NZ Tax Credit for Research & Design uses designing to meet Passive House energy standard as an example of something that is known “and there is no scientific or technological uncertainty in” designing to meet the standard. “Case Study R&D eligibility” “Example ineligible R&D based on existing knowledge Mike and Fulia design and build houses. In response to market demand, …
“Installing insulation in a house can have a 6:1 cost benefit ratio for the very young and the very old – these people are our most vulnerable, and they spend the most time indoors,” said Dr Jeff Brown, NZ President of the RACP and a paediatrician at Palmerston North Hospital. “I see young children ending up in hospital suffering from …
“One of the barriers was a lack of knowledge about the home’s defects, or “believing the property [was] in better condition than it objectively is”. That’s easy enough to do – when you don’t live in it. The paper’s authors suggested that tougher laws might be enough to force the necessary improvements, and that’s what this Healthy Homes legislation sets …
Measured careful and structured approach to internal insulation retrofits for historic facades. It can be done but it needs to be done well the first time (or done over again soon). From an engineering and science point of view the insulation on the exterior is much easier. These particular retrofits work with interior insulation as the intermediate floors and roof …
See: http://www.peelpassivehouse.ca/resources.html “This study explores the Canadian and European energy standards for household appliances that are modelled for Passive House compliance in PHPP for residential buildings. An excel tool PHPP Appliance Input Calculator has also been developed to help PHPP Users extract data from EnerGuide or ENERGY STAR appliance labels and calculate an input that can be used in the Electricity worksheet of …
Good summary of healthy homes via indoor environmental quality — starting with healthy indoor air. “Home is where the heart is. It’s a figurative expression but it’s literal too because it’s actually where your heart is spending a majority of its time,” said one of the report’s lead authors, Joe Allen, who heads the School’s Healthy Buildings program. “The home influences heart health, …
The below guides are from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and summarize and simplify the public health science into simple recommendations with links to peer-reviewed journal articles for building science geeks to dig into the research and technical details. This first one focuses on your home and what you can do. I can quibble about a few …
For those of us designing Passive House we can all rejoice in the release of the official PHI guidance on kitchen extractor hoods and how to consider the heat losses in their use. To my knowledge there is reason to believe that a good recirculating hood can be better than a poorly performing extractor hood in removing fine particles. I’m …
What’s the absolute legal minimum in NZ – no worse or legally it’s not a house. For new buildings it is whatever your team can sneak past council under the guise of meeting the NZBC minimums but at least someone is checking something. For existing buildings what is the minimum? Hope you don’t consider NZ Building Code a target. Landlords …
