What's the next step to an Energy Freedom Home?

What's the next step to your Energy Freedom Home?



You understand what an Energy Freedom Home is and what you need to get one, but knowledge does not always lead to an outcome.
Unsure about what an Energy Freedom Home is? Check out this article. Not sure what is involved? Read this first.
In this article, we'll walk through the steps to achieve an Energy Freedom Home. By the end of the article you should understand why you might address some things before others and have the knowledge to build a draft roadmap for getting all your upgrades completed.
This article is more focussed on the big picture of prioritising upgrades, and less about how to action specific upgrades. If you're more focussed on guidance for specific upgrades, search our knowledge base for related articles.
While every journey is different based on your home and personal circumstances, it's possible to define a general roadmap to an Energy Freedom Home that is easy to customise. The purpose here is to help you get moving.

What do I do first?

Even though the answer to this question depends on your circumstances, there's a useful framework we'll share that will save you a lot of time. Some upgrades need to be completed before others to make the project as safe and effective as possible. 
As mentioned our article, "What do I need to get an Energy Freedom Home?", not all these upgrades will apply to your home circumstances. However, it's pretty straightforward to remove the irrelevant upgrades from the list. The same priorities will still apply to whatever's left over.
Here's the sequence we suggest for your upgrades:

 

Priority
Objective
Upgrades
1st
Upgrades electrics
Check mains supply and switchboard
2nd
Get off gas with electric alternatives
Replace gas heating
Replace gas hot water
Replace gas cook top and/or gas oven
3rd
Generate electricity at home
Install a solar PV system
4th
Prepare for passive
Covert all downlights to IC-4 LEDs
  5th
Improve home thermal performance
Insulate roof, underfloor and walls
Complete draught proofing
Before we discuss why we recommend each priority, it is useful to understand the difference between passive and active upgrades.

Active upgrades versus passive upgrades

Passive energy upgrades, such as insulation and draught proofing, require no energy input once they are completed.
 
Active energy upgrades, such as air conditioning and hot water systems, require an ongoing energy supply to operate. These upgrades require electricians and often plumbers, so it is worth grouping them together.

1st priority: Electrics

This one always gets missed! An Energy Freedom Home is all-electric. An essential pre-cursor is to check if your current home electrics are up to the task.
 
You need to make sure your mains supply will be able to support the additional electrical load and that your switchboard is capable of routing power safely around your home to where it is needed once the upgrades are completed.
 
Here's a list of questions that need to be answered:
  1. What is the mains supply to my property?
  2. What are the power requirements for the upgrades that I want to complete?
  3. Do I want to get an electric vehicle (EV) at some point in the future?
  4. Do I need a bigger mains supply for the additional upgrades and potentially charging an EV at home?
  5. How much space do I have on my switchboard for adding appliances?
  6. Is my switchboard safe and compliant with modern standards?
  7. Do I require a switchboard upgrade to accommodate the additional upgrades and distribute power safely?
If you are struggling with answering any of these questions, we can help! We offer Electrification Masterclasses. Check your Masterclass readiness now!
 If the answers to any of these questions indicates a mains supply upgrade and/or a switchboard upgrade, you need to factor this additional cost into your plan. It's a bit painful to see these additional costs appear, but at least you're identifying them early in the project.
 
Many homeowners end up with a nasty shock when they realise their aging home electrics can't handle their planned home upgrades. They generally get this information via a quote from an electrician and often assume the tradie bearing the bad news is trying to rip them off.

2nd priority: Get off gas

After checking your electrics, the next thing should be to replace all your gas-based systems with electric alternatives. For example, if you've got gas ducted heating, a gas hot water system and a gas cooktop, you could switch them out for reverse cycle air conditioning, a heat pump hot water system and an induction cooktop.
 
The easiest thing to get your head around is that if you've got gas piped into your home or supplied via bottle, you'll never have energy independence. Why? You can generate electricity using solar panels, but you'll never extract gas from your backyard. It'll always come from a gas company.
 
Now for the more complicated bit. Getting off gas has a great cost/benefit impact...but not as much as passive upgrades like insulation and draft proofing. So why do we recommend getting off gas before making your house more airtight?
 
We're following the lead of Energy Safe Victoria1. They recommend that you ventilate your home and use exhaust fans with caution if you have gas fuelled heaters or gas cooktops. If not, you risk the steady build up of carbon monoxide and other harmful gases from appliance use or incidental gas leaks which are worryingly common, especially in gas cooktops2.
 
