Ceiling insulation and halogen downlights
If you want to maximise financial savings from ceiling insulation, then don’t have halogen downlights.
Halogen downlights can get extremely hot, so from a fire safety point of view you need to keep a clear space around them in your ceiling cavity. This helps to avoid them overheating but it can minimise the effectiveness of ceiling insulation.
In winter, hot or warm air can escape through this insulation gap and in summer airconditioned cold air can escape through it too.
A better alternative are LED downlights. In addition to being safer, they use a lot less energy and last a lot longer. You can look for these and other non-halogen lighting alternatives in ‘Step 8 – Cut your lighting bills’.
Eastern Road Quality Meats, NSW
In order to keep the temperatures cool in their shop, Eastern Road Quality Meats installed double insulation in the ceiling.
In order to reduce after-hours energy requirements, they also placed insulation covers on their open fridges. These adjustments have contributed to their overall energy savings of around 25% per year.[1]
