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He says something as simple as a stick of incense can help identify the problem. “You can take a smoking stick of incense and see how the smoke moves,” Adams says. “Test it on a cold day when you have the heater on in the room. So the hot air rises, and if you have a leaky fitting, air should flow through it.”
Trivess Moore, associate professor at the school of property, construction and project management at RMIT University, agreed the problem would be widespread and said homeowners would mostly not notice. “It’s a serious problem and nobody really knows what’s going on in the ceiling, that’s part of the problem,” he said. “If you don’t have a thermal imaging camera or climb up on the ceiling, you don’t know what’s going on there.”
Moore said poor insulation can affect the performance of other heating features in the home, such as split-system heating, and lead to a lack of trust in a home’s energy-saving features.
“One of the challenges we see across the industry is a lack of trust in the product being delivered,” he said. “The product is there, it’s just not installed properly.”
Adams said tradesmen working within the roof cavity could also inadvertently displace previously installed insulation, as many tradesmen were unaware of the importance of the energy-saving features.
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Split air conditioning systems do not work well in uninsulated rooms because the warm air leaving the unit will quickly cool upon contact with cold walls, floors, and ceilings and cause a “wind chill” effect indoors.
Lyrian Daniel, associate professor of architecture at the University of South Australia, said most Australian homes were not designed for both cold and hot weather.
“Most of us haven’t lived in a well-insulated house before,” she said. “We don’t actually know what it means or what it feels like to live in a comfortable, well-insulated house.”
Daniel said many Australians viewed thermal comfort as a luxury that could help reduce energy costs, rather than a feature that was important to the health of home occupants.
“The World Health Organization recommends a minimum indoor temperature of 18 degrees in winter, and that’s for healthy adults. For (vulnerable people), the temperature needs to be higher,” she said.
“This is not a luxury, it is also really important for our own health and wellbeing to minimise the strain on our health systems. One study found that four out of five homes were too cold by World Health Organisation standards.”
Adams said homeowners concerned about insulation should talk to a sustainability consultant and recommended hiring an electrician to replace outdated light fixtures.
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