Homes Victoria information session video transcript

Katie Becker (DEECA)

All right, And just jumping to the next slide, I will begin by acknowledging the traditional owners on the land on which we meet today.

For those in the office, it's the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and I pay my respects to elders past and present.

I also acknowledge the traditional owners on the lands on which everyone online may be tuning in from.

Our government is committed to working in partnership with traditional owners as distinct rights holders to land, sea, river and sky country.

And as we discuss the Energy Efficiency in social Housing program, I reflect on the deep knowledge that First Nations peoples hold about caring for our country over 10s of thousands of years.

And I reflect on how that stewardship aligns closely with the work that we're undertaking here to improve the energy performance of homes across Vic.

This is work designed to create healthier, more comfortable living environments in communities across our state.

Next slide, please.

My name is Katie Becker and alongside my colleague Vivek Kotek, we are running the Community Housing Upgrade Stream grants from DEECA.

We're currently assessing the round one applications that closed on the 13th of Feb and have organised this information session to support those round one applicants but also other organisations that may be thinking of applying in the future rounds that we'll be holding as well.

We've got an interesting agenda today with Homes Victoria here to present on their lessons learnt in delivering the ISH upgrades.

That's Daniel Chadwick and Joanna Bidwell who will be speaking to us, and we've also got Jeremy Bridal from Solar Victoria to speak to us about the VEU program.

If you've got questions throughout the presentations, please ask them using the Q&A function that you'll find on your screen.

We will try to address as many questions as possible as we go through the session, so please post questions as they pop into your brain.

And we will also have some time at the end of the presentation as well.

So if there are questions that we don't get to or we need time to address, these will be answered in an updated FAQ on our website.

You can also email in questions to our program inbox and that's that email address you can see on the bottom of the slide there.

We do also plan to host more of these information sessions and we'll have a little survey link at the end to get some feedback from you on what topics would be most useful.

So we're keen to hear from you about any knowledge gaps or capability building that you would like support from us in.

So I encourage everyone to think about what future sessions you would like to attend and to complete that survey.

I think Dakota might be putting that link into the chat as we speak so you can have access to that.

There it is.

Yeah, you can.

You can vote or submit a free text form on what you might like to see in future sessions.

Right?

So if we jump to the next slide, please.

Thank you.

This is just a bit of a quick context about the Energy Efficiency in Social Housing program or ISHPE, which rolls off the tongue nicely.

This program is being delivered in partnership with the Australian Government's Social Housing Energy Performance Initiative, or shipping, and this is set to deliver home upgrades across 11,000 homes in Victoria's social housing portfolio from June 2024 to June 2027.

Through this partnership, we're aiming to significantly enhance energy performance by delivering multiple upgrades in each property, and this will assist in reducing energy bills for residents as well as supporting better health outcomes by providing more comfortable homes.

The program is supporting renters to shift to electric appliances to either reduce or eliminate those gas bills.

And in November 2024, the Australian Government announced additional funding for Victoria to support energy efficiency upgrades in an additional 8000 public and Community Housing properties by June 2029.

So like I said before, we're currently assessing round one of the Community Housing upgrade stream with further rounds to be delivered this year and in 2027.

We do have some indicative timelines on our website for those future rounds, but I will note that these are subject to change.

I'm now going to hand over to Holmes Victoria for their presentation on their lessons learned in delivering those ISH upgrades.
Over to you, Dan.

Daniel Chadwick (Homes Victoria)

Yeah, thank you very much.

So real pleasure to be here everyone.

My name is Daniel Chadwick.

So I'm the manager of the delivery of the public housing arm for the energy efficiency and social housing program.

I'm joined by my colleague Joanna Bidwell, who is also who is leading the the renter engagement element of our program.

So look really to start off with, it's to to be able to work on ish is it's an incredibly rewarding program.

You know, it's not often that we get the opportunity to work on a program that simultaneously improves health outcomes, reduces cost of living for renters and really delivers meaningful sustainability benefits.

