Here’s some Home Energy Assessment videos that I put together for a group 4 community members. These 4 wonderful people took part in a Home Energy Assessment Training program as a part of the Castlemaine 500 project. You can read all about the ‘who/what/when/where/why/how’ of Castlemaine 500 here.

Our aim was to train local people in a process that assists householders to develop a ‘plan of action’. This plan contains energy saving actions such as shorter showers, topping up insulation and switching off electrical appliances at the wall when not in use.

To give the video some context, here are some words (and downloads) you will encounter in the videos:

1. HEAT – The Home Energy Assessment Tool is used by households to self-assess their own energy consumption behaviours across all areas of household energy use. It is used as a key guide during the Home Energy Assessment process.
2. HEAP – The Home Energy Action Plan is used to capture the energy-smart actions that households identify during the Home Energy Assessment process. These actions are given a target date for completion. 
3. CVGA – Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance own the C500 project and the Third Ecology project team ran the C500 project in partnership with the CVGA. My role is part of the Third Ecology Team.
4. MASG – The Mount Alexander Sustainability Group partnered C500 in the training of Home Energy Assessors. Their guidance, support and local knowledge helped to make it happen!

The following videos were developed by me as a ‘refresher’ for the Community Home Energy Assessors. They were about to embark on 20 home energy assessments that they would do on their own, independently of the so called expert assessors in out project team.

From the householder feedback, it is clear that the process works and most would be willing to pay money for such a service!

Videos 1 to 4 – Meant to be viewed in order and they paint a picture of what the C500 Home Energy Assessment process looks like (from the perspective of the Home Energy Assessor).

1. Background and Context (6.17 mins)

2. Overview of the Home Energy Assessment Process (7.29 mins)

3. Nuts & Bolts #1 (8.19 mins)

4. Nuts & Bolts #2 (6.18 mins)

Hope these videos have been useful. Please contact the Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance if you want more information or if you want to use any of the tools developed in C500 for your own community projects.

A big hat-tip to Lee and Sachi at Commoncraft for providing the inspiration to use their ‘paper-works’ technique to provide this refresher training in the Home Energy Assessment Process.

Cheers

Geoff