The Public Health Summer School symposium on 11 February will be eye-opening and I recommend you attend. This is the team that made the Healthy Home Guidelines a political reality and now they have turned their attention to fixing the Building Code, exploring the mutual benefits that flow from designing for energy efficiency, carbon mitigation and health. I attended the …
Chapman Tripp – Legal opinion – October 2019 This is pretty intense when you realise the implications of this legal opinion. Directors of companies and/or investment schemes have a ‘legal duty of care’ to the price in climate-related financial risk. This applies in the case where a business directly depends on the climate itself, like farming, as well as a …
Profitable carbon savings through better buildings … it’s a strategy we hear about more and more. I love hearing all these policy options: but I hope that the changes proposed are big steps that focus on achieving zero carbon by 2050 and not short-term reductions focused on say, 30 per cent by 2030. We must avoid “locking-in” carbon emissions by …
In my opinion, the energy provisions in H1 are not fit for purpose. As Kylie Mills writes, “To make buildings better … the quickest way is for regulations to change.” She goes on to quote Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council (ASBEC): “Improved energy performance of buildings presents a win-win-win opportunity, reducing stress on the electricity network, offering bill savings, supporting …
I was happy to accept the TWO awards for Thermadura (Dunedin) and SEDA (Auckland) for their certified timber aluminium window systems. This is an incredibly competitive event and I was proud NZ manufactures scored two out of the four awards for the warm, temperate climate. Details of the competition and links below: “The 1st Prize Timber Aluminium in warm, temperate …
A certain friend of mine from Canada pointed out to me late last week that the only exemption for requiring a fixed heater in the main living room-sized per the heating capacity calculator are Certified Passive House or certain Living Building Challenge buildings. See the text from the act: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2019/0088/latest/whole.html#LMS167196 11 Exemption for certified passive buildings (1) The main …
“Most developers will choose to build to minimum standards,” says Palmer. Architect Justin Bere, a Passivhaus specialist who has written a book on the subject, echoes this. “It’s very difficult for an ethical developer to do anything differently in the current climate,” he argues. “They (developers) are buying in competition with people who just want to achieve the absolute minimum …
List of all the current air leakage testers in New Zealand accredited with ATTMA. Air leakage testing very tight buildings (as they all should be build tight and ventilate right is a thing after all) can be tricky and the right training makes it much easier. We recommend for your Passive House blower door test: Air leakage testing is done …
We’ll be at the conference in Sydney and teaching a workshop beforehand as well. Read more on this link.
