Although Sustainable House Day 2020 has passed, you can still explore the virtual house tours of 176 participating homes. If you’re interested in participating in next year’s event, add your details here.
In 2020 Sustainable House Day is completely virtual, meaning you can explore homes from all over the country.
New resources to help you design your new home or renovation
Your Home 6th Edition coming soon
Your Home is Australia’s trusted guide to building, buying or renovating a home. Your Home provides comprehensive, up to date information about sustainable design principles and features to help you get the most out of your new build or renovation. With the sixth edition coming soon, you can look forward to updated content, including new information about building in bushfire-prone areas, renewable energy systems and energy-efficiency in apartments. Plus the book and website are being updated to include a summary of key points for each chapter, making the information you need to build your dream home even easier to find.
Keep an eye out for the 6th edition due for release toward the end of 2020!
Visit Your Home to find out more →
NEW Design For Place – Free Energy-Efficient House Plans
Design For Place provides free home plans to suit a range of Australian climate conditions. Each home is architect-designed and uses best practice energy-efficient design principles to achieve 7 stars or more under the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS).
You can download a Design For Place design pack tailored to suit a range of Australian climate conditions—from cool to tropical areas. To help get the most out of your Design For Place build, each pack contains information about energy-efficient and climate specific design principles. With this information you will see how changes in the specifications or design can be used to achieve a higher NatHERS rating. The pack also offers helpful tools and practical examples to help guide your conversations with architects, designers or builders.
Read more about Design For Place →
NEW Your Home – Case Studies
Check out sustainable design in action. With the case studies available on the Your Home website, you can get inspired with project insights, sustainability features and high quality images. Amongst them you will find a case study showcasing a Design For Place build.
Photo — Harmony House, one of the new case studies available on Your Home.
View the case studies available →
NEW NatHERS Certificate – Accept nothing less than the official NatHERS Certificate
In April 2020, the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) Certificate was updated to improve its usability and structure. The new NatHERS Certificate includes all the details that go into your home’s energy rating, plus a glossary of technical terms, a checklist for certifiers, a unique identifiable watermark for each certificate and other improvements to assist with regulatory compliance.
A NatHERS Certificate is completed by an energy assessor during design process and can be used as evidence to satisfy energy-efficiency regulations. It allows builders, certifiers and regulatory authorities to quickly confirm that the building has been built to the design on which the energy rating assessment is based. By engaging an experienced NatHERS Accredited Assessor in the early stages of the design process, they can provide expert advice about how to maximise your home’s energy performance.
Find out more about the NatHERS Certificate →
NatHERS to include appliances and energy generation
For those looking to build in the future, soon NatHERS will also include information about the energy performance of your home’s heating and cooling appliances, hot water, lighting, pool/spa pumps, cooking and plug-in appliances and on-site energy generation. The performance of the appliances, the current NatHERS star rating and the overall energy performance of the home will be available in the future to support householders to design and build homes that are more energy efficient, have lower energy bills, are more comfortable to live in, and reduce pressure on the electricity grid.
Photo of the 10 Star Home Adelaide, a home with a NatHERS rating of 10.
Find out more at NatHERS whole-of-home →
NatHERS for existing homes
Work is underway to extend NatHERS to provide energy assessments and ratings for existing homes. This will help people understand where the energy is used in their home, how their home performs compared to other homes, and how their home can be improved to be more comfortable; supporting action to reduce energy use and bills.
The first version of the requirements for NatHERS to be extended to existing homes is due to be finalised in mid-2021, following analysis and stakeholder consultation.
Photo of the The Paddock Eco Village, a home with a NatHERS rating of 8.2.
Find out more about NatHERS for existing homes →
Sign up to the NatHERS Newsletter to receive updates on NatHER →
This year, the event consisted of over 30 free virtual sessions with homeowners, architects, and sustainability experts.
These sessions were recording, and videos will be added to the program in the coming weeks.
Designing for Sustainability
View Program →
Building, Retrofitting and Renovating
View Program →
Renewable Energy, Community Living, Gardens, and Water Efficiency
View Program →
Sustainable House Day is coordinated by Renew, a not for profit organisation. All 30 sessions on September 20 are free — please consider making a donation if you have enjoyed the event.
Ecoliv design and construct award-winning modular prefabricated homes and commercial buildings. Learn more →