Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa November 2014 | Page 40

GREEN

BY MONIQUE TERRAZAS

Beating Rising
Utilities Costs
How you can do it...

S

ix months ago, when the Ngewana family
accepted the My Green Home challenge, they
set some ambitious goals for themselves: to cut
electricity consumption by 40%, water usage 20%
and waste to landfill by 75%. They even set a tougher
target of using only 600 killowatt hours (kWh) per
month, which would reduce the tariff they pay on each
additional kWh by 18 percent.
Doing the impossible
Some were skeptical such drastic cuts will be possible
in so short a time. But the Ngewana family has
demolished every one of those targets by a good
margin. At a recent event held at the Ngewana’s home,
the Green Building Council announced that electricity
at the home has now fallen by 53%, water use by 44%
and waste to landfill by 81%. For September, total
electricity consumption was just 442 kWh, well below
the 600 kWh/month tariff step.
Big wins
My Green Home addressed every area of the family’s
life that involves energy, water and waste. But a few
categories of consumption stand out for the dramatic
savings achieved. Lighting consumption fell by 74%,
through a combination of the family’s efforts to
keep the lights on only where they are needed and a
complete switch to LED globes by Eurolux both inside
and outside of the house.
The geyser had the home’s largest appetite for
kilowatts in March, using 12.7 kWh per day. In
September, the new Solartech solar hot water heater
was using only 5,2 kWh. Shorter showers and
Hansgrohe low-flow shower heads also contributed to
those savings.
The Ngewanas also slashed their electricity costs
at the pool pump by reducing its running time to just
three hours in the winter, and a couple more than that
as swimming season approaches, and by installing a

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November 2014 SA Real Estate Investor

Speck Eco Touch variable-speed pool pump, which is
much more efficient. Over the coming year, they can
expect to save R3 500 at the pool pump alone.
Getting started
The Ngewana family has shown South Africa not only
that it can be done, but also how to do it. While the
Ngewana family’s My Green Home journey has ended,
the family accepted the challenge not just to save
money but also to inspire other South Africans to save
energy, water and waste too.
The lessons learned in this process have been
assembled into two My Green Home Guides. A
summary guide highlights the 17 most effective
no-cost, low-cost and invest-to-save actions taken.
The full guide has more comprehensive and detailed
information about the complete My Green Home
process. Both guides are written for South Africans
who would like to make similar savings in their
own homes, and both are available for free at
www.mygreenhome.org.za. Now each of us are
challenged to change our homes to change the world.
The next challenge
The Green Building Council SA is also expanding its
involvement in the residential sector with the launch of
a new green building rating tool called ‘EDGE’. This
free software will allow those involved in the design
and construction of new homes and major renovations
to be certified as green, and to calculate upfront costs
and potential long-term savings of energy, water and
materials.

RESOURCES
Green Building Council SA
www.reimag.co.za