Coolheat Blog

Buying By The Stars

We’ve all been hit by rising electricity costs, at work and at home. The price of electricity is beyond our control, but it’s within our power to lower the amount of energy we use. New Zealand’s growing demand for energy means we must put more resources into generating power, which in turn puts more stress onto our environment. Generating energy for all the appliances in the average New Zealand household produces about five tonnes of carbon dioxide (C02) a year. To help use energy more efficiently, the government and manufacturers have developed higher efficiency standards for most home white-ware appliances. By law from April 1st 2002 appliances must carry an ’Energy Star’ label that shows how they measure up to the new “energy standards”. A third of your household energy goes on heating your home. An energy efficient heating system can use less energy, save you money and help our environment.

There are two labels you should look for that give you useful information on how much energy an appliance uses. The Energy Rating label gives you information on how much energy a product uses so you can compare between models. The number of stars tells you how well the product performs - the more stars the more energy efficient the model is and the more it saves you in electricity bills. EECA has also introduced the blue Energy Star mark on heat pumps to tell you which are most energy efficient in each size range. Daikin and Mitsubishi heat pumps proudly carry both the Energy Rating Label and the Energy Star Mark.

“Heat pumps are the most energy efficient way to heat your home. As heat pumps transfer more energy than they use, their efficiency can be up to 450% more than other heating types. Replacing an electric heater with an energy efficient energy star heat pump can significantly reduce your monthly home heating costs and could save an additional $150 per year on your power bill.” (www.sustainability.govt.nz)

Power bills in winter are always a big topic of conversation. Nearly all cases of large changes in power bills when using heat pumps come down to one of two factors. The first is user behaviour. Leaving your heat pump running at high temperatures 24 hours a day, seven days a week is not advised. While the resident always wants to be comfortable, it always costs more if they want to have a constantly sweltering interior climate. We recommend to our customers during the winter months to have it running at around 19 - 23 degrees when you are at home using the space and turning it down to between 14 - 17 degrees when you are in bed or out of the house.

Secondly, there’s incorrect quoting and installation of systems. Here undersized or inferior heat pumps, incapable of delivering in harsh South Island conditions, become a real issue. This is an unfortunate reality of a technology that can be purchased straight off the shelf. If a unit is undersized, it will use more energy working too hard to keep the room temperature up to where you want it on a cold winter day, it will also cost more to meet your heating requirements and may not perform to the level required. It is also likely to spend more time in defrost mode than in heating mode. Our Daikin units have an operating range in heating mode down to at least minus 10 degrees outside air temperature and up to 46 degrees in cooling mode. This means they cope comfortably with the extremes of the Canterbury climate. We also have experienced Sales Consultants who will be able to calculate the optimum unit size for your space and our policy is that if we do not install our best solution for your home, we will rectify the problem free of charge* (* Subject to terms of trade and warranty).

We encourage those considering purchasing a climate control system to spend the time getting all the information up front. Do some research and get a consultation from a well-regarded company pre-installation. A helpful website to visit if you are interested in energy efficiency or the Energy Rating labels is:  www.energystar.govt.nz.

Tags: electricity costs, energy rating, energy star mark, maikin, mitsubishi, sustainability