On the money

With just $58,000, Rob retrofitted his 1970s Melbourne unit for far greater comfort and energy efficiency, learning a lot along the way.

Having worked in energy efficiency advocacy for over a decade, Rob Murray-Leach knows a thing or two about the state of Australia’s housing stock – “It’s shocking how bad our homes are,” he says – and what needs to be done to improve the health, comfort and emissions of the estimated 7 million houses that are falling short. The purchase of his own first home, a 1970s unit in the Melbourne suburb of Northcote, was his first opportunity to put his knowledge into practice.

“My house really fits the bill as the ‘everyman’, bog-standard home,” he says. “Like the majority of houses in Australia, it’s a detached, brick veneer build, and was draughty and unbelievably cold in winter.” He set out to give it an upgrade, prioritising comfort and liveability (after living in “freezing rentals” for nearly 20 years) as well as reducing emissions. It was a professional learning opportunity too, as he explains: “I wanted to use the experience of retrofitting my home to develop a deeper understanding of the practicalities involved, so that I can advocate for better policy.”

This shaped how he approached the project. “I set out to retrofit the home as affordably as possible, to find out what was realistic for a household to do,” he says. Also, convinced that there is a place for solid, effective energy efficiency retrofits without doing a major renovation, he was keen to see how easy it was to get the project done without engaging a builder or architect to manage it.

Firstly, he got a couple of assessments – Scorecard and NatHERS – and some advice from the assessors, home energy expert Tim Forcey and architect Jeremy Wells. “Getting energy modelling before you start is pretty important,” says Jeremy. “It can be a bit surprising what makes the most impact and what order it’s best to do things in.” He was pleased to find that even though Rob’s house has sub-optimal orientation with only one north-facing window, it was possible to get it over 7 Stars with judicious upgrades. (See “A tale of two retrofits” in Sanctuary 64 for more on Jeremy’s advice to Rob.)

With Jeremy and Tim’s help, Rob put together a plan for the retrofit that included “a ton of draughtproofing”, switchboard and wiring fixes, replacing the gas hot water system with a heat pump and the gas cooktop with an induction stove, and upgrading the heating and cooling. “The heating was already electric, but it consisted of very inefficient panel heaters, and the evaporative cooling system created huge holes in my ceiling insulation,” Rob says. He planned to replace them with a reverse-cycle air conditioner in the living room, plus ceiling fans and electric blankets in the bedrooms. Windows were to be replaced with double-glazing, thick curtains added, and finally the insulation beefed up in the roof space and added under the floors and in the walls.

Rob’s plan to complete the retrofit over a month or two was foiled by Covid, meaning that the project proceeded in fits and starts around Melbourne’s lockdowns. “On the bright side, this meant that it became a controlled experiment where I got to see the impact of each measure separately,” he says. The first step was upgrading the electrics and replacing four electric panel heaters with a single 5-kilowatt reverse-cycle air conditioner. He reports that this step alone reduced his annual electricity use by 40 per cent, while raising the internal temperature on winter mornings from as low as nine degrees Celsius to consistently above 18 degrees. “However, because the house was still uninsulated and draughty, the air conditioner had to work constantly to keep the interior warm, which made it ‘blowy’ all the time,” he says. This neatly demonstrated the importance of upgrading the building envelope to achieve a comfortable home, not simply electrifying the house.

Along with the energy efficiency measures, Rob made some considered practical and aesthetic changes to the house – though it retains its 1970s vibe. A redundant doorway from the entry to the lounge was converted to a quirky circular ‘window’, allowing a visual connection between the two spaces but making the living area much more practical to furnish. Cupboards in the two bedrooms were reconfigured, with a new built-in robe with custom blackbutt veneer doors installed in the main bedroom. Rob also invested in well-designed lighting, as he believes it’s one relatively inexpensive element that can really transform the feel of a house.

Rob reports that the electrification and energy efficiency aspects of the retrofit cost about $38,000, and he spent another $20,000 on storage, lighting, and minor internal changes. For that money, the energy rating of the home has gone from a starting point of 2 Stars to an impressive 7.2 Stars, translating to a huge reduction in energy use (around 80 per cent), energy bills, and emissions.

He’s delighted with the results of his efforts, and learned a lot about the process along the way. “Developing my retrofit plan involved a lot of research and thinking. It turns out that it’s pretty complex, and there are real challenges when it comes to getting comprehensive advice and reliable tradies,” he says. “It’s definitely doable, but for a lot of homeowners, having an expert design a fairly detailed upgrade plan would make the process significantly easier.”

To that end, a big takeaway for Rob is the realisation that there is a largely unfilled niche for comprehensive retrofit support services – ones that involve more handholding than just basic advice, but less than having an architect oversee a renovation. “It could be building scientists, energy assessors or experienced builders designing retrofits and linking people to a network of trusted tradies,” he suggests.