The goal is to improve somewhat the average achieved energy efficiency of much of the housing stock in South Australia.

Generally, it can be expected that many standard houses will be able to comply with this minimum requirement by introducing some additional features.
In particular, insulation to walls, roof and ceiling, and/or adjusted window elements including frame or glass types. The extent of such modification will depend on both the house design, and the land it is placed on.

A standard house plan potentially has 8 rating alternatives; with 4 orientation possibilities for both the plan and its reverse ('flip over') layout.

Every house submitted for building rules consent will need to demonstrate compliance with the minimum requirement or better.

Many houses, both the standard layout generally by builders, and the one-off design for a client and a specific site, will achieve compliance within the computer simulation.

The software measures the house materials, construction, insulation, windows, orientation to suggest how much energy might be used for heating and cooling if the house is airconditioned. The rating assumes that the energy used comes from fossil fuel generation. This is compared to the compliant energy efficiency level, and a rating is given in 'Stars'.

The rating can be increased by changing the insulation, windows and other features of the house.

For compliance, the house and its construction features need to achieve 4 Stars.

Some houses are designed to achieve their energy efficiency by means other than those measured by the computer simulation. These include non airconditioned (or 'free running') houses, houses with passive energy efficient design features, houses with renewable energy systems, carbon sinks, and so on.

Such houses may not be measurable with the computer simulation method, and we have 'first principle' rating methods to suit these houses.