VIC Tenants being extremely fussy

totally agree - double glazing should be a minimum standard.

 

I've had a similar case at VCAT. Tenant (with email 'iamalawyer@... ) was claiming that the heater needed replacing as it didn't heat certain areas of the house. This was a property in Footscray and he was the definition of malicious litigant! We'd had it tested and confirmed it was working as it should. Member declined the claim because there is nothing in the legislation about an appliances requirements - only legislation that applies is that the owner must maintain premises (sect 68) and because the unit was working as it should, there was no claim.

If you have a ducted heating unit, and it's working as it should, it's been tested, regardless of whether it's designed for the size and shape of the home, you've met your obligations to keep it well maintained.

I would issue the 90 day end of fixed term notice. Then make sure your property manager does not enter into any further dialogue or entertain any conversations in relation as to why. You don't want the tenants turning around to try and claim you're issuing the notice in retaliation to them exercising their rights as tenants!

 

If your heating and cooling bills are lower, you have more money in your pocket each month to save a deposit or make a mortgage payment. We invested in double glazing throughout our house in Canberra about 10 years ago and though expensive for an existing house, it has absolutely paid off. But building with double glazing in the first place is much less expensive than building single glazing and converting later.

 

It is totally about building standards, the BCA does not impose mandatory efficiency standards hence we end up with single glazed units. There is a vast difference between quality and thermal transmission - they are not the same, we build a quality product, have a very efficient building sector etc. This is borne out by the insignificant number of houses which collapse or kill anyone.

Quality is a perception - you can pay $2 for some film which will be transparent and let light into a room or you can pay $2000 for a fully double glazed unit both meet the transmission of light standard but the standard of performance (of other measures like heat transmission) are vastly different.

Until the legislators mandate that heat transmission/efficiency is a standard which is to be met, we will continue to have inefficient buildings. NABERs and star ratings do not require that the builder must provide double glazing, let alone energy efficient glazing (eg. Veridian or other high tech glazing solutions). NABERs will give points for shading, insulation, solar orientation etc and an acceptable rating can be achieved with pokey windows and blinds with pelmets.

Unfortunately we are incentivised by operational costs at the time of construction.

The nature of the beast is that first home buyers are ignorant of running costs, good design principles and energy efficiency considerations and are driven by 'ooooh shiny, new, whistles & bells' not "thermal mass, solar orientation, reverse BV, compartmentisation etc". So they are trapped into buying new but inefficient rather than spending the money on the inclusions which are not seen.

 

I can tell you right now, in two years of building our sister company has not ONCE had someone ask about the solar orientation, and less than 10% of people even mention insulation! (We do ceiling standard, but it's extra for walls). Of course it follows that double glazing, tinting, eaves, etc haven't come up either.

It's a catch 22. Improving energy efficiency standards will increase the cost of building, which will make everyone upset. Brand new homes struggle to push through valuation already, so moving up the price by as little as $10,000 will dramatically affect the affordability of new builds for the majority of buyers (buying at the very top of their budget).

 

It's a problem. In the ACT, properties being sold need to list their energy efficiency rating and there is evidence that people are willing to pay for it (up to a point) when buying established houses (e.g. Green Lemons? Energy efficiency disclosure and house prices – Thrive Research Hub).

I think more useful would be if they were required to list in dollar terms what it would cost to heat/cool the building to a comfortable level all year around.

 

Exactly, it has flow on effects. Your pricing is $X higher than the next bod who isn't comparing apples with apples, can't see the running costs (or savings generated), are pushed on price in most cases and would rather 100% wool plush carpet to bulk insulation which their friends can't see or provide a feel good factor.

Unless it was mandated to include copies of 12/24 months of power & gas bills as actuals (and some fandangled calcuation just for comfort control), it would be widely speculative.

 

Actual power bills are only going to have a loose connection to expenditure required to keep a place comfortable year-round because some people heat one or two rooms to 14C for a few hours on winter evenings and others heat the whole building to 28C all day and all night. Some are disciplined about opening windows and closing curtains at the right times to make the best use of natural conditions, and others don't bother and leave everything to the aircon.

A calculated cost needn't be wildly speculative as it's a matter of some fairly simple engineering calculations. If you didn't want to trust standard tables of materials and construction methods, it isn't hard to do some measurements for a precise calculation: pick a cold day, heat to a standard temperature, and go around the house with a heat camera to measure leakage.

ETA: Incidentally, here's a pretty good analysis: http://www.thecie.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/MBA_Report_9_July_2010.pdf
On page 39, they give the calculated net lifetime benefit (after costs are taken into account) of moving to an optimal energy efficiency star rating in each of several cities. For a typical cottage in Canberra, it's around $281/m2 (or around $50k for a whole building).