FirstRate5^® house energy rating software

FirstRate5 has been developed by and is owned by Sustainability Victoria, a Victorian Government agency.

FirstRate5 software is free to download to any registered user from our website.

You can register and access the latest version of FirstRate5 in 4 simple steps. 

1. Visit the FirstRate5 website
You can visit www.fr5.com.au to access the latest FirstRate5 news, information about the software, accreditation and to register an account for generating certificates. 

2. Register your account
As a new users to the site you can Register to download the software and produce certificates. You must fill in all the required fields and then select the check box confirming you have read the Terms of Use before clicking Sign Up. 

3. Validate your email address
Once signed up, the system will validate that the email address is active before the newly created account is activated. An account activation email will be sent to your email address. You can open the email and click on the link to activate the account. The system will prompt you, asking whether you would like to go to the home page or login page. 

4. Creating your thermal performance assessor profile
When you register as a thermal performance assessors on the site you are prompted to complete a popup form asking you to fill out the details of your Assessors profile consisting of the following fields: 

a. Accreditation Organisation 
b. Accreditation Number(s)

For each Accreditation Organisation selected, you must supply your Accreditation Number. Only one user can register for each unique accreditation number. You will be prevented from attempts to add an accreditation number to your account that is already in registered to another user.

Thermal performance assessors practicing in states and territories which do not require accreditation can skip this step.

The FirstRate5 software is free to download to any registered user from our website.
From 15 November 2017 (8am AEDT) credits, which can be exchanged for certificates, attract the following fees:

• New Home Credit $30 (ex GST)
• Existing Home Credit $15 (ex GST)
• Alteration & Addition Credit $15 (ex GST)

Please note that each credit is valid for 12 months from its date of purchase, unless otherwise stated. Any credits which remain unspent 12 months after their purchase will expire without refund. It is therefore critical that you only purchase as many credits as you will foreseeably use within a 12 month period. Credits are used on an ‘oldest-first’ basis.

The fee per certificate price will be reviewed on an annual basis. 

In accordance with the terms of the Software Licence Agreement, in certain circumstances (as described below), Sustainability Victoria will provide you with limited email support in relation to the FirstRate5 software.

In order to be eligible for this support, you must:
(a) have registered an account on the Thermal Performance Certificates website (which you can do here); and 
(b) have a current balance in your account of at least one Certificate Credit.

If you meet these eligibility criteria, Sustainability Victoria will provide reasonable assistance to you via email only, during Sustainability Victoria's usual business hours, with:
(a) problems or issues relating to the installation of the FirstRate5 software; and
(b) abnormal errors or bugs encountered when using the FirstRate5 software.

This support specifically excludes assistance:
(a) for any versions of the FirstRate5 software other than the most current version;
(b) relating to the normal operation or use of the FirstRate5 software (in respect of which you must consult the software's documentation);
(c) with problems, issues or errors arising from installation or use of the FirstRate5 software in a manner contrary to the software's documentation or otherwise arising from improper use of the FirstRate5 software; or
(d) with hardware, operating systems or third party software.

Sustainability Victoria may vary the basis on which it provides this support, or may terminate the provision of this support entirely, in accordance with the terms of the Software Licence Agreement.

The best way to submit a request for technical support is via the contact form on the FirstRate5 website after you have logged into your online account. Using the online contact form ensures critical information (e.g. software version information) is gathered at the start of your query.

Instructions on how to use the FirstRate5 software is provided through training courses provided by Registered Training Organsiations (RTO's). See Accreditation section for details. Please consult your course training manual.

In addition, for advanced modelling situations, we have developed answers to Frequently Asked Questions, see below.

Finally, while software support is not provided by the Assessor Accrediting Organisations ( ABSA, DMN and HERA), they may issue additional modelling guidance and practice notes from time to time.

System requirements for FirstRate5 v5.3.x;

• Windows 10. Note: Mac OS is not supported.
• Java  11.x.x (64 bit)
• 8 GB RAM or greater recommended
• 200MB disk space
• 1920x1080 resolution with default scaling
• 2GHz or faster processor

Note: Simulation speed is directly influenced by processor speed, the faster, the better. Multiple cores, beyond two, won't help.

Oracle, the developer of Java, has recently released a major new version of Java, called Java 9. Users may install this latest version if prompted or required, however, a working version of Java 8 will need to be retained in order to operate FirstRate5.

At this stage existing versions of FirstRate5  will not work with Java 9. Sustainability Victoria  plans to include support for Java 9 in future versions of FR5, however, existing versions of FR5 will not be modified to support Java 9.

