For those of us designing Passive House we can all rejoice in the release of the official PHI guidance on kitchen extractor hoods and how to consider the heat losses in their use. To my knowledge there is reason to believe that a good recirculating hood can be better than a poorly performing extractor hood in removing fine particles. I’m …
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 …
“As cold weather starts to bite, it’s also the time of year when people are most at risk from poor air quality. Environment Southland air quality scientist Owen West said winter is the time when poor air quality is an issue in Southland, particularly in the urban areas of Invercargill and Gore, with home burners identified as the key cause.” …
What’s the absolute legal minimum in NZ – no worse or legally it’s not a house. For new buildings it is whatever your team can sneak past council under the guise of meeting the NZBC minimums but at least someone is checking something. For existing buildings what is the minimum? Hope you don’t consider NZ Building Code a target. Landlords …
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 …
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.
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 …
“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 …
