New plan for Sydney heatwaves calls for minimum rental standards
December 29, 2024 6:41 PM Subscribe
New plan for Sydney heatwaves calls for minimum rental standards to include cooling. Cooling push puts onus on landlords to temper dangerously hot Sydney rentals.
A new plan for living with extreme heat calls for minimum thermal standards for rental properties.
GOOD. Australian building standards have been so lax for so long. Our inner Sydney unit (townhouse in a Strata building) was built in the 80's but had seemingly zero thought to thermal standards. Single pane, leaky windows; zero insulation; no heating or A/C; gaps all over the place. For example, the bathroom ventilation consisted of a part of the window that you couldn't close, that just had flyscreen over it. After a stint in Munich in a place with double glazing, thick walls, and underfloor heating, we came back to Sydney determined to improve the place. We've just finished a massive renovation where (among other things) we replaced every external door and window with a more insulated version, closed up gaps, and added reverse cycle A/C to all 4 rooms. It's already made such a massive difference. I can't imagine what it's like in western Sydney, where it's regularly 5-10 degrees hotter than our place, trying to sleep in a stifling rental.
Actually, I can. During the renovation we had to move out into a temporary apartment. It had A/C in the living room, but the bedroom faced full west with zero shade. The aircon never penetrated in there, despite trying multiple configurations of box fans to get airflow. We weren't even there in the full heat of summer, and there were many nights that were too hot to sleep.
posted by web-goddess at 11:06 PM on December 29
Actually, I can. During the renovation we had to move out into a temporary apartment. It had A/C in the living room, but the bedroom faced full west with zero shade. The aircon never penetrated in there, despite trying multiple configurations of box fans to get airflow. We weren't even there in the full heat of summer, and there were many nights that were too hot to sleep.
posted by web-goddess at 11:06 PM on December 29
I heartily agree that Sydney needs a rethink on its status as a subtropical city facing a heating climate future. It's becoming so that half of the year is quite intolerable if you have no cooling.
As someone who just finished an apartment search in Sydney, I can confirm that the vast majority of rentals do not have AC, or have a unit in only one room, like web-goddess describes. If you are confining your house/apartment search to places with cooling throughout, your options are few and $$$. And on top of not having AC, most rentals also do not have fly screens on the windows, which adds insult to injury, given how unbearable it is to sleep with mosquitoes in your bedroom. The lack of trees and plantings is also a factor. We need to require a better standard in new builds and we need to figure out how to retrofit existing builds to optimise for cooling and energy efficiency.
posted by amusebuche at 2:40 PM on December 30 [1 favorite]
As someone who just finished an apartment search in Sydney, I can confirm that the vast majority of rentals do not have AC, or have a unit in only one room, like web-goddess describes. If you are confining your house/apartment search to places with cooling throughout, your options are few and $$$. And on top of not having AC, most rentals also do not have fly screens on the windows, which adds insult to injury, given how unbearable it is to sleep with mosquitoes in your bedroom. The lack of trees and plantings is also a factor. We need to require a better standard in new builds and we need to figure out how to retrofit existing builds to optimise for cooling and energy efficiency.
posted by amusebuche at 2:40 PM on December 30 [1 favorite]
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