Sustainability Victoria is pleased to announce that FirstRate5 Whole-of-Home (v1.0.0) has achieved NatHERS Whole of Home accreditation. This means that the tool has meet the accuracy requirements set by the NatHERS Administrator and can generate a valid Whole of Home performance rating.          

Please note that FirstRate5 Whole-of-Home (v1.0.0) currently has the following limitations:

• It cannot produce NatHERS Whole of Home Certificates.
• It cannot model hot water solar PV diverter systems. The hot water module will be updated in the future to include this type of water heater. In the meantime users should use the default water heater specified in the NatHERS Technical Note if a hot water solar PV diverter system is specified in design documentation.

Next steps for public release

FirstRate5 Whole-of-Home (v1.0.0) is currently going through a round of user acceptance testing. Sustainability Victoria plans to publicly release the tool for non-commercial use in December 2023. A version that generates Whole of Home NatHERS Certificates will be released in early 2024.

Sustainability Victoria will email all registered FirstRate5 users once FirstRate5 Whole-of-Home (v1.0.0) is publicly released.