Welcome to the first update about the Whole of Home Resilience project. We look forward to sending you more updates over the coming months!

Over the past four months a team of five accredited home assessors have conducted almost 150 energy efficiency and resilience home assessments for households across Mount Alexander Shire.

The project assessed a range of house types, owned, rented, old and new, with a variety of construction materials and techniques, for example weatherboard, brick and brick veneer.

In the coming weeks participating households will be provided with recommendations from the Resilient Building Council and their assessor to improve the resilience rating, thermal comfort and energy efficiency of their home.

Snapshot

The majority of homes assessed:

• received a bushfire resilience rating of 1 or 2 (out of 5)
• received a storm resilience rating of 3 or 4 (out of 5)
• had low hot weather and cold weather ratings.

These low ratings indicate that the existing housing stock in Mount Alexander, and across Victoria, requires retrofitting to improve resilience to bushfire, improve thermal comfort and energy efficiency.

What next?

• Participating households will be invited to a workshop where we will share what we have learnt about risk and resilience of homes in the shire, provide advice about improving resilience, hear from the participants, and host a question and answer session with an assessor.
• Four case studies will be developed to learn from project participants and their homes. The case studies look at homes that represent the various conditions from the program and demonstrate the types of houses most of us live in.
• Over the coming months we will analyse the information gathered to understand the scope of retrofits and estimate the costs required to raise the resilience and energy efficiency of houses in the region. This will be presented in a public facing report finalised in mid 2025.

Participant testimonials

Following her assessment with home assessor Janet Barker, participant Tonye arranged for a heat pump hot water system to be installed. Tonye now has an all-electric home. The hot water system is set to heat during the day while the solar panels are generating power.

‘I will now start implementing some of the other (very helpful) recommendations in the report. I really appreciate the opportunity to be a part of this project.’ Tonye,Campbells Creek.

Heat pump hot water systems are the very efficient hot water systems, replacing a gas or electric hot water system with an electric heat pump will reduce your energy bills.