Latest news with #LookSee
The Citizen
30-07-2025
- Business
- The Citizen
Small fixes, big savings: What every homeowner should know about property maintenance
An interactive digital tool is making the daunting task of home maintenance easier to manage. Home maintenance is far from just an aesthetic exercise; it forms the backbone of domestic financial planning and wealth protection. As well as the dangers of having insurance claims rejected, failure to undertake proactive maintenance leaves homeowners vulnerable to a multitude of unplanned financial setbacks. The thought of dusting off ladders, hammers and paint brushes may be daunting, but an interactive tool is putting peace of mind in a neat digital box. Home maintenance: 5 areas of concern Data collected from Standard Bank's LookSee home efficiency platform highlights the areas where homeowners have been detrimentally delaying home maintenance. Irregular weather patterns have made seasonal changes less predictable, placing roofs at the top of the list of neglected key home structures. Clogged gutters contribute greatly to roof, and even foundation degradation, with industry specialists advising they should be thoroughly cleaned at least twice a year. From foundation to roof, walls require regular inspection to ensure their integrity, and gardens hide numerous wealth-draining dangers. A silent waste of money and water is plumbing, with a City of Cape Town Smart Living Handbook stating that a chronic dripping tap can waste up to 90 litres of water a day. Prosperity loading LookSee understands that structural issues are often out of sight, but urges homeowners not to let the inevitable decay go unattended. Its Home Maintenance Portal is a digital directory of home improvement specialists that is backed by an interactive ratings and approval system. 'Very often we don't do anything until something breaks and by that time it is a major problem,' said LookSee Executive Head Marc du Plessis. 'Doing preventative maintenance can make a real difference in terms of the financial impact of those kinds of repairs, while maintaining your property's value,' he explains. ALSO READ: Insurance companies winning 90% of homeowner disputes – How to ensure your home remains in top shape LookSee recommends that homeowners start their home maintenance journey by getting a property inspection from a professional company to arm themselves with an understanding of the condition of their home. 'These companies do a complete assessment of your home and provide you with an incredibly detailed report that shows you the areas that are in good condition, those that will need maintenance in the next 12 months and areas of immediate concern that need urgent attention,' said du Plessis. 'Importantly, these companies are typically independent without ties to any specific contractors. This means that you have peace of mind that the assessment is based on actual conditions rather than a desire to secure a sale of some kind.' With this report in hand – or your own research – you can then turn to LookSee's Home Maintenance Portal for a variety of vetted and rated contractors that cover every aspect of home maintenance. Safety and efficiency Changing seasons bring unique concerns and the maintenance portal, in combination with the property inspection, is the ideal planning tool to build future savings. Once a homeowner has identified an area that requires attention, images of the work are uploaded to the portal for interested contractors to bid on. Should the job card be agreed upon, the homeowner pays the required amount to to the platform, which holds the amount in escrow while the contractor finishes the work. Once completed, both parties rate their interactions — helping the contractor to build a profile while protecting the homeowner's interests. 'We love the fact that there is a lot of safety for the client and where maintenance professionals do not maintain the highest standards, they are removed from the platform,' explains Du Plessis. 'Ultimately, do you want to do it yourself or do you want a trusted and vetted professional to do it for you?' he asks. 'Important piece of home management' The property inspections can be done on new homes or those that are decades old, but the result is always peace of mind knowing where the weak link in your property's armour exists. 'If you spread these tasks over a period of time, it becomes incredibly efficient and it is not as expensive as addressing all the areas right now or when they fail,' says Du Plessis. 'Rather look at the year ahead, look at the key areas of your home that need maintenance, put it in your calendar and develop a maintenance budget by using the quoting mechanism on the portal. 'This is more than a service, it's a really important piece of home management that puts more money in your pocket when truly maximised,' Du Plessis concluded. Click here for more information on LookSee's Home Maintenance Portal.
