Update 16May2024 We want folks to know that Kainga Ora has regretfully informed us that they are now in the process of officially closing the R&D component of the project as the investment is no longer commercially viable. They are removing their pages from their website and links to this will no longer work. Kāinga Ora’s ambitious research project, Ngā …
Scaling up PH trades training
New Zealand needs more tradespeople, full stop. But we also need tradies with skills and experience of building the Passive House way, especially as larger certified projects get underway. In the UK, a large construction firm developed their own training and to date more than two thousand tradies have earned their “Passivhaus Passport”. This seems to be shorter and more …
Stärke makes recessed window install clear
It’s great to see the data from our work on the High-Performance Construction Details Handbook being used to improve the industry. Starke is a window fabricator that has got on board with producing better-performing windows and doors. Its blog post is very clear and concise on the issues, fixes and benefits of recessed window installs.
Haiku sums up warmer home benefits
Who the hell composes a haiku as the summary in a technical report to a government agency? A New Zealander, that’s who. I love this country. People’s ability to care and be serious—but also irreverent or playful, sometimes at the same time—is something I really appreciate. Winter through to spring Houses keep warm with heat pumps At no added cost. …
Elements of building industry lobbying to delay H1 changes
Like I’ve said before, if we want to change, we actually will need to change. Seems simple enough, right? But many in the “pro-cold-home” contingent of our building sector don’t want to change anything. Andrew Eagle from the NZ Green Building Council wrote a very terse essay for The Spinoff a couple of weeks ago. He was incensed that some …
BRANZ edition of HPCD out now
It’s great to finally pin a bow on this project and call it done. The final version of the HPCD (the High Performance Construction Details Handbook) has now been fully reviewed and accepted by BRANZ and published as External Research Report ER70 [2022]. It’s been a long journey—it began before we’d even heard of Covid-19. There were over 6300 downloads of …
Builder backlash to H1 upgrade begins
And, it’s begun: the backlash to the update to the energy efficiency requirements in New Zealand’s Building Code announced last November. It’s been a long time since the last upgrade. The message from submitters was overwhelmingly in favour of improving energy efficiency through higher-performance windows, more insulation, and moving on to whole building energy performance measures rather than simple R-value …
Be a certification pro
Passive House certification offers many benefits and the cost is tiny relative to the whole budget for a new home. As a Passive House designer, you can make the process faster, easier and contain costs for your client by being well-organised and diligent when it comes to the details required for certification. I’ve prepared a guide for documentation for new …
998 days to reach climate change reduction goals
The latest IPCC report emphasises that we have to peak our CO2 emissions by 2025 at the latest to reach 1.5 degrees global warming, to follow those rational paths that are still open. From Newsroom’s analysis: “Achieving 1.5 degrees would mean emissions growth must not only slow from the 1.3 percent a year it averaged during the 2010s but completely …