Poor infrastructure and regulation across the national private rental housing market forces many renters to live in poor conditions. An RMIT expert explains why rentals are so cold and how landlords can improve living conditions for their tenants.
Trivess Moore, Associate Professor, School of Property, Construction and Project Management
"Private rental housing is amongst some of the poorest quality and performing housing in Australia due to poor insulation and insufficient heating. This could be improved through retrofit, but there has been very limited uptake by landlords and agents.
"A significant percentage of private rental housing was built before the introduction of minimum requirements, which means they were not designed to keep tenants warm in winter.
"Just a few states have since introduced basic minimum requirements for thermal and energy performance, for example, Victoria has minimum standards for rental properties for heating, window coverings and ventilation.
"While the minimum standards are a good start, more is required to improve the quality and performance of private rental housing in Australia.
"The good news is that there are several government financial support programs which aim to help landlords undertake affordable retrofits to improve their private rental housing, but it's now a matter of guiding and supporting them to take on these upgrades."
Trivess Moore is leading a research project on exploring how to scale up retrofit of the private rental sector in Australia funded by RACE for 2030, Bank Australia, Energy Consumers Australia, Merri-bek City Council, Darebin City Council, Yarra City Council, City of Whittlesea and City of Newcastle.
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