Image

Passive House social housing at no extra cost – that’s the plan for Melbourne project

Recently came across the great article on Passive House social housing planned at no extra cost in Melbourne, Australia from early last year. I’m looking forward to hearing about this...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Oct 2018

  • Current Events
    /
Read More

SE Certification Platform Checklist

Sustainable Engineering Ltd. provides client certification resources to help them with their certification process. The attached link to the PDF is a list of all the different entries of the...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Jun 2021

  • Certification Guidance
    /
  • Technical Notes
    /
Read More
Image

Calling All Passive House Builders

I’m helping to set up a session of hands on builders to each speak for 5 minutes at the next Passive House Conference in Wellington (9th and 10th of February). The concept...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Sep 2018

  • Current Events
    /
Read More
Image

20 September 2018 Passivhaus is affordable and effective, why isn’t it legislated?

This well written article reminds us that buildings in Australia (and NZ as well) are a large contribution to our CO2 emissions and we have the skills needed to significantly...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Sep 2018

  • Current Events
    /
Read More
Image

14 June 2018 BRANZ Transition to Low Carbon Built Environment by 2050

I was a bit disappointed reading this brief workshop report as the conclusions are very cautious. It started strong by reviewed some epic keynote points like ice free summers at...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Sep 2018

  • Current Events
    /
Read More
Image

06 September 2018 David Hargreaves argues that what is missing from the Government’s Healthy Homes initiative is a long-term plan to modernise all of New Zealand’s housing stock

This article is great. The author actually gets the obvious limitations built into this government act. Even if NZ chose the top option of all those offered we wouldn’t have...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Sep 2018

  • Current Events
    /
Read More
Image

04 September 2018 SunLive: Healthy Homes Proposals Made Public

I’m glad to see that this is finally out for public comment. Although this article focuses on Rental Housing I see these issues with owner occupied and brand new housing...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

  • Current Events
    /
Read More
Image

04 September 2018 Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment: Healthy Homes Standards Consultation

The discussion document is great and offers several options but in my brief look thus far, none of the options considered would make 99% of rentals warm healthy homes. The...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

  • Current Events
    /
Read More
Image

04 September 2018 Stuff’s Damian George and Thomas Manch: New rules proposed to bring rental homes up to adequate health standards

This is an excellent summary of the MBIE proposed discussion document and the options proposed. I know how bad NZ buildings can be in terms of basic moisture management and...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Sep 2018

  • Current Events
    /
Read More
Image

Australian Passive House Association first bi-annual Sydney Symposium Wednesday 26th September 2018

This has some great speakers and should really push high performance building forward in Sydney. I’d especially like to hear the breakfast panel discussion on “transitioning to a zero carbon...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Sep 2018

  • Current Events
    /
Read More
Image

28 August 2018 Stuff’s Hamish Mcneilly: Council confirms six-figure support of NZ’s second co-housing project

Excellent but brief article on an awesome multi-family project that is targeting the Certified Passive House standard. I remember being asked to estimate the work involved in certification and then...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2018

  • Current Events
    /
Read More
Image

27 August 2018 The Guardian’s Damian Carrington and Lily Kuo: Air pollution causes ‘huge’ reduction in intelligence, study reveals

So air pollution is not only stupid but makes you stupid especially if you are male and older. Wow! Sometimes you can’t make this stuff up. This article in The...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

  • Current Events
    /
Read More
Image

23 August 2018 The Fifth State: On why ethics is the thing we most need and is sadly in short supply

This article starts by reminding us of the finance industries poor ethical practices of charging dead people fees but soon moves on to the similarly un-ethical dilemmas in how we...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2018

  • Current Events
    /
Read More
Image

22 August 2018 The Fifth State’s Willow Aliento: Support urgently needed for Storer’s bill to make rental housing bearable in extremes

This bill is about tax treatments; to encourage property owners with low cost rentals to invest in energy efficiency – especially the building fabric. But from my perspective the point...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2018

  • Current Events
    /
Read More

22 August 2018 The Spinoff’s Ethan Donnell: Mould, sweet mould inside New Zealand’s damp housing crisis

  I see mouldy houses quite a bit in my work but this Spinoff article still shocks me with the impacts on occupants. Most of the bad buildings in this...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2018

  • Current Events
    /
Read More

Case Studies on Certified Passive House Projects – example Kowhai Passive House

Sustainable Engineering is putting together a page on all of the New Zealand Certified Passive House Projects. We will start with projects we have certified ourselves and then add in...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2018

  • Current Events
    /
Read More
Image

16 August 2018 The Fifth Estate – Melbourne’s proposed Green Spine “could be benchmarked to Passive House standard”

This past March at the Passive House Conference in Munich, Germany, I had the opportunity to meet with Dieter Herz of Herz and Lang. One of the founding members of a...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2018

  • Current Events
    /
Read More

15 August 2018 The Guardian’s Bob Ward: Planning regulations overlook heat – so developers build death traps

  “Heat deaths are preventable. No more excuses: we need better regulation and guidance to stop unsafe housing being built” If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail. If...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2018

  • Current Events
    /
Read More