Recently SISMO Australia entered a design into the Australian Insurance Association Resilience Awards. They took the environmental credentials seriously and were able to achieve a very low carbon LCA for their building design with our help. Creating an extremely resilient house with such a high architectural quality meant that although the initial embodied energy of the building was substantial, the materials will be utilised far longer than in the typical Australian residential house. We conducted and eTool LCA on the design during April 2011 and using our normal design life criteria, a saving of 97% is expected to be achieved with this design giving the building an overall Gold Medal rating.

The summarised results of this project:

Impact
Area		Total CO2e / Year / occupant (kg CO2e)% Saved Against BenchmarkeTool
Medal
Materials1,16023 %
Assembly, Transport and Recurring Impact850No SavingNo Medal
Operational Carbon-1,776125%
Total Carbon23597 %

Project features

  • Very durable materials (higher than normal design life)
  • High architectural quality
  • Minimal removal of fill material on the building site
  • Aerated, High Fly Ash Concrete construction of walls, floors and roof (SISMO PTY LTD System)
  • Natural rendered finishes on all walls reducing paint and plaster recurring impacts
  • Extremely good thermal performance (largely thanks to high thermal mass and excellent R value of SISMO Floor and Wall systems)
  • Heat Pump hot water system
  • Energy metering to help address behavioural aspects of operational energy use
  • LED lighting
  • 2.85kW Solar system

 

To find out more information on this building and others like it, please contact Todd Mason from SISMO PTY LTD.

Alternatively, please contact eTool to arrange a cost effective assessment or training on how to achieve best practice in low carbon building design.

This assessment was conducted by Richard Haynes