You need to make the most of the distant views. Have you considered raising the sill up from floor level to 300mm or even 600mm above floor level? It won't affect your views, but will reduce your glazed area. You also have less dirty glass!

Best of luck,

Dr Retro

of Dr Retro House Calls

we've also used windows that don't reach the floor and also don't reach the sides of the rooms and assuming your BASIX assesor has already suggested upping the ratings on all the taps, showers, toilets, space heating, water heating, cooking stove, cooling, insulation, colour of roofing and external window shading and even clothes drying and landscaping as all these factors seem to interlink and it can be really worthwhile to know how BASIX works as we resolved our latest BASIX problem with a combination of increasing the star ratings of our taps, increasing our tank water supply and including external adjustable roller shutters that are also fire rated and serve triple purpose with insulation, adjustable sunshading and fire protection and you may also find that you only need to shade some of the windows to improve the BASIX response and sometimes a smaller window can frame a view and focus attention on a special feature that can be lost in a bigger view

There are 2 areas of our build that the assessor wants to reduce the windows on - the main living area and the main bedroom. Its a pavillion style house with 4 wings (living/kitchen, main b/r + office, kids wing, garage). I think the idea of raising the windows above floor level will probably help in the bedroom area. In the living area however, we have stacker doors along 2 walls that will open up to an outdoor area to create an indoor/outdoor feel. Its this area that I really love the look of, especially as we are surrounded by bush on three sides with views (in the distance) of a lake and the ocean.

As far as I know, everything else on the Basix is ok. The house will be completely off-grid so we will have a very large solar + battery system, over 150,000 litres of water tank storage and an environmental septic system. I think that has probably helped get us over the line with the other Basix requirements. Its the Thermal Comfort part that we failed, specifically with regards to the heating load. Apparently the cooling load is fine - probably due to the airflow from the stacking doors and shading from covered verandahs, pergolas etc.

ask the assessor if external roller blinds might help

Design as always is an ongoing balancing and evolving exercise. Thermal performance assessment should be integrated as early as possible, and requirements negotiated in the course of the design process. Whilst You may have a beautiful design that takes in views etc, if you can't get compliance for it then it's arguably a non-viable design, and is not balancing all the various complexities sufficiently of the spatial outcomes to the performance required within its context.

Yes you could pull back glazing to get it over the line, but it's not always the only way. Heat loss can however be mitigated with other aspects of the building. For example if you are building a predominantly lightweight construction with an abundance of glazing with a spread out design with lots of building perimeter, then chances are you'll struggle to achieve compliance without extremely high performing glazing. However if you have integrated a reasonable amount of thermal mass such as concrete, masonry or rammed earth material, and ensured that that concrete floor construction is not "insulated" from passive heat gain from overlaid timber floor finishes, (however incorporates under and perimeter slab insulation), then you may be able to counter the thermal loss effects of the high proportion of glazing. It may involve a bit of balancing up of both - ie a bit of glazing reduction AND an adjustment/increase towards thermal mass construction specification. As always thermal performance specialists will be able to provide the most sound advice (specialists as opposed to "raters" who just plug a design into a computer program and tell you how it performs)

If you have great views then consider an oversized large glazed sliding door. With your stacker doors there will be the occasions when you have them both fully open, however for most of the year they will be fully closed or partially closed. I find that the vertical frame of each door actually interrupts views when the doors are closed, and a large sliding door only has one single frame. A sliding door has less opportunity for air leakage, can be easier to manage for children and the elderly, and there is no chance of fingers being crushed or pinched near the hinges when it is opened.

Modern Addition to Victorian Home · More Info

Modern Addition to Victorian Home · More Info

This project had a similar issue with too much glazing and the solution was to reduce the ceiling height and the height of the windows and external sliding door. As you can see there is much more of a view than you would get with a stacker door when it is closed.

Best of luck,

Dr Retro

of Dr Retro House Calls

Are you using BASIX only or a combination of BASIX and another assessment tool such as NATHERS?

You mentioned you're using an architect and then mentioned assessor so I'm presuming you are using the BASIX/NATHERS combo?

It can be tricky to work around but both architect (and assessor) should know the answer to your question.....which was reducing window size. I have in the past used single glazing to North and South for it to pass where as double glazing to South wouldn't pass.... go figure! It may also require changing wall construction perhaps to something more efficient such as reverse brick veneer as this has an affect on the glazing score.

This works for us:

• shading (sun hood, western louvres brside windows and external blind)
• low e glass
• double glazed
• uPVC frame

... and enormous sliding doors (6.2m x 2.5m) - looking forward to enjoying views and not frying.

I would definitely engage with your architect to find the right balance in this situation.

