Podcast: Gas appliances linked to kids’ asthma

Are your cooking and heating appliances giving your kids asthma? This week in the Flat Chat Wrap, Sue talks about a story she’s been chasing where families have found that switching from gas to electricity for their heating and cooking appliances has seen their kids’ asthma disappear.

With that in mind, as we head for net zero emissions and electricity becomes the affordable power source of choice, you might want to start checking your pots and pans to see if they work on induction stoves.

Before that, with Spring definitely in the air, we’re turning down the heat in the podcast this week as we examine why the majority of tenants – especially younger ones – are in favour of the Victorian government’s incoming regulations about insualting homes being introduced nationwide – and why two-thirds of landlords are against them.

Then there’s a question of what to do in strata when a number of owners want one thing and an exactly equal number don’t.

And when we say “equal”, we mean that the unit entitlements on one side add up to precisely the same figure on the other.

As this story plucked straight from the Flat Chat Forum explains, it has led to a strata stand-off in one small Sydney block.

And finally we look at how an ailing RSL club has been turned into not just one of the coolest venues in a booming Sydney suburb, but one of the hottest properties on the apartments scene.

That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.

Transcript in full

Jimmy  00:00

Do you get suspicious of surveys?

Sue  00:02

Yeah, sometimes, and it’s interesting because a lot of people are doing surveys now, and many newspapers are now refusing to print surveys unless they’re huge, because they kind of feel it’s a really cheap way of organizations getting stories into newspapers. So there’s huge amount of skepticism about them now,

Jimmy  00:19

Right. So maybe we shouldn’t do this next piece, we’re going to talk about a survey that shows that not at all surprisingly, tenants are more in favor of energy saving efficiencies than landlords are, and we’re going to talk about a stalemate in a building which where equal numbers of people who are on the committee are able to make sure that the people who are not on the committee can’t get on. And we’re going to talk about how an apartment block has saved an RSL. I’m Jimmy Thomson. I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review,

Sue  00:58

And I’m Sue Williams, and I write about property for the Australian Financial Review, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and Domain,

Jimmy  01:04

And this is the Flat Chat Wrap. So we’ve got a survey came in today from green.com.au who say that they are Australia’s fastest growing renewable energy provider, and they surveyed 1006 Australians, which is an odd number.

Sue  01:39

Well, maybe they set out

Jimmy  01:40

Enough. Do you think?

Sue  01:41

That is representative Isn’t it really okay?

Jimmy  01:44

So what they, they’ve come up with is 81% of Australians support Victoria’s energy efficient standards for rental properties. Because Victoria’s recently brought in, I think his landlords have got until 2025, or something like that, to well, maybe longer.

Sue  02:01

Yeah, there’s lots of rental changes in Victoria at the moment. Isn’t on there?

Jimmy  02:04

Yeah, renters show the highest support, with 67% wanting them rolled out nationally, and it’s especially strong support among the under 35 at 91%

Sue  02:17

Well, that unsurprising, isn’t it, really, because they seem to be much more aware about the environment and the need to protect it than most other demographic groups.

Jimmy  02:25

And here’s the least surprising news,

Sue  02:28

Landlords are not so keen.

Jimmy  02:30

Only about a third, 36% are in favor of the standards for Victoria, and 33% would support them being introduced across the nation,

Sue  02:40

They’re landlords,

Jimmy  02:41

Yeah,

Sue  02:42

The owners of apartments, yeah.

Jimmy  02:43

Now the obvious reason for that is the other ones are going to have to pay for it

Sue  02:48

Absolutely, and they’re not getting so much of the benefit because the actual tenants are getting more of the benefit because their energy bills, one would assume, would be much lower, exactly.

Jimmy  02:56

So the landlords are paying more money so that the tenants can save money. Can you see that coming through in rents? Though, that landlords would say, Well, this is now an energy efficient building.

Sue  03:09

Well, I’m sure it would increase the value of their apartment, because if they’ve got good insulation in the apartments, that’s that’s a huge plus for attracting tenants and retaining them, and it would, in the long term, increase the value of the property when they come to sell it as well.

Jimmy  03:23

I mean, it’s probably easier to make houses more insulated and energy efficient than it is to make apartments, in terms of the difference that you can make, because apartments are kind of insulated to a large extent. Most of the time they don’t have roof space that needs to be insulated.

Sue  03:41

That’s true.