So we're fortunate that we get to sit in the intersection of all of this, but whilst this program is incredibly rewarding to work on, it isn't short of complexity.

So we're really balancing technical upgrades with renter engagement and really a significant public investment all at once.

The complexity of the program ranges from very practical questions like how do you communicate energy savings to to renters in a way that's really accessible and and trusted fruited delivery, questions about electrical in in infrastructure and finding the right trades to overall budget management.

So really for today, what we want to do to share really a set of key lessons from the delivery that we've managed so far in the program.

We've sort of deliberately kept this focused on areas we think matters most.

We really don't want to bore you with too much technical information, but so we're really hopeful that this is sort of really just some practical insights that's overall going to help you in your potentially delivery of, of this program.

And with that, first, the, the first item that we we think is, is the the best to look at here is going to be on what properties do you go ahead and select?

So one of the earliest and most important lessons we learned that really not all properties are created equal when it comes to electrification.

Class 1A dwelling.

So your typical stand alone homes, your detached units are materially simpler to electrify.

They don't rely on these shared services then they typically have dedicated metres.

So any approvals that you might have with your energy distributor are much more straightforward.

Now as soon as you move into high density environments, you know, thinking of apartments, multi unit estates or properties within owners corporations, things start to add another layer of complexity here with shared infrastructure.

This can quite often trigger things like group media panel upgrades that these items really start to to introduce real significant cost and can quite often make it very difficult for you to be able to manage budget.

Not only that, but they do take quite a long time of of lead time to be able to get these works completed.

When it comes to to owners corporations, we've also got to play into fact of where do we place our we may need to get planning permits from the owners corporation as to maybe where the condensers are located or where that new hot water heat pump is going to be located.

Do you need to include a shroud or something else to to meet the needs of of that owner's corporation?

So it's where possible, it's always going to be best to try and identify what properties that you are at least that are probably going to be a stand alone home.

Try and avoid owners corporations where possible if you're driven by cost or driven by by time.

But really selecting the right property at the start is certainly going to be much easier for you to be able to manage expectations with the renter and trying to keep to your timelines and overall budget.

Now I'll hand over to Joe Joanna Bidwell, who will discuss on on a renter engagement.

Joanna Bidwell (Homes Victoria)

Thanks, Daniel.

So gaining renter consent is very important to the program because it's a voluntary program and we don't want renters to feel pressured to participate.

We've noticed that consent uptake improves and conversations are personal, simple and empathetic and they involve multiple methods of communication.

So for example, we send out an introductory letter with a simple program flyer and then follow UPS take place via SMS or email where we have it, phone calls and door knocking where it's appropriate.

Excuse me.

Many renters also hold misconceptions about all electric homes.

So for example, there might be cost fears, reliability and misunderstanding of appliances.

So it's really important to address those misconceptions early.

Again, simple messaging and some myth busting is sometimes useful.

You know, helping those people who are engaging with renters understand how to respond.

An example might be with air conditioning units.

Some people think electric heating is really expensive, but the reality is with reverse cycle air conditioners it's much cheaper than it used to be.

So it's also important for us to provide for you to provide clear expectations around scheduling on site works and issues and complaints handling and providing consistent follow up before and after installation.

This has come up as a clear request from renters in the early stage of rolling out the program, so it's important that trades are aware of what good communication looks like and that they turn up when they say they will.

Structured and dedicated communications material for different stages also leads to smoother installations, fewer issues and higher cooperation, including ability to gain access with higher rental satisfaction.

We use the suite of materials to support engagement and we can share some of these with you.

DEECA is currently assessing how they might be used to support you, so we'll be able to provide you with further advice around what's available to you soon.

Thanks, Dan.

Daniel Chadwick (Homes Victoria)
Right, so look next on to property assessment.

So look, this is another really critical element when trying to, to design the program and and deliver the works in a in a relatively quick manner.

It has a real direct impact on your overall ability to to manage cost control.

Finding the right assessor isn't, is not always straightforward electrification and the energy efficiency upgrades that we're looking at really is.

It needs to be viewed as a holistic view.

