The Healthy Home Cooperation Limited

Kia Ora Paraire! This #healthyhome is now heading in for building consent with Christchurch City Council. Designed by Heather Blewett from Studio Blewett, this home meets the Passive House Institute New Zealand definition for a "high performance building", in that it has been energy modelled in #phpp and the High Performance Details Handbook has been used for detailing building elements, where appropriate to do so. Some of the performance features of this home on the hills behind #christchurch are 1. Fully insulated MAXRaft slab 2. Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery #mvhr 3. Two timber Prolam portal frames to significantly reduce the thermal bridging that would otherwise occur if steel portal frames were used. The Prolam portals are a game changer, when trying to brace large areas of glass, where there are few walls to do so. The traditional use of steel portal frames within the wall is not a good idea, due to how cold they get and the likelihood that condensation will form on them, causing mould growth within the wall cavity; (interstitial condensation). These timber portal frames are no where near as conductive, so are unlikely to cause condensation issues. A healthy home is a home that is warm, dry, well ventilated, energy efficient, with reduced thermal bridging, while being structurally resilient. It's a happy, salubrious home! Kia pai tō rā whakatā Have a great weekend!

Kia Ora, A healthy home is one that is comfortable in winter and doesn't overheat in summer! The latest #phpp energy model to roll out of the Healthy Home hands is for a house located in inland Marlborough. There were concerns that it may overheat, which it does, but not from the expected source. (4.2% is 15 days over 25 degrees.) The large pine plantation to the south west, provides sufficient shading to protect the western elevation. However, if the pines get cut down, things will be very different. Currently, the windows causing the majority of the overheating are the windows lighting the staircase on the Eastern and Northern elevations. Our advice is that one of these is probably not needed. Hang some artwork at the top of the stairs! Now an easy solution, would be the #glass suppliers solution, which is to change all the glass to triple glazing. However, extra glass means extra #heating due to the reduced solar gain. We're big fans of Sir Isaac Newton and his third law of motion. Paraphrased, "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." So it's about getting the balance right. Plenty of solar gain in winter and not much in summer. This requires a degree of finesse, not a glass hammer! The magnificent thing is now the modelling has been done, and the house has been test driven, all future choices to improve performance are informed detailed data driven decisions. Choices can be rerun as needed! If you'd like to check your home for overheating, by test driving it before you build it, reach out for a helping hand. www.healthyhome.kiwi

Ka hari to Paraire. Happy Friday! Building Consent granted for this high-performance renovation in Wanaka by Adrian Taylor at Cadence Architectural Design. Featuring NZSIP Smart Panels for the ceilings, STÄRKE recessed PVC joinery and flashing system, Enertherm PIR external insulation on the walls and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery ( #mvhr). We love how Adrian fully models the mvhr system, to ensure that there are no clashes with structure and other services. It's something all #architects and #designers should do. This thermal standard is where all #renovation projects will be heading in the (much nearer than you think) future. Great work Adrian, you're well ahead in the game, as always!

Kia Ora Paraire! We love it when a #phpp plan comes to life! Such a simple solution to summer overheating too. Kia pai tō rā whakatā Have a great weekend!

“Wouldn’t it be fun to take an old American barn and make it a New Zealand Passive House?” Client response to our energy modelling report, pointing out that the current design would overheat significantly. "Please adopt all recommendations." This blew the builders mind - he's onboard too! He's signing up to the next #passivehouse tradies course in #Christchurch! There had been no talk of energy efficiency targets at all during the design process. None, whatsoever! Yet the products proposed perfectly promoted Passive House. There is a lesson here for all #architects and #designers. If you don't ask you won't know. Preconceptions and cognitive bias hinder the opportunity to build better! This opportunity has allowed us to rationalise the window layout, use better quality windows and balance overheating with performance. While we won't meet the Passive House Classic standard, we should be able to target the Passive House Institute Low Energy Building Standard, which at this late stage of the design process, is a great result for our client. We're improving #housing in #aotearoa #newzealand, by having a hand in one #healthyhome at a time!

