Energy-efficient houses save more money in the long term than many people realise. When you decide to buy a new washing machine, dishwasher, or dryer you immediately look at the energy and water ratings. Particularly if, like me, you happen to supply your own water – I know when the creeks run dry I need to be super water-conscious and I need a machine that is going to give me the best washing per litre of water. So when I’m looking to replace my utilities the upfront price is definitely not the only consideration.
But Australians don’t currently take the same approach to buying or renting houses, which leaves them out of pocket in the long run.
Australia has a notoriously bad energy-efficiency rating in relation to historical housing. As one developer and builder once described it: ‘Australians build large sheds, all the heating or cooling they pump in just goes straight out the top’. This historically inefficient approach to housing construction seems to underly the current approach buyers and sellers take when they assess the costs of buying a home; they underestimate the long-term costs of buying or renting an energy-inefficient house. If the house has a low energy-efficiency rating there will either be increased long-term costs of heating and cooling, or the costs of retrofitting the house with insulation and superior building materials, and it is those price points between upfront and long-term costs that need to be considered.
The increasing cost of electricity is certainly one thing that is sure to be making buyers and renters more aware of the value of insulation – in winter to keep the heat in, and in summer to keep the heat out. And it is time that Australians began to think more long term and demand better outcomes from the people who are developing and building housing as well as those who are selling it. Australia has a long way to go to catch up to its European cousins where things like double glazing and insulation are standard and affordable. Then again if you are in the Swiss Alps or the freezing Scottish Highlands then there is definitely incentive to use good insulation and double glazing along with passive heating, solar panels, and other ways to reduce energy expenditure to heat and cool housing.
NatHERS
Australia does have a clear and scientific way to measure energy efficiency through the CSIRO-developed Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS). NatHERS was developed to measure energy efficiency for housing in 1993 and was adopted as a nationwide approach in 2004. It produces a performance-based star rating.
‘It’s a scale of 0-10 stars, describing the “thermal performance” of a home, based on a home’s design and materials. The higher the stars, the less energy that you need to keep a house comfortable through heating or cooling,’ explains the CSIRO on their website.
The challenge is having both buyers, sellers and renters begin to both understand and require that houses have their NatHERS rating.
As previously explained by CSIRO, ‘If you lived in a home with a 1-star rating, it would be a very poor performing house. You would feel cold in winter and hot in summer, it would be expensive to run and sometimes you might wonder if you’d be better off living in a cardboard box. That could look something like a traditional breezy ‘Queenslander-style’ home built in a cold climate.
‘But if you lived in a home with a 10-star rating, you probably wouldn’t need any energy at all to keep your home comfortable all year round without ever turning on a heater or air conditioner. The house would use the sun and prevailing breezes to keep you comfortable. A 10-star house would be a carefully designed home that capitalises on passive heating, cooling and other sustainable, energy-efficient design principles.’
In 2010 it was mandated nationally that new detached homes are required to have a NatHERS rating of at a minimum of 6 or above. Further changes to the Australian Building Codes Board minimum standards came into effect in 2022 and now all new homes built in Australia must achieve a minimum 7-star energy rating, under the National Construction Code.
However, older homes often have ratings around 1.8 according to CSIRO, and there will be significant long-term costs associated with either heating and cooling or making the house more energy efficient.
Energy efficiency ratings are not mandatory in Australia and previous research has demonstrated that both real estate agents and buyers still have a low level of understanding of the system.
Neville Hurst, Senior Lecturer, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University, suggested in 2020 that a mandatory rating system would help both buyers and sellers to have a better understanding of an energy efficiency rating.
‘Research shows increasing the energy star rating of existing homes to 5.4 stars could reduce heat-related deaths by 90%. Poor home energy performance also contributes to residential greenhouse gas emissions amounting to 19% of Victoria’s total emissions,’ he explained in an article in The Conversation.
‘Clearly, problems like these flow from estate agents’ poor knowledge of energy efficiency and its impact on the housing market, coupled with buyers’ and renters’ ignorance of the energy ratings of the properties they’re looking at. The problems can only be overcome if state and federal governments work together to make it mandatory to disclose the energy efficiency of housing at point of sale.
‘Home owners would then be required to provide information to buyers and renters about the energy star rating. House hunters could easily compare the performance of all homes they are interested in.’
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
