What happens when someone buys an apartment based on sustainability claims but the premises don’t live up to the promises? This is the story of Evermore, in Western Australia’s White Gum Valley.
Anecdotes and data about building defects and a “performance gap” between actual design and end-occupant experience are rife in the property world. To complicate matters in residential development, post-occupancy performance evaluations are rarely undertaken, which means designers, developers and builders may not learn any lessons residents have to offer.
Case in point is Evermore in White Gum Valley, three kilometres from Freemantle’s CBD, which obtained One Planet Living certification in 2018. The medium density development by Yolk Property Group comprising 24 apartments has sustainability features including solar PV and batteries, blockchain energy trading between residents, productive communal vegetable gardens, low VOC materials, passive solar design and electric vehicle charging.
- See our story https://thefifthestate.com.au/innovation/residential-2/perth-developer-in-strata-solar-and-battery-first/
However, as residents Barry Healy and David Connaughton tell The Fifth Estate, the sustainability marketing was not matched by the delivery, which has caused ongoing challenges.
The big issues
For a start, the strata manager did not effectively handle the technical aspects of the building, particularly the operations of the solar and battery systems. Building defects were a struggle to obtain action on, and aspects of the design and specifications simply did not function well.
The council of owners had to engage proactively with technical and operational matters themselves.
“I think the biggest problem has been the brain-breaking labour involved in sorting out the problems,” Healy tells The Fifth Estate.
“Basically, we’ve had to learn the hard way about some extraordinarily complex issues. Just getting my head around the ABCB (Australian Building Codes Board) standards for window openings was a growth experience.”
Technology isn’t set-and-forget
The battery system was non-operational for years. The owners only found this out after a “long and difficult process”, Healy says. While they collectively own the on-site electricity system, it has been managed by a series of startups.
“There has been a succession of (service providers) involved with Evermore who have gone out of business leaving us in the lurch and without access to warranties.”
The first sign all wasn’t well with the solar energy came a few years after commissioning, with residents raising complaints about energy bill costs. Questioning service providers resulted in a pass-the-inquiry sequence, and then in 2021 the company maintaining the system pulled out and then went broke.
In 2023, the residents contacted Power Ledger, which had provided the community energy trading system, to find out that a data screen in the battery control room would show whether the battery was working or not.
“They responded by doing a report on our system which showed that our battery had not been operating for two years. Since then, we have found a company that is attempting to revive the batteries, which is showing signs of success,” Healy says.
Managing up
Connaughton says the council of residents needed to do a significant amount of work to try to understand “what happened, why we weren’t told, and what we can do about getting somebody else.”
Developer Yolk appointed the initial strata manager, and strata fees were set that were far too low, in Healy’s opinion.
“We have had to raise our fees quite considerably as we have gone along,” he says.
Defects
Multiple apartments had defects, and Healy says owners did not know how to assert themselves with the builder or developer to get issues fixed, such as the fact that the drainage on Connaughton’s bathroom floor doesn’t function.
“I can pour five litres of water on my bathroom floor, and none of it goes down the drain. If I put more than five litres of water there, it will flow into the bedroom,” he explains.
He showed the builder, and they said it would require digging up the whole bathroom to fix it.
“And I was in too anxious a state to carry on with the state government, builders (and) the complaints system, because I felt it was just me and I wasn’t aware that other people had similar problems … I think if we’d been able to form a group or get together and communicate with all the problems, we may also have been able to find somebody to help us with our problems, to mediate.”
In any case, the builders went broke.
Passive design
Elements of the passive design strategy have proven very effective. Sound insulation is excellent, and lower floor apartments perform well for thermal comfort. However, upper floor apartments such as Healy’s become extremely hot due to the black aluminium window frames, which absorb heat and radiate it into the rooms.
He and his partner Annolise were also talked out of double glazing by the builder, he says. It was not standard in the specifications, and the Bioregional Australia peer review of the design published in 2018 noted the windows and glazing could be improved.
On the upside, Healy says the heat from the window frames is “really good for drying socks.”
Design for ventilation depends on good windows
The heat is made worse by poor passive ventilation. The windows don’t open far enough to allow for effective air movement, Healy says.
“The ventilation issue is of particular importance in the four largest apartments, which are on the top floor. In each of those apartments there is a parents’ retreat up a flight of stairs that consists of a large open space, a master bedroom with an ensuite bathroom.
“It is a well-known feature of multi-story dwellings in Perth that heat rises to the top floor and if there is insufficient ventilation it gets trapped. That is the problem here.”
Because he and his wife were told their future apartments had a NatHERS rating of 7.6 stars, they chose not to have airconditioning installed and opted for ceiling fans instead.
They asked the developer to fix the performance issue, proposing installing louvered windows to improve airflow. The developer resisted. Then, the mayor of Fremantle, Brad Pettitt, became involved and facilitated discussions, which resulted in airconditioning being installed in the upstairs parents’ retreat.
“That solution is not ideal, it amounts to a mechanical solution to a design fault.”
The positives – the garden
The gardens are major plus, and all the maintenance is undertaken by residents.
“Every piece of fruit that ripens, every pumpkin on the vine, our grapes – all of these are experienced as community achievements that are shared around,” Healy says.
Healy says commitment to the garden grew out of initial informal meetings to sort out issues with the development.
“The comradery generated in that period carried us along for a long time as a community.”
The real benefit of the sustainability marketing
Connaughton says he believes the emphasis on sustainability in the project marketing “did attract a certain kind of buyer.”
“So, I think that’s what united us into a kind of a community.
Healy says he contacted the developers and offered for them to come back and hear what is good about the development, and what could be improved, but they declined.
The Fifth Estate contacted Yolk for comment, but the company did not respond.
Parc Developments, which split off from Yolk after the completion of Evermore did respond.
“Evermore remains a market leading product and one that the company is very proud to have achieved, particularly in Perth where we do lag in innovations to address the sustainability challenges of the future,” Parc director Pete Adams said.