Home Energy Advisor - Seb Crangle

21/08/2026

I haven't posted for a long time as I've been working for DCCEEW (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water) on a fixed term contract to the end of September. I'd like to share with you though this snazy animated video (2mins) explaining the existing home energy assessment program now available to households. I'll be available to provide these assessments to households, particularly from October, and mostly in Northern NSW. If you'd like to book in for one, email me at: [email protected].

This video introduces Home Energy Rating. It explains how a Home En...

17/05/2026

It was a fab day on the North Coast for Sustainable House Day, even the sun joined in on the festivities! 🌞
The tour of our own house went great, with some very engaged punters soaking up what we have learned in our retrofit energy efficiency/ thermal performance journey.

And after a quick lunch I went off Mullumbimby to learn from an owner builder of a "well wrapped" solar passive home, and lastly to a flood-affected home that has been beautifully retrofitted for flood resilience. What a jam-packed weekend it has been 🥵

16/05/2026

I was interviewed on ABC Radio this morning on the topic of Sustainable House Day and the energy efficiency journey in our own house - listen via recording below. If you haven't yet bought yourself a ticket to SHD time is running out, sales close this afternoon at 5pm (Sat 16 May). I'll be opening up our own house for a tour at 11am, taking punters through our home's energy efficient features with a focus on low cost DIY retrofiting for thermal performance (and a few higher cost tech as well...). There's over 150 houses opening their doors across Australia tomorrow, including several on the northcoast (including Mullum and Bangalow*), all included in the one $15 ticket. Hope to see you at one of them, otherwise please have a listen to this short (7min) interview. 🌞

* this SHD is being proadly supported on the North Coast by Byron Shire Council.

23/04/2026

I'm opening up our home for Renew's Sustainable House Day again this year, including for in-person guided tours by an accredited home energy consultant (moi! 😊) If you live in Northern NSW, book in and come along (17th May). Or if you live further away, you can check out the home profile and video summary on the SHD webpage:

Our home in Northern NSW was built in 1986 in beautiful surrounds but without consideration for sustainability, including few build / design features to promote thermal and energy performance. When we moved in in 2006 the house was incredibly hot in summer, cold in winter, and energy bills were high...

17/02/2026

There is an ever-increasing concern of the catastrophic impact that AI will have on the world as we know it, from its upturning of the worldwide employment market through to the centralisation of human intelligence (and power) in the hands of a wealthy few. For me personally, one of the more sickening impacts emerging are the enormous environmental impacts of AI, specifically from the resource demands of data centres.

According to the International Energy Agency a typical AI-focused data center consumes as much electricity as 100,000 households, and the larger centers under construction today will consume 20 times that (https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/).

This is particularly disturbing to me because I have dedicated my professional life to reducing the energy consumption of residential homes and small businesses. I'm conscious that the energy savings from our homes are small compared to government and industry, and yet the collective progress we have been making to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions is likely to be gazumped by the impact of AI's resource hungry data centres.

There are many good people around the world attempting to introduce ethical constraints and regulations on the AI wildfire, but they are fighting a losing battle up against powerful, vested interests. I'm at a loss for what I can do personally, other than a few simple acts of conscientious abstinence which I will share below. Their impact is small, yet they are all that we can do (easily) to reduce demand for this technology. And like improving the energy efficiency of your home the impact on the country's combined consumption is small, yet they are actions that we have the biggest influence over. Here's what I propose we all do:

1. When you search Google, type "-ai" at the end. This tells Google that you don't want the AI summary. Apparently this AI summary uses 10x as much energy and water as a standard Google search.
2. Change the settings on software that uses AI (like Adobe Acrobat) so it doesn't constantly offer you AI generated summaries.
3. Seriously consider not using AI tools like ChatGPT. Or at least: refrain from doing 'frivolous' queries, eg to generate video of a cat dancing...
4. If you *do* need to use an AI product, try to only use it for good outcomes that will help you make the world a better place.
5. Ask your workplace if it is developing guidelines for the ethical use of AI in your employment, and encourage them to include education on the environmental costs of non-essential AI use.

In making these suggestions I fully appreciate there will likely come a time when using AI is unavoidable, especially in our workplaces. Yet the more awareness we generate of the potential negative impacts of this technology, the more likely we are to be able to manage and mitigate the consequences.

