This guide offers practical advice to homeowners, builders and designers embarking on a retrofit of an existing home. It focuses on relatively simple adaptations to improve a home’s comfort, while reducing energy bills and carbon emissions.

This is the first interim report for project RP1037u1, an extension to the recently completed project RP1037 ‘Driving increased utilisation of cool roofs on large footprint buildings’. Progress so-far in the project and preliminary findings have been summarised in this report. The research has been focused on two key aspects of roof thermal performance that...

The buildings sector is responsible for approximately 23% of Australia’s carbon emissions. The Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council (ASBEC), the peak body for sustainability in the built environment, has identified that improving the minimum standards for energy efficiency of new buildings can assist in delivering carbon emissions reductions. One of the key tools in delivering...

Cool roof technology is known to reduce the cooling energy consumption of conditioned buildings during hot periods, and widespread implementation of such roofs in a neighbourhood or precinct can mitigate the urban heat island effect. Established building energy modelling techniques are able in principle to predict the benefits of cool roofs due to reduced heat...

The purpose of this briefing paper is to explore the context and challenges that exist in providing low carbon homes for households on low incomes, and to draw attention to the key issues for practitioners working in the field. The issues surrounding energy efficiency and low-income households are complex and need careful consideration if innovations...