First published 12 Nov 2026, 5:00am
The future of Aussie homes could see them being built specifically to have flood waters flow through them, survive ember attack in the suburbs and fight rising energy bills.
But sweeping changes being called for in a new report released today by one of the nation’s most respected housing research groups could add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of renovating older homes and creating new residences.
The Australian Housing Urban Research Institute has today released a report warning most of the nation’s homes will face risks from insurance and energy bill hikes through to direct damage from natural disasters — and suggested we may need to expand flood, fire and cyclone risk zones in order to ensure future housing is up to speed.
Aussie homes aren't ready to face the nation's future weather and disasters, but AHURI have some suggestions to give them a better chance.
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The AHURI research has also estimated how the nation’s homes will perform if weather and natural disaster conditions worsen over the next 23 years to 2050, and found that even those being built today are likely to come up short.
They are advocating for housing to be retrofitted and new homes subject to design requirements that will help them cope with future flooding, fires, heatwaves and other issues.
Adelaide University Senior Research Fellow Dr Michaela Lang said while their proposals might result in higher building costs, there could also be savings with lower insurance costs and even reduced maintenance and repair prices.
Dr Lang said after interviewing Australians who have already sought out ways to combat heatwaves without relying on significant energy use they had encountered some using door snakes and wet face-washing cloths hung from ceiling fans as negligible ways to cope.
“We didn’t look at costs, but we did focus groups with households and they very much talked about costs,” she said.
Property designed to have flood water go in and out again could be part of the future of Australian housing.. Photo Allan Reinikka / The Morning Bulletin.
“There would be people who have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Key goals for housing they have advocated for include thermal resilience, to ensure housing provides an environment where residents can survive a heatwave and broader comfort for a diverse range of weather conditions, as well as for homes to be able to quickly returned to normal comfort levels if there is a disruption.
It would mean retrofitting existing homes with better insulation and looking for ways to establish cross ventilation based on prevailing wind directions and where windows or ventilation can be added to the home, as well as upgrading to reverse cycle airconditioning systems and installing fans to help move air through a home.
Geoff Webster has renovated his home in Sydney’s northern beaches area, and turned the 60-year-old residence that he estimated had an energy efficiency score of 1 star when he bought it into a 6.8-star score.
It took a mix of solar panels, a battery, double glazing, adding wall insulation and relaying a floor to reduce drafts coming in from below.
Before image of Geff Webster's home that has been converted to a high level of energy efficiency.
An after photo of the home that shows how light and dark colours can be used to target energy transfers in particular ways.
But given he was already needing to renovate the home which had other issues, and a number of cracked windows, the extra work specifically aimed at improving the home’s energy efficiency had only added a few tens of thousands of dollars to the build.
Today he pays about $200 a quarter for energy, runs the airconditioner briefly on hot days, and has reduced noise as well as heat transfer from the home’s double glazing.
“If I’m using the airconditioning during the day, the solar panels produce more than enough to power the unit,” Mr Webster said.
His three-bedroom house is a smaller floorplan than many houses, but he said until the energy company changed their connection fee structure they had almost got their energy bill down to zero dollars.
“So it was a broader renovation to get the house back into shape and improve its structural integrity, but the energy efficient improvements might have added 15 per cent to the build cost,” he said.
For natural disasters AHURI advocate home designs that can survive with the walls and the roof relatively intact and no need for extensive works to remedy the home after the disaster.
It also calls for them to be able to handle multiple different events, such as initial damaging winds in a cyclone, followed by flooding in the aftermath.
A 10-star energy efficient house in South Australia by F2Design. Source: F2Design.
For example they suggest buildings where doors and windows can be replaced but where floodwaters that enter the home can easily be cleared out without any damage to structural elements, and to be able to survive this process being repeated.
Homes can be designed for “controlled water ingress during flooding”, according to the report, which would also stop water becoming stuck in the house after the flood passes.
In areas less likely to see flood flows, sealing the building with waterproof barriers and coatings to prevent any getting into the property would also be viable — but comes with the risk of pushing water towards neighbouring homes.
Additional options would be to have means of absorbing water in the gardens around the residence or to elevate homes above expected flood heights — already arguably achieved by Queenslander-style homes.
For bushfire risks the proposal includes ensuring more Australian homes have designs that reduce the danger from ember attack, such as ensuring homes leave limited options for embers to find purchase on the building. It would also require active land management by residents.
And in cyclone areas, they suggest housing that is structurally reinforced, has elements that can withstand impacts, but that also have on site renewable energy that can support residents if connections are lost.
Cyclone’s could require some of the more pronounced housing modifications, but those changes could also deliver significant benefits to housing security.
Dr Lang said the reality was that even homes built to today’s minimum standards needed to be built with further protections in mind, and added that there were building designs for 10-star efficient homes that could be built relatively affordably as examples of alternatives already being used.
She added that while it was not part of their research, different homes from different eras had differing prospects when facing anything from heatwaves to floods and fires, though in a broad way those built in the past few years would generally cope better with the majority of future risks they were facing.
It also means that differing homes might need differing interventions depending on their building materials and design principals, as well as specific local risks.
However, she warned that expanding areas deemed at risk of bushfire, flooding and storm or cyclone damage would also help to ensure homes were built to cope when disasters hit areas that had not previously been the case.
While northern Queensland was known to face cyclones, last year Cyclone Alfred had threatened Byron Bay and the Gold Coast for the first time since Cyclone Nancy hit the area in 1990.
Preparing for future bushfires should include extending the areas that factor in the threat of flames, according to the AHURI report. Picture: Alex Coppel.
A proposal to also improve the nation’s existing housing stock by setting minimum standards for homes is also listed in the report, though Dr Lang said it was possible this could lead to some investors selling off their rental properties.
In Victoria there has been a significant loss in the number of rental homes since the state began wide-ranging rental regulatory reforms and investment property taxation in 2023.
Master Builders chief executive Denita Wawn said while they had not reviewed the full report, any measures needed to be balanced against the nation’s housing supply shortage and the need for more homes to improve affordability — and against the expansion of the National Construction Code from 93 pages to 889 pages.
“It’s the home buyer at the end of the chain who bears the cost of hundreds of good intentions, not the policy makers,” Ms Wawn said.
“The cost of building a new house has increased by 53 per cent since the pandemic.
“The Productivity Commission estimates regulatory complexity can add up to $320,000 to the cost of a new home.
“The National Construction Code already adds tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of a new dwelling and should return to a focus on essential health, safety, amenity and sustainability requirements.”
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