ABSA
Rate your home Councils, Regulators, Private Certifiers Building industry
Rate Your Home
Councils, Regulators
Building Industry
Aims
ABSA Board
Staff / Working Groups
Membership
Contact Us
Residential Building Thermal Performance
BASIX
Other assessors
Accreditation
ABSA Group P. I. Insurance
Assessor support
Checking compliance
News
Support
Forum
Downloads
Procedures
My Records
Forum

Our Services

ABSA professionals make it easy to boost the environmental performance of new house designs and ensure compliance with the appropriate sustainability regulation or assessment scheme.

ABSA Assessors use sophisticated computer programs to analyse building plans and can offer practical and cost-effective ways to improve the performance of a home. They have completed rigorous training and examination, are subject to regular auditing, and are backed by Professional Indemnity Insurance.

Assessors can work with your home's designer and save you time and money by incorporating environmental considerations into the design up front, maximising the benefits and eliminating any costly changes to non-compliant plans.

ABSA Assessors can assist you to measure your new home's performance under the following sustainability Regulations:


How is an assessment generated?

ABSA Assessors conduct Thermal Performance Assessments by inputting your house design into Federally developed and approved computer software packages. In 2007 there will be two classifications of software packages permitted for use in Australia under both the Building Code of Australia (BCA) and BASIX Frameworks. They are respectively called 1st Generation and 2nd Generation Software tools.  These include:

1st Generation software:

  • Nationwide House Energy Rating Software (NatHERS) used nationally
  • FirstRate used in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia
  • Building Energy Rating Software (BERS) used in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia 

2nd Generation software:

  • Accurate
  • BERS Pro
  • FirstRate v5

2nd Generation software provides further enhanced rating capability, especially in the accuracy of ventilation modelling. This software being phased in nationally and enables increased modeling functionality and analysis. 1st Generation software is expected to be superceded in 2008. For further information about 2nd Generation Software Click Here.

Assessors must be trained and examined in each software package that they wish to use. Assessors must be specifically trained and Accredited to use the enhanced 2nd Generation software tools. State and territory governments determine which software packages are permitted to be used in their jurisdiction

Voluntary schemes

You can also rate the environmental performance of an existing building using several tools and Schemes run by other Organisations. For more information click here.