So we're we're thinking about the thermal shell, the insulation, the draught and gap ceiling in the home, but we're also thinking about the electrical infrastructure now in the public housing delivery.

We've chose to engage electricians and build their capacity across sort of the broader energy efficiency upgrades.

Now this decision from us was was quite deliberate because in practise really the most expensive and the most expensive surprises really are almost always from your electrical infrastructure costs.

Now we will discuss this a bit more down the line, but these include things like your switchboards, your consumer mains upgrades, potentially metre boards needing to be upgraded.

Now it's key that when you're trying to plan budget for, for the properties that you're upgrading that you want to identify these early before potentially over committing to, to any of the stakeholders at this point would like to find this out from the assessment stage, not going into halfway between the delivery of the works.

Now with that there does there are sort of potential sort of alternatives if you find it hard to to be able to get that, that really holistic view and advice.

But there are scorecard assessors who have have a very comprehensive knowledge and skill set on being able to assess the the energy efficiency of a home and where best to invest for for energy efficiency upgrades.

Maybe one of the challenges with that is that not all have a, an electric an electrical background.

So they'll might not be able to take a look behind the switchboard and tell you exactly what's needed to be upgraded.

So it's worthwhile if you have, if you are potentially using a scorecard assessor or someone who is quite similar, it's always worthwhile investing in that time as well to have an electrician come at the same time.

Now we've also learnt that there has been through our upgrades that we can see quite often when our properties are being scoped, that there's a really high volume of, of draught ceiling that can be delivered here.

Now there is absolutely no doubt that draught ceiling offers tremendous thermal benefits, but when trying to manage budget, there are certain sort of diminishing returns when you're in delivering the draught and gap ceiling.

So particularly pay attention to once your doors and windows have been have been sealed, there might be opportunity there to, to do floorboards and, and maybe other areas, but that does cost and being able to manage that might be best to, to avoid some of those draught proofing works and investing that in the reverse cycle air conditioner.

So just pay attention to to that.

And probably finally, when a lot of this information is is probably really straightforward for for yourselves, but it's just always allow for contingency.

You know, we are working on on homes and particularly in our case some quite old homes and there is always going to be an opportunity for for something new to crop up.

So we typically try and just ensure that with any property that we're upgrading, we're always just leaving a little bit in contingency to be able to quickly approve those works and keep the program going.

Now move to the next slide.

So this next section is going to be really talking about maximum demand calculations and overall electrical infrastructure upgrades.

So this can be some of the most misunderstood and probably the most complex part when you're really trying to work out can I electrify this home.

So these when the, the risks when you needing to to fully electrify a home is that the works themselves can be very costly, can have long lead times when you're particularly need your distributor to disconnect power so you can make some upgrades.

And So what we first wanted to go through and speak to is the requirement for single phase versus sort of three phase.

The reality is, is that through the delivery in the public housing stream, what we've seen is that nearly all homes can can be supported on a single phase 63 amp circuit.

You might quite often hear that there are quite a, there is a lot of need to to go to three phase.

But when we're considering that we're upgrading the the cook top, the hot water with an energy efficient hot water heat pump, that reverse cycle air conditioners are a very efficient technology that all these can generally fall within that normal single phase circuit.

Now there are going to be times when three phase upgrades are required where we typically see this is more reserved for specialist accommodation where there could be a much greater need for heating and cooling in every single room.

But typically we've not seen that as as much through through the public housing stream so far.

Now whilst you can see that single phase can support in most cases be the the correct approach, it doesn't mean that your consumer mains cable upgrades is still not required.

So quite often these consumer mains cables that we see can be either quite old, whether the way or just too small to to for to to be suitable for the the switchboard.

So we typically only upgrade when this consumer mains cable.

Think of this as the the cable that goes from your switchboard to your metre is at 16 millimetres.

Now only your, your electrician is going to be the one that's going to be able to tell you this because they have to remove the the seat behind the switchboard to determine if this is fit.

Now in cases where you're not going to be able where that cable is too small or it has worn away, it will need to be upgraded.

