The Sagacious house in Adelaide is South Australia’s first 10 Star house – a pioneering project undertaken by SUHO ESD consultants in partnership with different product manufacturers to demonstrate the benefits of high performing homes.
New houses across most of Australia are required to be built to a minimum 6 Star Standard when it comes to thermal performance. While 6 Star homes satisfy the base standards of new builds, they can still be affected by extreme temperatures, therefore requiring additional investment in heating and cooling systems and associated bills.
However, a house built to a 10 Star Standard has an improved building envelope that provides better energy efficiency and thermal comfort. This translates into a more comfortable living environment for the occupants who will need to spend less on heating and cooling while simultaneously improving their house’s environmental impact.
South Australia was identified as the ideal testing ground for building the 10 Star rated house due to the region’s extreme temperatures in summer. The Sagacious project aims to showcase a more sustainable way of building homes in Australia by using good design principles such as optimising house orientation, increasing insulation and installing double glazed windows. Solar panels and a solar water heater have also been included to enhance energy efficiency.
The finished house will be monitored to check if it is able to maintain a comfortable temperature all year round without additional heating and cooling.
Kingspan Insulation has supported the Sagacious project by supplying their high performing insulation products for the build. The basis of a thermally efficient building is a strong building envelope; therefore, using high performing insulation in the house walls was a must.
Sagacious features both the rigid phenolic Kingspan Kooltherm K12 framing boards and flexible reflective AIR-CELL Permicav XV insulation within its walls.
“Using high performing insulation such as Kingspan Kooltherm is a really easy way to boost your home’s energy efficiency and reap long term benefits of paying lower energy bills,” added Kingspan Insulation’s SA & NT state manager, James Pinyon.
The built environment is responsible for a quarter of Australia's carbon emissions, while heat loss, a common occurrence in Australian homes, can increase your energy bills by 25 per cent. The rapidly changing global climate underlines the importance of growing the market for sustainable homes in Australia.
Read more about this initiative in the ASBEC report.
