6 Questions to Ask Your Builder to Check if You Are Getting a Quality Home

We are all familiar with big, loud claims of quality that people make about a product or service. And it leaves a bitter taste in our mouths when we are sold an illusion and left with a compromised result. Building a new home is no exception. The stakes are high, as our homes are most likely the biggest financial asset—or the greatest financial liability—many of us will take on in our lifetimes. I see many builders talk about creating a quality home when I know they are only doing the legal minimums required to comply with the Building Code.

Here are 6 questions to ask your builder before you start, to check the level of home you might be signing up for.

1. How do you deal with overheating?

Believe it or not, our Building Code has no maximum temperature that your home can reach. Overheating is not controlled by legal building criteria. Recently, a tenant was allowed to exit his tenancy agreement by a court because he could demonstrate that his home reached temperatures of 44°C. I suspect that landlord will have trouble finding a new tenant next summer. This may well set a precedent for rental properties. If it's not good enough for a rental tenant, it shouldn’t be the standard you settle for in your new home.

Overheating can easily be prevented in the design stage (which often means little cost for you), but it’s much more expensive and harder to address once a home is constructed. Prevention is better than cure. If your builder simply says they build to Code Compliance and don’t energy model the designs to assess and mitigate overheating, you're going to be stuck with an expensive, hot problem.

2. What quality of window installation do you do as standard?

I know this one sounds a little technical, but here’s the reason I bring it up. People building a new home are often sold the upgrade of better glazing, which adds cost to the project. But if we are taking higher-performing and potentially more expensive door and window joinery and putting it into the common installation detail, you’re not getting optimal value from your investment.

The common and minimum detail in our Building Code that many people just do is to hang the joinery unit over the external cladding. Great for waterproofing—not great for internal condensation and heat loss. Just a reminder: double glazing is not a dehumidifier, and condensation occurs because of humidity and surface temperature. The frame is actually the coldest part of the window, not the glass.

If your builder just says they do it to Code, you might want to reconsider how much additional investment you put into your windows and doors—it might be a wasted expense. Windows and doors are the most expensive and most impactful elements in a design. There is so much more to them than just double glazing and being thermally broken. Spend your money wisely.

3. What’s your ventilation strategy in your homes?

Ventilation is something we’ve all been conditioned to believe happens when you open a window. Just hear me out on this one. It’s winter, it’s cold outside, the heater is on. Are your windows open? I can almost guarantee most of them aren’t. The reason is very logical: you lose heat.

So ventilation can only happen with windows at certain times—not all the time. We don’t stop breathing in winter. The Building Code says just use windows, and that means your new home will be Code Compliant—but not healthy.

There are ways to ensure that you can breathe in your new home (remember you need to breathe, not your home). Designing ventilation into your home to healthy air change levels is only possible with an informed, calculated ventilation strategy. Unfortunately, it's not legally prescribed enough, so you could be left with a stuffy, unhealthy—but legal—home.

If your builder says “just open a window,” be aware of what you’re investing in.

4. How do you ensure maximum thermal efficiencies?

We all know that insulation is a good thing. But insulation only works well when installed well, too. Common construction practices have been measured independently, and an industry report was published showing that while we assume 88% insulation in our walls, in reality the amount actually installed is closer to 66%. That’s a 22% decrease in minimum assumed thermal performance.

Thermal efficiencies have to be intentional right from the design stage. There are quick, easy, and cost-effective wins that you benefit from.

If your builder says they insulate to Code, that means they install the minimum insulation required by law—with little awareness of thermal efficiency. You’re the one who pays the price for that, both in terms of build cost and comfort.

5. Do you recycle the heat in your homes—and if so, how?

Recycling heat in winter is a smart idea, but if not done with awareness, it can cause mould and moisture issues. With power prices rising (and unlikely to come down), recycling heat is a good thing—but only if it’s done without trapping humidity. We also need to balance recycling heat with bringing in fresh, dry air. Just dumping hot air into a cold room is a very unhealthy strategy.

Mechanical heat recovery ventilation is a cost-effective way to heat your home. There are ways to make this super efficient compared to just a heat pump—plus you get the added benefit of fresh, healthy air to breathe. A typical heat pump creates about 4x the heat than the power it uses. A mechanical heat recovery ventilation unit in a smartly designed home can create 16x the heat—plus fresh air.

If your builder just talks about heat pumps, you’re missing out on lower winter power bills and a healthy, comfortable space to be in.

6. Is your quality independently verified—and if so, how?

Many building companies have what we call QA systems. That stands for Quality Assurance. Here’s the problem with that: a company isn’t going to create a quality system that shows they’re failing. And if their business strategy is to do the minimum required and still claim quality, then it’s fair to say that their QA system isn’t working for you, the client.

Independent certification—both in the design and build stages—means your designer and builder are held to account by an independent body. While that might sound expensive, and your builder might be persuasive as to why you don’t need to spend money on that, don’t miss out on the other benefits.

Homestar and Passive House Certified projects demonstrate quality in the market. With homes in Australia that are certified energy efficient valued 12–15% more than non-efficient homes, it pays to create them—and have the proof.

No matter where you are in the design process, it’s never too late to get independent advice on the quality of what you’re creating.

Book a chat with me to discuss your project—and I can tell you what options there are, so you end up with a better home, not a liability.