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KE Y FINDINGS

SBS presents significant health concerns for Australian consumers and industry pro-
fessionals alike. A multi-faceted approach has been outlined to address not only the
health of our buildings, but the thermal comfort, sustainability, and affordabilityof them.
Through endeavouring to push for higher standards, consumers are willing to spend
more money initially when constructing a new home, to ensure it is continuously ther-
mally broken, which will prevent the build up of condensation, eradicating SBS. To make
this investment worthwhile, more compact design and adopting passive design meth-
odology will ensure that building running costs stay low. This approach may be counter
productive to traditional Australian lifestyle of indoor-outdoor living, so the ability to heat
and cool particular areas, and a design approach involving good cross flow ventilation
and shading will ensure thermal comfort is maintained year round, without lifestyle
compromise. Based on public reactions to the health effects of SBS, it presents a signifi-
cant case to endeavour for the improvement of the minimum standards of buildings in
Australia, something which can be done with simple and intelligent design principles
and guidelines.

Figure 13 Possible solutions

Figure 14 Cross Flow Ventilation
LIMIT A TIONS

A lack of knowledge on the topic found data mining quite difficult, it is a somewhat nov-
el problem in Australia even though the evidence has been available for 80 years +.

A lot of the data collected is self-reported, relying on the word and information provid-
ed by others without being independently verified. This also leads to a risk of bias from
the interviewees as their personal gain will be higher if the ideas presented were imple-
mented at scale. The results given from these souces has proven consistent with sec-
ondary research findings, so I feel the bias to be null and void. Brendan Wilson

Sample size, only being able to interview a select few people led to a smaller pool of
results. This is apparent through the data mining, in future a larger pool of posts and
comments will provide more clarity and feeling, especially from an industry standpoint.