Residential Energy Efficiency: 7-Star, Whole-of-Home and BASIX

About this course.

Residential energy efficiency has stepped up because Australian governments, working together through the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB), have progressively raised the minimum energy performance expected of new homes and have broadened the focus from the building shell alone to the performance of the whole home. The drivers are comfort, running costs, health and resilience in a changing climate, and national commitments to reduce emissions from the building sector. For practitioners, the practical consequence is that a new home must now be designed, modelled, documented and built to a higher and more comprehensive standard than in the past, and the responsibility for achieving that sits with the design and construction team.

The foundation of the framework is the National Construction Code, which the ABCB develops and maintains on behalf of the Australian, state and territory governments. Rather than reproduce any part of the Code, it is enough for practitioners to understand its role: it sets the minimum requirements for the design and construction of buildings, including the energy efficiency of homes, and each state and territory decides when and how it adopts each edition. This means the national direction is set collaboratively, but the legal requirement in any given project depends on the jurisdiction and the edition in force there at the time. Because adoption dates and any local variations differ between states and territories, practitioners must always confirm what applies where they are building rather than assume a single national rule.