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27 February 2019 Scoop: New healthy homes standards are just the beginning

We have a lot of homes to fix in NZ and Sustainability Trust is estimating that “100,000 rentals will be exempt from installing insulation due to the cost of accessing...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2019

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26 February 2019 Scoop: New Rental Housing Standards put improving health outcomes

“There is clear evidence to support minimum standards for indoor temperatures” “Housing quality has a tremendous impact on our health and wellbeing.” Content by Scoop....

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2019

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21 February 2019 The Fifth Estate’s Willow Aliento: Passive House and Three Deep Dives: Phil Harris, Erwin Boermans, Daniel Kress

Good responses and ones I’ve heard in New Zealand as well. Change our building code in NZ to be equivalent to Passive House in a stepwise fashion; allowing the industry...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Feb 2019

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20 February 2019 Stuff’s Virginia Fallon: At least 16 years of leaks revealed for Kapiti library now closed due to mold

“At least 16 years of leaks, and months of staff health concerns, preceded the closure of a Kāpiti Coast library due to dangerous mould.Despite visible white mould, dripping walls, rotting...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Feb 2019

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15 February 2019 Home Style Green’s Matthew Cutler-Welsh: From Rocket Science to Building Science

“House supply is pretty complicated” “The housing market is designed to maximise profit, not to maximise the number of houses built.” This was a really fun interview and folks continue...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Feb 2019

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14 February 2019 The Fifth Estate’s Nick Lane: The case for passive homes as a national standard

“The energy policies and building standards that govern our homes need to keep us comfortable and limit global warming. Passive house, a rigorous building standard for ultra-low energy buildings, ticks...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Feb 2019

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07 February 2019 RNZ: Passive houses: warm, dry and sustainable, so why not more?

“If you just take Passive House technologies and just smack (them) into a building without doing modeling and knowing how it’s going to work you can actually cause some problems”...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2019

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04 Feb 2019 Pure Design’s Grant Watson: The Minimum Standard

“For those who don’t know, the New Zealand Building Code is the minimum standard for a new building in New Zealand. Just read that again slowly….”the…..min…i…mum…standard”!” “The true answer is...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Jun 2019

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31 January 2019 Consumer’s James le Page: Fixing the New Zealand Building Code

“Each newly built house that that only just meets our meagre Building Code potentially leaves the new and successive owners living in uncomfortable, unhealthy conditions.  “ “Having proper ventilation is...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Feb 2019

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30 January 2019 Wellington. Scoop: Overheating in your new home – yes you should check

High performance homes are designed to use the least amount of energy possible to keep the occupants comfortable and healthy. We carefully select the windows their shading and details of...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Feb 2019

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29 January 2019 Scoop: Insulation boost means more warm dry homes

Good to see after all the research that has been done about poor quality of housing impacts on health that the government is up to speed. Now we need to:...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Feb 2019

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29 January 2019 Boston Green Ribbon Commission’s Miriam Wasser: Boston aims to be carbon-free by 2050. Here are 5 takeaways from a new report

NZ is in the lucky position to already have a significant ~80% of our energy from renewables. Given that and lacking a full engineering analysis city-by-city report we can tell...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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22 January 2019 The FIfth Estate’s David Thorpe: Graphene stars in Passivhaus retrofit of Victorian townhouses

Great article but horrible title. The wonder material graphene is added to the paint as an anti-cracking additive. Neat but totally doesn’t impact the performance of this Passivhaus. Also great...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Jan 2019

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19 November 2018 The Green List’s The Fern: These Redfern apartments will change your life, and save a motza

Ouch. “Even for supposedly sustainable houses and apartments. The rating tools are good he says, but their problem is “too much greenwash”, not enough post-occupancy evaluation, and an almost “criminally”...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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2018 December 01 Build Magazine’s Manfred Plagmann: Mould, occupants and house condition

Air control layers are critical to warm healthy homes. Paying for a second brand new roof on a building should not be common to homes or commercial buildings. More ventilation...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Jan 2019

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23 October 2018 ArchDaily: Sri Lanka Passive House / JPDA

Certified Passive House is not only for cold climates but that is still where you find most of them. This Certified Passive House Factory is located in Sri Lanka which...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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17 December 2018 Otago Daily Times: Passive housing standard for hall

This central community hall has the potential to shift the viewpoint on building quality and performance in Queenstown district. “Deputy Mayor Calum MacLeod described it as “futuristic thinking” for the...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Dec 2018

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11 December 2018 The Fifth Estate: Technology and prefab could change the game for housing construction

It is interesting to see how Passive House has become the reference point. In this article break-through prefabricated housing is associated with quality by being pretty good but not quite....

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Dec 2018

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