2019 October 7 Stuff: Regulation Needed To Push Owners To Reduce Fossil Fuels In Buildings, Expert Says

2019 October 5 Stuff: Regulation Needed To Push Owners To Reduce Fossil Fuels In Buildings, Expert Says

“Government regulation will be needed to achieve net-zero carbon buildings says architectural engineering professor Larry Bellamy.” Let’s hope those regulations are good ones that take building physics into account and...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2020

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2019 October 1 Build: Energy Poverty In New Zealand

Paying utility bills is a stretch for many New Zealand households. As we move to a low-carbon economy, a raft of measures may be necessary to ensure that energy costs...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2020

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2019 September 30 Passive Houses on Energy Efficiency

80-90% heating energy reduction (well for those that could afford to heat their homes) saves energy, CO2 and costs less over the lifespan of the building than building to the...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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2019 September 24 Newsroom: Builders Release Ambitious Zero Carbon Roadmap

2019 September 24 Newsroom: Builders Release Ambitious Zero Carbon Roadmap

Several parties in the NZ high-performance building sector have been working on big meaningful changes to the way we build and all of us agree the winning combination is to...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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2019 September 23 Scoop: Healthy Homes Initiative Evaluation Positive

2019 September 23 Scoop: Healthy Homes Initiative Evaluation Positive

This is a significant reduction in trips to the hospital for children. I wish we had an easy way to price this into building standards and made our buildings better...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2020

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2019 September 20 Stuff: Former Stable Master's Cottage Rebuilt As Certified Passive House

2019 September 20 Stuff: Former Stable Master’s Cottage Rebuilt (and targeting) Certified Passive House

The owner of Mona Vale’s former Stable Master’s Cottage got carried away when he visited Christchurch four years ago – he fell in love with an “as is, where is”...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2020

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2019 September 18 Queenstown Lakes District: Design Team Appointed For District’s First Passive House-Standard Community Building

Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) endorsed an ultra-low energy ‘Passive House’ concept for the new hall late last year. Since then, Council officers have been working to turn this aspiration...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2020

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2019 September 9 Building Green: People Want a Greener Future but Don’t Know How to Get There

“Perhaps most disappointing for building professionals were responses about the impact of green building on the environment, people, and communities. “Only 11% of respondents associate words like ‘green building’ and...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2020

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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...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Sep 2019

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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...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2019

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15 August 2019 News Hub’s Mel Logan & Dan Satherley: Damp, mouldy homes blamed for high rate of kids with respiratory infections

1600 extra death per year 20% of serious respiratory infections prevented. Seems like warm dry healthy homes would cheaper than what we do now. Content by News Hub....

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2019

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12 August 2019: Seriously the mould is a design flaw not the tenant

Humorous comment that matches my maxim of buildings should be durable without requiring crazy intervention from the occupants. I still remember one of mates telling me the reason for mould...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2019

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27 July 2019 NZ Herald: Kids doing it tough in winter

“A two-year-old born prematurely with a chronic lung condition has been hospitalised multiple times this year. Part of the problem is that the child is sleeping on a damp mattress…”...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Jul 2019

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08 July 2019 Stuff’s Ellen O’Dwyer: Cold and ill but bill puts heat pump off limits

-3C – barely insulated house and no heating. The cost of electricity and line charges in that area is wild but so is running a unflued portable propane heater inside...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Jul 2019

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29 June 2019 Otago Daily Times’ Kim Dungey: Homely as it gets

Great article on the Hawera Passive House build that is the first in New Zealand to target the Passive House Premium build. We are looking forward to reviewing the final...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Jul 2019

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2019 June 19 New Energy Economy: World’s First Certified Passive House Car Dealership

This building is pretty incredible. Most Passive House buildings can change the form (the external shape) and use less glass to meet the performance standard, but that wasn’t an option...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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PH Window Installs

Window installs watch Florian and Skyler install a Passive House window into a home. Notice the good explanation of the aluminium cut back distance to allow over insulation of the...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: May 2019

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Certified Passive House design required for Queenstown Luggate Memorial Hall

Although this media release doesn’t mention it the Queenstown Lakes District Council has been methodically reviewing the costs and benefits of Passive House for some time. After this review and...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Apr 2019

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