Devonport residents can now borrow Home Energy Audit Toolkits (HEAT) free of charge. HEAT provides tools, instructions and information that helps householders conduct a simple home audit and discover easy ways to cut their households energy costs.

With only three kits available, please contact Council to reserve a kit.

Currently in Tasmania the average household uses around 10,000 kWh of electricity each year. On February 2010 prices this costs about $2000 for electricity plus $300 in fixed charges.

With a little knowledge and care it should be possible to cut your electricity use by 25% giving savings of $500 per year. If you are already very careful about how you use electricity it will be harder to make this much saving, but you might be able to improve your comfort levels without using more electricity.

In a typical Tasmanian home 50% of the electricity use is for heating, a further 25% for heating hot water, followed by 9% for cooking and 7% for the fridge and freezer.

However every household is different and in order to understand your own household’s electricity use and areas where you could reduce your costs the Council is providing the HEAT.

The supporting Instruction and Information sheets and the equipment in this kit will help you understand why you pay as much as you do for electricity, but more importantly will help you in making decisions that could save you hundreds of dollars each year.

Each HEAT contains:

• Power-Mate – allows measurement of electricity consumption of all electrical appliances with a standard 3-pin plug. Useful for measuring the electricity consumption of appliances such as fridges; televisions, microwaves and computers and their standby consumption.
• Infrared radiometer - used to check for leaks around fridge doors as well as checking for adequate ventilation behind the fridge/freezer and the effectiveness of ceiling insulation.
• Stopwatch - assists in determining flow rate of hot water from showers & taps.
• Compass - assists in identifying: 
  (i) the homes orientation for solar aspect considerations and 
  (ii) suitably orientation of roof aspect for hot water and electricity solar panels.
• Thermometer with magnet - enables measurement of air temperature around houses, hot water system, fridges and freezers.
• Supporting instruction and information sheets - developed specifically for Tasmanian households they provide instructions on how to use the tools included in the kit and suggestions for doable energy efficient actions for various appliances and/or activities.

The HEAT has been developed through the Southern Tasmania Council’s Authority’s Regional Climate Change Initiative (RCCI) by the Hobart City Council. The Kits are designed to compliment home energy audit services and allow you to gain a comprehensive understanding of your households energy use.

Feedback on your experiences using HEAT is sought via the HEAT Feedback survey and can be returned to Council.

Further supporting documentation and information sheets can be downloaded here:
 
HEAT Kit Instructions

HEAT Product Information