When you open FirstRate5 the launch screen is displayed until the desktop program opens. If FirstRate5 is stuck on the launch screen and will not open, this may be because of an issue with your anti-virus software categorising FirstRate5 as malicious software. We recommend you contact your anti-virus software provider to implement a fix. Sustainability Victoria is aware that Trend Micro has developed a hotfix for FirstRate5 which can be found at the following link.

There are two principal reasons for this:

AFRC Custom Window Libraries
With the introduction of the AFRC Custom Window library, the NatHERS Administrator wanted to ensure that window libraries were updated on a regular basis (at least every 6 months), and that older libraries were taken out of circulation. For this reason, only the latest version of FirstRate5 (with the latest AFRC Custom Window library) calculates automatically on the FirstRate5 website, while legacy versions require approval.

Supported Versions
Software developers have finite resources which can be directed toward developing new functionality, bug fixing and providing technical support to users. These resources would not be effectively utilised if developers were required to support multiple versions concurrently. This is why Sustainability Victoria (SV) concentrates its efforts on the most current version of FirstRate5.

In order to encourage users to upgrade to the current version of FirstRate5, a process is  required. FirstRate5 used to contain an expiry a date in the software after which the software ceased to function. However, this approach did not allow access to legacy versions of the software. The current system of allowing legacy versions to calculate by approval only, ensures users upgrade to the most current version while providing access in limited circumstances to legacy versions.

SV will assess requests for legacy versions on a case by case basis. Typically these will be approved where the assessor confirms the request is required for a legal dispute or a building surveyor has requested the certificate in a legacy version.  SV may request further supporting documentation in order to process the claim.

Note when users upload a project file directly from the desktop and the project file was created in a legacy version of the software the file will automatically run with the latest version of the software.  If you require the project file to be run with a legacy version, you will need to upload via the website and follow the instructions on the screen.

Please note when requesting a legacy certificate it is the user’s responsibility to ensure certificates are produced with the appropriate version. If a user chooses to use an earlier version of FR5 to produce a certificate, they run the risk that a Building Surveyor will reject the certificate.

If you have an internal wall with a section of glazing, do not insert a window in an internal wall. FR5 will not calculate if you insert a window in an internal wall.

Glazed openings in internal walls do not need to be entered and can be left as an internal plasterboard partition. However, if you really want to allow for a section of glazing in an internal wall, then you can make a custom internal wall in the Wall Builder using glass. Please note that FR5 will treat this glazing as opaque and will not transmit any solar radiation through the section of glazing inserted in the internal zone to an adjoining zone.

When a file created with an earlier version of FR5 is upgraded, the Save command in the File menu is disabled. This is to encourage users to save the upgraded file as a separate file with a different file name using the SaveAs command. After completing a SaveAs, the Save command is re-enabled.

The ensures that a version of the file created with the earlier version of FR5 is retained for possible future reference.

Sustainability Victoria (SV) has added the Re-issue Invoice button to each transaction line in the Credit Usage page of your online account.  Just click and the original email containing the tax invoice will be reissued to the registered email address.

After creating an eave, CTRL + click to select multiple walls in the Plan tab.  With CTRL still pressed, right-click on one of the selected walls, click Attach Eave from the resulting menu and select the appropriate eave.

Together with the Australian Fenestration Rating Council (AFRC), ​NatHERS have developed a comprehensive online training course for the use of the new default windows. We strongly recommend that all FR5 users performing NatHERS assessments undertake this training. 
 

NatHERS requires in New Home mode, all windows and doors, with the exception of garage doors, be weather-stripped and have insect screens applied by default.

If the file is either an Existing Home or Alteration & Addition, weather-stripping and insect screens may be turned on/off by the user.

Weather-stripping &insect screens	NewHome	Alteration & Addition	Existing Home
Windows	On	On/Off	On/Off
Doors	On	On/Off	On/Off
Garage Doors	On/Off	On/Off	On/Off

In non-rating mode, weather-stripping and insect screens can be turned on/off in all cases by the user.

In certain circumstances, the Net Conditioned Floor Area (NCFA) will not equal the simple addition of the individual zone areas.

 The methodology used to calculate the NCFA has been adjusted to better match Accurate. Under the NatHERS scheme, AccuRate is deemed to be the benchmark software against which all other software is measured in order to achieve NatHERS software accreditation.

The circumstances where the NCFA is not likely to match the addition of individual zone areas include multi level projects with horizontal openings and internal walls which do not line up between levels.

It is important to note that assessments in these circumstances remain fully compliant with the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme.
  

