It found about 70 per cent of existing homes have building quality problems, while more than two-thirds of homes have an energy rating of three stars or lower.
Australia really just doesn’t have the policy instruments or policies in place that one might expect for building performance and housing quality and condition," Dr Daniel said.
So all of these homes were almost effectively reducing their useful life, because it’s almost as soon as they’re built, they’re not up to what we might consider a standard that’s fit for purpose," she said.
"In the future, we can imagine that people living in those homes are going to be much more exposed to fluctuations in energy prices because they’re over-reliant on heating and cooling.
What a cluster fuck
When we built 6 years ago, we advised the builder that we wanted a Zero Energy house and that it would be audited and profiled by the SECCCA and published in their magazine.
We weren’t seeking any discount or special treatment, but it would have been a great opportunity for this builder to showcase that they are progressive.
Every step of the way, the Site Supervisor and contractors snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. It is was almost as if they were trying to sabotage the build.
It came to a head when they tried to install an “electric assist” hot water service instead of a fully electric hot water service. We never had Gas to site.
The Site Supervisor and their manager called us idiots for not wanting gas and ranted and raved. They said it was not possible to have a house in Australia without Gas hot water.
Their CEO got involved and pointed out that his house did not have Gas to site, he had two Tesla PowerWalls and 20kW of solar over two inverters and was essentially off-grid in suburbia. He got a rebate from his power company every month.
The Site Supervisor was fired and their manager was given a demotion.
O think I’ve met these site managers.
For a work fit out we were going paperloss office, new company 7 years ago. They kept on wanting to know where the multi function cnwtre printer would be. They were designing cabinetry, electrics and Ethernet around it. When we kept insisting we would not have one, they eventually relented and only planned for it to be in the occasional office/store cupboard beside comma.
7 years later and the cabling and power points are still there unused as expected but they couldn’t get their heads around it. I mean, if we changed our minds we could have gone WiFi. It was so frustrating.