Australia Weather News

New South Wales landlords could be required to modify properties to ensure tenants do not suffer extreme indoor temperatures, if a comprehensive suite of recommendations to reduce heatwave harm are implemented.

The Greater Sydney Heat Taskforce, formed by a group of Western Sydney councils and Resilient Sydney, has made 40 recommendations to help businesses and residents "survive and thrive during extreme heat events".

The Heat Smart Plan, launched today, calls for enforceable minimum thermal standards for rental properties and incentives for landlords to retrofit homes to make them cooler.

The report states that indoor temperatures in rental properties far exceed minimum World Health Organization standards for healthy homes on a regular basis.

"Many people most at risk of heat-related illness or death are renting in private or social housing," the report states.

"Rental tenants are more likely to live in low energy efficiency homes, have limited abilities to make alterations, and may have less capacity to pay for energy bills and other services to keep themselves safe."

The taskforce suggests measures such as air conditioning, insulation, window coverings, and sealing doors and windows would lower energy bills and improve tenants' health and wellbeing.

According to the 2021 census, nearly one million properties in NSW were rentals — about 32 per cent of the state's dwellings.

NSW has seven minimum standards to make a rental property fit to live in, but does not specify heating or cooling.

In June this year, the Victorian government announced plans to make air conditioning, a certain amount of insulation and draught proofing of doors mandatory for rental properties by 2027.

Too hot to sleep at home

The temperatures were so high in Rosa's Petersham house in Sydney's inner-west last summer that she went to stay with her parents every few weeks.

"It was uncomfortable to be inside, even laying down," she said.

"It's hotter than outside on some days. It had the insulation of a tent."

She said the upstairs area where the bedrooms were located was the hottest and on one occasion her housemate also joined her to stay at her parents' home.

Their request for air conditioning to be installed was denied.

Rosa, who has since moved out, supported the call for minimum thermal standards to protect renters from insufferable heat.

"It's really not that big of a deal for the landlord, it's a bigger deal for us, we have to live with it," she said.

Her new rental property has air con in the common area, but she is relying on a portable air conditioning unit to cool her bedroom.

"I'm scared of the next electricity bill," she said.

'Dangerously hot'

Sweltering Cities chief executive Emma Bacon said it was critical that minimum standards gave renters the right to request alterations to bring down indoor temperatures.

"There are a huge number of renters across NSW who are living in dangerously hot homes," Ms Bacon said.

"They don't have the ability to make really simple, common-sense alterations — we're not talking about air con, we're talking about putting in better blinds, we're talking about awnings, we're talking about insulation, things that make a home more thermally efficient."

She said renters around the state, especially in Western Sydney where temperatures could be 10 degrees hotter than eastern suburbs, had described the physical impacts such as dehydration and sleepless nights, but also the mental health toll.

"The mental health impact that comes with having to think so much about what their house is going to be like on a summer day, can they afford to put on the cooling? Do they have to go somewhere else to feel safe?"

The Heat Smart Plan also calls for social housing to be retrofitted to minimise heat stress and educate home owners "in making cool choices for their home and garden".

Other key recommendations include declaring a heat wave as an eligible disaster under the National Disaster Funding Arrangements and creating "climate resilient passenger networks" including cool transport stops.

Greater Sydney Heat Taskforce chair Kerry Robinson said heat has killed more Australians than fire, flood and storms combined.

"It has been estimated that the cost of heatwaves in Western Sydney alone is $1.4 billion per year and growing," he said.

"These costs impact businesses, households and government services. We can't afford not to act."