Stiebel Eltron, SUHO and Adelaide — SA’s first 10-star home.
The Adelaide Hills — warm and dry in summer, cool and windy in winter — a climate known for dust, pollen and increasingly bushfires. A perfect site to demonstrate Stiebel Eltron’s dedication to sustainable design.
Future forward design team, SUHO shares Stiebel Eltron’s passion for Australian sustainable builds. Incorporating Stiebel Eltron heat pump, heat recovery and air filtration technology they have produced a standout 10-star NatHERS (Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme) award-winning design in the Adelaide Hills suburb of Woodforde.
This taster for the home of the future leads with a design that is not only future-class energy-efficient — designed to need only 3 MJ/m 2 of heating/cooling energy annually — but is also South Australia’s first 10-star NatHERS home.
A lightweight timber reverse brick veneer frame supports triple-glazed windows and insulation under roof, ceiling and walls. Sealed from the elements, airtight construction makes the most of the cross-current ventilation LWZ 170 E Heat Recovery Ventilation unit. Passive solar design, sensor-driven automation and all-electric appliances then maximise efficiency. One WWK Hot Water Heat Pump and all-electric appliances make the dwelling gas-free — removing one entire utility bill. The WWK uses a fraction of the energy of traditional water heaters and has the heating covered for the cooler months. Standout features such as Solar PV and battery storage, LED Lighting, EV charging and even Low VOC paint take energy ratings and turn them into comfortable living standards.
“It’s all well and good to build cheap houses but they have to be affordable to live in long term. Real value disappears if a building isn’t comfortable. In this case, airtight construction and heat recovery ventilation means that asthma and allergy sufferers breathe easier. This is the kind of energy design feature that results in long-term comfort for the homeowner and lasting value in the build.”
— Vince De Vellis, Stiebel Eltron
In efforts to increase the harmony between home and comfort, Suho has designed the Woodforde home to capture this energy dynamic as useful data. The sensor conscious build will be monitored for at least one year with data being open-source via CSIRO. Information gathered during heatwaves and other extreme events particularly useful to improve modelling, design, influence and fine-tune construction to the local Adelaide environment. This build will provide a powerful case study and research standard for industry, government and community understanding of the relationship between human, house and environment for years to come.
Stiebel Eltron is once again proud to be a cornerstone of such an innovative build and hopes that this project will influence the building of more climate-friendly homes of the future. We look forward to seeing the data that comes out of this build in the Adelaide Hills.