The house that slashed its energy bills by 70 per cent
The interior is demure, in soothing, earthy tones. The air is warm, and it is quiet – so quiet that the noise generated by the construction site next door has ceased to exist. While roomy, townhouse number 3 (the rest are occupied) isn't huge, but it is comfortable.
There is nothing obvious that signals the development is premium, other than its address in Hawthorn, and price tag of $2.5 million plus.
And yet, it is Australia's first build-to-sell Passivhaus development, called ECHO.1, a proof-of-concept project by C.Street Projects and Neil Architecture that aims to show that incredibly energy-efficient homes can be built, at scale, in Australia.
Kin Seng Choo, C.Street Projects director, also wants to prove that the private market can contribute to the decarbonisation of the building sector, which accounts for a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
'A three-bedroom house would normally consume about 18,000 kilowatt-hours per year, while the passive house should consume about 5000 kilowatt-hours per year,' says Choo. 'This means the house is using about 70 per cent less energy than a typical Victorian home, with a typical annual energy bill of about $700 to $800.'
Passivhaus, which translates as 'passive house', is a housing performance standard conceived in Germany in the 1980s by physicist Dr Wolfgang Feist and construction expert Professor Bo Adamson.
The concept, which took its cues from ancient dwellings such as turf houses built in Iceland during the Middle Ages, optimises insulation and the airtightness of the building envelope to stabilise the internal temperature.
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