The NatHERS Group Certificate is for use with multi-unit developments (Class 2). FirstRate5 provides this at no extra charge. Just follow the steps below:

1. Produce individual certificates to represent all the units in the multi unit development.
2. Click on the View Group Certificates section in your online account.



3. Click on the Produce Group Certificate button.



4. Follow the on screen instructions. First, enter the common dwelling information.



5. Then select the relevant individual certificates to add to the Group Certificate. You have three different ways to select these: by address, by most recently produced certificates, or by manual selection.
 


6. Finally, review the contents of the Group Certificate before clicking on the Produce Group Certificate button.
 

Major versions, which generally contain significant enhancements, will now install beside previous versions of the software, eg. v5.2.7 will install beside v5.2.6. However, minor releases (or patches) which are denoted by a letter, will overwrite the previous version, eg. v5.2.3b will overwrite v5.2.3a. Patches are usually released to fix a bug in the previous version

If you are experiencing issues with FR5 running out of memory or FR5 seems slow, you can try the following:

• When starting up FR5, make sure there are no other software programs running. This will ensure the maximum amount of RAM memory is set aside for FR5 use. 
• Whilst using FR5, make sure there are no memory intensive programs running in the background.
• When you create a new project file and load in the PDF backgrounds, save the file and check the file size.
• If the ​project file size is above 10MB, background compression functionality was introduced  in FirstRate5 v5.3.0 (3.21) to allow users to compress the size of project backgrounds, use of the compression functionality can be seen in the introductory video for v5.3.0 here.  Alternatively, you can remove the PDF backgrounds and try to reduce the size of the PDF, then reload the edited PDF into ​your project file. You can do this by re-printing the PDF to a smaller size (eg. A1 to A3). Once you have reloaded the PDF into your project file you should double check the file size and ensure the resolution is okay to work with.
• Ensure you have a 64 bit version of Java rather than the 32 bit. This should vastly improve performance.​

The project file size is a direct result of the size of the PDF backgrounds that are imported.

Background compression functionality was introduced  in FirstRate5 v5.3.0 (3.21) to allow users to compress the size of project backgrounds, use of the compression functionality can be seen in the introductory video for v5.3.0 here. 

Alternatively, you can remove the PDF backgrounds and try to reduce the size of the PDF. You can do this by re-printing the PDF to a smaller page size A3/A4 with smaller DPI resolution, then reload the edited PDF into ​your project file.  Once you have reloaded the PDF into your project file you should double check the file size and ensure the resolution is okay to work with.

  

• Declaration not completed
• Declaration completed: no conflicts, is the same as selecting "No potential conflicts of interest to Declare" in older version of FR5. 
• Declared, refer to "Additional Notes" on page 2 - Please nominate any declaration of interest to the Additional Information Tab under the Project Tab as per below's example. This allows uses to enter in additional details in the free text field. This will also be displayed on the Universal Certificate on page 2.

1. After logging in to your account, click to edit your account details. Delete / edit your NatHERS accreditation number from the DMN/ABSA/HERA number field as appropriate and click Save.                                                                                                                                                  
2. Delete / edit the accreditation number from the Project tab of any file you subsequently wish to upload to your account.                 

If you have deleted your accreditation number any files uploaded subsequently will produce a Non-Accredited preview and final certificate. 
Any files uploaded prior to your removal of the NatHERS accreditation number will produce a NatHERS Certificate preview and final certificate.

Note: If you remove / edit your NatHERS accreditation number from your account, but not from the project file, and you subsequently attempt to upload this file, it will be rejected until you delete / edit the accreditation number from the Project tab.

You can recover a backup file by following steps to change a FR5 bak up file to a FR5 project file.

Step 1: Open Windows Explorer and Locate your the location of your bak up file. Make sure the "File name extension" is ticked on under the "View" settings.
 



Step 2: Right click on the file and select "Rename"



Step 3: Delete the .bak of the end of the name so the file extension is .frate and press enter. You will be prompted if you want to change the file extension. Select "Yes".



The project file can now be opened within FR5.

NatHERS requires that project files uploaded with an accompanying NatHERS accreditation number receive a certificate titled Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme Certificate. This is in colour and includes the NatHERS and NatHERS Star Rating logos.

Project files uploaded without an accompanying NatHERS accreditation number receive a certificate titled  House Energy Rating - Non Accredited. This is in black and white, does not include the NatHERS or NatHERS Star Rating logos, and includes other text changes.

In order to receive a Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme Certificate it is critical to complete the Assessor Name and NatHERS Accreditation Number fields in the Project tab of FirstRate5.

We recommend that all fields in the Project tab are completed and preview certificates are reviewed thoroughly before certificate purchase.