Kia Ora, Once upon a time, there was a big old barn with a solid Oak frame, languishing in the mid-western US of A. To cut a long story short, a couple of days ago, the Oak frame from that barn arrived at Lyttleton on its way to being repurposed as a home in Alexandra. So what happens when you take an 1830's Oak frame and repurpose it into a home, then energy model it? What's the big difference between a barn and a home? First the good stuff; The slab will be MAXRaft and the walls and roof will be NZSIP Smart Panels, so these elements perform exceptionally well and complement the cozy romance of the old Oak frame. The STIEBEL ELTRON New Zealand #MVHR helps too. When we looked at the design, we thought it's gonna cook, like an oak smoked slow cooked bbq brisket! So what's the difference between a barn and a home? #Windows & #Glass! Yes, it cooks with no natural ventilation in summer. However, during summer, if the windows are left open for four hours per day and 12 hours per night, it works just fine! 🫠 What? The client doesn't want bugs and flies inside at night! Oh! Fly screens or a window rethink? If I also said that this much glass, also makes the building more expensive, less efficient and potentially uncomfortable in winter, what would you do? From a heating demand point of view, with hydronic inslab heating downstairs and radiators upstairs, it performs very well compared with the minimum H1 standards. However, it could perform so much better too. Now the #design #build team have the data, they can make informed, data driven decisions on the way forward. That's the beauty of #energy #modelling in #phpp. We've provided a "test drive" report on the likely performance of this build, discussing the good, the bad and the betterment, (hopefully, we haven't killed the romance. 🥰) Now it's time for choices. A #healthyhome in winter or a healthy home all year round? If you'd like a helping hand with test driving your future home, reach out. 🖐🏽 www.healthyhome.kiwi

Ata Mārie Mane! With all the effort and effort going into promoting #passivehouse and #energyefficiency, it appears that people have forgotten the other complementary services we can provide. We’ve had a couple of people say, “Oh, didn’t know you still did that.” It’s cost us a couple of structural designs recently, which is particularly frustrating, especially with our competitive can do nature. 😁 It was nice to be able to lend a helping hand with the #energy #modelling, mind you. So, just for the record, we can provide a helping hand with 👏energy efficiency advice 🤙energy modelling 👋🏽 geotechnical engineering 💪🏽structural engineering 🍾🍻 and we’d love to celebrate the success of your new or retrofitted, happy healthy home with you. Reach out #newzealand. It will be life changing!

Ahiahi Pai. Good evening! This home, hidden in the hills behind #christchurch, has been designed by Heather Blewett of Studio Blewett. The home is going into Christchurch City Council for a split consent; foundation and earthworks first, to enable the owner to do the earthworks over the summer, and the superstructure later next year. Located on a sloping spur, there is certainly significant loess to move! The home features a stepped MAXRaft foundation, thermally broken from the garage and entry, with Prolam timber portals to provide bracing to the lounge and master bedroom elevations, due to the expanse of glass and lack of walls on this bracing line. Timber portals provide much less #thermalbridging than their steel compatriots, so a significantly better solution in a #healthyhome. The home has been energy modelled using #phpp and checked for overheating. We'll complete the #structural engineering design and plans for the superstructure as Stage 2 of this consent, in a couple of weeks. If you'd like a helping hand with your dream home, please let your fingers walk you to www.healthyhome.kiwi or give us a call.

Kia Ora, We all want better buildings, right? A while back we were asked to provide a Geotech report for a partial garage relocation in Rangoria as part of a subdivision. Small potatoes, but we were going past anyway, so tacked in on. It turned out that the ground was hard on top, but soft at traditional bearing depth. Rather than design the footings for this IL1 structure for 200kPa, we decided to keep the footings as shallow as possible, which also appeared to match the existing foundation design. Imagine our surprise, when we are asked to attend site for a pre-pour inspection, to find that the foundations were overdug. The builder, a Licensed Building Practitioner , has instructed his ground works team to "dig down to solid," despite what it said on the plans. This LBP said he'd never come across an engineer that had not asked him to dig deeper, and refused to accept that shallow foundations were what was required in this situation. If building work is to be self certified going forward, then we're in for a whole lot of pain, if this is just one example of what is going to happen. Let's face it, building a simple garage is likely to be something that could be seen as self certifiable in the future. In our view, an extra pair of eyes is always welcome. The hardest thing to master is satisfactorily checking your own work!

Kia Ora! We reckon this is a great idea to encourage better building in #aotearoa #newzealand. We're behind the this inspired breath of filtered fresh air!