After some delays brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, work on the Illawarra's first certified "passive house" is headed towards its conclusion.
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The 'Pepper Tree Passive House' is a collaboration of Adam Souter, director of Unanderra-based builders Souter Built, and Wollongong-born architect Alexander Symes.
Mr Souter opted to use space on his own property at Coachwood Drive, Unanderra to build the 60sqm house as a secondary dwelling.
"I wanted to build something that needs no maintenance, is really healthy for the occupants, and uses next to no energy," Mr Souter said.
"We've got a little solar farm going on the dwelling, that we've put on the front primary dwelling.
"We've just recently upgraded all of our feeds on to the grid. So what I'm aiming to do is make sure this house never has a power bill."
Passive homes are a popular building standard in Europe, and are also growing in popularity in parts of Australia.
Passive house design principles are met via a specific criteria; a series of minimum performance requirements to achieve certification.
Key principles of a passive house are having excellent thermal insulation, completely airtight, high-performance windows, comfort ventilation and thermal bridge-free construction.
Mr Symes told the Mercury this approach is about "making a really high-performance thermal envelope, so you don't have to rely on air conditioning to maintain a comfortable internal environment".
Mr Souter estimated passive houses used 90 per cent less energy than a standard Aussie home.
Mr Souter said his family also pursued this type of construction after realising the health benefits for his two young children - including his son, who had recently had an asthma attack.
The Illawarra project has been in the works for a couple of years.
The passive house doubles as a company office for Mr Souter, as well as a display home for clients to see what a passive house is.
Mr Souter said construction began early this year, and was now due for completion at the end of 2020.
He said the pandemic had resulted in "a few hiccups along the way" with regard to delays in the delivery of materials from both interstate and overseas.
This included cladding from Melbourne, timber from Brisbane, and triple-glazed windows from Germany.
They also had to minimise the number of contractors on-site at any one time.
Now, Mr Souter said all the home's windows and doors are in, and the project was at the lock-up stage.
He said standout features included a heat recovery ventilation system (HRV) that supplied the dwelling with fresh, filtered air 24 hours a day, and removes any excess heat.
"The dwelling, without air conditioning or heating, sits between 20 and 25 degrees all year round," he said.
"We've just put all the soil on the roof, because we're doing a full rooftop garden.
"Every element of the house, we've designed it around how much carbon can we take out of the atmosphere, as opposed to putting it back in."
The name of the house is derived from the 50-year-old pepper tree in the backyard.