Beacon

Welcome to the 600 plus homeowners from Auckland , Rotorua, Taupo, Wellington, Marlborough, Christchurch, Dunedin and Southland who are taking part in the HomeSmart Renovation project. 

Thank you for your interest and participation.  We hope this project will have positive spin-offs for you, your families and homes, as well as providing New Zealand with robust evidence of the benefits of improving our houses.

How HomeSmart Renovations can help

We’re constantly being told that a huge number of New Zealand homes are cold, damp and draughty – and it’s true. The average temperature in New Zealand homes during winter is over a third less than the World Health Organisation’s recommended minimum, and we have the world’s second-highest rate of asthma.  The link between our home’s warmth and dryness and our health is increasingly clear.

Equally, and especially in times of recession, we need our homes to run efficiently, costing us as little as possible in running costs for heating, water heating, power and water.

The trouble is that it’s often difficult to know what steps to take to make our homes warmer, drier, healthier and cheaper to run. That’s where a HomeSmart Renovation can help.

The HomeSmart approach

The HomeSmart approach ensures you have the best information on where to invest. Our assessors will show you how to make sure you get the best return on your investment, by drawing up a detailed pathway to improving the sustainability of your home.

The independent HomeSmart Renovation Assessment takes a whole-of-house approach: it reviews all aspects of your home’s performance – energy, water, waste and the living environment.

Based on the assessment, you’ll receive a HomeSmart Renovation Plan advising on the most effective ways to improve their home’s performance.  We’ll design a plan tailored to you: your timeframe, your budget, and your household’s needs. And you might be surprised by how cheap and easy it is to get results.

There is no cost to homeowners in participating in the project, and no obligation for you to implement any part of the advice you receive.  However, if you take some of the recommended steps on your Plan, let us know so we can measure the effect on your home.  We want to know what renovations homeowners do based on this advice, and how effective the actions they take are in improving their home. 

What we hope to achieve

Through the HomeSmart Renovation project, we’re developing and testing the tools to easily advise homeowners on the best renovations for their circumstances. 

The Assessment and Plan is based on evidence from our previous research - now, monitoring of HomeSmart Renovation homes will add further information on the effectiveness of our advice and of the renovations themselves.  We want to know:

• Was our advice useful?
• Did it result in renovations that improved the home?
• How much did home performance improve? (energy savings, water savings, warmer temperatures, lower humidity)
• What were the benefits for homeowners?  (lower power bills, lower water rates, better health, greater enjoyment of the home)

With this evidence, Beacon hopes to further influence our government toward subsidies and regulation to improve our housing stock; to encourage industry to build and renovate to higher levels of house performance; and to educate homeowners to demand homes that perform to the highest standards.