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If you're renting, it's much harder to make changes to your housing to save money and the environment. You can't put solar panels on, and you can't put insulation in. You are stuck with a massive electricity bill and possibly a massive gas bill too. There are however ways to save money and the environment when you’re a renter. These are our tips:

  1. Look for green rentals

Realestate.com.au allows you to search for rentals with solar panels. If you're using Domain, you can use Solar as a keyword, and this will show you rentals with solar panels. Properties with solar panels don't seem to be any more expensive so it's worthwhile having a look as it will save you on your electricity bill.

While it is incredibly hard to get a rental at the moment. With crazy stories of one hundred people showing up for some inspections. If you can, try and evaluate the property based on the criteria in the points below.

  1. Heating and Cooling

On average 40% of homes' energy use goes to heating and cooling. Throwing on a jumper in winter and turning the temperature down a little will save a lot of electricity. In hot parts of Australia, using a fan during the day and running the air conditioner so you can sleep is a great strategy for saving electricity. On those extremely hot days, Canstar recommends running your air conditioner at 25 degrees C. Running your air conditioner at 21 degrees will cost 45% more per hour than running it at 25 degrees.

Stopping drafts can dramatically affect your heating and cooling bills. If you're renting you can’t go around with a tube of no-more gaps and seal up everything. You can use a fabric draught stopper and heavy curtains to stop draughts through doors and windows.

  1. Choose energy-efficient appliances

Choice magazine puts the savings of choosing energy-efficient appliances at around $1,000. So, while it's not worth it just throw out a perfectly good fridge to buy a 6-star energy-efficient fridge. If your appliance needs replacing, it’s a fantastic opportunity to replace it with an energy-efficient model. You can save even more money by buying energy-efficient models on Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree.

  1. LED light bulbs

Incandescent bulbs have been banned in Australia since 2010. So, most of the rentals you look at should at least have fluorescent bulbs in them. LED bulbs are almost the same price as fluorescent bulbs these days, they use 70% less electricity, and last ten times longer.

Halogen downlights are notorious for using massive amounts of electricity. They use twenty times the electricity of an LED light and there could be twenty downlights in one large room. You may be better off lighting a space with one or two LED floor lamps than turning on a room of 20 Halogen Downlights.

  1. Reduce Hot Water Use

Heating water consumes 25% of all household electricity. You can save massive amounts of money by reducing the temperature of your hot water system to 60 degrees (this stops bacteria from growing but is lower than normal) and by reducing the amount of hot water you use. Low flow showerheads and taps, taking short showers and washing clothes on cold are all great ways to reduce the amount of hot water you use.

  1. Compost/Worm Farm

This won't save you any money sadly, but it is good for the environment. A compost pile doesn't require anything special, but an upside-down bin will keep things tidy. If you're in an apartment a worm farm is an innovative idea for a balcony. A compost bin or a worm farm will get rid of all your veggie scraps and save them from landfill.

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