December 6, 2006

MEDIA STATEMENT

Praise for ECan’s Clean Heat Project

Environment Canterbury chairman, Sir Kerry Burke, has welcomed results of an independent survey into satisfaction levels amongst people who have benefited from ECan’s Clean Heat Project.

Continued improvements to the project over the past three years have paid off, with 97 per cent of people surveyed ‘very’ or ‘quite’ satisfied with the Clean Heat process, 82 per cent claiming that their new heating arrangements were better than their old ones and 79 per cent stating that their house was warmer than before.

“These are outstanding results,” says Sir Kerry. The Clean Heat Project offers financial assistance to Christchurch homeowners and landlords to encourage them to change to cleaner forms of heating.

The survey was conducted by Opinions Market Research with 309 Christchurch Clean Heat Project householders. Since 2003, when it first started subsidising insulation and clean heating, the project has provided more than 13,000 heating assessments and more than 7,000 conversions.

“It has been running since 2003 and we’re obviously on the right track with the improvements we’ve made. The project has been exceptionally well received, but there are still areas where we can do better and we will use the information gathered in this survey, to lift our game even further,” says Sir Kerry.

Cr Richard Budd, chairman of Environment Canterbury’s air quality portfolio, says he’s extremely excited to see that the Clean Heat Project is now getting good traction. “One of the benefits of chasing clean air is to raise the temperature of our homes, which offers significant health benefits,” he says.

Although 29 percent of the people surveyed said their new system was costing more than before, more than half said the cost had not changed (21 percent) or had decreased (32 percent).

Satisfaction with the registration process, the energy assessors’ knowledge and attitude and the performance of the contractors involved in the process, were also rated high – above 80 percent. By far the majority (59 percent) of people who replaced their heating appliances under the Clean Heat Project opted for heatpumps. Twenty-two percent preferred pellet fires, 16 percent chose solid fuel appliances and two percent chose gas appliances.

Cr Budd says now is a good time to register for the Clean Heat Project and book an appointment with an assessor. “Don’t wait until winter when it can take much longer to get the process going,” he advises.

ENDS

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