Build Aotearoa

This week I attended a BRANZ seminar titled 'Building for our changing climate'. Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland was the last stop on the BRANZ seminar tour of the country and it's encouraging to think that rooms of designers, builders, product suppliers, building officials and others, were interested enough in this topic to take four hours out of their week.

A key takeaway is that we're not prepared. We're already handicapped by having insufficient standards in our building code to deal with our current climate. With the forecast being 'warmer and wetter', the situation is set to get worse.

https://homestylegreen.com/?p=5936

Steve Penny is the founder and director at Honoris, a building services consultancy in Christchurch, New Zealand. He is also the host of his own podcast, A Penny for Your Thoughts.

Many people might be surprised to know that the New Zealand Building Code does not require any consideration of overheating in homes. The energy efficiency requirements in our code are based only on the ability of buildings to keep warm without excessive heat loss. There is nothing to prevent homes from being designed with large areas of unshaded north or west-facing glass.

Siân Taylor is an Architect and Passive House Designer based in Queenstown. She has experience creating homes that are designed to perform well all year round, in some of the most challenging and spectacular locations.

Follow Siân on Instagram and check out Team Green Architect's latest work at https://www.teamgreenarchitects.co.nz/.

Stärke has been in the window industry in New Zealand since the 80s. They were at the forefront of supplying aluminium frames to the building industry. With a focus on building performance, Benjy Simmons describes the new direction of Stärke as a 'once in fifty year' change.

More is not always better, especially when it comes to the amount of timber in the frame of a house. The more timber there is, the less space there is for insulation.

Most homes in Aotearoa are designed using the assumption that timber will make up around 14% - 18% of the area of a wall. A 2020 BRANZ research study found that in reality, the timber fraction is closer to an average of 40%. This means there is considerably less space available for insulation. Unfortunately, this is not always picked up during the consenting or pre-lining inspection process. H1 Energy Efficiency calculations are checked at the design stage, usually using the much lower default timber fraction assumption. The result of of all this is that many consumers are effectively getting less insulation than they're paying for, and much more thermal bridging.

https://www.branz.co.nz/pubs/research-reports/er53/

https://www.placemakers.co.nz/online/framology

Denise Martin has been involved with many of Aotearoa's Passive House projects. As one of the most experienced blower door testers in the country, she's been involved with verifying a range of residential and commercial buildings both in New Zealand and Australia.

If you don't already, I highly recommend following Denise on Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn.

Kia ora.

After a long break from recording an episode on the Home Style Green feed, I've taken some time on Waitangi day to share some of my thoughts about building homes in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

There's a lot we need to discuss.