Energy and Alternative Energy

Articles

Heating Your Home(Size 132K, PDF, Waitakere City Council)
Home heating undoubtedly offers the greatest potential for energy saving in the home. The way most of us use electricity to heat our homes is wasteful. Moreover home heating causes the highest peaks in electricity demand.

Design for the Sun (Size 135K, PDF, Waitakere City Council)
Designing for the sun is the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to heat New Zealand houses. "Passive solar design" refers to the use of the suns energy directly for the heating and cooling of living spaces.

Insulation (Size 102K, PDF, Waitakere City Council)
Insulating your home will save energy and provide a healthier and more comfortable indoor environment. The heat captured from the sun or generated by your heater needs to be stopped from escaping through walls, ceilings and floors.

Light and Lighting (Size 70K, PDF, Waitakere City Council)
Besides being essential for vision, light affects human performance, alertness and mood. It influences body rhythms such as sleep patterns, ovulation and hormone secretion.

Heating Water (Size 201K, PDF, Waitakere City Council)
Water heating probably accounts for 45 % of your annual household energy use. Most of us have electric storage hot water systems, which are often inefficient and wasteful. Poorly insulated cylinders, long pipe runs without lagging, and inadequate appliances and fittings all waste energy.

Household Appliances (Size 79K, PDF, Waitakere City Council)
Some of the big users of energy are covered in the separate chapters on Heating Water and Heating your Home. As a rule-of-thumb you can assume that mechanical and electronic appliances use electricity efficiently, but anything that produces heat is likely to be quite wasteful.