Consulting with building component manufacturers to help them make good products even better is a favourite activity for the Sustainable Engineering team. Lunds Joinery, a highly-regarded family-owned company in Timaru, approached us to do some window calculations for their standard timber profiles. Lunds incorporated the fRSI calculations and Uf data into a new publication, the LJT Timber Window Guide, which …
Loopholes in H1 changes?
To be clear folks: H1/AS1 housing changes apply to all housing, even apartment buildings of any size**. BPI (Building Performance Index) is no longer a permitted compliance method. Curtain walls are included in the R-value requirements (no change) per either H1/AS1 or H1/AS2—but need to be calculated by ISO12631. Lots of folks seem to be focused on pointing out loop-holes …
NZ “outsulation” guide now available
Now available: the Outsulation Guide for High Performance Walls, brought to you by Outright, suppliers of continuous insulation. Sustainable Engineering provided the thermal modelling calculations and I enjoyed the discussions we’ve had about applications. This guide focuses on external insulation (“outsulation”, get it?) of walls with a focus on residential applications. Download a free copy here. I’ve been asked to …
Energy efficiency will improve
Today we have it: the new H1 has been released. I no longer need to keep it all secret and can finally talk about the new energy efficiency requirements. Note there is a year’s lag before these come into effect (“adjustment period”). Just get on with it, I say to the heel-draggers. As MBIE says, “the changes go as far …
Airtight building resources
Here’s an excellent resource on planning, training, mocking-up and doing QA on an airtight building project. It’s very graphical and has great links to even more resources. There’s video as well for those who like moving pictures. Haven’t heard of ZEBx? No surprises, it comes out of Vancouver, that northern beacon of best practice for zero-emission and high-performance building. In …
Homestar V5 a huge improvement
The just-released Homestar V5 tool is going to lift the performance of homes using the NZ Green Building Council (NZGBC) rating system because the PHPP software is now the engine under the hood. We’re super-excited, just as you’d expect from building science geeks! We’re also a bit proud, because the Sustainable Engineering team was involved in developing the improved tool. …
Generic slab edges default should be B’/2=2m
A slab edge is one of the most common thermal bridges we see in New Zealand. In a traditional timber framed building on a concrete slab, the perimeter thermal bridge will often have a large impact. “ISO13370: Thermal performance of buildings — Heat transfer via the ground — Calculation methods” provides the steps to calculate it and take into account …
Join US expert on marketing PH to homeowners
I’m looking forward to this seminar on how to effectively market Passive House and encourage those working on and designing Passive Houses to attend. This Zoom seminar is hosted by the Passive House Academy New Zealand on 29 June 2021 at 11am. It features John Oppermann, a US real estate agent (and executive director of the Earth Day Initiative), who …
HPCD summaries released by BRANZ
If you haven’t already reviewed the technical draft of our High-Performance Construction Details (HPCD) Handbook, BRANZ has just published two great summaries that pull out the high-performance wall and roof assemblies (elements). The wall elements from the HPCD Handbook are summarised with the results reproduced in BU660 Residential walls with high thermal performance. The roof elements from the HPCD Handbook …