In collaboration with his colleagues from Curtin University and the Cooperative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living, Dr Josh Byrne in carrying out research to assist the uptake of sustainable housing in the volume market. This process started with the detailed monitoring of Josh’s House to document the energy and water savings compared to industry standard homes.
Following this, Josh undertook a study tour to visit other examples of high performance homes around Australia to see if similar results could be achieved in other parts of the country. The journey was documented in a video series called Star Performers featuring interviews with designers, builders, developers and home owners to find out why high performance homes weren’t more common and what is holding them back.
Recognising the impact of occupant behaviour on house energy and water use, Josh and his team set out to identify how much people’s lifestyle habits affect house performance, compared to house design and technology choices. A two-year experiment called Living Labs was undertaken to assess the influence of behaviour change strategies on 10 households in Fremantle.
With growing interest around high performance housing, the challenge is to now translate that into common construction industry practice. The next phase of Josh’s research is addressing perceptions around cost and market interest in ‘Zero Energy Homes’ in the mass market through the delivery of case study display homes in new developments around Australia.
Further information on these research activities including publications and other resources can be found via the links below.
Josh's House
Detailed monitoring is being undertaken at Josh’s House to assess the performance of the various design features and technologies in place.
Star Performers
Star Performers follows Josh on a unique nationwide research tour that will bring together the best high performance volume market housing projects from around the country for the very first time.
Living Labs
Ten suburban homes near Fremantle in Western Australia have been chosen to participate in a two-year research project conducted by Curtin University and the CRC for Low Carbon Living.
Each household has bought into the idea of reducing its environmental footprint in some way or another, be it with solar panels on the roof, water tanks collecting rain or low energy lighting and appliances.
Mainstreaming Net Zero Energy Homes
Residential housing is a major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions with most emissions being generated during the operation of buildings. Josh’s House has shown that high performance, Zero Emissions Homes (ZEH) are accessible to the volume market. The challenge is to now translate this into mainstream construction industry practice.