Home Energy Advice Team - HEAT
Since 2002 Energy Strategies has been delivering the HEAT program
HEAT is an initiative of the ACT government and was designed to assist residents of the ACT to have easy access to the many queires the public has around energy efficiceny.
HEAT has changed over the years and is an organic process - adapting to the rapid changes and needs of the householders reagrding climate change.
HEAT performs many functions including assisting new home builders, renovators, and architects to ensure that plans and renovations intended meet the requriements for sustainable buidling.
This can be achieved by making a free45 minute consulstation with a technical advisor in the Energy Strategies office in the very central location of Manuka.
HEAT also provides the following services:
- verbal (telephone) response to inquiries,
- written (email) response to inquiries,
- displays and talks at major hardware stores in suburban Canberra,
- HEAT aduitors and technical advisors attend Master Builders Assocaiton (MBA)Green Days as well as the Sustainable days held by the Housing Industry Associaton (HIA)
- HEAT technical advisors assessed and commented on the houses from the Sustainable House Day held yearly by the Australian and New Zealand Solar Energy Society (ANZSES)
- HEAT has developed a series of original factsheets (prepared to suit the Canberra climate), available on the website www.heat.net.au or in hard copy,
- HEAT has a presence at selected relevant retail and community functions (home shows, World Environment Day, Solar House Day etc.),
- occasional appearances on local radio, and
- over the past year, a major partnership with the Sustainable Schools program in the ACT.
All inquiries are recorded in a custom designed client tracking data base. During each of the first four years of operation over a thousand ACT households contacted the service by phone or email. The number of additional households that only make use of the website is not known, but site visits now average nearly 3,000 per month. With this increased recognition have come email, and occasionally phone inquiries from outside the ACT, including from all Australian States and even some from outside Australia.