13 May 2019 News Hub’s Zane Small: NZ 2019 Healthy Homes Standard Signed in law

Monday 13th May 2019 NZ Parliament signed into law the Healthy Homes Standard. This effectively requires bringing the ceiling and underfloor insulation up to current standards, install fixed heating in the living room and extractor fans in the kitchen/bath except where these upgrades are not practical.   Several good articles including:   Healthy Homes standards legislation signed off into law …

08 May 2019 Science Media Centre Expert Reactions: NZ Zero Carbon – NZ now needs policies making new homes Passive House

The Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, designed to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to under 1.5C over the next 30 years, was introduced to New Zealand Parliament on 8th of May, 2019. Science Media Centre sought expert response: Associate Professor Ivan Diaz-Rainey, Climate and Energy Finance Group, University of Otago, comments: “What we need now are policies. Policies …

PH Window Installs

Window installs watch Florian and Skyler install a Passive House window into a home. Notice the good explanation of the aluminium cut back distance to allow over insulation of the aluminium clad timber frame. uPVC social housing installs with winbag tool. Sometimes different ways of doing things can just strike you at how quick and efficient they can appear.

03 May 2019 Stuff’s Virginia Fallon: ‘It’s a write-off’: Kāpiti Coast council reveals yet another leaky, mouldy building

These leaky buildings are most often caused by failures in E2 design where rain penetration into the building assemblies (i.e. walls and decks etc) have caused internal mould and sometimes rot and then the building becomes a ‘writeoff’ as the one in the article is. In our research and consulting we explore the potential risks with E3 (internal) moisture and …

23 April 2019 The Fifth Estate: Monash delivers biggest passive house building

“It’s the first building to combine cross-laminated timber with passive house” (in Australia) “There are five key principles that guide the passive house approach which were used on the project: Airtightness, Continuous insulation, High performance glazing, Heat recovery ventilation, and A thermal bridge-free façade” Great to see a larger project completed. Although the article doesn’t go into the technical details …

New Zealand Green Building Council: Net zero carbon buildings

NZGBC announces working with Enviro-Mark Solutions to create a net zero carbon building measurement. This consultation sets out our thoughts on how we intend to include the concept of net zero carbon buildings in our rating tools – Green Star and NABERSNZ – and introduce a formal net zero certification for buildings. If you’d like to respond to the questions in this …