Sustainable building and retrofitting have been passions of mine for many years – but they were considerably ‘sharpened’ following the building of my full solar passive home in Queanbeyan during 2002. Constantly upgrading that home with regards to solar generation, batteries, EV and water use has continued to help me keep up-to-date on various retrofitting options in the field.

Since the completion and fine tuning of that residence, I have been an assessor in the Green Loans scheme (Federal Govt 2009); The Sustaining Our Towns initiative (NSW Govt 2010); presently I am employed by the ACT Govt as a Home Energy assessor with a particular focus on Renters; I am a qualified Scorecard assessor and have completed a 100-home trial for the ACT Govt during 2023, and I have a current Cert 4 in “Home Energy Efficiency & Sustainability” obtained from Transformed Pty Ltd - Sept 2023.

I usually say (when I walk into a home) that I have ‘’Three Hats” to assess the home with – Viz: the Building Fabric (windows/walls/floor/ceiling); Fixed Appliances (heating/cooling/hot water and how much energy they consume) & Discretionary Appliances (things you plug in at will and how much energy they consume).

With these three perspectives/dimensions, I can usually gain and overall impression of the situation and what COULD be improved. Additionally, I carry up-to-date information as to the costs of new appliances so I am able to ‘order’ retrofitting possibilities. The home owner then has the benefit of knowing exactly (in their case) what the ‘low-hanging fruit’ could be in any retrofitting situation.