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Controlling household expenses is always important, so condo apartment building Boards will do their part to keep down the cost of monthly condo contributions. While it's hard to save money on janitorial or plumbing costs, the largest expenses for condo buildings are energy utilities, and many steps can be taken to conserve and pay less for these costs.
Start by taking a look at your building's annual budget. Combine the expenses for electricity and natural gas to arrive at the total to be spent this year on energy, and compare it to the total budget. These usually total 30% or more of the condominium operating budget, depending on whether your building rolls in-suite electricity into the condo fees. Your building's contribution to its Reserve Fund is not an operating expense, so leave that out of your calculation.
It's not wise to be cavalier about these expenses because natural gas is currently priced lower than it has been, as many condo buildings are locked into a fixed price that likely exceeds today's spot price. Even if you're taking advantage of today's low natural gas price, this won't last, and next year your building could easily be paying double, so now is the time to control your consumption.
Here are some ideas, including those you've heard before, but some I'm sure that you and your building's Board have not considered, but should:
*Turn down or turn off the heat in your building's parking garage. Most mechanics agree it's better for vehicles NOT to be warmed all winter, which melts salt-laden snow on and under cars, speeding corrosion. The lack of insulation and required exhausting mean that garages are outrageously inefficient to heat.
*Make sure your car plug-ins are on a 20-minute timer cycle, both to ensure that no one steals continuous power, but also because constant running of block heaters is unnecessary. As well, a thermostatic controller should only turn the power on when it's truly cold out.
*Hallway "make-up air" furnaces should be set for a cooler temperature than most people keep their homes. If hallways are warmer than suites the common areas will feel stuffy, which transfers to suites, and people will then start opening their suite windows to cool down, wasting even more heat.
*Electric entry-way heaters should be turned down, as they gobble enormous amounts of power and people only pass through those areas occasionally.
*If your building has continuously-operating roof-top bathroom vent fans, turn them off for the coldest months of the year. You'll still have the make-up air furnace delivering fresh air into hallways and thus into suites and out those vents. Heat-pump recovery of heat from exhaust air is possible in some condo apartment buildings, especially those with their boiler room atop the roof.
*Low-flow shower heads sound boring, but these can reduce hot-water use for bathing by 50%, and imagine how much natural gas it takes to heat stone-cold water to hot-shower temperatures! Condo buildings should install these free of charge to every suite owner willing to accept one.
*Thinking of stone-cold water, solar pre-heating of domestic hot water is likely the "next big thing" in energy conservation. We receive lots of sun in Calgary, and solar pre-heating of water is about as low-tech and thus low-cost as you can get.
*Everyone knows about high-efficiency lighting, but many condo apartment buildings still have incandescent hallway lamps and exit lights. At least switch to compact neon bulbs and "LED"-style exit lights.
*Toilets that use less water are pretty standard now, but who thinks to buy such a toilet with an insulated tank? Without insulation, toilet tanks can drip condensation, but the cold water is also sucking up heat, and just when the tank's water is nice and warm, we flush it away and start paying to warm up the next tank-full.
*Old windows and doors in apartment buildings are very inefficient at retaining heat. They're expensive to replace, but there comes a point when you've done all of the above, and it's time to modernize an older building's glazing. Do the job right by upgrading to high-quality air-tight windows with coatings that will also reduce radiated heat loss.
*It may not yet be practical, but "green roofs" and walls will in coming decades start keeping heat in condominium buildings over the winter and keeping out the heat during summers. Meanwhile, plant a tree or two in locations that will partially screen your building from summer heat, and choose a species that will drop leaves in the winter to allow some solar warming.
*Individual metering of energy use by each suite is possible, although there's a trade off between the cost of doing that against the saving from assignment of energy costs to each suite. Individual-suite metering will dramatically lower a condo building's budget, yet most homeowners will also cooperate in conservation efforts if they're reminded that higher collective energy costs translate directly into higher monthly condo contributions.
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