Darwin Home Comfort Rating Forum
An industry and community forum was held on the 30 March 2023 to launch a new Home Comfort Rating system for Darwin residential building designs.
The Home Comfort Ratings:
- have been built into a trial version of CSIRO’s accredited Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) software, AccuRate, and
- complement the current energy ratings used to demonstrate compliance with National Construction Code energy efficiency requirements.
Energy star ratings assess energy use when air conditioners are on. The new ‘for information’ Home Comfort Ratings assess the comfort of Darwin living room and bedroom designs when no air conditioning is being used.
The forum included presentations, a Home Comfort Rating demonstration and a ‘where to from here?’ discussion opportunity:
- University of Adelaide field validation of the house energy and comfort rating software
- Development of comfort ratings by Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
- A live demonstration of comfort ratings achieved by different design approaches.
Project information is available here, including QUT’s Data Analysis Report and Comfort Rating Recommendations.