And in order to do that, you are going to need to put a request with your energy distributor.

And with this, you can expect that on average these lead times for that can be look at times anywhere from one to three months.

So what this means is that going in some cases how can you go about avoiding these mains power supply upgrades.

In one way that you could look at it is by investing in maybe a more premium tier product.

In an example that we've given here is a hot water heat pump sand and which is probably a a sort of premium tier designed unit.

Now with this, it has a much lower maximum demand in comparison to what you would see with a hot water heat pump that has an element.

This design is significantly quieter, but as well just has a much lower maximum demand.

By reducing that overall maximum demand, you may not require a consumer mains upgrade.

So just keep that in mind that there are still potential ways to balance this and sometimes investing heavier upfront on the up on the products that you select might save you down the road in paying for any of forms of power supply upgrades.

So when it comes to planning, the works.

It really has a direct sequence on renter satisfaction onto the dropout rates and overall delivery efficiency.

So really one of the clearest lessons that we've learned for our delivery is really to minimise that time between when the assessment occurred and when those upgrades are being installed.

The longer that gap, the higher the dropout risk is.

Renters may reconsider if they want to go all electric or it just might not be the best point in in their life to be receiving an upgrade.

So by keeping these the upgrades themselves to to a short sort of turnover in in typically being upgrade from upgrades starting to to finishing typically keep these within sort of five days.

So to do that, it just requires a a bit of planning with your build up to confirm when these works are going to take place.

We can also see that at times things like sort of when someone would have to remove a heater that that action paint might be delayed further down the line.

So it's really critical to have those discussions with your builder before you commence the works about what your expectations going to be for getting these works complete.

Another element and probably really sort of straightforward for yourselves, but it's to remember that at any point we should really try to aim to avoid any loss of amenity.

So if you're going to be upgrading the cook top, if you're removing that cook top that day, then make sure that the new cook top is being installed that same day.

You can always work with your builder to sort of plan for these aspects.

So typically we try and arrange for our electrical assessment to be occurring first.

Then on the next day we will try and get the reverse cycle air conditioner and the gas heater removed on that air.

On that day, store the reverse cycle air conditioner and then we'll also have another set of trades that we'll be doing the same with the hot water unit.

So we're just consistently always trying to make sure that if a renter is without amenity, it's not longer than a couple of hours at most.

Another sort of key element with this is really to try and make sure planning what those those upgrades are going to be located and, and particularly the sizing of these.

So firstly, with hot water heat pumps, probably you'll have probably some experience with installing these across your portfolio.

And what we see is that quite often whilst they are quite quiet in, in their design, they still have, they still create noise where maybe a gas hot water system never did.

So any renter that might have a particular sort of low tolerance to, to, to noise might not the hot water heat pump might not be the best, most helpful upgrade for them.

So in that case, we try and firstly manage renter expectations, but to really design for that hot water system to be located as far away from the the household as as possible.

And it's the same when we consider the reverse cycle air conditioner.

Homes Victoria has its own sort of guide to installing reverse cycle air conditions, particularly about the sizing.

It's really critical to be able to understand and hear from the renter on how that they're currently using their heating appliance.

Making sure that if you are making that heating appliance that little bit a little bit size larger versus smaller, it's going to probably still save that renter money much more over the long term as there's going to be less, less energy consumed.

As generally what behaviours that we've seen with smaller reverse alkyl air conditioners is that they're put to to Max fan and it's the highest temperature possible for heating.

So going that a little bit greater in size reduces that that the the amount that fans being used and overall that that temperature there.

So it does end up overall reducing the amount of energy that's being consumed.

The final point that's probably really critical in this space as well is about gas abolishment.

So this should always be the final step in the delivery of your if your program.

But unfortunately the steps just not quite simple.

So firstly, only the energy account holder is the one that's able to abolish the gas connection.

Now that means that the the person with who is paying the bill or is the bill is in their name is the one that has the ability to disconnect their or have the have this abolished.

