Retrofitted fibro cottage wins Solar Decathlon

In May we reported that a team of students from Wollongong University was heading to China with a prototype zero-emissions solar house they had built for the Solar Decathlon.

This week the team’s renovated fibro cottage was announced the winning entry, possibly because it was the first house in Solar Decathlon history to demonstrate a retrofit of an existing home. But probably also because Team UOW displayed some pretty impressive technology.

Modelled on a 1960s Aussie fibro house floor plan, the Illawarra Flame House shows how to make existing houses energy efficient and comfortable to live in.

Team UOW transformed the contents of seven shipping containers into a beautiful, modern and technologically advanced, net-zero energy home in just 12 days. This was the culmination of two years of planning and design, three months of initial construction and a six-week journey across the Pacific Ocean.

According to Professor Paul Cooper, the Team UOW Faculty Advisor and Director of the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC) at the University of Wollongong, the Flame House will be shipped home and opened to the public.

“Importantly, it will provide not only a test bed for new sustainable building technologies, but a vehicle to accelerate the adoption of sustainable retrofit technologies for homes in Australia and overseas”, he added.

Project Manager Lloyd Niccol told the ABC this week that the project started by removing the asbestos cladding, re-insulating the home and replacing single glazing with double glazed windows. They then fitted solar panels and added a ‘really, really innovative heating and ventilation system’.

"It's called the photovoltaic thermal system, so we actually remove hot air from our solar panels, which we can then use to heat and cool the home."

Mr Niccol believes the team's competition entry could form the basis of a commercially viable design for a home.

"We think it's definitely practical to retrofit homes in Australia similar to what we've designed for the competition," he said.