ClimateClever Apartment News

Last Chance for Tickets – The Sydney Green Apartments Forum

10am - 3pm, Saturday, 23 July
The Zenith Theatre, Corner McIntosh and Railway Streets, Chatswood
$30 per person

The countdown is on for the inaugural Sydney Green Apartments Forum on Saturday 23 July. This exciting new event is designed to provide practical information to help reduce the operating costs of common areas and help future proof your apartment building.

Don’t miss out on your chance to hear from industry experts including Jimmy Thomson - Sydney Morning Herald apartment columnist; Christine Byrne - founder of Green Strata; Richard Gration - barrister and Owners Corporation member; Andre Boerema – Sydney Water; and Adrian Emery from strata management company, Bright & Duggan.

The Forum will cover:

• Understanding and managing your apartment building’s operating efficiency
• Ways to reduce your common area operating costs
• Strata Law in relation to common area improvements
• Success stories from other Owners Corporations

Find out more and secure your ticket online today or phone 9777 1000.

The Mews Apartment Complex Case Study

The Owner’s Corporation of The Mews apartment building in Chatswood made changes to common area energy consumption through the ClimateClever Apartments program.

About The Mews

The Mews consists of two two-storey buildings with a single level basement car park. The buildings were constructed in 2005 and house 21 apartments.

The Mews is an over 55s complex, and residents are mainly owner/occupiers. The complex benefits from a ‘common room’ which is well utilised and central to the community feel of the complex.

Facilities that contribute to common area energy and water consumption (and therefore the operating costs incurred by the Owners Corporation) include:

• Interior lighting
• Basement car park lighting
• Exterior lighting
• Lift motors
• Basement car park exhaust fan (currently not used)
• Water features
• Stormwater pumps 

ClimateClever Assessment Service Results

The Mews received a free common area energy and water assessment as part of the ClimateClever Apartments Program. The ClimateClever common area energy and water assessment found:

• The electricity consumption within the common areas was 25,681 kWh per year
• The carbon footprint associated with the electricity consumption was 27.48 tonnes of greenhouse gas per year, equivalent to 549,574 balloons of carbon pollution

The recommendations of the assessment were as follows:

• Replace 50W halogen lamps running around the clock with 3W LEDs 
• Install motion sensors on existing non-emergency lights
• Remove fluorescent tubes located in the basement metre room from the electrical circuit controlled by daylight sensor (PE cell) and placed on their own manual switch
• Replace 45W emergency light fluorescent tubes running around the clock in fire stairs with 15W LED tubes
• Install a solar power system

The payback period for these energy efficient measures is less than two years. This means the upfront cost of the improvements will be paid back quickly, so the Owners Corporation can enjoy ongoing savings. 

ClimateClever Actions

Based on the results of the ClimateClever common area energy and water assessment, the Owners Corporation decided to:

• Replace 50W halogen lamps running around the clock outside the entrance foyer of the western building with 3W LEDs
• Install motion detectors in the car park (five sensors) and all internal corridors (nine sensors) that switch lights on as required
• Install LED lights in stairwell to provide safety lighting  
• Install a 4.68 kW solar power system

The Owners Corporation applied to Willoughby City Council’s ClimateClever Apartments Grant Scheme and were awarded co-funding to implement the above actions.

Willoughby City Council congratulates the Owners Corporation of 88 Victoria Ave, Chatswood for taking these positive steps to improve the sustainability performance of their apartment building.

We look forward to reporting the savings achieved in a future edition of the ClimateClever Apartments eNewsletter.

Watch how The Mews became ClimateClever

See how the Owners Corporation of The Mews improved the sustainability performance of their building in this video.