# IEQ
Australians spend on average 90 percent of their time indoors, therefore the quality of the indoor environment is vital to our health and wellbeing. Building design and material choices impact on indoor environment quality and are considered during the early design stages, making IEQ a core category of BESS. Design for IEQ will also deliver other benefits such as reduced energy use for heating, cooling and lighting.
In the IEQ category, BESS includes actions regarding daylight, ventilation, solar access and thermal comfort. Information required and points available are dependent on type and scale of the project. IEQ considerations that are not captured in BESS but are also important include:
- Acoustic privacy
- External views
- Air quality
- Toxicity of materials, e.g. Low volatile organic compound (VOC) paints, sealants and adhesives
# Residential daylight pathways
For multi unit residential developments, you can opt to use the Deemed to Satisfy (DtS) method, the built in calculator or provide your own calculations for IEQ credits 1.1 and 1.2.
# Deemed to Satisfy
You must satisfy ALL of the criteria below to achieve the following daylight credits:
Satisfying these criteria earns full points for these credits. Under the DtS method there is no partial compliance.
If you cannot meet the Deemed to Satisfy criteria, it may still be possible to achieve daylight credit points by using the BESS built-in daylight calculator, or by providing your own daylight modelling.
# Deemed to Satisfy Criteria
- Are all living areas and bedrooms less than 8m deep (5m if south facing)?
- Do all living areas and bedrooms have a floor-to-ceiling height of at least 2.7m?
- Does all glazing to living areas achieve at least 60% Visible Light Transmittance (VLT)?
- Do all living areas have an external facing window (not into a courtyard, light well or other major obstruction)?
- Does the building(s) comply with all of the requirements of the building separation tables?
# Table 1. Building separation to adjacent properties
Notes:
Building separation is not required to the side or rear boundary where no outlook is proposed provided it does not affect the reasonable development opportunity of the adjoining site.
Zero building separation applies on sites where a continuous street wall is encouraged under the relevant place based planning controls.
Where existing dwellings have not incorporated access to daylight to habitable rooms on their own site in accordance with the building separation standards, the building separation standards will only apply to new development to the extent necessary to achieve comparable contribution (from a minimum of 1 metre and a maximum of 3 metres) of daylight into the habitable rooms of the proposed dwellings.
The building separation requirements commence at the first level of residential use
# Table 2. Building separation to a lane
Notes:
- The building separation requirements commence at the first level of residential use
# Table 3. Building separation for buildings within sites
Notes:
- The building separation requirements commence at the first level of residential use
# Table 4. Lightwell Minimum areas and dimensions (considered a building separation table)
Notes:
The light court minimum areas and dimensions may need to be varied for buildings containing multiple levels of non-residential uses
The minimum area and dimension must be achieved for the entire depth of the light well.
# Built in calculation tools
For multi unit residential developments, you can opt to use the built in calculators for IEQ credits 1.1 and 1.2.
In order to use these calculators you will need to group all habitable rooms (living areas and bedrooms) into the following categories
- Living areas that would meet the Deemed-to-Satisfy criteria provided above. These can be assigned to Auto-Pass
- Bedrooms that would meet the Deemed-to-Satisfy criteria provided above. These can be assigned to Auto-Pass
- Living areas of varying orientation
- Bedrooms of varying orientation
For each of the groupings that are not achieving Auto Pass classification provide an average of the following:
- Room Floor Area
- Vertical Angle
- Horizontal Angle
- Window Area
- Glass Type
# Provide your own calculations
For multi unit residential and non-residential developments, you can opt to provide daylight modelling using third party software
In order to meet the requirements for multi-residential developments daylight modelling should be conducted to all living areas and bedrooms of varying orientation and configuration
In order to meet the requirements for non-residential developments daylight modelling should be conducted to all occupiable areas other than ancillary areas
The modelling software will need to be able to provide an output for Daylight Factor (DF) which is the ratio of the light level inside a structure to the light level outside the structure
A report of the modelling should be provided as evidence for the related credits with the BESS report and include the following:
- Modelling software including version and release date
- Location and co-ordinates
- Time of year and time of day
- Sky conditions
- Orientation
- Visual Light Transmission (VLT) for all glazing modelled.
- Reflectance surface properties
- A 3d view to indicate that the adjoining developments have been modelled. Confirm with the relevant council how to allow for future development on adjoining lots in the modelling.
- Plan views of the assessed apartment that graphically show the extent of daylight penetration to the apartment which will support the stated figures.