Amity Builders

02/06/2026

Most homes leak. You feel it as winter drafts, stuffy summer rooms, dust that keeps coming back, and power bills that never quite add up.

The catch is you can’t see air sneaking through gaps in your walls, floors and ceilings. So it goes unchecked for the life of the home.

A blower door test ends the guessing. We seal a powerful fan into a doorway and use it to draw air out of the house.

Then we measure exactly how much leaks back in through every crack and gap. Not an estimate. A hard number.

The Passivhaus standard asks for 0.6 air changes per hour or lower.

We hit 0.16 🎉

What does this actually look like? Our total leakage area measured 0.006 square metres. Basically if you add up every gap, crack and join across the entire home, it comes out to a single hole about the size of a round drink coaster. 

One coaster… across a two-storey house!

A typical new build? Closer to leaving a window wide open. All day, every day.
Airtight homes are quieter, cleaner, more comfortable and far cheaper to run. 

This is what building to actually perform looks like.

16/05/2026

Thanks for the feature Illawarra Mercury! Come out to Sustainable House Day tomorrow May 17 to experience what a comfortable and healthy home should feel like.

Last few tickets left, get yours here:

https://sustainablehouseday.com/homes/oceana-passivhaus/

'It's being able to wake up without a stuffy nose in the middle of the night.'

13/05/2026

You and your family deserve better.

Join us this Sunday May 17 to tour one of the most comfortable, healthy and sustainable homes in the Illawarra - Oceana Passivhaus.

We only have two sessions, with limited capacity in each.

Follow the link in bio to book your all-day pass ($15 includes access to all open homes), and be sure to add Oceana Passivhaus at checkout.

See you there!

21/04/2026

Most people think comfort comes from luxurious finishes and furnishings.

But real comfort is more subtle.

It feels like cleaner air.

Stable temperatures.

Better sleep.

The best homes don’t just look good. They change how life feels inside them.

Real comfort isn’t a finish, it’s a feeling.

___

Ready to live in a home that works for you, not against you? Send us a DM or check out our website to learn more.

amitybuilders.com.au (or see link in bio)

14/04/2026

On Sunday May 17, join us at Oceana Passivhaus for Sustainable House Day and experience the passivhaus difference.

Unlike when we opened last November, construction at Oceana will be complete and ready for handover!

Here’s what you can expect 👇

Nearing winter in the Illawarra, you’ll notice the absence of draughts, the consistency of temperature from room to room, and the overall comfort that’s different to a standard build.

This tour is an opportunity to ask us what was prioritised, what trade-offs were made, how airtightness was achieved, and what lessons were learned along the way.

You can chat through whether certification matters to you and how early decisions in pre-construction shaped comfort and energy use long before we walked on site.

This is part of Sustainable House Day, a nation-wide event to inspire each other to make our homes just a bit more planet-friendly.

We’re open for two sessions with limited spots. Grab your ticket at sustainablehouseday.com or visit the link in our bio!

12/02/2026

An uncomfortable truth? Your house can look beautiful...

and still be mouldy and unhealthy.

This one test can tell you the difference between a home that’s built for comfort and one that feels like you’re living in a leaky tent.

Most performance problems start in places you’ll never see: behind the walls, above the ceilings and around junctions.

Air leakage is one of the biggest reasons homes feel uncomfortable, even when they’re brand new and well-insulated.

It creates draughts, uneven temperatures, increases heating & cooling demand, and raises the risk of condensation & moisture build up inside walls.

Over time, leaks lead to durability and mould issues.

The worst part?

In most Australian builds, airtightness is never tested, it’s assumed (and downright ignored).

Which means the real performance of the home usually isn’t known until after you move in, when fixing it becomes expensive or impossible.

So how do you know if your home will be leaky and uncomfortable?

Enter: the blower door test

It uses a calibrated fan temporarily installed into an external doorway to pressurise and depressurise the home.

By measuring how much air is passing through the building envelope, it shows us how airtight the house really is across various stages of the build (and helps us identify where the leaks are to begin with).

We’ve recently completed our second blower door test at our Oceana Passivhaus project.

We’re diving deeper into all things blower door testing in this month’s Passivhaus Project email.

In the email we’ll cover:

* Our airtightness result
* What it means for our clients, and
* How it compares to the average Australian new build

Join the Passivhaus Project via the link in our bio to get monthly site updates, lessons and tips as we build one of the healthiest and most comfortable homes in the Illawarra.

28/01/2026

Airtightness is often misunderstood.

“Don’t walls need to breathe??”

Absolutely not. And here’s why:

While it might make sense in theory, in practice, how often does your home naturally maintain an ideal temperature with low humidity?

In Passivhaus and high performing homes, we’re not reliant on factors we can’t control, and instead, we focus on those we can.

By achieving airtightness and adding “lungs” to the home with an MVHR, you, not the weather, get to control the comfort you want to feel. No amount of fans, air con, blackout blinds and opening and closing windows for cross-ventilation will compare.

At Oceana, a key element for achieving airtightness was wrapping the house with an air barrier. We used Intello on the inside of the external walls to:

✅Stop air leakage for more energy efficiency and comfort
✅Prevent moisture buildup (and mould)
✅Maximise performance of thermal insulation

Another component for airtightness is using high quality tape to seal every pe*******on and junction. Every hole or gap is an opportunity for air leakage. Being diligent with the tape from the start means we’ll spend less time looking for leaks down the road.

Together, the windows and doors, Intello air barrier, Bondor roof, and concrete slab form a continuous air control layer (ACL) that limits uncontrolled air movement. 

The best part? 

Our clients will still be able to open their windows when they want. But they won’t need to if they want fresh, filtered air.

21/01/2026

Our Sydenham renovation shows how careful decisions in materials, selections, and planning can elevate the way a home feels without compromising what makes it unique.

It’s a project that reminds us to appreciate the details, look for opportunities to reuse and repurpose, and that a pink door is always a good idea.

📸 .studios

17/12/2025

Last Friday we traded power drills for laser guns to celebrate the end of an epic year at Amity Builders.

This team gives it their all, so a night of fun competition, great food, and even better company was well and truly deserved.

Shoutout to Adam for smoking us in bowling and Tim for taking home the laser tag cash prize! All those days practicing your “pew pew” moves on site sure paid off 🤣

12/12/2025

First blower door test ✅

After sealing the last area of the thermal envelope yesterday, we were itching to perform the first blower door test to see how airtight Oceana is so far.

I was nervous as we set everything up.

Without previous data to benchmark against, you don’t always know what level of detailing will get you to 0.6 ACH (the air changes per hour required for a Passivhaus, compared to 10-20 ACH for a typical Australian home).

You just think through every junction, do your absolute best as a team, and hope the numbers reflect the effort.

And they did.

We came in at 0.277 ACH @ 50 Pa.

I felt confident we’d get close. But seeing the result on the screen brought a mix of happiness and relief from knowing the outcome was directly tied to the work the team put in.

One thing is feeling like you did a great job.

Another thing is having an objective measure that proves you did.

There are still more pe*******ons to make as the build progresses, so things may shift over time, but now we know exactly what it takes to achieve 0.6 ACH or lower.

So good!