04/11/2025

⚡Energy Saving Tip ⚡
It's hard to believe, but did you know that your NBN connection box and modem/router are consuming each year the equivalent of 7 days worth of electricity for the average 3 person home? I just tested mine with an energy monitor - the extrapolated annual energy consumption for both combined was 99 kWh. That's quite a lot of energy, especially if you're a low-energy home. In our case it's 6% of our total energy consumption, day in, day out. It's a 'cost' that many of us haven't considered as we've rushed out to get faster internet with NBN and Fibre To The Premises.

❔How can you reduce the energy use❔
One easy way is to automate the times when your modem is turned off, ie overnight. The easiest way to do that is with a basic electrical timer, as shown in these pics. At our place I have plugged a double adapter into one, and then the modem and NBN box into that, and set it to turn off between 10pm and 6am each night. That's 8 hours total, so these devices will consume a third less energy. And better yet, you'll be doing so at a time when electricity is very carbon-intensive (mostly coal power).

❔Won't it be inconvenient losing internet overnight ❔
Even if you wake up in the middle of the night and feel inclined to doom scroll on Insta/FB, remember that your phone can still connect to mobile data. So, as long as you have decent amounts of data on your plan, there should be no issue using that to access the net. Either way, consider it a deterent to doom-scrolling 😜

‼️UPDATE: after my first night doing this I had trouble getting the internet working again... Apparently it's common after power outages for the NBN box and modem to not talk to each other. I'm trying to find a solution. Crazy that you can't turn the power off to these things... Best you don't to do this hack just yet...

☑️Credit: I was inspired to finally do something about this (and test the energy consumed) from a post by Tim Forcey on MEEH.

27/10/2025

* Visualising the Effect of Subfloor Insulation *

It's really hot here today, with an ambient temperature outside of 35 degrees, and the AC set to 27 degrees inside. I had noticed the other day that some of my floor insulation had fallen down (the result of my inadequate staple gun for 40 year old joists...) so I thought I'd use my thermal camera to check if you could actually see the affect on the temperature of the floor. The results are quite stark - the sections of floor without insulation can clearly be seen, because they are about 2 degrees hotter than the insulated sections.

And this is despite studies finding that in hot climates such as ours (Northern NSW), floor insulation doesn't always provide a positive year round outcome, in part because in hot weather the subfloor of a home is usually cooler than the ambient temperature. There's a lot of variables affecting this conclusion however, including the circumstances at my house today, where the temperature differential between inside and out is high enough that the subfloor is significantly hotter than the internal (air conditioned) temperature.

15/07/2025

A lovely write up here in Tweed Shire Council's Environment and Sustainability Newsletter about a Residential Efficiency Scorecard assessment I provided to a couple in Pottsville. They won the energy review by yours-truly in a competition at Council's Power Pop Up Stall, at Tweed City last month. It's fabulous that Tweed Council gets involved with initiatives like this, supporting the community to improve energy literacy and address the risks of energy poverty.

https://www.tweed.nsw.gov.au/council/news-updates/latest-news/general-news/Energy-assessment-winners-share-low-cost-bill-reduction-tips

More than 50 other people visited Council’s Power Pop Up stall hosted at Tweed City in May 2025. Council staff helped visitors read their energy bills, review their energy plan and find out more about energy rebates

05/07/2025

🤷🏼‍♂️ Do Tradies Need Utes? 🤷🏼‍♂️Really?

"Australia has a big ‘big car’ problem, we have too many SUVs and utes and we keep getting more of them. In 2023 all ten best-selling new car models were either SUVs or utes, over half of all new car sales were SUVs (55.8%) and nearly a quarter (22.5%) were light commercial vehicles (a category mostly representing utes)...
It is clear the massive increase in SUVs and utes is not due to more tradies ..., but because our tax system [has] encourage[d] the purchase of these behemoths to the detriment of our roads, our safety and the climate." (The Australia Institute, Jan 2024).

When I replaced my VW diesel van with an EV hatchback last year, I must admit I was a bit concerned that I would struggle to carry on my side-business of cleaning solar panels. I know I probably wouldn't qualify as a fair-dinkum tradie... yet I do have quite a bit of gear to carry around, including a 4.8m ladder, multiple hoses and a 4m window-cleaning pole and water-fed brushes (see pic). The solution for me was not to buy a bigger car, but to get better, more compact equipment! In particular I got myself an extendable fibreglass pole, and a good quality fold up ladder.

Of course, some tradies need to carry big things, like solar panels, cement mixers and the like, but I'd like to question if this is true for the majority. In short, I think tradies get utes because they are more "manly". .. I'd also question why everyone things they need a 4X4, or AWD. How often really are they driving through deep sand or mud? I did a few rural jobs yesterday and the EV was totally fine going down some rough driveways and over muddy grass.

