Bright hallway with timber flooring and a skylight above, featuring a timber console table and framed abstract artwork. Natural light from the skylight highlights the white walls, the pale olive feature wall, and enhances the sense of space.

July 14, 2025

How to Achieve a 7-Star NatHERS Energy Rating for Your New Home

With the latest updates to the National Construction Code (NCC 2022) now in effect, achieving a 7-star energy rating under the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) is no longer optional; it’s a requirement for all new homes across most of Australia.

But what does a 7-star rating NatHERS energy really mean? And how can you meet it without compromising the design, comfort, or character of your home?

This guide explains how a Registered Architect can help you meet NatHERS targets while making sure your home performs well in all the ways that matter.

Contemporary single-storey home with a flat and skillion roof design, photographed at dusk with warm interior lights glowing through large north-facing windows. The facade features light-coloured cladding above a stone base and a central timber front door. The home is surrounded by a manicured lawn, garden beds with mulch and native plantings, and a concrete path leading to the entrance. The design demonstrates passive solar orientation and high-performance glazing, contributing to the home's 8.7-star NatHERS energy rating.

The Sherwood Sustainable & Passive Home by dion seminara architecture — a real-world example of smart design meeting performance. This 8.7-star NatHERS-rated home balances orientation, glazing, and passive cooling for year-round comfort, without the need for mechanical systems.

View our Sherwood Sustainable & Passive Home

What Is a 7-Star NatHERS Energy Rating?

The NatHERS star rating system measures the thermal performance of your home’s building shell, its ability to maintain a comfortable indoor temperature year-round, using as little energy as possible.

A 7-star rating means your home will require significantly less heating and cooling than a 6-star home.
This contributes to lower energy bills, reduced emissions, and improved year-round comfort.

As of May 2024, the NCC mandates that all new Class 1 buildings (e.g. houses and townhouses) must achieve at least 7 stars.

What Affects Your Star Rating?

Your NatHERS rating is determined by software modelling, and key factors include:

Window size, type, and placement
Glazing specification (e.g. double or triple glazing)
Orientation and shading
Insulation in walls, floors, and ceilings
Construction materials and colour
Thermal zoning and layout

Every design decision, from the shape of the roof to the position of your eaves, impacts your final rating.

How a Registered Architect Can Help

Achieving 7 stars isn’t just about selecting better windows or adding more insulation. It’s about designing a home that works in harmony with your site, climate, and lifestyle.

A Registered Architect can:

Optimise orientation and passive solar gain
Design rooflines and eaves for effective shading
Specify the right glazing systems for your location
Reduce the need for mechanical heating and cooling
Integrate energy efficiency early, before it becomes a costly redesign

Rather than treating energy efficiency as a checkbox, we treat it as a foundation of good design.

: Thoughtful skylight placement enhances natural light while supporting climate responsive design strategies.

: High-level glazing, passive ventilation, and strategic shading come together in this energy-efficient kitchen, designed to reduce reliance on mechanical cooling.

View our award-winning Sherwood Sustainable and Passive Home

At dion seminara architecture, we use our unique SHAPE design method to guide every project. This ensures we don’t just meet compliance, but create homes that feel tailored, resolved, and well-balanced from every angle.

If you’re looking for a smart, energy-efficient solution, we offer both SHAPE Design Consultations and a range of design packages to suit different needs.

Common Challenges—and How We Solve Them

Narrow lots: Smart zoning, courtyards, and skylights can bring in light and ventilation without compromising privacy.
West-facing blocks: Deep eaves, high-performance glazing, and internal layout tweaks can reduce overheating.
Budget constraints: A well-designed 7-star home can often save money in construction and operation over time.

Case Study: Sherwood Sustainable & Passive Home

Our award winning Sherwood project is a leading example of sustainable residential design done well. Achieving an impressive 8.7-star NatHERS rating, the home was designed around passive heating and cooling strategies tailored to its site and climate. It stays up to 16 degrees cooler indoors than outside, without relying on mechanical cooling systems. Through thoughtful orientation, thermal massing, insulation, and glazing, we created a home that delivers comfort, energy savings, and long-term value. The homeowners consistently praise how stable, efficient, and comfortable it is to live in year-round.

This home was also recognised with the 2020 ArCH Design Excellence Selection Award in the New Custom Home category, further validating its success as a benchmark in sustainable design.

Architectural street scape elevation drawing of a single-storey home showing sloping skillion roofs at varying angles (15° and 2°), room divisions, window and door placements, structural details, and materials. Includes labels such as boundary lines, slab edges, ground level, windows, doors, and rainwater systems. Also notes slab edge coloring and features like crossovers and downpipes.

Project: Sherwood Sustainable & Passive Home ArCHdes2020 award “Interesting house with large shed roofs breaking up the main mass of the house, along with large glass and solar shade panels. And the fact that this project was accomplished on a small lot is remarkable” – Comments from the Jury. Architects Creating Homes (ArCH)

Take a look inside our award winning Sherwood Sustainable & Passive New Home

Watch our client testimonial video

Don’t Let Compliance Limit Your Design

Meeting the 7-star NatHERS target doesn’t mean sacrificing beauty, personality, or functionality. With the right architectural strategy, you can meet the standard, and even exceed it, while creating a home that feels like it was made just for you.

Planning a new home or major renovation?

Talk to dion seminara architecture about how we can help you design a beautiful, compliant, and energy-smart home from the ground up.

Read our guide on Bedroom Window Safety to learn what the 2024 NCC changes mean for your home

DION SEMINARA, DION SEMINARA ARCHITECTURE

Experts in home design, renovations, and new homes – delivering value and lifestyle-focused outcomes.

Hi, I’m Dion Seminara – a practicing architect and licensed general builder with 35 years of experience. I’m also a specialist in Environmentally Sustainable Design (ESD), passionate about creating homes that are both functional, climate-responsive and future ready. I graduated with honours from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, in 1989, before registering as an architect in 1991 and as a licensed builder in 1992. I am proud to be a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA).

Over the course of my career, I’ve received 12 ArCHdes Residential Architecture Awards, the LJ Hooker Flood Free Home Design Award, and the 2016 AIA Regional Commendation for Public Architecture. My expertise spans renovations for all styles of houses with particular focus on Queenslanders and 50s/60s/80s homes and bespoke new homes, including luxury residences. This broad experience has positioned me as one of Brisbane’s leading architectural specialists in lifestyle-focused design – integrating architecture, interiors, and landscape to create truly liveable homes.