Jimmy  03:42

They don’t have windows all the way around the property, but they do, they tend to have big glass sliding doors and things like that, which could be inefficient,

Sue  03:53

And it depends on the quality of the apartment building as well. Really, yeah, that’s a big thing.

Jimmy  03:58

But can you see an argument for landlords in apartment blocks to improve the energy efficiency of their apartments.

Sue  04:06

Well, I think it’s a really important thing. I mean, we’re all worried about sustainability, yeah, we all kind of want to use, see less energy used.

Jimmy  04:14

Yeah,

Sue  04:14

We want to,

Jimmy  04:15

I know we in our apartment block. We introduced now is LED lighting that came in. It was low emission lighting, and there was also a plan to introduce motion activated lighting,

Sue  04:29

Yeah, we have that in our car park, yeah, and in the storage room, yeah, that’s all motion activated as well.

Jimmy  04:36

Because there was an argument initially that there was no point of doing both, because the return on investment would take much longer if you had energy efficient lighting and motion activation. But I think they got past that argument. There’s another aspect to this, which is the electrification of apartments.

Sue  05:00

Yes, yes. I did a story about that for the Herald this week, and it’s really interesting, about 68% of Australians have gas in their homes, either heating or cooking or both. Yeah. And you know, there’s this huge campaign for people to get rid of gas now, because the rising cost of gas is rising much more quickly than the cost of electricity. It’s kind of using fossil fuels, so it’s dirty, yeah? And if you can use smart energy like solar panels electricity, then it’s much cleaner and safer. And yeah, and also, gas has got a really strong connection now with childhood asthma, right? They think that it’s associated with so many cases of asthma, it’s the particulates, isn’t it?

Jimmy  05:43

It’s the fumes,

Sue  05:44

That’s right, And I think they say that children who live at home with a gas stove have a 42% increased risk of having current asthma and 24% greater chance of being diagnosed with asthma at some point in life. That’s huge, isn’t it?

Jimmy  05:59

Yeah,

Sue  05:59

Because I talked to actually two families, and one of them lived in a really leaky property, and so it kind of led in lots of it was really poorly insulated, so they put their kid kind of really quite close to the gas heater,

Jimmy  06:14

Right

Sue  06:15

And their little boy developed terrible asthma. And it was only later when they decided that they wanted to renovate and they decided to introduce all electricity so they had no gas heating anymore. They just had reverse cycle air conditioning. And instead of the gas cooker, they had induction cooking. And suddenly, miraculously, their child no longer had asthma, and he could throw away his puffer. And was quite they were quite startled by it. And I spoke to another family as well, and it was a mother with her daughter and the baby, who was born in the winter, and she’d kind of kept her close to a gas heater as well, and she kept having asthma attacks. And she grew up as an asthmatic, and it was only during the pandemic, really interestingly, when when she was at school, she seemed to be fine just when she came home. And then during the pandemic, because she was at home a lot of the time, she really developed bad asthma again. Suddenly, her mother started reading and realized it was because she had so much gas in the home. And when her daughter went to school, she was free of the gas, but when she came home again, she had gas heating and gas cooking, right? So, um, she got rid of it as well and introduced all electric appliances,

Jimmy  07:25

Because we used to have a gas heater in this flat, and I remember the guy came around to service it, and I said, is there an issue, you know, with the heater? Because every time we have the heater on, I fall asleep. He said, well, that shouldn’t happen. Do you have the doors open? I said, No. I mean, I put the heater on to heat the room up. I don’t have the door open. He said, You’re basically suffocating yourself. You shouldn’t be doing that. The gas heater is burning up the oxygen in the room. So we got rid of that, yeah, and got electric instead. But we cook on when I say we, of course, I mean, I cook on a gas stove. I’ve never used induction. People swear by it. People use it

Sue  08:05

Because I was saying to there’s a company called the Global Cooksafe Coalition who are dedicated to trying to get rid of gas out of people’s homes for safety and environmental reasons. And I was talking to the head of that. I was saying, well, gas, you know, reacts instantaneously, because I remember the old electric cooktops, and it would take ages to warm up,

Jimmy  08:25

And cool down

Sue  08:25

Then she said, No induction cooking is much more precise. It heats up instantaneously. And if you turn it down, it goes down. And she said, some of the top chefs in Australia are now rewriting recipes and saying three minutes on this heat, then six minutes on this heat, it can be so precise now. And lots of kitchens, all the great kitchens with top chefs like Peter Gilmore and Neil Perry, they all have moved to induction cooking because it is so much easier and better, cheaper, it’s cleaner, it’s much easier to clean up afterwards, and also much healthier for all their chefs in their kitchens.

