Residential Energy Efficiency Assessments

An Energy Rating, or an Energy Efficiency Assessment, is kind of like the Energy Star Rating on your fridge, only it’s for your house. We assess how much energy is used to cool & heat your house to keep it comfortable all year long. We can perform several types of assessments such as a Star Rating (a full thermal calculation), a Deemed-to-Satisfy assessment (a collection of individual minimum requirements), or even a Verification Method assessment (a combination of the other two methods).

Who needs an assessment?

It’s a requirement of the National Construction Code that all new buildings and extensions are energy efficient. If you’re building a new house, town house, apartment complex or if you’re planning an extension of your current home, then you’ll need a certificate that says it complies with the Code.

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What’s involved?

The exact process depends on the type of assessment. For most houses we do a Star Rating. For this assessment, we run your house though a computer simulation that calculates the temperature of the air in every room of the entire house for every hour of every day for an entire year. This tells you exactly which rooms will get hotter or colder than others and, if necessary, pinpoints any problem areas that need fixing. We normally use the program BERS Pro for residential star ratings.

A Deemed-to-Satisfy (DTS) assessment involves checking that every individual aspect of the building meets the minimum required performance level. This type of assessment is normally cheaper for us to perform but will result in a more expensive building, as there is no option to trade between areas (for example, having great insulation won’t let you use cheaper glass). To lower your total project costs, we normally only perform a DTS assessment in certain circumstances (for instance, if you have a complying Outdoor Living Area with a Ceiling Fan).

A Reference Building assessment is a combination of the above two methods, where we compare your building’s simulated thermal performance to the thermal performance of a custom-tailored DTS-compliant “Reference Building”. This type of assessment is much more involved since it’s essentially three assessments in one. We usually recommend this method for houses that fall outside the scope of buildings suitable for the Star Rating or DTS methods (for instance, small transportable homes). For one client, the alternatives we found with our calculations actually saved them over $27,000 in building alteration costs! For another client, we found a Building Solution for their project when they discovered the their house was missing roof insulation!

“Easy to work with, great turnaround time, and efficient. Look forward to dealing with you more in the future and would recommend your services to other developers/builders.” — Reed Property Group

What details do we need?

We’ll need a copy of the architectural drawings (site plans, floor plans, elevations, sections) as well as any glazing & lighting schedules if you have them. We also need a completed Check List which contains some extra details that aren’t always on the plans (like proposed insulation, wall & roof colours, floor types, etc.). If you don’t know (or you want us to tell you what you need), just leave those boxes blank & we’ll start with the minimum Code requirements.

You can find more information on what to send us by checking our Get a Quote page.

How long will it take?

Our turnaround is normally under a week for individual houses and around one to two weeks for multi-residential developments. This naturally depends on our current workload and the complexity of your design. Rush/priority jobs are available for an additional investment, contact us if you need a job done urgently before a certain deadline. In order to minimise delays, and get your assessment done sooner, be sure to read our post on “What can Delay my Energy Assessment Result?“.

How much will it cost?

It’s hard to give a one-size-fits-all estimate because houses can be so varied in their design. We understand that each project is unique and therefore we calculate a unique quote for you by taking into consideration a number of design factors, relative to your design. We’ve even written a brief analysis of our pricing structure. We will use whatever techniques we can to lower our assessment costs for you, so if you’re building town-houses or units with identical (or even very similar) duplicate floor plans, we factor that into the cost of your assessment; potentially making it much lower.

Why us?

We are a family run business comprised of RPEQs and NatHERS ABSA–accredited members with a fully-certified ISO9001 Quality Management System. Based in Brisbane QLD, we have over fifteen years of direct experience in thermally simulating buildings for Energy Efficiency and we’re confident that we can give you the result your house deserves. We have the reputation, experience, education & systems to deliver our exceptional expertise for your project and we guarantee to always find a Building Solution which includes client-approved, lowest-cost options. We provide quality, reliable consulting advice at a competitive price.

Quality matters in the building industry.

Some organisations have been known in the past to take short-cuts, producing results the building doesn’t deserve. With our extensive accreditation, quality checking & experience you can feel confident we get the right result. Our reports even have tamper-proof holographic seals so you know they’re not copies!

The cost of fixing a building thanks to a junk energy report can be astronomical. Don’t get caught out by a dodgy assessment performed by someone without proper credentials. If you’re just looking for the lowest price, you might want to think again, there are numerous pitfalls of choosing an inexperienced, ‘cheap’ energy efficiency assessor!

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