https://www.resilienz.co.nz/

Notes from RMBA's Constructive Industry Forum. 

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

Camilla Novotna always knew she wanted to build her own timber house. It was just a question of when and where. Despite not having a formal architecture or building background, Camilla has now done a lot more than design her future home. Along with her sister Pavla, she has created Ecokit - a prefabricated building system offering energy homes that can be put together by anyone.

International attention on Gaobeidian is set to increase up to October 2019 when Windoor City along with Passive House Institute China will host the 23rd International Passive House Conference. I spoke to the Head of International Cooperation at Windoor City, Peter Lee recently. Among other topics, I asked Peter about the perception we have in the West of 'Made in China'. My discussion with Peter confirms my belief that Passive House coming to Asia is going to make an impact in Australia and New Zealand.

After he won the Inaugural Passive House Slam during the Heidelberg Passive House Conference in March this year, I sat down with Marius Şoflete to talk about how he's inspiring people to build better places to live. Marius has a contagious enthusiasm which he's using to make Passive House fun!

The first New Zealand Passive House was completed in 2012. Since then, about 20 more individual private houses have been Certified using the internationally recognised standard. Now, New Zealand is about to get its first Certified Passive House Cohousing project and Tim Ross has been involved almost right from the start.

Paul Jennings needed a project for his dissertation on fuel poverty in the UK when he came across some charity work funded by the then 'Greater London Council'. This was back in the 1980s. Not many people had heard of Blower Doors, but a team from the suppliers in Canada were willing to travel to the UK to train people on how Blower Doors could be used to help diagnose energy and health issues in buildings. At the 2019 Passive House Conference in Heidelberg, Paul shared some of his learning from over 30 years of airtightness testing. https://homestylegreen.com/190

Everett Norris always wanted to build his own house. As a boy, he also assumed that he’d own his own house. This sounds simple enough, but the reality is that home ownership is becoming more like Everett’s naive childhood dream for many New Zealanders. Everett now helps people achieve the dream of home ownership by teaching them how to build their own Tiny House.

Paul and Pascale have created Park Homes for people like themselves. They were first time home buyers in the New Zealand market and they wanted something that would be worthy of living in for several years. Houses built to the current code are not up to this standard and so they created the change they'd like to see.

I wanted to have Dolores Davis on the show because she's running a company that values the art, the privilege and the responsibility of building. Here in New Zealand, the evidence that a building boom doesn't guarantee success in the industry, is all too common.

Just as we can learn building methodologies from around the world, we can also learn successful business practices so we can continue to enjoy not what we have to do, but what we get to do.

Where do you go to get beautiful, high performance doors and windows, made in New Zealand?

The term 'airtight' conjures up fears of hermetically sealed boxes. In this episode, I discuss what exactly airtightness is, and why we need it.

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.

Jason Quinn used to be a NASA rocket scientist. Now he's New Zealand's one and only Passive House Certifier. He's just published a book summarising the first 24 Certified Passive Houses in New Zealand.

http://warmhealthyhomes.co.nz

In 2012 Ben Adam-Smith founded House Planning Help to collect and share all the information he started to learn on the way to designing and building his own home. His mission is to encourage people towards the "...houses we should be building in the 21st Century."

Six years on, Ben and his family are enjoying their very own Passive House.

Sam Rogers thinks we've reached a tipping point where more people are seeking high performance homes and are willing to invest a little extra for a much better result. Sam and his team at Land Homes are on a mission to make high performance homes mainstream.

Felicity and Marc Bernstein met at architecture school in Germany and have been working together since. During the last twenty years they've worked in Germany, Arabia and Australia. They now want to use modular design to bring high performance, zero-carbon homes to the masses. Felicity and Marc have recently launched Hütt - Tomorrow's House Today to achieve their vision. Through the crowd equity funding platform Birchal, they're inviting everyone to join the movement.

When Prof. Dr. Hartwig Künzel was studying Chemical Engineering, his father was a scientist at the Fraunhofer Institute. Hartwig followed in his father's footsteps after becoming interested in the preservation of heritage buildings. He soon discovered that he could apply his engineering training to diagnosing the moisture problems that occurred after buildings were insulated.

Terry Brennan literally wrote the book on managing moisture for improved indoor air quality. He is a lead author of a landmark 2013 Environmental Protection Agency book titled “Moisture Control for Building Design, Construction and Maintenance” which has since become a standard reference document in the industry in the US.

In November 2018, Terry visited Australia as a keynote speaker for The Building Designers Association of Australia (BDAA) and Australian Institute of Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Heating (AIRAH). We took this opportunity to bring Terry to New Zealand for a short visit and workshop at the pro clima HUB, where I caught up with him for a chat about building science, mould and how to build better.

Tedd Benson refers to stick framing as pretty basic shelter. It went up almost overnight, but the legacy continues as a 'worse form of building that then become a standard'. Today, Tedd runs Bensonwood, Unity Homes and Tektonik. He is a passionate about combing the skills and values of traditional craftsmanship with cutting edge technology to make better places to live.