Jimmy  09:02

Wow.

Sue  09:03

So I think there’s a really strong argument for going to electric. And I kind of thought, oh gosh, but it’s going to get really expensive. And this woman said to me, Well, no, she’s just, she said, a lot of people just put a board on top of their cooker, top of the gas rings, yeah, and then just buy an induction cooktop and just plug it in and just place it on top, which is a really simple thing to do. And she said she has one that she bought in IKEA for $800 and it’s been absolutely perfect. So you don’t even have to get it kind of the gas plumbed out and the electric induction cooktop replaced. Yeah, you know, you can just do it. Although you could do that, you could probably look a bit better, I

Jimmy  09:44

Think so, yeah,

Sue  09:46

But yeah, and price is a bit lower, because I think with gas, she was saying something like 90% of the heat you’re generating is sort of lost to the air, whereas induction, because it sits the pans sits right on the heat. Something like,

Jimmy  10:03

Well, this is, this is something I’ve discovered recently because I didn’t know how induction worked, because you get, you have got to get special pans. That’s right. Most, most new saucepans are induction friendly. And what happens is, it’s almost like, like microwaves heat up the food because they the vibration of the molecules in the food makes it hotter. Induction heats up the pan. The induction element is doesn’t heat up at all. It’s the pan that heats up.

Sue  10:32

Oh, right,

Jimmy  10:33

And then the pan cooks the food.

Sue  10:35

Oh, that’s interesting, because she was saying to me that it’s also safer, because a child can put their hand on the cooktop and they won’t get burned.

Jimmy  10:43

Yeah, I wouldn’t encourage that, because what they don’t tell you is that the pan heats up, and then the pan heats up the glass on the top of the induction element, so it does get hot, it just doesn’t get as hot as a gas ring would.

Sue  11:00

I don’t know that she was saying it doesn’t, it doesn’t transfer the heat to a hand, but I don’t know. Maybe we could try it.

Jimmy  11:07

You can do it.

Sue  11:09

Oh my god,

Jimmy  11:10

All right, so that’s interesting, and it’s healthier and it’s cheaper and and if you’ve done the efficiencies that tenants love and landlords hate, then it’s all going to be cleaner and cheaper for all of us,

Sue  11:22

And if you get good insulation and an all electric apartment, that’ll be the ideal way.

Jimmy  11:29

When we come back, we’re going to talk about the apartment block where the irresistible force of three owners has met the immovable object of the other three. That’s after this. So this is a story we’ve plucked from the forum, and somebody’s written in they’re in an apartment block of six owners, and there are three owners in the block who are on the committee. They’ve all got different unit entitlements, but those unit entitlements, the combined three on the committee, add up to 50% of the unit entitlements. The other three who are not on the committee want to get on the committee, so at the last AGM, they put up a motion to change the number of people on the committee, which they’re entitled to do. It was defeated. Well, it wasn’t defeated. It was a stalemate.

Sue  12:26

But then the chairperson, have the cast, has the casting vote in that case

Jimmy  12:29

Not in New South Wales.

Sue  12:30

Oh, I thought they did

Jimmy  12:32

No. And so the and anyway, the chair, the chairperson, even if that was the case, the chairperson is on the committee, and the committee didn’t want anybody else coming on the committee. So you’re guessing that the chairperson, had they had a casting vote, would have said no, but basically the strata manager said, “Look this, this motion has failed. Hasn’t been defeated. It’s failed. Therefore the status quo prevails, therefore the three people on the committee can stay and they can’t, and they don’t have to let anyone else on.” And the person who written to the forum has said, “Is this right? Is this legal?” And the answer to that is, no, it’s not right, but yes, it is legal because they’ve followed all the procedures. There’s nothing that says that the running of a committee has to be fair or reasonable, as long as it’s not to the detriment of the building, and they’re not saying that these, the three people who are the incumbents, are actually doing anything that harms the building, although they’re obviously doing things that they want and not doing things that they don’t want. What would you do in that situation? How would you advise them?

Sue  13:41

It’s really difficult, isn’t it? I think I would suggest, you know, there’s some great mediators around. There’s that mediating firm. What are they called? Strata Answers.

Jimmy  13:53

Strata Answers, yeah, could get them.