So critically what we need to to be able to do is raise either start a new energy retail account at that property to arrange an abolishment or find any potential other work within any other arrangements that you have with energy retailers.

Why this is critical or like firstly abolishments is the process where you remove the metre and disconnect gas supply going into the property.

So generally it's done at the street side.

So you're removing the risk of any potential gas leakage that might be occurring into the home.

Critically as well, you're also saving renters roughly about a dollar a day who would potentially still be paying supply costs.

It's only at the point of disconnection or abolishment where the account holder is no longer needs to be paying these fees.

So it's just worthwhile keeping that front of mind whenever you're planning your your upgrade works.

I'll hand over to Joe on rent satisfaction.

Joanna Bidwell (Homes Victoria)

Perfect.

Thanks, Dan.

It's important to the program that renters are really satisfied with their upgrades and their experience.

So Daniel’s just mentioned some of these, such as avoiding loss of amenity as well as ensuring smooth works at their homes.

Another key contributor to satisfaction is that renters need to know how to use in your appliances, especially cooktops and split systems.

So for example, we had a Vietnamese renter that couldn't use their new cook top until we personally demonstrated it, so instructions on their own weren't appropriate or enough in that example.

We've also had calls from renters who don't realise or they've forgotten that they need to change the air conditioner to heat in winter and cool in summer now while winters.

When renters are shown how to use their appliances, it really helps them smoothly transition to electric.

So you'll need to build this into your scope of works.

You can also leave simple how to guides explaining how to use the appliances and get the most out of them.

For example, the ideal temperature range for split systems in summer and winter.

Now we have these in Flyers that you can see an example from in that slide.

And these are currently with DEECA.

We're looking at how we can disseminate those to you as well now.

I believe that's the end of the coverage of the delivery side and our lessons learned from the team.

I'll now hand you over to the VEU team.

Jeremy Bridle (VEU program)
Thanks.

Thanks Dan and Joe and hello everyone.

My name is Jeremy Bridle.

I'm a, I'm a policy officer in the Victorian Energy Upgrades branch at DEKA.

So I'll be providing an overview of the VEU program today, a bit about what it does, how it works, and what some of the upgrades and incentives are that are available.

So under the ISH program, all upgrades must take advantage of VU incentives where possible.

So we'll provide some details of how grant recipients can participate in the VU program and we want to make this as easy and understandable as possible.

We'll have some time for questions at the end and we'll we'll share our contact details where you can reach us in case anything else comes up.

Next slide please, Viv.

OK. So the VEU program supports energy efficiency upgrades by reducing costs.

So upfront costs are typically the largest barrier for homes and businesses to go ahead with an upgrade.

So we're reducing those costs.

We help the benefits of energy efficiency that's lower energy consumption and lower power bills flow through to customers.

The VEU program contributes to Victorians emissions reductions targets by reducing energy consumption, which has an associated effect on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

But also many of the upgrades we we support replace gas appliances directly.

So that has a direct impact on on reducing gas use and moving it to electric.

The program also helps contribute to the development of industry and supply chains that offers those energy, energy efficiency products and services.

The program has been in place since 2009 and in that time we've delivered upgrades.

Sorry, just a moment back with you now.

Since that, Since that time, we've delivered upgrades that reduced emissions by 93,000,000 tonnes.

We've reached 2.6 million households and businesses and we now have 30 / 30 upgrades available under the program.

So in summary, we can see there's a lot, a lot of alignment with the the video, with the VU program with each and that is why it's critical that the program makes the most of of the VU incentives.

Next slide.

Thanks, Viv.

So how does the program work?

The program provides incentives or discounts which reduce those upfront costs for homes and businesses to upgrade to energy efficient products.

Accredited Providers or APs for short as we we refer to them.

These are businesses that are accredited under the program to deliver upgrades.

All upgrades under the VEU program must be facilitated by an AP and that is because when an eligible upgrade or installation is made, the APs facilitate the creation of Victorian Energy Efficiency Certificates or VEECs.

The number of these certificates created or VEECs, they reflect the amount of greenhouse gas emissions reduced because of the upgrade, where one Vick or one certificate represents 1 tonne of CO2 bated.

