Preparing your home for winter

Keep your energy bills and emissions under control by keeping the heat in.

Heating our homes accounts for roughly a third of our energy usage, so it’s important to make sure the heat you put into your home stays inside. Having good insulation solutions like window insulation kits, draught stoppers and thermal backed curtains can help to reduce the amount of heating you need. Choosing an energy efficient heat pump over electric and gas heaters is another great way to save on energy costs and emissions. Heat pump models with a higher star rating are more efficient and generate fewer emissions. If you want to learn the many ways you can reduce your emissions and make your home warm, dry and healthy, visit genless.govt.nz. 

Understand your landlord’s obligations. 

If you are in a rental property, it’s important to understand your landlord’s obligations when it comes to keeping the property warm, dry, and comfortable for tenants. Understand their responsibilities and keep an open dialogue with the property owners or managers. Under the Healthy Homes Standards, landlords are required to install fixed heating that can heat the main living area to 18°C and the home must have insulation. For more details, check out this short factsheet on the Healthy Homes Standards.