Sue  13:54

I wonder if you could get them in and get them to negotiate between the two sides, because otherwise this is going to be a real, you know, irritant for years to come, isn’t it, really and every time, well, if somebody sells their apartment, they’re just going to completely try, and each side is going to try and woo the next person to their side.

14:11

Yeah, I You’re so reasonable

Sue  14:16

What are you’re going to do?

Jimmy  14:17

I’veI’d point it out that the committee is one thing, but the committee has to do with the owners corporation decides and 20 only takes 25% of votes to call a general meeting. So I would be saying, if I was under the people who are not in the committee, I’d be saying to the people who are in the committee, here’s what’s going to happen. You have your wee committee meetings, and then we will immediately call a general meeting, and we will contest all the things that you’ve put on your committee meeting, but all the decisions you’ve made at the committee meeting. Now you probably still have enough votes for things not to change, but we are going keep doing that kind of civil disobedience, and every month after you’ve had your meeting, we’ll call another meeting to dispute the decisions that you’ve made. And because it’s a general meeting,

Sue  15:12

So aggressive,

Jimmy  15:14

Well, I think it’s I’m a great believer in the Spanish Inquisition used to take their torture victims the night before they were about to be tortured and show them the implements that would be used against them the next day. So I’d be saying to them, we’re not saying we’re going to do it. We don’t have to do it. All you have to do is let more of us, some of us, onto the committee. But if you’re not going to do that, then we will do this, and we can do this, and eventually you’re going to make a mistake, you’re going to make a bad decision, you’re going to stop us from doing what we are rightfully allowed to do, and then we go to the tribunal.

Sue  15:50

And that’s the problem with living in small apartment buildings, isn’t it, really, because you can imagine the next time you meet one of those people in the lift or on the stairs, you know, it’s not very nice. It’s not very nice.

Jimmy  16:00

Everything’s personal in a small building.

Sue  16:02

Yeah, it is so sometimes, I mean, I think probably the most trouble is in buildings with just two duplexes, because if they fall out, what do you do?

Jimmy  16:15

Until recently, Randwick Council would not allow duplexes or villas, or, you know, two unit strata to be strata. If you applied to build a two unit building, a two home building, they’d say it has to be company title,

Sue  16:33

Yeah.

Jimmy  16:33

And it was only when they were had put under pressure by Fair Trading that they resigned from that and started allowing two unit stratas. But the reason their attitude was a two unit strata is just designed for a nightmare.

Sue  16:51

That’s right,

Jimmy  16:51

Especially if the two units are identical and they have the same number of votes.

Sue  16:55

It’s interesting, because I think the best size for an apartment building is about 100 apartments, because then you can afford some facilities, and you can afford the upkeep of a garden or something like that, which is, you know, shared between everybody, but it’s not too big. I mean, sometimes you get buildings, well up to 1000 apartments, probably even more sometimes, and that just makes it so unmanageable and unwieldy and really, really difficult. And you’ve had lots of complexes where you’ve had a number of towers, and they have strata plans for those towers, and then an overarching plan as well, and it just becomes really, really difficult. I reckon 100 apartments is a good number, really.

Jimmy  17:38

I remember the story we had of no last year was it the there was one of these multi block developments where they had the overarching Committee, and the there was one member on the committee that nobody liked, and so they voted to have him off the committee. But he had more units in his block than the others did, so he was able to use that vote to stop them from getting rid of him from the committee, even though they didn’t want him.

Sue  18:09

It gets crazy.

Jimmy  18:10

Yeah, absolutely. Some of these things just aren’t thought through. But yeah. Good luck to the people in the the stalemate, the strata, stalemate block. I hope that they can sit down and sort this out and decide that really, the way to move forward is by avoiding conflict

Sue  18:29

Absolutely, because conflict is always very expensive.

Jimmy  18:31

It’s expensive and emotionally wearing.

Sue  18:34

Yeah, yeah.

Jimmy  18:35

When we come back, we’re going to talk about how an apartment block has saved an RSL that’s after this. All right, so what’s the story about the apartment block that saved the RSL?