So once the upgrade is complete and the VEECs have been created, these are then sold on to energy retailers.

Energy retailers are obligated each year to purchase and surrender a certain number of VEECs to offset emissions generated by the energy sales.

So it's the sale of VEECs by the APs is that is what creates the revenue which is then passed on as discounts to the consumers undertaking the eligible upgrades.

A final note on APs, so not all accredited provided businesses complete the installation of upgrades themselves, they can work with other trade businesses who complete the upgrade.

However, it is only the AP that have the ability to create VEEC and they are a critical part of the process.

So some of the outcomes we we see from the program again depending on the the scale of the upgrade undertaken, the average household that goes ahead with an upgrade saves somewhere between 120 up to $1100 per year on the energy bills.

And for businesses that look somewhere between 500 to 74,000 depending on the size of their business and the scale of the upgrade undertaken.

Next slide please.

So what upgrades and incentive incentives are available under the VEU program?

We'll see many that were already discussed by Dan and Joe, but we begin on left here with heating calling.

So heating, cooling can be a significant part of energy bills.

We provide incentives of up to around $16110 to install reverse cycle air conditioners.

That's even more for ducted systems which have a high cost associated for water heating.

Incentives are available to upgrade your gas or electric water heating system with a heat pump or solar water heater.

Incentives of around $910.00 or up to $910.00 available for a water heating upgrade for induction cooked UPS.

We've had incentive in place for induction cook tops since the end of 2024, approximately $140 in incentive to switch from your gas cook top to an induction system draught and and gap sealing or weather sealing.

Weather sealing as Dan mentioned, makes it easy to control the temperature inside your home and saves energy.

We have incentives of up to 700, seven, $100 available again depending on the size of the upgrade in your home for for weather sealing shower heads, we have $70.00 to upgrade to a water saving shower head.

And lastly insulation.

So ceiling insulation is is still an activity under development in the VU stage.

One of the activity will specifically target upgrades through through each and this is scheduled to commence in the first half of 2026.

At this stage, the department is is still finalising the regulations and specifications for the activity, so there's no confirmed launch date just yet for that stage.

Two of the ceiling insulation activity will then expand to all Victorian households and that is set to launch in the in late 2026.

Next slide, please.

OK, so we've covered a bit about the VEU program, what it does, how it works, what are some of the upgrades and incentives available.

VEU discounts will reduce the cost of upgrades for each and will be managed by the grant recipients.

So now we'll discuss, you know, how how can recipients access the the VEU incentives Onto the next slide.

So to begin, we suggest visiting our webpage@energy.victoria.gov.au slash Victoria energy upgrades and here you can inform yourself in greater detail on some of the things we've talked about here.

So that includes some of the upgrades available, the associated indicative discounts, and they will depend on some of the eligible eligibility requirements, including things like system size and decommissioning requirements.

And having this information will be useful as you go into Step 2, which is when you will start to speak with some accredited providers.

So when you arrive at this point, there are many APS available and we have a few tips for finding one that will suit your project's needs.

Head to the ESC Public Registry, this link.

You could plug ESC Public Registry into Google and arrive at it that way as well, and once you've arrived at the registry, you'll need to navigate to the Accredited Persons tab and there you can filter by activity type, which is the type of upgrade you want to go ahead with.

You can look at some of the most recently active APs and start to go through to find some to speak to, and we highly recommend speaking to multiple APs to find one you're confident will be best able to support the upgrades you have in mind for your projects.

It is likely you'll need to complete multiple upgrades across different activities under the program, so if that is the case, make sure your AP is able to facilitate a diverse range of upgrades to suit your project needs.

We often provide advice on why differences may appear in quotes provided by APs.

This may reflect a changing VEEC certificate price.

It could be differences in cost base for the AP, but also may be reflective of differences with the quality of the upgrade.

So that is why we advise it may not always be the best to go with the cheapest.

