29 March 2019 Stuff’s Hamis McNeilly: Former refugee family placed in damp Dunedin home feels abandoned

You would think this is rare and something that you need to go looking for but it is not abnormal in NZ The windows of the North East Valley flat stay...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Apr 2019

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MVHR commissioning in Certified Passive House Buildings (includes PHI Low Energy Building Standard and EnerPHit as well)

In order to certify your building as meeting the exacting Passive House Standard the certification standard “Criteria for the Passive House, EnerPHit and PHI Low Energy Building Standard, version 9f,...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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21 March 2019 Scoop: Coastal Home for Sale Provides the Best in Energy Efficiency

“A Beachlands house, the first Passive House Plus in New Zealand to be awarded a 10 Homestar built rating, has been put on the market for sale.Built in 2014, the...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Apr 2019

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21 March 2019 The Fifth Estate’s David Thorpe: Ways to finance deep energy retrofits from around the world

This is a good top level summary of efforts around the world to do deep energy retrofits. These deep retrofits are one way to approach the fundamental issue of lock-in....

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Apr 2019

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Future climate considerations in Passive House Planning Package (PHPP)

Passive House Institute has released a climate morphing tool for use in examining future climates and building resilience. I’m particularly fond of this approach which simply takes an increased summer...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Oct 2019

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28 February 2019 The Gisborne Herald: Real Health Difference

“I remember a young family who had about seven children, who told us they would often be taking a child to hospital at least once a week, due to the...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2019

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27 February 2019 Warm Healthy Homes Related Blogs

With the government finally raising the standard for existing homes in an attempt to lower the horrible health impacts for tenants of cold homes there has been quite a bit...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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27 February 2019 Scoop: New healthy homes standards are just the beginning

We have a lot of homes to fix in NZ and Sustainability Trust is estimating that “100,000 rentals will be exempt from installing insulation due to the cost of accessing...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2019

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26 February 2019 Scoop: New Rental Housing Standards put improving health outcomes

“There is clear evidence to support minimum standards for indoor temperatures” “Housing quality has a tremendous impact on our health and wellbeing.” Content by Scoop....

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2019

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21 February 2019 The Fifth Estate’s Willow Aliento: Passive House and Three Deep Dives: Phil Harris, Erwin Boermans, Daniel Kress

Good responses and ones I’ve heard in New Zealand as well. Change our building code in NZ to be equivalent to Passive House in a stepwise fashion; allowing the industry...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Feb 2019

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20 February 2019 Stuff’s Virginia Fallon: At least 16 years of leaks revealed for Kapiti library now closed due to mold

“At least 16 years of leaks, and months of staff health concerns, preceded the closure of a Kāpiti Coast library due to dangerous mould.Despite visible white mould, dripping walls, rotting...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Feb 2019

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PHPP Version 9.6 has now been tested pursuant to ASHRAE 140

“PHPP Version 9.6 has now been tested pursuant to ASHRAE 140, which qualifies it as an acceptable energy modelling software under a variety of regulatory systems”   This means that...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2019

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20 February 2019 Envirotecture: South Pacific Passive House Conference 2019

The South Pacific Passive House Conference in Wellington was epic and is going to help move the bar with high performance building in New Zealand and Australia. Andy pulled together...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2019

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TVNZ RENEWSNZ video on Passive House

The video can be viewed at https://www.facebook.com/renewsnz/videos/252930218953512/ “These houses are heated and cooled for the same price as running your fridge. It’s called a passive house, and its secret is...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Feb 2019

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15 February 2019 Home Style Green’s Matthew Cutler-Welsh: From Rocket Science to Building Science

“House supply is pretty complicated” “The housing market is designed to maximise profit, not to maximise the number of houses built.” This was a really fun interview and folks continue...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Feb 2019

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14 February 2019 The Fifth Estate’s Nick Lane: The case for passive homes as a national standard

“The energy policies and building standards that govern our homes need to keep us comfortable and limit global warming. Passive house, a rigorous building standard for ultra-low energy buildings, ticks...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Feb 2019

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07 February 2019 RNZ: Passive houses: warm, dry and sustainable, so why not more?

“If you just take Passive House technologies and just smack (them) into a building without doing modeling and knowing how it’s going to work you can actually cause some problems”...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2019

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04 Feb 2019 Pure Design’s Grant Watson: The Minimum Standard

“For those who don’t know, the New Zealand Building Code is the minimum standard for a new building in New Zealand. Just read that again slowly….”the…..min…i…mum…standard”!” “The true answer is...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Jun 2019

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