Healthy Homes Guarantee Act standards announced

[Learning]

Or a simple 'This property is no longer legally allowed to be rented out. Therefore, you must move out.'?

That brings up a very good point. 90 day notice issued 4 days before the law change, so assuming they stay the full 90 days, without the required work being completed, 86 days will be in an illegal dwelling. Could the tenant then also apply for the rent to be refunded for these 12 weeks, as well as the $4K?

[Don't believe the Hype]

So hang on, even if you have a physical wall between the living room and the kitchen, if you take the door off the hinges, leaving an open doorway between them, this now counts as open plan? And (in my case) the 18 deg must reach into the farthest corners of the laundry and porch areas, which are off the kitchen with the door also taken off the hinges?

thats right based on the calculator... even worse, if your living room has open access to the stairs to upstairs you have to include the upstairs space too...

from the playing around with the calculator if you have a 2 storey dwelling with no insulation between the levels there is no consideration for the high level of insulation in the ceiling above the upstairs - it doesn't even ask about it. so for a double storey place the calculator seems to assume the 'ceiling' is uninsulated.

[Don't believe the Hype]

Well today I went and took the measurements of my one currently vacant South Auckland property.


The living room is 20.72 sq.m, but there is an adjoining dining/kitchen area of 12.33 sq.m, so under the rules I have to heat 33sq.m as there is an open void in the wall between.


I paid $2550 in 2017 for a 3.5kw heat pump now installed in the living room.


The calculator tells me that I need 6.2Kw !!


However, if I now install doors between the two areas, the living room room only would need 3.6Kw.


So it would probably make sense to install those doors, and then just top up the last 0.5Kw with a fixed heater. That would leave the diners and kitchen occupants to shiver.


This is going to get really complex!

I wonder how long it would take to get your place up to 18 degrees on a really cold day with a 6.2Kw heat pump...

anyone know the cost of running a 6.2Kw heat pump/hr?

[Learning]

anyone know the cost of running a 6.2Kw heat pump/hr?

It would be about 2kw input for that size. For me in Wellington on Powershop my winter rate is 29c/unit so the maximum running cost of a 6.2kw output heatpump is 58cents an hour until it reaches temperature and starts cycling.

[north shore]

I was told the following when I queried some of the results to working out one of our rentals:

We recommend working through the guides before starting. There is quite a lot of information to collect in order to get an accurate result.


We are in the final stages of providing a PDF report that landlords can print off – this will be available in a couple of weeks.

[Don't believe the Hype]

S

It would be about 2kw input for that size. For me in Wellington on Powershop my winter rate is 29c/unit so the maximum running cost of a 6.2kw output heatpump is 58cents an hour until it reaches temperature and starts cycling.

Seems very cheap to run ... why all the noise about tenants not turning on heat pumps when they're installed due to the cost of running?

[Learning]

Seems very cheap to run ... why all the noise about tenants not turning on heat pumps when they're installed due to the cost of running?

There's a couple ways of using them wrong. Former tenants of mine would put it on auto, wack it up to 30 then when it got too hot wack it down to 20. Too cold, wack it up again. So they were paying for heating, then cooling, then heating, then cooling and so on.

Current tenant never cleaned the filter (despite being shown a couple times). The dust layer was as thick as the carpet. No wonder it was hardly making any heat.

And then there's the fairy tale that leaving it on when no one is home is cheaper, which makes no sense when you think about it. If you wouldn't leave a standard electric heater on when you weren't at home, why would you leave a heatpump on? They both do the same thing, only the heatpump is doing it for 1/3rd the cost. Why pay for heat when no one is home to enjoy it?

[eri]

And then there's the fairy tale that leaving it on when no one is home is cheaper, which makes no sense when you think about it. If you wouldn't leave a standard electric heater on when you weren't at home, why would you leave a heatpump on? They both do the same thing, only the heatpump is doing it for 1/3rd the cost. Why pay for heat when no one is home to enjoy it?

i think that comes from people who have emigrated from canada, the usa northern states, northern europe etc

where the -20C overnight temps mean everything double-glazed with 30cm insulation etc

in those conditions it's easier, (and safer for the pipes etc) to keep the heating going for 48hrs than let the house fully cool down on a weekend away

[Learning]

i think that comes from people who have emigrated from canada, the usa northern states, northern europe etc

where the -20C overnight temps mean everything double-glazed with 30cm insulation etc

in those conditions it's easier, (and safer for the pipes etc) to keep the heating going for 48hrs than let the house fully cool down on a weekend away

Ahhh! Now it makes sense. Thanks.

[sidinz]

Just had a play on that calculator:

"You need 2.9kW of heating capacity to heat your living room
This is the minimum required heating capacity you need to meet the healthy homes standards, based on the information you supplied. It takes into account your local climate and the design and construction of your home. The tool makes some assumptions to keep things simple.

Your heaters need to provide this heating capacity with an outdoor temperature of -3°C
Heat pump installers need to know the outdoor temperature to work to. This is because the heating capacity of a heat pump reduces with colder outdoor temperatures. If you live somewhere cold, you may need a particular model of heat pump to give enough heating capacity"

Two things jump out:
1) How can they claim that this result takes into account "the design and construction" of the house when it didn't ask what sort of cladding or window frames the house has? This makes a huge difference.
2) Not even the faintest hint of trying to hide that they have a pro-heatpump agenda. No mention that other types of heating even exist.

[Keys]

The joys of laws.

I wonder what the response will be?

I am a landlord and the Healthy Homes Regulations have now come into force, in part, to assist with cutting down on children illness.

Since yours is the only email address I have easily on hand I ask you to pass this OIA request onto whomever it is required to be passed on to.

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1982/0156/latest/DLM65387.html

This, of course, adds ten working days to the time frame for the request to be replied to.

Schools throughout the country have custody of our children for a considerable time in their lives as children. It could be argued that, second to the home, schools are the major place where children spend their time.

This is an official information request to the ministry of education (or, whomever it is at the present moment).

The questions are as follows;

How many primary, intermediate and secondary schools (expressed as a percentage) fail to meet the Healthy Homes Regulations in all of their classrooms?

How many children (rounded to the nearest 1,000) are being taught in classrooms which fail to meet the Healthy Homes Regulations?

I realize that the Healthy Homes Regulations do not apply to schools but the reasoning behind these regulations is valid in schools.

Just sent that off to my lads school principal.

[Perry]

You trouble maker, you.

All the gummint needs to do is appoint Dhil Twitford as deputy shadowy Education Munster and he'll sort the problems out, quick-smart.

[donna]

Love it Keys! I'm looking forward to the response. Yes, if the desire was to genuinely help the underprivileged, they'd start with getting their own 'house' in order and the healthy homes applying to all schools etc.

cheers,

Donna

[Bob Kane]

I paid $2550 in 2017 for a 3.5kw heat pump now installed in the living room.
The calculator tells me that I need 6.2Kw !!
However, if I now install doors between the two areas, the living room room only would need 3.6Kw.
So it would probably make sense to install those doors, and then just top up the last 0.5Kw with a fixed heater. That would leave the diners and kitchen occupants to shiver.

Me too.
A door between the lounge and dining/kitchen area has been removed in the past.
If I get a query about requiring more heat I'll just reinstall that door.

[One]

When we got heatpumps years ago, we over-specced them by one step. Haven't regretted it at all. It means they get the rooms to a good temperature without having to work horribly hard. And make sure you get a heatpump that performs well at 2 degrees. The lousy ones spend a lot of time defrosting themselves when it's cold outside, just when you want them most. If you've got to spend money, may as well spend it on something decent.