Ring Ring – phone line

My least favorite thing about this entire build has been the bloody telephone line.

Well, today, finally we have a telephone and internet connection!

I put the order in May 30. 

Today is August 26 (almost august 30)

How in a modern Australia it takes 90 days to get a telephone line is beyond me.

How this is allowed to happen is also beyond me. 

I’ve put in a number of complaints to find out how and why it took so long.  Not sure I’ll get an answer.

Starting to feel a bit like rural Australia under the old Telstra. Not sure the new is any better.

end of rant

 

 

 

Large house cost to run – fallacy

“You’ll need another mortgage to heat this new house of yours.”

“It will cost you an arm and a leg for your utility bills.”

I feel a bit like the myth buster lads but I’m here to put a bit of fact back into these statements.

The background is in this post when I explored how green these new homes are.

The green post: how much should we spend to save?

So, the first bills are in.

OLD HOUSE: June 3 – July 31st 2013 in the rental equalled 310 kj per day
NEW HOUSE: June 1 – july 31st 2014 in the new house was 127 kj per day

That is a cracking big difference.

Many factors I suspect:

• The solar hot water is doing a fine job of lowering the gas bill
• The 5-star gas ducted is just so damn efficient
• The house is very well insulated and takes ages to cool down overnight or to heat up
• The airlock in the lounge room means the thermostat can kill the heating pretty quickly
• The firebox has been used on cold weekends as well

Very happy camper.

How about electricity?
• About half of the old house we demolished (used an electric reverse cycle heater a lot of the time)
• Electricity is the same as the rental at 10-12kw per day.
• Early days, but no worse.

I’m yet to put all the energy efficient lights in the house so that should make a bit more of a difference. With no down lights I wasn’t expecting this one to be much of a saving as per the rental house.

I guess we can all thank new building standards and super legislation for 6-stars in Victoria.

The point is that the new house equals massive bill shock is a gross generalisation that is not always the case. Rant over.