What is a BASIX Certificate?

A BASIX certificate is one of several documents required to be submitted to a local government area council in NSW with every residential building Development Application. An online web application tool is used to issue a certificate. Sustainability commitments and specifications addressed on the certificate must be reflected on building plans and deployed during construction. The nominated provisions are then verified by the project’s Principal Certifying Authority before an occupation certificate is issued. To get a BASIX certificate, you need to introduce energy and water efficiency measures of your development to the online assessment tool and get a pass score. A certificate is generated by the online tool and can be used for DA submission. The issued and submitted BASIX certificate becomes part of DA documents that must be referenced and referred to during all steps of construction and commissioning. The provisions must be fully deployed during construction in order for a building to be able to achieve its final Occupation Certificate. If you would like to know more about the costs and fees in detail, check out our BASIX Certificates Costs page. The online assessment tools have different approaches to different types of residential developments. The different types are single dwellings, alterations and additions, multi-dwelling developments such as attached townhouses, and multi-unit residential flat buildings. For each type of residential development, the format and information on the certificate are different from the others. An experienced BASIX assessor in Sydney from Eco Certificates can provide you with the most cost effective and optimised certificate while fully incorporating our client’s preferences while considering the thermal comfort performance figures of each dwelling.

The main types of BASIX Certificates are as below. For more information on each of them, click on the links:

A BASIX certificate will be issued for the proposed development if the performance of the building is above a certain threshold in the areas of energy efficiency, water consumption and thermal comfort performance of individual dwellings in the development.

Why should I give my project to Eco Certificates?

When you leave your residential development design project with a consultant, you need to be able to trust them to do their work flawlessly. If they make a mistake or they are not 100% familiar with what they’re doing, it will be the project and eventually the owners and investors of the project who pay the highest price. We have over 12 years of shining experience delivering BASIX certificates for the most challenging and large scale projects in NSW. If you want to trust experience and expertise, Eco Certificates has a strong case. Here is a summary of the projects we’ve done.

When it comes to a culture of customer service and ongoing support, Eco Certificates shines above all. We’ve helped many of our clients out of dire situations and impossible deadlines over the years. Anytime you want to update your documents or have a question, we’re just a phone call, or email, away. We have advanced, AI enabled, project management systems and highly refined procedures over the years to always have ample capacity to service our clients if they’re facing a particular and difficult situation. Contact us for one of your projects and you won’t have to go anywhere else.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding a BASIX Certificate that the information on this website does not answer, please feel free to Contact Eco Certificates.

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BASIX FAQs and how Eco Certificates can help

BASIX Certificates Cost

The most cost-effective BASIX certificate service per dwelling can be given for developments with a large number of units with similar and typical designs repeating in all levels. The cost of obtaining a BASIX certificate is generally not one of the largest expenses of a residential development documentation for DA submission. However, the fees can be substantially different for different design and development types. Since there are fixed government fees associated with the certification, the variation in the cost is solely determined by the BASIX consultant fees who prepares the certificate. On the other hand, luxury single dwelling houses with unusual layout and architectural features can attract a substantial amount of service cost.

At Eco Certificates, our focus is primarily on maximising the value of our service to our clients. This is achieved through a smart and educated approach to a BASIX assessment, minimising the cost by offering the most competitive rates and quick turnaround time for our documentation and delivery. Please visit our BASIX Certificate Cost page of our website for more details and description of various government cost components.

Turnaround Time for BASIX Certificates

The time required to prepare a BASIX certificate strongly depends on the complexity and type of the residential development. It generally requires the work of two or more different members of our team to complete the NatHERS thermal models and simulation results, prepare the draft and, upon payment of government fees, issue the certificate of the BASIX and NatHERS assessment results. Turnaround time for a certificate can be as low as several hours for a simple single dwelling or an alterations and additions project, or several days for large multi block residential development with hundreds of complex units. As a general rule in our office, we never overwhelm ourselves with excessive work. This policy combined with our state of the art, AI based, project management software solution, Gemma, enables us to have comfortable and available capacity to respond to the most difficult deadlines and urgent projects. In most cases, the turnaround time needs to be as quick as possible because the certificate is the last document which is prepared prior to a development application submission to the council. Due to this fact, we always keep reserve office capacity to enable us to deliver most of the projects provided to us in less than one week from the date when we have enough information to start the project.

