The NZ Green Building Council undertook detailed consultation into what its clients needed to assess embodied carbon. It has released a suite of tools to assist with measuring, verifying and comparing embodied emissions in new buildings and major refurbishments. “The built environment, including infrastructure, contributes 20% of New Zealand’s emissions,” it notes on the release page. “Reducing embodied carbon is …
Q&A with Jason: explain heating load vs demand
Q. What is the difference between heating demand and heating load and how is each measured? How do these numbers impact on Passive House certification? A. Both these numbers are important. Passive House certification sets an upper limit for both these metrics: breach both and you’ll miss out on certification. However, the point of measuring these two things is to …
Your clients must own the risk that goes with cost-cutting
How is risk allocated in the design of new buildings? Who benefits and who pays for it? This is at the crux of some very interesting conversations I’ve been having recently with designers and engineers on multiple projects. Sustainable Engineering has recommended particular solutions that carry almost no-risk. Yet the client doesn’t want to pay for best practice solutions and …
The slow switch to ISO standards in NZBC
New Zealand is slowly switching over to using ISO standards, at least for our building energy work and code in H1. The revised H1 switches to the following standards, so far: ISO10211, ISO10077-1/2 ISO13370 I expect that someday we will replace NZS4214 with ISO6946. I also suggest we explore adopting ISO standards under the “The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive …
Least cost, most benefit from jumping straight to Passive House performance
Something I learned from my dad growing up was to do something right … so you only had to do it once. When you do a half-arsed job, you often have to do it over again. I was reminded of this when Jonathan Holmes (VIA Architects) recently pointed out a great technical paper from the UK. It dates back from …
Passive House in NZ: certification and rate of uptake rising
Sustainable Engineering is often asked how many PHI certified Passive House buildings there are in New Zealand. So a while back, we added a counter to our website here. We were recently asked about how the rate of uptake is changing. Like a good engineer, I answered the question with a graph: Interesting! I have provided lines for total projects …
Exceptional airtightness results achieved
We’re aware builders are competing to get the lowest air leakage results (well below the 0.6 ACHn50 Passive House requirement). It’s good fun: we have some great Passive House builders with considerable experience and commitment and they deserve the spotlight. So who has achieved the lowest blower door test results in New Zealand? There are currently three certified Passive House …
RIBA Passivhaus Overlay is essential reading
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has produced an extremely well done resource that will be very helpful for New Zealand Passive House designers and architects too. The Passivhaus Overlay document offers guidance on how to implement Passive House design through each stage of works. Some excellent graphics have been created (below), illustrating how deeply integrating Passive House processes …
Owners loving Bushland Park’s first Passive House homes
Bushland Park set out to be New Zealand’s first Passive House subdivision and builders Ethos Homes boldly built the first two homes on spec. The build went smoothly but the two homes’ auction date coincided with a stalled housing market and a glut of ordinary but shiny homes coming up for sale in Christchurch. Since then, house prices have fallen …