In Episode 145 I spoke with Dennis Dowling of DCD Construction. On the episode, I talk with Annabelle Numaguchi who has a PR and marketing background. Why has Annabelle recently become a Homestar Assessor and what is her vision for DCC Construction? Find out in this episode of Home Style Green. http://homestylegreen.com/177

Bert Sarkinnen has been building homes since he was 16, firstly alongside his Father who was also his teacher and mentor. Along the way Bert fell in love with the craft and beauty of timber framed buildings, so much so that he created Arrow Time Framing to specialise in this type of construction. As creators of beautiful, high quality buildings, Arrow Timber Framing is now 'the enemy of ugly'. In this conversation, we discuss the importance and value of a craft, how being encouraged to makes mistakes helped Bert to learn, and the challenges of building a business.

The Headwaters in Glenorchy, just 45 minutes drive from Queenstown is a magical place and now home to another Living Building Challenge project.

I caught up with lead consultant, Tricia Love recently to discuss how she got involved and what the Headwaters is all about.

The Headwaters doesn't aim to re-invent the wheel. It is however a leading example of how we can learn from what's being done overseas and contribute our own expertise towards a positive effort of creating better places to live, work and play.

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/.

Karen Manson likes thinking about and designing housing, not just houses. With over 15 years of international experience, Karen now has her own practice in Christchurch. She focuses on high performance houses, including Passive House. I had the opportunity to chat with Karen at the pro clima HUB about her journey. In this episode we discuss the urban design, keeping it simple and what can be learnt from the process of designing standard, code compliant buildings.

Nearly all building elements (roofs, walls, floors, window and door joints etc.) will leak at some point. Problems only occur when moisture gets in, and stays in. If moisture is allowed to accumulate for extended periods, then mould grows, timber rots and metal corrodes. Ultimately, people get sick and our buildings start to fail. This can be incredibly disruptive, stressful and expensive!

WUFI® was created to allow designers to check their designs before those designs become real buildings. By running scenarios with different combinations of products we can fail in the virtual world until we optimise the design. Then we can build with confidence that our real structure will stay dry, healthy and strong for decades.

How do you make eco, affordable?

As project manager for the proposed Lotus Eco Village in Paraparaumu near Wellington, Simon Wallace has some good ideas.

In 1971, Eric Doornekamp led a group of yoga enthusiasts to establish the Lotus Yoga Centre and Retreat in Aro Street, Wellington. Almost half a century on, the Lotus Yoga Centre Charitable Trust is branching out and developing an Eco-Village.

The Lotus Eco Village will be built in on a 3 hectare site purchased by the Trust back in 1985. Project Manager Simon Wallace shared with me how he plans to create affordable, healthy houses alongside a yoga and community centre in a great location.

http://homestylegreen.com/172

Russell Baillie describes the Baillie Eco-Home as a modern, contemporary house that's green under the skin. It's a two storey, three bedroom home in Mt Eden completed in 2016. The house is a showcase of efficiency, sustainability and universal design.

http://homestylegreen.com/171

Harpal Kler comes from an accounting background, but during the last four years he's learnt a lot about building and living in a Passive House. Now, he's a big advocate.

Their multi-generational family home was completed in December 2015 by ehaus and is one of a growing number of Certified Passive House homes in New Zealand.

I asked Harpal how he came across Passive House in the first place, and what he's learnt from building and living in one. 

What can we learn down here in the Southern Hemisphere, about the growth and success of Passive House in Canada? CEO of Passive House Canada, Rob Bernhardt shares his inspiration. 

This week I'm discussing skylights and roof windows. They're great for both light and ventilation, but what should you look out for?

A building surveyor is trained to investigate potential issues and provide a prioritised list of maintenance for a building. When looking to buy a property, don't take the real estate agent's word for it. Find your own, reputable building surveyor to get an honest assessment of the building. You'll still need to make the decision yourself whether or not to buy, but at least you'll be more informed when you make that decision.

The building code is the worst house you're legally allowed to build, yet it's often treated as the target.

In this episode, I walk through some building envelope basics and discuss where I think you should invest the most to improve the health and comfort of your new home.

http://homestylegreen.com/166

I usually interview designers and builders about what's going on overseas, with a focus on what the New Zealand industry could learn. In this episode, I speak with Damon Gray and Andrew Chapman of NZ Builders. They've turned this idea on it's head and have taken some NZ techniques to British Columbia, with some stunning results.

http://nzbuilders.com
http://homestylegreen.com/165

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 but have recently made some big changes. With a focus on building performance, Benjy Simmons describes the new direction of Stärke as a 'once-in-fifty-year' change. While the company has a long legacy, they've experienced rapid change over the last few years. 

Benjy credits some of the openness to change to him being from outside the industry. He's come in with a different perspective. "We're beginning to see ourselves as a building performance company not just a window and door company", says Benjy. 

Check out the full range of Stärke products along with their education pages and other resources.

