7 star homes are coming!
Changes are afoot for how we must build in Australia with an update to the National Construction Code this year. Part of this is to make buildings more energy efficient, which in NSW is managed by the BASIX standards.
What is BASIX?
Itâs another one of those acronyms that government likes to use, and it stands for Building Sustainability Index. Basically itâs a system that checks new building plans  for the thermal comfort levels they will provide when theyâre built, and for how water and energy efficient they will be. All new dwellings, and renovations/extensions worth $50,000 or more, have to be put through the BASIX assessment tool. The plans have to meet the required standards before any application for building can be lodged with either council or a certifier (as either a Development Application or Complying Development).
What is changing?
On 1st October 2023 the standards needing to be met are increasing. The aim is for everyone to have cheaper energy bills, and more comfortable homes with fewer carbon emissions. Electrification is going to be emphasised through induction cooktops and heat pump hot water systems, although gas can still be used. A report on the embodied carbon of the home will also need to be submitted, so many materials and inclusions will need to be known up front. Thermally, all new homes will then have at least a 7 star rating; up from the current 5.5-6 star average at the moment. An admirable aim to be sure - good for comfort, the planet and the hip pocket!
The usual suspects of additional insulation, higher quality windows (including double-glazing in places), and house design will all come into play to achieve the 7 star rating.
If you are just starting out on your design journey then you and your team should be designing to meet these new standards; plans need to have a BASIX certificate issued before 1 October 2023 to stay under the existing system.
How will this impact the cost to build?
The government is predicting that for the âaverageâ home (in Western Sydney), meeting the higher BASIX standards will cost $7,152 more, save $1,070 in 2023 and save $9,100 over 12 years. Given homes will last MUCH longer than 12 years, the savings will end up being far greater than this. (Weâre looking at soon working on an old home first built in the 1870s; 147 years old and it definitely will keep on giving for many more years)!
In practice, exactly how much extra new homes will need to cost to meet the new 7 star rating will depend very much on their size, style, and orientation and remains to be seen. From a brief internet search, we can see that most industry insiders are predicting the extra costs will be more than the governmentâs estimates. And if you were to suddenly upgrade a whole house from single to double glazing it definitely will be. But on the flip side, how do the new requirements compare to what we at J & S Contracting are already including in our builds? For a long time, many of our homes have included extra measures to improve their comfort for our clients. Rarely have they been built to the bare minimum. It terms of time and labour (which is a substantial portion of any new home build cost), it doesnât take any more to roll out thin or thick insulation, or install a double-glazed window instead of one that is single-glazed.
But even though the benefits from implementing the changes are clear cut and savings over the lifetime of the home will be substantial, the thought of any extra initial costs at the moment is a stressful reality for many as they are already facing higher interest rates and increased building costs carried over from the last few turbulent years.
What can be done to minimise the extra costs?
If you are yet to buy your block of land, try to choose one that will let you have your living areas on the north side.
Then, good home design will become more important than ever. Youâll need to choose an architect or designer who genuinely understands the importance of orientation and will design around wherever north is for your particular site. The days when you just choose a generic plan that looks nice are nearing an end because having the correct orientation will be critical. Together with appropriate shading over windows and optimising window/wall glazing ratios - these all cost little or nothing and will all work for you to help meet the new standards before extra inclusions are needed to be considered. Simple things like using a light coloured roof instead of dark will become the norm. (Did you know it is not actually possible to install enough insulation to fully counter the heating effects of using a dark roof?)
Often what we see happen is a house plan is fully finalised, then at the end it is either run through the BASIX assessment tool or sent off to a thermal assessor to see if it complies. If it doesnât meet the requirements, then the designer or builder has to start working out what changes to the inclusions can be made so that it complies without changing the design; because that is already set. Extra insulation might be added, solar panels fitted, windows upgraded. But some of these changes are not cheap so the unexpected changes at the end might completely blow the budget of the homeowner. And with these new standards, it may not even be possible to add in enough âextrasâ at the end if the design is poor in the first place.
To avoid this problem, you need to not have your Design, your BASIX assessment, and your Costing/Building stages siloed as standalone tasks done in isolation, one after the other. Each stage needs to inform the others.
How we can help
This is where the PAC (paid as consultant) process we use of working together with owners and their designer/architect through the entire design phase can really help.
As the designer creates the plan to work in with the actual site and the ownersâ needs, they can have an initial BASIX and thermal assessment done before the plans are fully complete. Now thereâs often more than one way to meet the standards, and some methods/materials suit better than others. As builders, we contribute at this early stage by providing input to the designer (and assessor if that is a different consultant) on the different material options - both for cost, and for how easy or hard these different options will be to implement. The lowest cost materials are not always the best once work methods and labour/time are also considered. Ease of use, efficiency and workflow all come into play too.
Once an initial assessment has been done the design can either: move forward, knowing that it will comply with the requirements, or pivot and take a slightly new direction because it doesnât comply or it will be too expensive to do so. And this is OK, because the plans havenât been finalised yet! The important thing is that it doesnât all get left to the end to emerge as a nasty surprise with huge extra costs or a design that simply wonât pass the assessment.
When we work with our clients through a PAC agreement, the whole design process - including the need to have it comply with the BASIX requirements - becomes a collaborative team effort. Everyone all working towards the common goal of having a great home for the owner.
Photo credit:Â Anthony Basheer