In the meantime, Australia's love of big cars and utes is holding back the country's attempts to reduce emissions, of which transport is one of the largest contributors. And even though EVs made up 9.5% of new cars in 2024, it was more than offset by the high proportion of big vehicles in the remaining sales.

And btw, in my book you don't get off scot-free by buying an electric vehicle. A large EV (increasingly the trend) or hybrid, will consume considerably more energy to travel the same distance as a compact, efficient model. Less is more.

28/06/2025

☀️💸UNDERSTANDING THE 'SOLAR TAX' (two-way pricing), effective 1st July 💸☀️

If you have solar PV, or are considering getting it, it's a good idea to understand "two-way pricing" whereby you can be charged for exporting excess solar power back to the grid. It's currently being phased in, with some significant changes from 1st July 2025. I'll do a brief summary of the financial implications, and ways to avoid it, with links below to more detailed information for NSW residents on the Ausgrid and Essential Energy networks.

In effect, two way pricing means homes with solar won't always receive a credit when they sell their solar power to the grid. Gone are the days when it was financially viable to cover your roof in solar panels and pay for them in a few years by exporting most of the power they produced back to your energy retailer. That doesn't mean that solar is no longer a good idea financially, you just need to be more strategic about the equipment you install, relative to the power you need.

⚡HOW MUCH will we be charged?

The amounts charged for exporting solar energy will quite small, and depend on where you live, which determines which network provider supplies your energy, for example Ausgrid in Sydney area or Essential Energy in the rest of NSW. These providers have indicated how much they will be charging, but ultimately it will be up to your energy retailer (who bills you) to determine how they pass this on to you. It likely that the amounts will vary depending on the retailer and the plan you're on. As a guide though, here's what Ausgrid and Essential are indicating the prices will be:

💸 Ausgrid: 1.2 cents per kWh, between 10am - 3pm
💸 Essential Energy: 0.7 cents per kWh (10-3)

There are however 'free thresholds', so you only pay these fees after you have exported some energy for "free". For Essential that's 7.5 kWh and Ausgrid it's 6.8 kWh. Sounds reasonable, until you remember that until now you've probably been earning about 5 cents per kWh for that energy, rather than nothing.

⚡WHEN will this start?

You may have heard that this is starting from 1st July 2025 for Essential Energy customers, and already started in July 2024 for Ausgrid. However, it has been an 'opt in' program for Ausgrid until now, and for Essential customers will be opt in for many solar households until 2028. There are some circumstances when it will start sooner, such as when you:

* install a battery,
* install new solar, or upgrade
* install a smart meter
* start a new energy connection.

So one upshot is that all the households taking advantage of the new battery rebate will automatically go onto two-way pricing.

⚡ HOW can I minimise how much I need to pay?

Some strategies to avoid paying for solar exports, in brief:

✅ If you're getting a solar system, size it to what you actually need, don't 'oversize' it - be wary of solar salespeople who tell you you need a system that produces much more energy than you could possibly use. One option is to seek independant analyis of optimum solar size but an energy advisor (like me!)
✅ Get battery storage, or an electric vehicle. Batteries and EVs give you a way of 'soaking' up your excess solar power during the day, instead of exporting it. Of course with an EV it needs to be home during the day to do that... And with a battery it needs to be the right size relative to your solar - if your solar is too big and battery too small, the battery will be fully charged by say 10am and then you'll start exporting anyway.
✅ 'Load shift' other appliances. 'Self-consumption' is still the best way to get financial value from solar. That is, schedule when you use appliances so they soak up the solar you're producing in the middle of the day, and you export less. The big players are electric hot water (see previous posts) and pool equipment if you have it.

One last point: the flip side to two way pricing is that there will be an OPPORTUNITY TO EARN more than the usual feed-in tariff if you export power when the grid needs it the most, in the early evening. For Essential customers that will be about 11 cents/kWh between 5-8pm, and Ausgrid: 2.3c/ kWh between 4-9pm. The Ausgrid figure is lower than what most people are getting now. And of course, because these times are mostly after the sun has set you'll only be able to earn these if you have a battery and get export from it to the grid.

It's all a bit complicated! or at least not what we're used to... but I hope that this post has helped clarify a few things for you.
If you'd like a more detailed appraisal of your optimal solar and battery requirements, I'm providing TAILORED CONSULTATIONS to households. The cost is $180 for

Shout it from the rooftops! Renew's Dean Lombard looks beyond the headlines and the hysteria at the details of the proposed new solar rules.