PROPERTY
S E M O H R GREENE COSTS Lifestyle
SAVE YOU ENERGY
H
omeowners are becoming aware of the need to create ecofriendly or green homes that help to reduce energy usage and cost, and which also against global warming. You can create your green home by installing a heat pump and solar energy as a first step towards sustainable living and reducing energy expenditure. Managing Director of Energy Efficient Homes and Businesses, Derek de Bres, cautioned: “You can’t see where your power is being wasted as electricity is not like water.” If you have a broken tap you can see the water dripping and this
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prompts you to act. “With electricity you just get a bill and wonder what is going on,” says De Bres. He cautioned that homeowners who don’t change their ways, will land up with their service providers owning their homes or they will be working to service their bills. “Change now and save money. In fact, you will be paid to reduce your carbon footprint if you use eco-friendly products”. You look at our domestic heat pump selling for R10 000.00 and we have a payment plan starting from about R265 or you could put it on your access bond costing you R80 per month.” He
says the savings range from R350 to, in some homes, R1 000.00 per month and the result gets better when you understand that to produce one kilowatthour of electricity Eskom emits over one kilogram of carbon into the atmosphere. “So you are getting paid to reduce your carbon footprint.” De Bres says people need to change their old ways entirely and stop trying to build homes with so many components. If one had a mould or shuttering, they could make a house out of a type of foam concrete. This would be stronger and more energy efficient and you could
