Dr Kara Rosemeier has personally trained and certified almost every Passive House professional in New Zealand and her influence cannot be overstated. Kara is preparing for a gradual retirement and to this end, her Passive House Academy New Zealand (PHANZ) is joining forces with Sustainable Engineering Ltd. The new training entity will honour the historic relationship with Te Whare Korou …
We need accurate planning tools
The UK’s first net zero energy bills have been introduced by several English councils as part of their response to the climate emergency. That’s good. These requirements need to be measured so they can be enforced. SAP 10 (Standard Assessment Procedure) is what they use to show building code compliance in England and Wales, for new dwellings and major renovations. …
Jason Quinn in Wellington speaking on high-performance glazing
Jason Quinn will be speaking in Wellington on 7 November on the latest developments in high-performance glazing. The industry event, hosted by Metro Performance Glass, is on the waterfront, with drinks, nibbles and CPD points all available. The Sustainable Engineering team has been consulting for various local window manufacturers, including Metro, so Jason has data at his fingertips. He’ll talk …
Makeup air in a Passive House
Here’s a good summary on make up air for rangehoods, from HVAC consultants and designers at Energy Vanguard. It’s worth reading in full. The quick summary goes like this: Good kitchen cooktop installs position the cooking hood against a wall, and it fully covers the cooktop. In such a case, 125 L/s or 425 m3/hr is sufficient for a normal …
Passive House design training relaunches, on-demand format
New Zealand needs more Passive Houses—and other buildings heading in that high-performance direction. That requires more confident and skilled Passive House designers. Sustainable Engineering last year launched a new training course, designed to make the Passive House design process more practical, predictable and straightforward for the designer, architect, builder and client. The course was very well-received and now it’s back, …
Detailed LCA resource available
The Buildings and Communities Programme (EBC*) has just published a huge resource of LCA work focused on buildings in Europe. The focus of the research are heavyweight buildings powered by a grid that is less clean than New Zealand’s. I’m not sure how New Zealand’s metrics for embodied carbon emissions across the different stock levels will be set. It becomes …
MVHR inlet/extract positions
There’s some new advice available about locating the air inlets and exhausts in MVHR systems. If you’re a Passive House designer or otherwise involved in high-performance building, it’s important to keep up with the technical changes, as best you can. ASHRAE’s latest publication* has pulled together research and studies (including CFD work) in order to offer advice on the location …
TFA or CFA? The difference matters
Anyone who notices there are fewer biscuits in a packet that is outwardly the same size has encountered shrinkflation. Same price, but nine chocolate biccies instead of 11 means 18% less treats for your money. It’s not lying but it is confusing. We’ve got to watch out for shrinkflation in relation to building performance. A Passive House designer recently claimed …
Understand thermal implications of underfloor heating
Embedded under-floor heating is a luxurious way of keeping a house warm. You may encounter clients who hate heat pumps and who aren’t deterred by the cost of under-floor heating. But there’s some implications for a high-performance design that architects/designers must be aware of. Passive House buildings by definition have a very low heating demand. Heating the slab is an …