You may or may not have heard, but as of the 1st of May 2010, all new houses, townhouses and unit built in Queensland must achieve a 6 star energy rating.
Quite a few people have asked me what this means and how much it’s all going to cost, so I thought I would give you a quick overview here and hopefully help put your mind to rest.
Firstly, the 6 star energy rating is a rating out of 10. That means that your new dwelling does not need to be a 10 out of 10 in energy efficiency, it only needs to be a 6 out of 10. Of course you can go beyond the minimum 6 stars if you want to.
The idea behind the 6 star rating is to help to reduce the carbon footprint of your home. Interestingly it does not relate to the appliances that you use within your home, such as hot water systems, ovens, air-conditioners, heaters etc. Instead it takes into account thing like the materials your home is made from such as roofing, flooring and wall materials as well as the type, style and placement of windows.
Regardless of how you feel about carbon emissions I think we can all agree that using less electricity is a good idea, particularly with the price of electricity today. In theory a 6 star dwelling will provide significant savings over other older buildings. It will also be more comfortable to live in and require less artificial heating and cooling.
The cost of building a 6 star rated dwelling is potentially higher than the cost of building a home to the previous 5 star rating, however the government predicts that this extra expense will be as little as 1.25 percent on average. Given the potential power savings in running your home it’s likely that you would recuperate this amount in a fairly short space of time. After that time every dollar saved in electricity costs would be an extra dollar that you get to keep in your pocket.
So how do you achieve a 6 star energy equivalence rating?
There are a number of ways in which you can achieve a 6 star rating, many of which are just commonsense good design ideas in the first place that revolve around utilizing natural cooling and heating.
For example creating a design that allows natural ventilation to flow through the building through windows and doors can be part of achieving the 6 star rating, but is also just good old commonsense. Creating wider eaves that block the higher summer sun, but let’s in the warm winter sun can assist. Ensuring that living rooms have a northern orientation, placing increased amounts of insulation in walls and ceilings, having treated glazing on windows and using light, heat resistant colours on roofs and walls can all help achieve the required rating.
But even little things like having ceiling fans installed in the main living areas and bedrooms and having well designed covered outdoor areas can all make a difference.
So whilst some people have a negative view of the new 6 star energy equivalence ratings, much of it centres on good, practical design elements which we Dion Seminara Architecture have been incorporating into homes for many years. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the new 6 star energy rating is well and truly overdue and will help to ensure higher overall design standards across the industry.
So if you’re looking to build a new house, townhouse or unit, and want a sensational design that perfectly suits your lifestyle, is inexpensive to run and achieves the minimum 6 star rating or better, than call Dion Seminara Architecture today.
