What type of homes do we build
We build and renovate to one standard: high performance. Whether it's a certified Passive House or a home that borrows the same building science without the badge, the goal never changes. Healthier, more comfortable, built to last. Here's how that breaks down.
New build Passive Houses
The full thing, built from the ground up and independently certified. A Passive House is the gold standard of residential building: airtight, superbly insulated, mechanically ventilated, and modelled before a sod is turned so we know exactly how it will perform before we build it.
The result is a home that holds a comfortable temperature all year with almost no energy, filters the air you breathe, and stays quiet and calm no matter what the weather's doing outside. We've got five certified to our name, every one tested and verified. This is what we're known for.
EnerPHit renovations
Not everyone is starting with a blank block, and plenty of Melbourne's best homes are worth keeping. EnerPHit is the Passive House standard adapted for existing buildings, so you can take a cold, leaky period home and bring it up to a performance level you'd never think possible, without losing the character that made you fall for it.
It's more complex than a new build, because every existing house hides its own surprises. But done properly, a Passive House or EnerPHit renovation gives you the best of both: the soul of the original and the comfort, health and running costs of a brand new high-performance home. Look at our retrofit rifle range project to see what is possible
High-performance homes
Not every project needs, or wants, full certification. A high-performance home takes the same building science, the airtightness, the insulation, the proper detailing, the testing, and applies it without going through the formal certification process.
You still get a home that's dramatically healthier, quieter and cheaper to run than a standard build. You just have more flexibility on where the budget goes. For a lot of our clients this is the sweet spot, and we'll talk you through honestly whether certification is worth it for your project or not.
High Efficiency homes
We don't build for energy efficiency. We build for durability. Most homes built in Australia today will need significant remediation work within twenty years - moisture in the wall cavity, failing seals, degraded insulation, structural damage that started behind the plasterboard on day one. That's not bad luck. That's what happens when you build to the minimum and call it done. A home built for durability doesn't have those problems. Not because of better marketing language. Because of better materials, better details, and a refusal to cut the corners the industry has normalised. A home that doesn't rot, doesn't leak, and doesn't fail is a home that doesn't need to work hard to stay warm. The building envelope does the job the heater is currently doing in most Australian homes. That's durability. That's energy efficiency. They're the same thing.
Early-stage costing and preconstruction
This one isn't bricks and mortar, but it might be the most valuable thing we do. We come in early, alongside you and your architect, while the design is still on the page, and we price the project properly before anything is committed.
Most builders turn up after the plans are locked and the budget's already set by someone who doesn't build for a living. We'd rather catch the expensive problems while they're still cheap to fix. You get a real budget early enough to actually use it: push ahead with confidence, adjust the design to fit, or walk away before it costs you. You can read more about how that works on our process page.
