Forum: Can we share power to save money?
There has been a trend over the past few years for blocks that had one electricity supply, who then shared the costs according to unit entitlements, to install separate meters.…
power
Podcast: Power grabs and fraudsters – two rants
This week’s podcast is short but not very sweet (despite it being our 200th). Sue is away in the UK, which allows me to vent about a couple of issues…
Forum: Who has the power to get things done?
Here’s a scenario for you to get your teeth into. Your owners corporation has passed a number of items on the AGM agenda, requesting specific action, but the committee and/or…
Forum: Man with the power who doesn’t want it
This is one of those stories that you remember whenever anyone complains about there being too much bureaucracy around apartment blocks and buildings in general. One Flatchatter in Victoria has…
Focus on defects and disasters, pocket $100
Want to add to academics’ collective knowledge about living in strata and all the … um .. challenges it presents, and score a couple of $50 vouchers for doing so?…
EV charging: Power games and current resistance
Here on the Flat Chat website, the issue of electric vehicle charging has been one of the most-read and most-commented topics we have had of late. Personal stories on the…
Webinar will plug blocks into EV charging facts
Can individual owners have electric vehicle (EV) charging in their apartment block parking spots or do they have to wait till the whole building is cabled? Can the owners corporation…
Forum: Is ancient wiring too big a risk to keep?
Here’s a question that will resonate with owners in older buildings. When your block’s electrical wiring isn’t good enough to safely power a domestic oven, should the owners corp be…
PODCAST 54 – Bushfires, unit blocks and stray cats
This week’s podcast is about the bushfires. For a change, apartments are not portrayed in the media as the worst possible way to live in Australia. That’s not to say…
Power play as shocking contracts unlocked
In what can only be described as a solid win for strata residents, home owners and tenants living in strata schemes will no longer be locked into uncompetitive long term…
Roundup: power brokers, smokers and slackers
Purely coincidentally, in a week where my column in the AFR was banging on about untrained volunteers running massive budgets in their blocks, while competent professionals are too busy to…
Why untrained volunteers run big bucks budgets
They oversee annual budgets of millions of dollars, make decisions that have profound influence on the lives of hundreds of people, pursue policies that could have devastating effects on the…