Why healthy, sustainable, high-performance homes are becoming the new standard

“The definition of a high-performance home doesn’t exist and is complicated by the fact that any home that exceeds the code minimum could be considered high-performance,” says Michael Blick, director at Progressive Building.

“We strive to design and build homes that are recognisably traditional in shape and form. The intention is not to look at a Progressive Building home and immediately see its high-performance credentials – only when you walk into the home do you notice a completely different environment than any home you’re accustomed to living in. From the outside, the home is an expression of the homeowner’s personal design preferences, yet inside it provides a quiet shelter.”

A high-performance home by Progressive Building has:​

• Maximum level of comfort during warm and cold months
• Low heating load (40W/sqm maximum)
• Low heating/cooling demand (35kWH/sqm/yr)
• Airtight membrane and ventilated battens
• Overheating is limited to 15 per cent of the year
• High levels of insulation
• Balanced heat recovery ventilation (filtered air)
• Highly insulating windows
• Mitigating thermal bridging

Progressive Building incorporates methodology to manage temperatures on both ends of the scale of heating and cooling.

“This process should be unobtrusive, so your home is incredibly quiet. The ventilation system functions without you having to engage with it. Having minimum double-glazed windows controls internal heating and cooling and minimises external sounds. The overall result is a feeling of comfort as well as having an extremely quiet house that is protected from the harsh conditions outside,” says Blick.

A high-performance home by Progressive Building balances energy usage, performance, cost, architectural merit and resilience – achieving a result that may otherwise have limitations.

The use of sustainable building products, including consideration of how much processing has gone into a product’s life cycle; reducing the amount of concrete used for a project and utilising low-carbon concrete; removing structural steel wherever possible; integrating solar and backup power generation or storage; and reducing water usage all come as standard for Progressive Building.

Passive House is the highest standard and quality of a building that can be achieved. It focuses on building a highly efficient, healthy home that can save up to 90 per cent on heating and cooling demands when compared to a standard home. 

Each Passive House design by Progressive Building is unique based on a number of factors and site conditions – achieved with intelligent design and implementation of the key passive house principles, including:

• Air tightness under .60ACH. This stops draughts and cold breezes from entering the home.
• ​Mechanical ventilation removes any old, dirty air and replaces it with clean, fresh air.
• Insulation provides resistance to heat, so Progressive Building ensures the correct amount of insulation is installed into the home.
• Thermal bridge-free – having no metal or concrete that transfers from outside to inside through design or using the right insulation to thermally break it – stops heat transfer in or out of the home.
• Quality windows and doors prevent any heat or air loss.

“While a Passive House and a high-performance home sound similar, they do come with their differences, which is important to remember when building your next home,” says Blick.

Building homes to this standard is not solely about the performance of the house, the sustainability or the long-term cost-savings. 

“It’s also about the occupants’ health, which is one of the highest priorities for our clients building their family’s forever home. If you can get all of those things, getting running costs down and creating a healthy home, why wouldn’t you try and achieve that?”

Thankfully, this is becoming a wider approach in construction, says Blick.

Updated every three years based on required regulatory practices, industry research and public feedback, the National Construction Code (NCC) is Australia’s primary set of technical design and construction provisions for buildings. It’s a performance-based code developed by the Australian Building Codes Board that sets the minimum required levels for the health, safety, amenity, accessibility and sustainability of certain buildings.

The next update to the NCC will be next year and includes key proposed changes for residential buildings such as:

• Condensation mitigation
• Improving Structural Performance Solutions
• Apartment energy efficiency – centralised heated water systems
• Housing energy efficiency – thermal breaks
• Assisting future electrification and EV charging in homes

“The standards are increasing – Passive House and high-performance building is not going to be too far away from what standard construction is,” says Blick. “Why is the government moving towards that? Because they know it’s the best practice. This is what we’ve seen as best practice and what we already implement – even if we can only implement it in a certain capacity to meet the client’s requirements.”

If you’d like your next home to be high-performance, get in touch with Progressive Building and explore their recent projects on ArchiPro.