Since 1 May 2024, every new home built in Queensland must achieve a minimum 7-star energy rating under the National Construction Code 2022 (NCC 2022). This is a significant step up from the previous 6-star requirement and it changes how homes need to be designed — particularly on the Gold Coast, where our warm humid climate creates specific challenges and opportunities.
If you are planning a new home, major renovation, or extension on the Gold Coast, understanding the 7-star requirement early will save you money and produce a more comfortable home. Here is what you need to know from a building designer’s perspective.
The star rating measures how well your home’s building shell — its roof, walls, windows, and floors — performs at keeping heat in during winter and heat out during summer, without relying on mechanical heating or cooling. The rating is assessed using the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS), which models your home’s thermal performance based on your specific design and local climate data.
A 7-star home should be noticeably more comfortable year-round with less reliance on air conditioning and heating. In the Gold Coast’s Climate Zone 2, that means a home that stays cooler naturally in summer — which is where most of your energy costs go.
NCC 2022 introduced a two-part energy efficiency requirement:
Part 1 — Building shell (7-star NatHERS rating). This covers the thermal performance of the building envelope: insulation levels, window sizes and types, wall and roof construction, shading, and orientation. Your building designer controls all of these through the design.
Part 2 — Whole-of-home energy budget. This assesses the energy consumption of the home’s fixed appliances: hot water system, lighting, air conditioning, pool pumps, and any on-site solar PV generation. A good whole-of-home score can offset a marginal shell rating — for example, a well-sized solar system improves your overall score.
Both parts must be satisfied for your home to comply.
Achieving 7 stars on the Gold Coast is very achievable with thoughtful design — our climate actually works in our favour compared to southern states. The key design features that make the biggest difference are:
Orientation. Living areas facing north to capture winter sun while shading from high summer sun. Minimising west-facing glass, which is the biggest source of heat gain. On the Gold Coast, getting orientation right is the single most impactful design decision for energy performance.
Cross-ventilation. The Gold Coast receives reliable sea breezes from the north-east. Designing openings on opposing walls to capture and channel these breezes provides natural cooling that reduces your reliance on air conditioning. As we discussed in our thermal mass article, working with your climate rather than against it produces better results.
Insulation. Ceiling insulation (R4.0 minimum, R6.0 recommended), wall insulation (R2.5 to R2.7 for timber frames), and underfloor insulation where applicable. The roof is the biggest heat gain surface on the Gold Coast, so ceiling insulation delivers the greatest return.
Glazing. Windows are responsible for a large proportion of heat gain and loss. On the Gold Coast, performance glazing (low-E glass or tinted glass) on western and eastern windows makes a significant difference. North-facing windows can be larger if properly shaded by eaves or awnings.
Roof colour. A lighter coloured roof reflects more solar radiation and reduces the heat load on your ceiling insulation. This is especially effective on the Gold Coast where solar radiation is intense.
Eaves and shading. Extended eaves (minimum 600mm, ideally 900mm) shade walls and windows from direct sun. External shading devices, pergolas, and vegetation on the western side all improve performance.
If you are renovating or extending an existing home, the 7-star requirement applies to the new work, not the entire existing house. However, the way the new section connects to the existing building affects the overall thermal performance — particularly at junctions between old and new construction.
A well-designed extension can actually improve the comfort of the whole house by providing a better-performing section that reduces the overall heating and cooling load. At Design Science, we consider the whole building — existing and proposed — when designing an extension, not just the new section in isolation.
The additional construction cost of building to 7 stars versus the old 6-star standard is typically 1-3% of total build cost. For a $500,000 home, that is $5,000 to $15,000 — which is recovered through lower energy bills within a few years.
More importantly, a 7-star home is simply more comfortable to live in. Less temperature fluctuation, less noise from air conditioning running constantly, and lower power bills — particularly relevant as electricity prices continue to rise.
The key is getting the design right from the start. Retrofitting energy performance into a poorly oriented or poorly insulated home is far more expensive than designing it in from the beginning. This is where your building designer adds the most value — before a single wall is framed.
Queensland retains an optional one-star credit for outdoor living areas under QDC 4.1. If your design includes a covered outdoor living area that meets certain size and ventilation requirements, you can claim a credit that effectively reduces your building shell requirement to 6 stars — though you still need to achieve the whole-of-home energy budget.
On the Gold Coast, where outdoor living is a fundamental part of how we use our homes, this credit is a practical and desirable design strategy. We incorporate outdoor living into almost every design we produce — and the energy credit is a bonus on top of the lifestyle benefit.
Energy performance is not an afterthought in our design process — it is built into every decision from the initial site analysis. We consider orientation, prevailing breezes, solar access, and sustainable design principles alongside your brief, your budget, and your site constraints.
Because we use 3D digital modelling for every project, we can test orientation and shading options before committing to a design direction. This means fewer surprises when the energy assessment is done — and a home that performs well because it was designed to, not because expensive materials were added to compensate for poor design choices.
Related: Sustainable home design | Why thermal mass matters | Building designer costs
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