Have you tried increasing eaves or implement some sort of shading device (fixed and/or adjustable) to help with thermal?

uPVC frames and double/triple glazed doors and windows as Nadia suggested are good ideas too as they transfer less heat through the frames (although they cost a bomb)

Other methods you might want to consider are replacing A/C with fans and air purifier system or utilise more LED lights than downlights.

We had all of the same issues recently and didn’t want to compromise our floor to ceiling glazing and glazing spans. After consulting a different energy guy he came up with lining our walls with either EPS or PIR panels, use semi commercial frames from Vantage (Taberners in Orange were amazingly helpful) and Viridian lightbridge glass. Just those three changes got us over the line without having to go down the path of coloured glass or eliminating/downsizing windows.

Your frustration is understandable. In defence of your consultants I will say that the various rating schemes we have in this country can be pretty opaque to negotiate and often seem counter intuitive. Worse, they don't always correlate to real world outcomes, particularly if they are based on a points system.

Actual thermal simulation using sophisticated software is a more reliable predictor of real world performance, but unfortunately it can be quite expensive to do.

At least you appear to have achieved an outcome you can live with, even if only by chance. Thanks for posting the update.

I would of questioned the architect of why they had to contract out BASIX to an assessor. This is a software tool that should be used while designing and checking as you proceed. We can adjust glazing, orientation, etc. as well as roof colour right at the beginning of concept plans and know what glazing and frames are required. Anyone can log in and use it and get a BASIX Certificate! The only restriction is if new dwelling is bigger than 300 square metres and/or has an open mezzanine then the assessment needs to go to Nathers/etc.

Nathers is different as there is a course to do before you can become a certified assessor. Even if the dwelling was bigger than 300 sqm and had to be farmed out to an assessor they would of known changing colours would help.... or at least made suggestions to achieve a good outcome for the client.

Thanks for keeping us posted on the project. Hopefully the construction is less frustrating.

as mentioned in my first post my experience of doing our own BASIX assessments has helped understanding of the links between windows, roof colour, ratings of taps etc etc and it's disappointing that some designers wait to receive poor BASIX rating rather than using the BASIX assessment tool in the designing process to make better choices before designs are finalised

I'm not expert, & no very little about the rating systems. But have heard they're pretty opaque, & as mentioned may not really mirror real world outcomes.

I'm surprised that overglazing the northside will result in too much heat loss. If anything, with the right sized eaves, I'd expect it means too much heat gain in winter (& shaded in summer) in the day.

But as mentioned by Paul, it's important that you have thermal mass within the home, to absorb this heat. Which can then be released over time as the home is cooling down in the evenings.

Thermal mass are heavy materials, like masonry, concrete, & even water. By absorbing heat, & releasing it slowly, thermal mass knocks off the peaks of daytime highs, & nighttime lows, keeping the internal temperature more stable. Without it a lightweight home can become too hot in the day (even in winter on occasions) & too cold at night.

Thermal mass is especially important inland, where the difference between daytime highs & nighttime lows (called the diurnal temperature) is greater.

So if you are away from the coast of definitely investigate whether you have enough thermal mass in your home. A north facing concrete of tiled floor will do it. It will greatly increase the comfort & energy efficiency of your home. Instead of aiming for the bare minimum when it comes to energy efficiency, resulting in less comfort, & much higher bills.

More about thermal mass can be found on this wonderful government website,

http://yourhome.gov.au/passive-design/thermal-mass

ddaroch if you're interested it's quite easy to trial BASIX responses for real or imaginary homes ..until you need an official BASIX certificate there's no restriction or cost apart from your own time and enthusiasm for using the simple on line tool for testing numerous combination of building materials, flooring, window size and orientation, overshadowing, water supply, roof colour etc etc and we've tested BASIX responses for extensions for existing homes as well as new builds and found that often a quite small change can make a remarkable diffrence...eg where one owner prefered an electric cooking stove we upped the tap ratings to offsett where a gas cooking stove would have been preferable and, after testing various options, we can be confident about what will be acceptable and complete the process to achieve a successful BASIX certificate

Thanks everyone for all this input - we are currently dealing with the same issue - and not knowing what information our designer has passed on to the assesor, (the 2nd one!) makes it really difficult to know how we can make changes other than compromising on the area of glazing. I will now be asking questions! Because we. are building on a difficult access site we are not using concrete or any other heavy materials. But we do plan on insulating every cranny and under the floors. It is for this reason we would like not to use double glazing, but will if we need to - just pity the poor fellows who have to carry it up/down our very steep block!

However, what really dismays me is that TanRuth is running her new home totally off grid! The only people who are affected by her choices are the people who reside there. The world has gone mad.

Good luck with your new home Ruth, I hope it is everything you have dreamed of.