I love it when I find new companies that are looking at the design and building process a bit differently and who want to provide healthy, energy efficient homes. That's what Nook is all about. I caught up with their designer, Warren Clarke recently and asked him why he does what he does.

http://nook.nz
http://homestylegreen.com/164

Walls (and roofs and floors) of buildings have become complicated. As we’ve increased the level of insulation, we’ve created some new problems, like condensation. This has been aggravated by the addition of layers into the wall that reduce air movement. So how do you create a wall that keeps you warm but will also stay dry? I spoke to Jon Davies from Pro Clima to get some facts about airtightness.

http://proclima.com
http://proclima.co.nz
http://proclima.com.au
http://homestylegreen.com/163

When I first saw the LUNOS is didn't really believe it was a true heat recovery ventilation system, so I sought out some answers.

Wayne Delport is Sales and Technical Manager at The Heating Company International.

http://bit.ly/HSGLunos
http://homestylegreen.com/162

Imagine having a Fitbit for your home and being able to see, in real time, how it's performing. You could also be notified of any hazards like high levels of CO2 and VOCs as they occur - before you start to get a headache or start having respiratory problems.

This week I speak with Dustin Jefferson Onghanseng, a cofounder of uHoo, an exciting new product that could be the Fitbit for your home.

http://uhooair.com/
http://homestylegreen.com/161

A first step in making a home healthier is to understand and quantify what might be making it unhealthy. Through her website, Caroline Blazovsky has made it very easy for homeowners to test indoor air quality and test for mould.

http://www.healthyhomeexpert.com/
http://homestylegreen.com/160

Darryl Sang is one of only a few Certified Passive House Designers in Auckland. We discuss why he went through this gruelling training and why more of his clients are demanding Passive House standards.

http://homestylegreen.com159
http://sangarchitects.com/

Why should we be watching China and what does the growth in uptake of Passive House there mean for the rest of us? We also discuss near zero energy regulations in Europe, developments in the US and Passive House examples from Spain.

Passive House expert and architect Elrond Burrell give us his highlights from the 20th International Passive House Conference.

http://elrondburrell.com/
http://homestylegreen.com/158

I originally contacted Hitesh Mehta to talk about sustainable landscape architecture, but he offers a lot more than that. Hitesh has travelled the world advising and helping designers of ecolodges. He enjoys all aspects of architecture as well as photography, environmental planning and writing.

To find out more about his recent work, visit Hitesh Mehta Design.

http://homestylegreen.com/157

Wolfgang Feist is attributed as the co-founder of Passive House along with Bo Adamson. Feist, a German physicist collaborated with Adamson from Sweden in 1988 to developed a number of ultra-low energy research buildings.

Passive House is now 25 years strong and at the time of recording, Wolfgang was preparing to attend the 20th International Passive House Conference back where it all began in Darmstadt, Germany.

http://homestylegreen.com/156

It’s tempting to say that Prefab’s time has come, but I don’t think this does justice to prefabricated building. As Pamela Bell has explained previously on the Home Style Green Podcast, Prefab is not new. But the enthusiasm shown during this week’s PrefabNZ CoLab event here in Auckland suggest that prefab will play an increasingly important role in the delivery of buildings.

Some would even go so far as to say, there’s a revolution about to happen!

Here are some of my highlights from a well attended and inspiring conference.

http://homestylegreen.com/155

More is not always better, especially regarding the amount of timber in the frame of a house. The more timber there is, the less space there is for insulation. The way this is measured is called timber fraction.

Most homes in Aotearoa are designed using the assumption that timber will make up around 14% - 18% of the area in a wall. A 2020 BRANZ research study found that in reality, the average timber fraction is closer to 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 all this is that many consumers are effectively getting less insulation than they're paying for, and much more thermal bridging. 

PlaceMakers has recently launched a new service providing a detailed report of the actual timber content for any wall frame and roof truss they supply. This accurate figure can then be used to provide true H1 calculations. Alternatively, a designer might choose to adapt their plan to reduce the thermal bridging and increase the amount of insulation.

National Technical Resource Manager, Pete Hammond explains how Framology works. We also discuss the option of using external insulating products like RigidRAP-XT from IBS to eliminate thermal bridges.

Adaptive architecture and innovative insights from California, with Matthew Baran of Baran Studio Architecture.

http://www.baranstudio.com/

http://homestylegreen.com/154 

Paul Dowsett and his team at Sustainable.To are dedicate to creating affordable, healthy and energy efficient homes, because that's what Paul believes is 'the right thing to do'.

And as for the extra cost? Listen in to find out...

http://www.sustainable.to/
http://homesteylgreen.com/153

Remember when the main choice you had for light bulbs was 60 Watts or 100 Watts? Things have progressed a long way since then, and mostly for the better, especially when you consider that the average incandescent light bulb is only about 10% efficient. Most of the energy ends up as heat rather than light.
Now we've transitioned through compact fluorescents (CFLs) to light emitting diodes (LEDs), there's a lot more to understand about what makes a good light.

In this episode, I speak with David Maunsell from Switch Lighting to uncover the details about why some LEDs are much higher quality than others. Unfortunately it's still the Wild West out there in lighting retail land. Hopefully this can help you figure out what's important for lighting.

http://www.switch-lighting.co.nz/
http://homestylegreen.com/152