FR5 Software

FirstRate5® house energy rating software

FirstRate5® is an easy-to-use interactive tool with a graphic user interface that enables designers and thermal performance assessors to generate energy ratings for a home by tracing over floor plans. The software integrates the AccuRate calculation engine to estimate the annual heating and cooling energy and can be used to rate an existing design or as an interactive tool to optimise the design beyond compliance.

Latest news

FR5 License & Website Terms Update, Deletion of Whole of Home Assessments & Timeline for Release of WoH Certificates

by Govind Maksay | Feb 23, 2024

Update to FR5 Licence Agreement and Website Terms of Service

Sustainability Victoria (SV) has updated the FirstRate5 Website End User Terms of Service (End User Terms of Service) and FirstRate5 Software Licence Agreement (Software Licence Agreement), which apply to the FirstRate5 (FR5) desktop application, the FirstRate5 website and FirstRate5 Whole-of-Home.

The updated End User Terms of Service and the updated Software Licence Agreement are effective 2 March 2024.  

SV has updated both agreements to include reference through the agreements to the whole of home assessments and FirstRate5 Whole-of-Home, updated ‘Certificate’ terminology, updated reference to the NCC’s residential energy efficiency provisions, and expanded the Disclosures and Licensing clauses. The changes are to clauses:

  • In the Software Licence: clauses 1(a), 3, 3(a), 3(b)(ii), 4, 4(a) to 4(c) inclusive, 7(a)(ii), 9(f)(i), 10(e)(ii), 13(c), 14(a), 14(b);
  • In the End User Terms of Service: the introduction/grant of access, definitions, 2(a)(ii) to 2(a)(v) inclusive, 3(b) to 3(h)(ii) inclusive, 4(a), 6(a)(i) to 6(a)(vi) inclusive, 6(b), 6(c), 6(d), 7(a) (i)and(ii) inclusive, 7(b) and 7(b) (ii), 7(d), 8(a), 8(b)(i) to 8(b)(ii) inclusive, 8(e)(ii), 8(g), 8(h), 8(l)(ii), 8(l)(v) and 8(vi), 9(a), 10(b), 11(a), 12(e)(i)and(ii), and a new clauses 13 (a) and 13(b) (open source software components in the Whole of Home App).

If you do not agree with the updated End User Terms of Service and updated Software Licence Agreement, you can choose to discontinue using the FirstRate5 software, website and FirstRate5 Whole-of-Home and advise SV that you intend to terminate your licence to the FirstRate5 software and/or FirstRate5 website Terms of Service by sending an email to [email protected].

Deletion of existing Whole of Home assessments and process to retain assessments

FirstRate5 Whole-of-Home (v1.0.0) is a beta version that does not include certificate functionality.  Any whole of home assessments that have been created using version 1.0.0 will be deleted when SV releases the updated version of the tool that will include full whole of home certificate functionality, unless SV receives a request to retain the data. 

Users who want to retain whole of home assessments created using FirstRate5 Whole-of-Home (v1.0.0), must complete a request form on the FR5 website and agree that assessments created using the version 1.0.0 will be governed by the updated the FirstRate5 Website End User Terms of Service effective 2 March 2024. 

Users must complete the request form by 6 March 2024. Please note that you will need to be logged into your FR5 account to access the form.

Timeline for the release of NatHERS Whole of Home Certificates

SV has recently submitted the NatHERS Whole of Home certificate to the NatHERS Administrator for approval. Once the certificate has been approved and SV has implemented final changes to the FR5 website to allow for the generation of NatHERS Whole of Home Certificates, SV will publicly release the updated version. Users will be able to use the updated version to generate NatHERS Whole of Homes Certificates for regulatory purposes. 

SV plans to release the updated version of FirstRate5 Whole-of-Home by mid to late March 2024.

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