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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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13 August 2018 Otago Daily Times – Warm and Cosy Homes Essential for Everyone

This article from the Otago Daily Times is pretty shocking. It’s amazing to feel the scale of the problem when you think about one-third of all the hospital missions due...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Aug 2018

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Passive House Climate Files for NZ

As of 13 December 2017 there are six additional PHI certified climate files for NZ. These now cover all of NZ including the Chatham Islands. It is important to note...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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WUFI

Hygrothermal modeling with WUFI Sustainable Engineering can perform hygrothermal modeling of your proposed assemblies using WUFI one or two dimensional software. Quick initial reviews of assemblies and more in-depth consulting...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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Stress test your design for Overheating

I hate comfort complaints. Not the complaining bit – folks are nice – but I hate the failed expectations of comfort. This past summer I had several calls from clients...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Jul 2021

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Glass is rocket science for high performance buildings

During a presentation at the South Pacific Passive House Conference in Christchurch (March 2017). I spoke on lessons learned from New Zealand projects. One of the biggest lessons we’ve learned...

by Jason Quinn

Updated: Mar 2026

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