-market-grows-thanks-to-hot-spots/
https://www.sa.gov.au/topics/water-energy-and-environment/energy/saving-energy-at-home/check-and-reduce-your-energy-use/appliance-running-costs
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