If you are in an emergency situation as mentioned above, you can Contact Us and you will find us ready and able to address your specific circumstances.

NatHERS and BASIX Information

In order for us to use NatHERS thermal modelling software to calculate the heating and cooling load of a dwelling, we require a certain type of information and details. In short, for any type of dwelling, we require at least a correctly scaled PDF architectural plans with elevations and sections, true north orientation, clear information about the construction type of floors, internal and external walls, ceiling, roof and glazing elements such as windows, glazed doors and skylights. To extend our study further to prepare a BASIX certificate, more information is required which is very dependent on the type and nature of the development. The information which is required by the online assessment tool is noticeably different for various types of residential developments. To make the process of information provision for your projects as easy as possible, we have created easy to use checklists which take only a few minutes to complete online in a browser window and they will be sent automatically to our assessors to start the assessment and thermal modelling. Please check our BASIX and NatHERS Checklists page for relevant checklists of all types of developments.

When do I require more than one BASIX certificate?
There are several scenarios which require a development to submit more than one BASIX certificate. When a large multi block residential development is being divided into development phases, despite being on a single development site, the development application is normally prepared in phases thus for each phase a separate certificate needs to be created. If we have developments in which each dwelling is on a separate land lot, they must have their own certificates separately. Ultimately, the council decision for specific situations is the dominant factor and if the council officer decides that more than one BASIX certificate needs to be submitted for a certain development, that decision is final. It is normally the main reason when a single project must have more than one certificates lodged for it.
What are the limitations of BASIX?

BASIX scheme is one of the strongest residential building sustainability schemes in the world and arguably the strongest and the most elaborate in Australia. However, the online tool and the assessment of certain types of developments is not without limitations and room for improvement. The most widely criticised aspect of the online assessment tool has been its allowance to create a certificate for a single dwelling without any NatHERS thermal modeling using DIY and particularly RAPID method. Since 1st of July 2017, NSW Department of Planning has removed the RAPID method from the options available for thermal comfort section of the BASIX, but the DIY method is still available for single dwellings. You can visit our News Page for information regarding the most recent regulation changes.

Another aspect that makes the online assessment tool limited to an extent is the limited number of options available for different types of emerging technologies. To address this limitation there is an option in the online assessment tool to allow the user to submit an application for an Alternative Assessment. This method of assessment allows the buildings which cannot be fully introduced to the online tool to be assessed. The current turnaround time for this method after submitting the application is specified by the Department of Planning to be at least 20 working days which is not appropriate for the vast majority of applications.

What are the BASIX targets?

The BASIX online tool awards a certificate of compliance to a building if that building successfully satisfies the requirements of BASIX in the areas of energy and water efficiency and thermal comfort. To measure the performance of a dwelling in these areas, a target system for each field is used. These BASIX targets are calculated based on the average performance benchmarks throughout NSW. Before 1st of July 2017, these targets have been as follows:

• Water target, up to a 40% reduction in potable water consumption
• Energy target, up to a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions
• Thermal comfort target, minimum performance levels for the thermal comfort of the dwelling

Due to these facts BASIX certificate energy and water scores for Sydney are generally higher than more harsh climate conditions in NSW which, in some cases like Snowy Mountains, have very high allowance for heating requirements in colder seasons. These targets change based on the regional considerations and limitations throughout NSW. From 1st of July 2017, the energy and thermal comfort targets are significantly increased, and the water target is unchanged. Please check our news announcement regarding this update.

Another aspect that makes the tool limited to some extent is the limited number of options available for different types of emerging technologies. To address this limitation there is an option in the online tool to allow the user to submit an application for an Alternative Assessment. This method of assessment allows the buildings which cannot be fully introduced to the online tool to be assessed. The current turn around time for this method, after submitting the application is announced by the department of planning to be at least 20 working days which is not appropriate for the vast majority of applications.