How to make a home in Adelaide get to 10 stars – maybe more
There’s only a handful of Australian houses that can boast a 10-star NatHERS rating, and now Adelaide has its first.
houses
This rammed earth, Passive House home is in a community bound by sustainability
Passive House experts Maxa Design has cleaned up several recent awards with a Passive House home made out of rammed earth in Donvale, Victoria. Known as the Earth House, the home has won a bunch of accolades at the Design Matters Awards – “Building Design of the Year 2020”, “Best residential new home design $1 […]
Why NSW’s BASIX tool needs some love
FEATURE: NSW has historically trod its own path to regulate the sustainability standards of its homes
How comfortable is your home in the hot weather or cold? Soon you’ll be able to prove the claims (and maybe get a better price when you sell)
NatHERS is expanding its patch to include better measures of energy efficiency for existing houses.
No smoke, no ash: here’s how one house survived the fires
“When we first entered the house after our return from Canberra, four days after the fire, the air inside was cool and smoke-free in contrast to the outside air.”
California’s wildfires and what Australia can learn
In 2018, the US state of California saw its worst-ever bushfire season on record. The Fifth Estate spoke to US architect and sustainable design guru David Hertz about what the region learnt about designing and managing infrastructure in the face of ever-increasing fire risk.
Wodonga builder proves 10 star homes not so hard if you’re a quality builder to start with
If you want to control the energy efficiency of your building, start by eliminating air leakage, says an award-winning home builder who has been experimenting and innovating for more than a generation.
New meets old: Cob houses enter the twenty-first century
A marriage of new and old wall materials using earth and plant fibre has won the first prize in the category “Connecting Green, Blue and Grey” at the European Commission’s RegioStars Awards in Brussels, as part of the European Week of Regions and Cities.
Australia’s still building 4 in every 5 new houses to no more than the minimum energy standard
New housing in Australia must meet minimum energy performance requirements.
ACT’s disclosure scheme reveals appalling residential housing quality
Almost half residential rental properties in the ACT disclosing energy efficiency ratings are getting zero stars on the NatHERS scale, according to data gathered by tenant advocacy organisation Better Renting.