The 8 Star House built in Brick

The Perth 8 Star House which proved that sustainability and affordability can go hand in hand.

If all the sustainability buzzwords like solar passive design and thermal mass seem a bit abstract to you, you should check out the credentials of new 8-star home designed and built by HIA Greensmart award-winning builders, Jade Projects.

Project Home of the Year and Energy Efficiency Award Winner at the 2009 HIA Greensmart Awards, the home, called an 8-star home because it achieves an impressive 8-star rating in the Building Energy Rating Services (BERS) system, is a stunning example of clay brick as an ideal material for building sustainably and achieving excellent energy efficiency. It’s also a “proof” of the brick industry’s position on climate change and designing buildings that take advantage of the climate they are in.

This 8 Star house in Perth, uses 76% less energy and 72% less water than an average Perth home*. And it achieves this excellent rating partly through its double clay brick construction that optimizes the benefits of thermal comfort – a construction style favoured by West Australians for generations.

The house cost only $200,000 to build and took just 18 weeks to construct. The house is based on the findings of a rigorous 6-year research programme Think Brick Australia undertook in partnership with The University Of Newcastle and the Australian Research Council into the thermal performance of Australian housing. We found that clay brick had excellent benefits for the average family home, including superior energy efficiency, acoustic performance, durability and extremely low maintenance.

		Brick House makes abstract sustainability concepts concrete
		View the 8 Star House video on YouTube now
		View the 8 Star House showcase – Revolution Rd Development, Perth
		Download and print related information and floorplan

Achieving thermal comfort

To achieve thermal comfort without mechanical heating and cooling, and therefore an energy efficient home, it is very important to understand your local climate and the fundamentals of how building materials perform. Think Brick Australia is involved in two ground-breaking research projects and many of the learnings from this research have been incorporated into the 8 Star House.

Think Brick Australia is proud to present a new tool that makes designing to achieve thermal comfort extremely practical and accessible: The Climate Design wizard.