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26 October 2018 Passive House Plus’ Kate de Selincourt: Performance gap much smaller for passive homes, research finds

This report reviewed detailed test measurements for air tightness and heating loads for passive houses and non-passive houses designed to meet an energy target. From this data the Passive Houses...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Nov 2018

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10 October 2018 Crux Kerrie Waterworth: Why do we still build the wrong houses?

“I like to build for people, not for profit”. Quote from Isaac Davidson “If we’ve got a subdivision of 1600 new homes to build, you have to ask is it...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Jun 2019

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11 October 2018 Now To Love: Congratulations Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman – NEXT Woman of the Year 2018!

Our congratulations to Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman as well. I’ve had the opportunity to meet and hear her important research on the direct relation between really bad housing and bad health in...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Oct 2018

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9 October 2017 AIRAH: Improving the energy efficiency of residential climate control systems

Newly released standard AS/NZS 5141:2018 Residential heating and cooling systems – Minimum applications and requirements for energy efficiency, performance and comfort criteria Specifies requirements for the design, selection, installation, commissioning...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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The Four Control Layers – Fundamentals of Building Science

The Building Enclosure and the Four Control Layers   Understanding of the building enclosure and the four control layers that make up the building enclosure is vital to understanding how...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Jun 2021

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Passive House social housing at no extra cost – that’s the plan for Melbourne project

Recently came across the great article on Passive House social housing planned at no extra cost in Melbourne, Australia from early last year. I’m looking forward to hearing about this...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Oct 2018

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SE Certification Platform Checklist

Sustainable Engineering Ltd. provides client certification resources to help them with their certification process. The attached link to the PDF is a list of all the different entries of the...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Jun 2021

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Calling All Passive House Builders

I’m helping to set up a session of hands on builders to each speak for 5 minutes at the next Passive House Conference in Wellington (9th and 10th of February). The concept...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Sep 2018

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20 September 2018 Passivhaus is affordable and effective, why isn’t it legislated?

This well written article reminds us that buildings in Australia (and NZ as well) are a large contribution to our CO2 emissions and we have the skills needed to significantly...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Sep 2018

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14 June 2018 BRANZ Transition to Low Carbon Built Environment by 2050

I was a bit disappointed reading this brief workshop report as the conclusions are very cautious. It started strong by reviewed some epic keynote points like ice free summers at...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Sep 2018

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06 September 2018 David Hargreaves argues that what is missing from the Government’s Healthy Homes initiative is a long-term plan to modernise all of New Zealand’s housing stock

This article is great. The author actually gets the obvious limitations built into this government act. Even if NZ chose the top option of all those offered we wouldn’t have...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Sep 2018

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04 September 2018 SunLive: Healthy Homes Proposals Made Public

I’m glad to see that this is finally out for public comment. Although this article focuses on Rental Housing I see these issues with owner occupied and brand new housing...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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04 September 2018 Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment: Healthy Homes Standards Consultation

The discussion document is great and offers several options but in my brief look thus far, none of the options considered would make 99% of rentals warm healthy homes. The...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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04 September 2018 Stuff’s Damian George and Thomas Manch: New rules proposed to bring rental homes up to adequate health standards

This is an excellent summary of the MBIE proposed discussion document and the options proposed. I know how bad NZ buildings can be in terms of basic moisture management and...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Sep 2018

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Australian Passive House Association first bi-annual Sydney Symposium Wednesday 26th September 2018

This has some great speakers and should really push high performance building forward in Sydney. I’d especially like to hear the breakfast panel discussion on “transitioning to a zero carbon...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Sep 2018

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28 August 2018 Stuff’s Hamish Mcneilly: Council confirms six-figure support of NZ’s second co-housing project

Excellent but brief article on an awesome multi-family project that is targeting the Certified Passive House standard. I remember being asked to estimate the work involved in certification and then...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2018

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27 August 2018 The Guardian’s Damian Carrington and Lily Kuo: Air pollution causes ‘huge’ reduction in intelligence, study reveals

So air pollution is not only stupid but makes you stupid especially if you are male and older. Wow! Sometimes you can’t make this stuff up. This article in The...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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23 August 2018 The Fifth State: On why ethics is the thing we most need and is sadly in short supply

This article starts by reminding us of the finance industries poor ethical practices of charging dead people fees but soon moves on to the similarly un-ethical dilemmas in how we...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2018

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