Experts are calling for sweeping housing overhauls after new research revealed that the majority of residential builds don’t live up to international standards.
According to a recent study commissioned by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI), the mad dash to put the lingering housing crisis to bed has left Aussie home quality slip leagues behind that of countries like the UK and the USA.
A whopping 70 per cent of older Aussie homes observed in the survey only earned themselves a three-star energy rating or lower – well below the minimum seven stars required of the country’s newer home builds.
But newer homes didn’t fare much better. Despite energy efficiency standards for new builds and substantially renovated homes starting in 2003, 82 per cent of new Australian homes are still designed to only meet the minimum requirements, which are still below the 9-star standard seen in the overseas market.
This ‘poor’ construction has left homeowners paying the price, with wildly changing indoor temperatures and high energy costs putting a strain on both the physical and financial health of owners.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, a similar percentage of buyers also reported a slew of common “building quality problems”, like cracks in the walls, mould and plumbing issues.
With the news putting the sector on track to leave seven million homes failing to meet energy standards by 2050, the AHURI said that action needed to be taken before it was too late.
‘As Australia looks to build 1.2 million new homes over the five years from 2023, the low quality of our housing is currently set to perpetuate,’ said lead researcher Associate Professor Lyrian Daniel of the University of South Australia.
“The current requirement of a seven-star rating for new homes is below international best practice; a nine-star standard is required to eliminate mechanical heating and cooling in line with the requirements for low-energy homes.
“We need to bring all houses up to a meaningful minimum standard to reduce heating and cooling costs and carbon emissions, while providing occupants with healthy and climate-resilient homes.”
Making mandatory standards
If the sector was to turn itself around in time for net zero in 2050, Daniel said what every home builder doesn’t want to hear – these standards needed to be mandatory and enforceable.
While builders can already go above and beyond the energy requirements for new home builds, most understandably stick to the minimum specs to streamline project timelines and cut down often already blown-out budgets.
Even the recent shift to the 7-star standard copped a decent amount of backlash from builders earlier this year, with the Housing Industry Association’s senior economist Tom Devitt claiming the change added an extra $20,000 to construction costs.
But Daniel said this focus on the bottom line came at the expense of most Aussie homes.
“While voluntary policies and standards are important for encouraging leadership and innovation, they only improve a small proportion of the housing stock,” he said.
“In contrast, mandatory approaches are needed to lift the environmental standard of most homes.”
While major changes are still a ways down the road for a construction industry already struggling to meet housing quotas, Daniel’s wanted to see some immediate changes, like the ACT’s disclosure of a home’s energy efficiency rating at the point of sale or lease, enacted across the country in the hopes of helping the average home buyer.
“The ACT Government’s mandatory disclosure requirement means the Territory has the highest level of energy efficiency improvements to existing owner-occupied dwellings,” he added.
“Policies that mandate the disclosure of dwelling energy performance could improve housing markets with better consumer information about the performance of houses offered for sale or lease and also enable monitoring of performance standards across the entire housing stock.”
