We’ll be at the conference in Sydney and teaching a workshop beforehand as well. Read more on this link.
2019 September 16 Otago Daily Times: Made of Straw
Great to see the progress Jessica and Ben are making on their Passive House. Once you have lowered the energy consumption of a home down to Passive House standard the embodied CO2 in the building becomes a reasonable fraction (1/4th is a good estimate) and straw bale and lime/clay plaster is one way to significantly reduce this. Can’t wait to …
2019 September 13 Exeter City Council: “Incredibly impressed” by Exeter’s energy efficient homes
“Gareth Hughes, MP, self-funded a fact-finding trip to Exeter to find out about the city’s Passivhaus programme. He was keen to see how it could be replicated back home.” “To date, the City Council has built 67 Passivhaus properties, with more energy-efficient properties in the pipeline. Even the eagerly-awaited St Sidwell’s Point Leisure Centre will be built to Passivhaus standards, …
2019 September 11 HVAC&R News: Concerns over cold-housing deaths
Cold houses kill people. “Better Renting has released a report that estimates low-quality housing causes approximately 140 cold-related deaths per year in the ACT. The report is titled Unsafe as Houses: Cold-housing deaths in the ACT, and compares temperature data with statistics on monthly deaths from 2009–17.” According to RMIT University’s Dr Nicola Willand, over a quarter of a million older …
29 August 2019 NZ Herald’s Anne Gibson: Why a Henderson mother won $13k from her landlords: 22 separate issues at rental property
“A house with leaking and damaged gutters, rotting window frames, illegal stairs, a sagging and mouldy ceiling, rotting weatherboards, a rotten toilet floor and exposed electrical board have earned a stiff penalty for the landlords who rented it out.” “Landlords Ross and Sally Craigie must pay tenant Bjana Thompson $13,020.44 for breaching the Residential Tenancies Act by failing to maintain …
Oppose NASH as AS for E2 as it doesn’t cover external insulation
And putting batts between light steel framing is not a good option as discussed below. https://www.mbie.govt.nz/have-your-say/building-code-update-consultation-november-2019 The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has found that thermal bridging in a wood-framed wall lowers the effectiveness of cavity insulation by 10%, but performance drops a whopping 55% in a wall framed with steel. https://www.buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-005-a-bridge-too-far “But from a hygrothermal standpoint, I can only add …
27 August 2019 The Fifth Estate’s Poppy Johnston: NSW gets its first Certified Passive House homes
Congratulations to Joe Mercieca of Blue Eco Homes for Sapphire Passive House in the Blue Mountains and Andy Marlow of Envirotecture for the Thornleigh house. The article states that “The certification of these two buildings brings the total number of Passive House Certified buildings in Australia to 18. ” with a “a pipeline of hundreds of Passive House buildings in various …
19 August 2019 BMJ Journals: Damp mouldy housing and early childhood hospital admissions for acute respiratory infection: a case control study
Damp mouldy housing and early childhood hospital admissions for acute respiratory infection: a case control study Bottom line for the Wellington Region alone 1710 hospitalizations per year for children under 2 years old would be prevented if all housing were free from damp and mould!! “This paper presents the largest ever case–control study of the association between housing quality and hospital …
19 August 2019 SunLive: Crank up the heat on someone’s winter
Yes sometimes even sick folks living in cold homes don’t realize how it impacts their health. “Two weeks ago, the temperature dropped to zero or one degrees inland where a woman with cancer was living. Her nights were a struggle, her breathing was laboured and each day she woke up exhausted. Healthy Homes chatted with her about the importance of …