Community Energy Action Home Energy Services

• Home Energy Check
• Home Draught Testing Service
• Community Outreach

»Home energy check

Due to the busy winter period Home Energy Checks are not available from April to September.

A Home Energy Check is a comprehensive assessment of the energy efficiency of your whole home, not just your insulation. The assessment is followed up with a list of prioritised actions which will make your home more energy efficient.

Home Energy Checks are in general only available in the Christchurch urban area and some surrounding areas. Extra charges may apply for Home Energy Checks which are further away. Home Energy Check are conducted by the Home Energy Advice Centre.

Costs:

Community Services Card holders: $50 (incl. GST)

Without a Community Services Card but earning less than $100,000: $100

Without a Community Services Card and earning more than $100,000: $150

To book a Home Energy Check, call (0800) 388 588 and leave a message that you want to arrange a Home Energy Check or email canterbury@energyadvice.org.nz.

Download our Home Energy Self Check to check your own home.

»Home draught testing service

We provide an innovative, unique service that reliably and accurately measures the air-tightness of a home and locates sources of draughts.

Draughts are uncontrolled air movement in a house. Wind blowing on your home can force cold air in, around windows and doors and through a wide range of other gaps and openings. Warm air rising within our homes escapes creating a suction which pulls cold air in through these same holes. If the number of times the air changes per hour in your house is very high due to uncontrolled draughts, your home will be less energy efficient.

Draughts can be very uncomfortable to live with, especially in the winter. They reduce the effectiveness of the insulation in your house and may allow potentially damaging moisture to penetrate walls. You can reduce your heating costs and make your home more comfortable by identifying the source and volume of your draughts, plus proper draught-stopping and air sealing techniques.

Community Energy Action (CEA) can test for draughts in your house using a ‘blower door'. A blower door comprises a calibrated fan and a pressure sensing monitor. Inserted into a door frame, the fan moves air from inside the house to the outside at a high rate. Draughts which already exist within the house are amplified to an extent to which they can be easily located by CEA staff.

The testing process takes approximately 2 hours. We will need access to all of the rooms of your house, plus a power connection. Once testing is complete you will receive a report within which:

1. Documents the location of the major sources of draughts in your house
2. Recommends a list for draught stopping.

Price: $180 incl.GST ($150 for a household with a Community Services Card).

For any queries about or to book our Home Draught Testing service, call (03) 374 5698.

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»Community outreach

CEA is committed to providing responsive and appropriate community outreach to enable householders to save energy and stay warm. We target our community outreach to two kinds of audiences:

1. householders - both home owners and tenants
2. staff from community groups and health agencies, plus service groups such as Rotary who are interested in referring householders to CEA for assistance

Community outreach activities include:

Community education workshops

Mobile display stand

Newsletter articles

Warm Home Standard - CEA's E-letter

Brochures about CEA projects and other energy efficiency topics

Download our Community Outreach Form to request any of these outreach activities or resources.   

  CEA Community_Outreach_request_form.pdf (48.03 KB)

Or call (03) 374 5698 and ask for the Community Outreach Coordinator.  

Community education workshops

CEA runs community education workshops on why it is important to live in an energy efficient house, healthy living temperatures, and CEA services and projects. This is a free service and we come to you at a convenient time and location. We use a PowerPoint presentation and samples of home insulation products. Education sessions are tailored on request, and can include information about how to deal with moisture and condensation and 'good heating'. A minimum of six people is required per session. At least 20 minutes is required for each session and this can be extended to an hour.

Mobile display stand

We also have a mobile display stand which is ideal for areas of high foot traffic. This display stand contains information about CEA services and healthy living temperatures. It is available for school fairs, expos, health-oriented events, and shop front windows.

Our goal is to have this display stand working 52 weeks a year! We will transport the stand, plus set it up and pack it down for you.  Any site must be secure or well supervised. CEA staff will usually be able to attend the stand for most short term events to talk to interested people (e.g. less than or a full working day). For longer periods of time (e.g. longer than a full working day) attendance by CEA will need to be negotiated due to a shortage of staff available for this role. In these circumstances the stand will be unattended for periods of time and will need to be located in a secure space.

Newsletter articles

We are developing a suite of short articles which are ideal for community group or health-oriented newsletters, and are best published during the cooler months of the year when people are dealing with living in a cold home on a daily basis. Content will include:

1. CEA's services and projects

2. How to deal with mould and condensation

3. ‘Good heating'

4. How to save energy and stay warm

5. CEA's Curtain Bank

Your organisation might like to publish any one, a combination, or all of these articles.

Warm Home Standard

This is our quarterly e-letter. "The Warm Home Standard" is distributed on an occasional basis to keep you informed about new information on our website, CEA activities and future directions plus other topical issues as they arise. To view our latest issue, go to http://www.cea.co.nz/news-research/.

If you wish to subscribe to the "Warm Home Standard", email whs@cea.co.nz with the following text in the subject line: "subscribe me to The Warm Home Standard". To enable us to keep good subscription records, please include in your email your

1. first name and surname
2. the name of the organisation you work for
3. your job title

Brochures

CEA has a range of brochures about our services and projects.

Brochures supplied by CEA           

Other relevant brochures and contact details for supply         

Go back to Community Outreach Request form to order brochures