Up & Away New building materials to future-proof your home.
Better, faster, stronger: today’s building materials are changing the way Australian homes are constructed,
Australia is home to some fairly stringent residential building codes and standards. They require all new building materials to undergo thorough testing before hitting the market – and that’s a great thing, because the safety, reliability and durability boxes are emphatically ticked before any new product goes into a home. In recent years, ongoing research and development has seen buildingproduct manufacturers release a raft of new materials that perform more efficiently, look better and are easier to install. Here we highlight some of the key areas of change:
1 BRICKS
“Bricks may be a humble material but they’ve undergone a style revolution in recent years,” says Brett Ward, general manager of marketing for Brickworks Building Products. “There’s now more choice than ever. You can buy bricks with a glazed face or a matt texture, in a huge variety of sizes. There are wider bricks, thinner bricks, longer bricks – the possibilities are limited only by your imagination.”
The colour options have broadened, too. “You’re not limited to browns, reds and creams like before. There’s black, green, blue – you can even go with pink if you want,” says Ward. This new approach is architectdriven and has quickly seen brick enjoy a resurgence in popularity. “Homeowners increasingly understand the value of street appeal – and today’s bricks certainly give them that,” he says. “You don’t look at bricks in isolation any more. We design moodboards for them and engage trend forecasters so our colours and looks are up-to-the-minute. This year’s Pantone
‘Homeowners understand the value of street appeal – and today’s bricks certainly give them that.’ Brett Ward, Brickworks Building Products
colour of the year is Greenery and we developed a brick to match it – something we wouldn’t have done a decade ago.”
2 ROOFING MATERIALS
Colour also sits at the heart of new releases in the roofing realm. Colorbond recently added a new matt finish to its line of roofing materials so they work in with the latest building design trends.
This new matt-paint technology was developed to offer builders a roofing steel in neutral hues with a zinc-like finish. It has been tested over a decade, perfected to meet Australian standards and offer impressive solar reflectance and anti-corrosive qualities.
If it’s a tiled roof you’re after, expect to find a hugely expanded choice of colour there, too. “Today’s terracotta roof tiles come in black, cream, grey and all manner of colours,” say Brett Ward, who also looks after marketing for Bristile Roofing. “And instead of the ridge you’d always see in traditional roof tiles, you can now have a beautiful flat profile.”
Another exciting development in tiles is their solar capabilities, says Ward. “In September we launched an integrated photovoltaic tile that sits flat within the roofline. It’s three tiles wide and from the street it looks seamless.” Bristile
Integrated Solar Tiles work in conjunction with Sonnen solar-storage household batteries. “Now that the return on investment on battery systems is down to about seven years, we’re expecting to see a lot of interest in solar roof tiles.”
3 LIGHTWEIGHT CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS
Building products manufacturer CSR reports that, between 2004 and 2014, the use of lightweight building materials in Australian homes rose from 15 per cent to 35 per cent. In lightweight construction, timber or steel framing provides structural support for the home. Non-structural cladding – made from lightweight building materials, such as the autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) used in Hebel PowerPanels – is then attached to the framework.
“Installing one Hebel panel can be equivalent to laying 75 bricks, which means the exterior of a 150m2 home could go up in three days when it’s put in by experienced installers,” says Melissa Nguyen, marketing and brand manager for CSR Hebel. This can equate to significant savings in labour
costs. “The other advantages are that Hebel panels will keep your house warmer in winter and cooler in summer, plus they have excellent acoustic qualities and look great.”
Exterior cladding is also enjoying a moment in the sun. Weatherboards today are far more durable and better looking than before. James Hardie’s Scyon range, for example, has fibre-cement weatherboards in four classic profiles to give your home deep shadow lines and a contemporary look. There’s no timber involved, so they’re low maintenance, take paint well and are resistant to termites, moisture, rot and fire.
4 INTERNAL WALLS
As life gets busier, the desire for a quiet home grows stronger. Buildingproduct manufacturers have risen to the challenge of creating materials that improve acoustics inside the house. From USG Boral comes Soundstop, a plasterboard that can improve acoustic isolation in the home. “It’s particularly suited for use in home cinemas, study areas and living spaces adjoining bedrooms, helping to reduce sound transfer from one room to another,” says Chris Lubbers, category manager for plasterboard at USG Boral. If you’re feeling bold, you could even use sound-dampening plasterboard from CSR Gyprock’s Perforated range on your ceiling. “It helps absorb sound and doubles as a standout detail,” says Najwa Khoury, general manager of marketing at CSR Gyprock.
5 WINDOWS AND GLASS
Our love affair with big windows continues, with designers and architects using glass in ever-larger spans. But any glass used in Australian homes needs to let in light and views while blocking out extreme temperatures, noise and intruders. Today’s high-performance glass is up to the task, with Viridian recently expanding its LightBridge range to include the Kakadu line, for even better insulation outcomes. This means homeowners can use glass that meets the required BASIX planning standards while still allowing for larger window-to-wall ratios.
A typical, adequately insulated home with regular glass can lose up to 40 per cent of heat through its windows in winter, and allows up to 87 per cent of solar heat gain in summer. While an entry-level energyefficient glass can improve insulation by about a third, a higher-performing glass such as LightBridge can more than double this improvement.