Australia’s biggest challenges driving innovation – Good quality housing is even more important
August 28, 2020
Editorial In order to build comfortable and cost- effective homes for the future it is vital to continue adapting and innovating to our changing climate and environment. 2020 began for us in Australia with the largest bushfires in recent history. Bushfires are increasingly affecting more and more of our population due to expanding urban sprawl […]
HStar Portal updates – August 2020
August 28, 2020
Several major improvements to the HStar Portal will be released soon to improve the efficiency of the ratings process. NCC2019 Certificate changesMinor layout and design changesFurther reduction in certificate sizeReduced certificate generation time from Portal UISearch changesAdded sub-search (filter) to search results page enabling easier address selection.
Australian Energy Rating Webcast
August 28, 2020
With the postponement of the 2020 Energy Rating conference, in its place the team has been running Webcasts to deliver you essential updates. As we continue to run these webcast we invite you to both come along and get involved, help us deliver you the information you want to know. On 27 May 2020 CSIRO […]
Looking down to look ahead, slab insulating and heat retention
August 28, 2020
As urban growth sprawls, CSIRO researchers investigate the effect high water table has on the conductivity of the soil and heat loss on uninsulated and insulated slabs. As we continue to expand and develop new regions this demonstrates the importance of slab insulation and continued research. Foundation preparation before concrete pour. (Photo Credit Brett and […]
Energy ratings: From planning to finance
August 28, 2020
Energy Ratings are not only be used for National Construction Code compliance: Bank Australia has recently launched the nation’s first Clean Energy Home Loan. Partnering with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Bank Australia have offered up to a 0.5% discount over five years on homes built with a minimum 7-star NatHERS rating. The discount also […]
Building Simulation Assessment & Communication cluster update
August 28, 2020
Anthony Wright – Cluster Leader What a start to the year! When we sent out our last newsletter fires were raging across south eastern Australia and smoke circled the globe. Now I’m writing from my (uninsulated) study during one of the wettest winters I can remember. And there seems to be some sort of global […]
Editorial November 2019
November 7, 2019
A recent article in The Conversation (https://theconversation.com/australias-still-building-4-in-every-5-new-houses-to-no-more-than-the-minimum-energy-standard-118820) shows that the majority of purchasers of new houses in Australia get the minimum allowable energy efficiency level for their new home. The authors reported that this “six-star minimum falls short of what is optimal in terms of environmental, economic and social outcomes. It’s also below the minimum […]
3DANN: A correlation-based model for heat losses through building ground
November 7, 2019
Zhengen Ren, Omid Motlagh, Dong Chen Heat loss of a building through the ground becomes relatively important as the above-grade components of the building fabric are built more energy efficient. While analytical methods can provide fast and accurate results for some simple foundation configurations, detailed 3D numerical models can be used for complex configurations with […]
Does the energy efficiency of a new dwelling vary with the socio-economic status of the area in which it is built?
November 7, 2019
(This research was presented by Melissa James at the Improving Residential Energy Efficiency (IREE) conference held in Brisbane in April 2019) New residential buildings in Australia are subject to the energy efficiency provisions of the National Construction Code (NCC). When designed and built they must meet a prescribed minimum standard. Whilst this confers some protection […]
Australian Housing Data portal – new dashboards
November 7, 2019
Since the launch of the AHD portal, we have had 3000 people visit the site and received lots of positive feedback, so if you have not had a chance to have a look why not do so at https://ahd.csiro.au. We have also added some additional dashboards since the launch. These include: Postcode dashboard – See […]