This is a good top level summary of efforts around the world to do deep energy retrofits. These deep retrofits are one way to approach the fundamental issue of lock-in. Lock-in is where you make a small improvement that is cost optimal now, i.e. upgrading single glazed windows to double glazed windows, while the long term optimum is to upgrade …
Passive House Institute has released a climate morphing tool for use in examining future climates and building resilience. I’m particularly fond of this approach which simply takes an increased summer temperature and increases the dry bulb temperatures throughout the year. After working with more detailed analysis from Meteonorm (which we use for detailed analysis including hygrothermal modeling) and other future …
“I remember a young family who had about seven children, who told us they would often be taking a child to hospital at least once a week, due to the house being freezing cold.” For those folks not lucky enough to live in New Zealand Gisborne is in the North Island of New Zealand with nice warm summers. News like …
With the government finally raising the standard for existing homes in an attempt to lower the horrible health impacts for tenants of cold homes there has been quite a bit of media. I’ve also personally witnesses cold new build homes as well – typically because I was invited to look at them by their new owners who don’t understand why …
We have a lot of homes to fix in NZ and Sustainability Trust is estimating that “100,000 rentals will be exempt from installing insulation due to the cost of accessing the ceiling or underfloor.” I’m not sure they see the health care costs impacts of cold homes. It will pay for a lot of insulation. We look forward to working …
“There is clear evidence to support minimum standards for indoor temperatures” “Housing quality has a tremendous impact on our health and wellbeing.” Content by Scoop.
Good responses and ones I’ve heard in New Zealand as well. Change our building code in NZ to be equivalent to Passive House in a stepwise fashion; allowing the industry to predict and follow along and then, once we have this in place, moving on to other sustainability measures. I’m fairly certain that the hydronic heating / cooling comments are …
“At least 16 years of leaks, and months of staff health concerns, preceded the closure of a Kāpiti Coast library due to dangerous mould.Despite visible white mould, dripping walls, rotting carpet and concerns from staff, the library wasn’t tested for toxic mould until November 2018; four months after staff complained of asthma.The library was shut immediately after the test results …
“PHPP Version 9.6 has now been tested pursuant to ASHRAE 140, which qualifies it as an acceptable energy modelling software under a variety of regulatory systems” This means that PHPP could now be used for H1 verification via the modeling method for buildings with interesting glazing ratio’s or other non-standard features. The issue will be that Section G1.6.3 in …