It's a good idea to shop around and when you do start looking at quotes, you can look for the discount amount that represents the the certificate amount that's being passed through and you can talk to your AP about that amount and compare it across, across the quote quotes you're getting.

So now you've identified some APS to work with.

APs are very knowledgeable of the VEU program, so they'll be best placed to ensure upgrades are eligible.

And that includes ensuring things like product specifications comply with all the UVU requirements to then claim the VEEC.

APs may have their preferred installers and they can help coordinate trades and can save time for you if you don't have the resources or contacts to be coordinate coordinating trades yourself.

But if you do have existing trade contacts or arrangements, you might want to raise this with your AP when you're speaking with them so they are aware.

And last, last of all, just to mention the Essential Services Commission, the ESC is the regulator of the program.

So it's their responsibility to audit and check compliance of the VEU program.

In some cases they may want to do site visits.

They may and if that is the case, they may need your help to facilitate access.

So that's just something to be aware of in in the event that you are contacted by the SC next slide.

Thank you.

So that's, that's all for me.

We, we remain available to answer any questions now and and we have our email address up on screen if anything else comes up.

Otherwise I'll wrap it there and pass back to you.

Thanks, Katie.

Katie Becker (DEECA)

Right.

Thank you very much to Jeremy, Dan and Joanna who presented for us.

I haven't seen any questions come through yet from any of our attendees.

I guess that's a reflection on how great the information being presented is.

So just a reminder to anybody, you can use the Q&A function at the top of the screen there to ask your questions.

But also if you jump to the next screen as well, we've got our ish email address up there and you can submit questions to that email address as well if you'd rather do it privately.

Any questions that do come through, we endeavour to answer them obviously as quickly as possible, but also the question.

The answers that we provide are also posted on our Frequently Asked Questions web page so that everybody has access to the same information.

We also have that QR code there for future information sessions.

Hopefully this has been useful for everyone who has attended.

I will give it another couple of minutes for any questions to come through.

Viv, what have you got for us?

Vivek Kotak (DEECA)
Yeah, hopefully not too a tricky question.

Jeremy forward just in advance, but I just wanted to just for Community Housing orgs that might have not dealt with the VEU program in the past.

Just the difference between sort of trades and contractors that you know, are typically called service providers and credit providers.

And just to help them sort of get some more clarity on that in terms of, you know, there's credit providers that can connect them with their own trades as opposed to them going and finding trades that provide a rebate.

If you can just kind of shed a bit more light on that.

Jeremy Bridle (DEECA)

Yeah, absolutely do.

So I'll just say on that APs under the program work differently.

So some may offer a suite of services where they have multiple trades or contacts that can can deliver the upgrade the installation themselves.

Others may not.

So it's it's for that reason when when you're speaking with AP, just just understand how they work.

And yeah, according to that, you know, some, some will be glad to work with outside in stores and and other, other trade services and you know, some, some may not.

So just just something to when you're speaking with the APS, they all work slightly differently and, and offer different services.

So, so yeah, that's that's the best approach.

Do have a chat with them when when you're having those initial conversations.

Katie Becker (DEECA)

Great, thank you.

Jeremy, we have had one question come in on the whether the ceiling insulators are appropriately credentialed yet, but I think possibly that's a question to take on notice since the timelines for the ceiling insulation a little vague at the moment.

Jeremy Bridle (VEU program)
Yeah, that's right.

We'll take that one on notice while the activity is still being finalised.

Katie Becker (DEECA)
Yeah, great.

Okey dokey.

Well, perhaps to save us all from sitting here, or could we?

We might draw it to a close.

I yeah, really encourage anybody to please submit any questions you have now or in the future through to the Ishq email address.

We do have future rounds coming for the Community Housing Upgrade stream grants, and we will be seeking to make any improvements that we can based on your feedback.

So if there's anything that is vague or confusing, we'd love to know it.

More feedback we get the better, right?

So thank you everybody who presented and all of those who have attended this recording will be made available on our website and I think you will all receive a link as well after this session closes.

Thank you and enjoy the rest of your afternoon.

Page last updated: 05/03/26