If you have plugged all your drafts and insulated, that'll trap harmful gases and have a dangerous impact on your health. To get the big cost/benefit wins, make your home safe first and quit gas.
To read more, head to our article, 'Is gas bad?'
If you are able to install a solar PV system, another benefit to changing your home over to all-electric is that you'll be running your whole home from home-made electricity. This will dramatically increase the cost savings from a solar PV system and further protect you from changes in retail energy prices.

3rd priority: Solar PV system

Ironically, this is often the thing most people have already done or that they think is the best thing to do. It's definitely an important part of the Energy Freedom puzzle, but if you're considering it alongside other upgrades it makes sense to leave it until later.
 
Why? Put simply, it's useful to know how much electricity your energy efficient, all-electric home will require when you are figuring out how big your solar PV system should be.
 
This will be hard to estimate if you don't know what new electric appliances will be replacing your current gas ones.
 
As mentioned above, you'll also get a higher immediate benefit if you install solar PV after you've electrified your home.

4th priority: Prepare for passive

Passive upgrades will help make your home cosy. Roof insulation is a big ticket item to reduce your energy bills and improve comfort. However, if you have the wrong downlights, your cosy home will have draft holes or be a fire hazard.
 
IC-4 LEDs produce very little heat, which allows installers to lay insulation directly over the lights without creating a fire hazard. Without IC-4s, installers will need to cut holes in your insulation to prevent the buildup of heat from the lights. Before getting roof insulation you will need to upgrade any downlights in your ceiling.
 
Replacing traditional lights with LEDs is also an affordable way to reduce your electricity usage for lighting by 75% (3). By replacing your lights with IC-4 LEDs you will have no insulation gaps around your lights and therefore better performing insulation. 

5th priority: Insulation and draft proofing

Once you've removed the appliances that are leaking harmful gases into your living spaces and upgraded your downlights, you can improve the thermal performance of your home so it requires less active heating and cooling using appliances.
 
The two ways to improve the thermal performance of your home are:
  1. Rugging up your home with insulation to prevent heat transfer;
  2. Sealing gaps to stop airflow.
This is where you'll get big savings for relatively low up-front cost. A well insulated home can reduce energy loss of up to 35% in winter (3) and 50% in summer (4). Unlike active measures like air conditioning units, there are no ongoing running costs to keep your indoor spaces more comfortable. A well insulated home consists of roof and underfloor insulation and potentially wall insulation.
 
Once you've insulated your roof, underfloor and walls, you'll get big additional reductions in energy usage by checking your home for draughts and sealing any gaps.

In summary

It's surprisingly easy to figure out a sequence to all your upgrades when you think about what needs to be done first to make the most of each upgrade, or to keep your home as safe as possible.
 
You might have different opinions or a different structure that makes more sense than the one we've proposed. If it works for your circumstances, great! We are not claiming there is only one way. However, we've put a lot of thought into structuring these resources to help reduce the risks of wasted time, choosing the wrong product or committing to a dodgy installer.

Next steps

If you're not sure about the best time to start and you want to know more about how long the process will take, have a read of our article, 'When should I switch to an Energy Freedom Home?'
 
If you are ready to get started and want to know more about your electrics, head to 'Will I need to upgrade my power?'
 
If you are confident that your electrics are up to the job and want to begin your getting off gas journey, you can start with cooking, space heating, or hot water.
 
Want to fast-track home electrification? Join an Energy Freedom Homes Masterclass and learn to identify your needs, gain expert installation advice, and meet trustworthy tradespeople. Check your Masterclass readiness now!

References

1 Energy Safe Victoria. (n.d.). Heating your home safely with gas. Retrieved  2022, from https://esv.vic.gov.au/safety-education/gas-safety-at-home/heating-your-home-with-gas/
2 Lebel, E. D., Finnegan, C. J., Ouyang, Z., & Jackson, R. B. (2022). Methane and NOx emissions from natural gas stoves, cooktops, and ovens in residential homes. Environmental Science & Technology, 56(4), 2529-2539. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707
3 Australian Government: Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. (n.d.). Seasonal Advice: Winter. Retrieved  2022, from https://www.energy.gov.au/households/household-guides/seasonal-advice/winter
4 Australian Government: Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. (n.d.). Seasonal Advice: Summer. Retrieved  2022, from https://www.energy.gov.au/households/household-guides/seasonal-advice/summer-guide
5 Australian Government: Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. (n.d.). Households: Lighting. Retrieved  2022, from https://www.energy.gov.au/households/lighting