The Citizen
30-06-2025
- Business
- The Citizen
Here's how to manage household electricity usage as municipal tariff increases kick in
More electricity hikes are coming after municipalities received approval to go ahead with increases of up to 14%. Newly approved electricity hikes will come into effect tomorrow and will have households scratching their heads as to how much more they can limit their usage. The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) approved tariff increases between 4 to 5 times higher than latest inflation figures for over 100 municipalities in recent weeks, placing strain on consumers across the country. Alarm over the increases was illustrated by Nersa's comment that a record number of objections and submissions by affected customers were received from individual households. High tariff increases Nersa approved an 11.32% increase in Eskom's wholesale prices to municipalities earlier this year, but these municipalities made individual applications for increases for their own customers. Metropolitan municipalities covering Johannesburg, Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Gqeberha and East London will have their electricity increase between 12.4% and 12.8% from 1 July. The City of Tshwane customers escaped with a 10.2% increase, while those in Ekurhuleni were slapped with a 13.4% increase. 2025 municipal electricity tariff hikes Municipality Increase Buffalo City 12.74% City of Cape Town 12.8%* City of eThekwini 12.72% City of Tshwane 10.20% City Power (Johannesburg) 12.41% Ekurhuleni Metropolitan 13.40% Mangaung Municipality 12.40% Nelson Mandela Bay 12.80% * Cape Town's increase is based on Nersa's approved 2024/25 tariffs. The City implemented a 4.5% higher increase in 2024, which is currently the subject of ongoing legal proceedings. Among the reasons Nersa used to justify limiting even higher increases were poor financial performance, mounting municipal debt and high energy losses, essentially preventing the results of mismanagement being passed onto the consumer. Winter pressure on bills Electricity bills are naturally higher in winter and these added costs could plunge households headfirst into a billing abyss. Standard Bank's LookSee home efficiency platform has continued to keep customers at the forefront of their thinking, understanding the strife facing everyday South Africans. 'We keep having to deal with these above inflation increases for what is an essential service. It is painful not to have access to electricity, but at this stage it is becoming an affordability issue,' said LookSee Executive Head Marc Du Plessis. To propel its drive to create eco-conscious electricity customers that prioritise savings, LookSee has formulated a two-pronged solution to change and monitor behaviour. 'Behaviour is all about habits and habits can be changed. They may be hard to break but it is possible to make a shift that has a fundamental impact on your pocket,' advises Du Plessis. He notes that there are two variable municipal charges that households can do something about — electricity and water — and by evaluating the usage of those, increases can be absorbed or even offset. Household savings a sought-after destination LookSee's newly launched Smart Save journey is a tool to help households better understand their energy efficiency and plan ways to close any previously unseen gaps. Freely available on the LookSee platform, the Smart Save journey cross-references in-depth geographical, electricity consumption standards and municipal information with a household's unique specifications to enable users to make accurate energy decisions. 'The Smart Save journey is a commitment to not only helping households save, but to giving them reliable information and insights into what their comparable costs are,' states Du Plessis. Coupled with the Energy Efficiency Score that measures how efficiently a household consumes electricity, each home can build their own energy profile. 'We really believe that by empowering households with knowledge and insights, they can then do more in their own homes to manage their monthly costs and put money back into their budget,' he explains.
The Citizen
27-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Citizen
How much your geyser really costs you and what to do about it this winter
As winter creeps closer, homeowners are warned not to fall into the trap of ignoring their most inefficient appliance. Increasing electricity bills show no sign of subsiding but households have been given a way to get ahead of mounting costs. The geyser is last on most households' efficiency checklist. The giant kettle in the ceiling often heats water for an empty house. 40% of your electricity spend Part of the geyser's hidden danger is the convenience of having hot water on demand, as fast-paced lifestyles leave little room for the manual switching on and off of a geyser. Too many will attest to the agony of forgetting to switch the geyser back on, allowing convenience to defeat any commitment to efficiency. A conservative estimate places the cost of running a geyser 24/7 at roughly 40% of a household's electricity bill, with a 3kW geyser costing approximately R9 per hour to heat up. ALSO READ: Eskom tariff increase: Here's how to prevent your electricity bill from skyrocketing Cost-effective stopgaps include timers and insulation with a geyser blanker, but LookSee combines renewable energy and smart solutions to amplify existing infrastructure. 'We encourage households to think about efficiency and the reduction of energy usage before thinking about production of power,' said Executive Head of LookSee Marc du Plessis. 'Plug your geyser into the sun' Heating water in winter not only requires more energy, but maintaining that heat comes at an escalated cost as the water coming into the geyser and the surrounding environment is much colder. Households can change the way they consume hot water by taking showers instead of baths, not leaving the hot water running, and turning the temperature of the geyser down. ALSO READ: Want to get the most out of your solar system? LookSee promises to cut down your bill with its new Savings Guarantee Alternatively, LookSee gives households the power to stop using expensive grid power for their water heating needs. 'The easiest and most cost-effective option is to use the sun — to plug your geyser into the sun and let the sun do the work for you,' said Du Plessis. LookSee's innovative approach to solar water heating does away with the well-known hallmarks of traditional solar geysers: the unsightly geyser installed on the roof, connected to evacuated tubes or flat-plate collectors. Instead, standard solar panels such as you would see on a home solar installation are connected directly to the geyser without any interference to the existing plumbing. It heats the water at source, with no moving parts, reducing installation and maintenance costs and maintains a connection to the main electrical supply for backup power during extended periods of heavy cloud cover. Savings from the start This smart conversion approach to solar geysers is an investment that pairs long-term rewards with a short-term capital outlay that is quickly offset by immediate savings when financed with Standard Bank's Energy Loan. Backed by sophisticated savings calculators, LookSee have established that the savings on electricity bills often surpass the monthly repayment of the affordable installation in households of three people or more from day one. ALSO READ: Insurance companies winning 90% of homeowner disputes – How to ensure your home remains in top shape Early adopters of full solar installations and solar panel-powered geysers have paved the way for the drop in costs of newer technologies, removing all trepidation of renewable solutions. 'It is in the sweet spot now. The quality is getting better and the costs are coming down. The solar geyser conversion is far more rewarding from a net-benefit perspective over time.' Smart solutions are allowing for households to tailor their water heating patterns to the lifestyles of each of the home's energy-conscious occupants. This begins by installing LookSee's solar geyser conversion, which ensures long-term access to hot water while taking a significant chunk out of your electricity bill. Click here to find out more information on LookSee's innovative solar geyser conversion. Brought to you by LookSee.
