Testimonial Emily

We recently had the opportunity to speak with Emily from Banyule, who had rooftop solar installed on her home through the Solar Savers program in April.  When asked why they decided to install solar, Emily explained that “from an environmental perspective, we’ve been interested for many years … the two main reasons were environmental but also financial.”  In an effort to further reduce their utility bills, the Ivanhoe family have also installed thermal curtains in their living areas and retrofitted their weatherboard home with new insulation.  

Emily shared that her and her husband had spent some time researching different energy saving options, and that when it came to solar “there’s lots of advertising that goes around … I was getting confused and, my husband and I, we weren’t sure who to go with.” After reading about Solar Savers in the Banyule Banner, Emily attended a council run information session: “it answered all my questions, it was great to talk to a third party, that was independent of the people who are trying to get our money. Independent advice and it’s from the council so its credible and that was really reassuring.”

Now a couple of months in the future, Emily explains how she has changed small aspects of her daily life, to make the most out of their solar: “we’ve changed the time of when we put things on … from the data that we’ve seen, were generating fairly good amounts from 11:00 am onwards, so I’m trying to put the dishwasher on around lunch time and the washing machine a little bit later as well.” Emily also mentioned that she has started cooking more with her slow cooker, “it runs off electricity, so I do the cooking during the day, it means I’m not using the gas at night”, although she’s not sure how long this new cooking style will last!