Sue  18:53

Well, Bondi Junction, RSL in Sydney, was having a real financial struggle to keep viable because it had fewer and fewer members, and so in the end, it it formed a joint venture with a developer who wanted to come onto the site, because Bondi Junction is fantastic area, really, there’s so many facilities around, and wanted to build some apartments there. So the developer Capital Corporation, well it was Bluestone at that point, it became capital. They offered to build an eight story, 150 million block of 80 apartments over the the the club, yeah, and actually provide a whole new club and provide some retail as well, which belong to the club,  So the apartment building is called the bond, and it sold out within 12 months. Became it was really, really popular. And now the Bondi Junction, RSL Club, the new one, which looks pretty slick from the pictures, that opens on September the 12th. And I think it’s a really good idea. I mean, we’ve had a few of these joint ventures in recent years. We had Mirvac, going to a bowling club in Waverly and doing an over 55 apartment complex there

Jimmy  19:37

Right?  And renovated the bowling club.

Sue  20:09

Yep, that’s right. Gave them an extra green, I think, as well. So it’s kind of nice. It’s a really good meeting of two different companies, one, you know, who’ve got the land but  Yes. I mean, for apartment dwellers, it’s pretty good to have a club underneath, really, because often they do cheap meals, and they can do pretty good meals as well,

Jimmy  20:20

It’s commerce in the community isn’t it? Yeah,

Sue  20:27

And they have a cafe. And, I mean, pokies, I suppose,

Jimmy  20:35

As long as you don’t put all your mortgage money in the pokies,

Sue  20:37

Yeah, exactly. But they have entertainment. I mean, it’s great.

Jimmy  20:41

They tend to be in good locations. Because,

Sue  20:44

Yes, they do,

Jimmy  20:44

You know, they’ve grown up with the community going back 50 years, so they’ve had, you know, a choice of some prime locations,

Sue  20:52

That’s right,

Jimmy  20:53

And now the developers can come in and make the most of that, not just for the club, but for people who need somewhere to live,

Sue  21:00

Because they’re often a little bit tatty and a bit worn.

Jimmy  21:03

Yeah.

Sue  21:03

And if with a refresh,

Jimmy  21:07

A knockdown rebuild,

Sue  21:08

Yes, I think so. Yeah. So it’s a completely new club

Jimmy  21:11

So it would be designed to modern standards and everything would be very nice. I mean, I can’t remember. I was trying to remember how the Balmain Tigers club that was, yeah, something. It was one of the first ones to come up with that idea. I don’t think they’ve ever finished it. Have they have they built it? Have they given up?

Sue  21:29

I think there’s still rows going on about it. Just a shame, because that was a good site as well. Yeah, it’s pretty amazing, really. But Bondi Junction, the president, or the club spokesperson, is Bill Harrigan, you know the NRL referee, yeah. So he’d be a good person to help negotiate joint venture with the developer, wouldn’t he, really,

Jimmy  21:49

When he’s done with that, he can come and negotiate the block that’s got the numbers in favor and against, right? Well, it’s interesting. We’ll keep an eye on that. I mean, as you say, the apartments have sold out, but I’m sure it will be an asset to the area to have a brand new club.

Sue  22:08

Absolutely. You know, I’ve been to Bondi Junction a lot, and during the day, it’s great, but at night, it seems to be really quiet. I mean, I remember we went there once, and we couldn’t find anywhere to eat really. So you really need a few more facilities, because you’ve got a lot of people living there. You’ve got fantastic transport. You’ve got everything going great gyms there as well, but just not enough nightlife, really, I think.

Jimmy  22:33

And on that note, it’s time for us to get into the nightlife here in King’s Cross.

Sue  22:38

(Sings) I love the nightlife

Jimmy  22:41

I might edit that out, and thanks for coming along and talking again in the next couple of weeks. By the way, just to keep an eye out for this, we’re going to be talking to all the plans are. We’re going to be talking to Lyndon besser, who did the investigation into Net Strata. We’re going to be talking to Matthew Press, who’s the Deputy building Commissioner, and we’re going to be talking to Tim Sara from Strata Choice Strata Managers, about ways that you can turn a good apartment block into a great one.

Sue  23:15

Well, that’ll be really interesting.

Jimmy  23:16

So that’s all coming up in the next few weeks.

Sue  23:18

 Fantastic.

Jimmy  23:19

All right, you stick with us and we’ll sort you out. That’s that’s our new slogan. Thanks again. Sue and thank you all for listening

Sue  23:28

bye,

Jimmy  23:29

Bye.  Thanks for listening to the flat chat wrap podcast. You’ll find links to the stories and other references on our website, flatchat.com.au, and if you haven’t already done so, you can subscribe to this podcast completely free on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite pod catcher, just search for Flat Chat Wrap with a W, click on Subscribe, and you’ll get this podcast every week without even trying. Thanks again. Talk to you again next week.