If National wins ...

[dobby41]

.. than obviously it must be the fault of the government. Why don't they pass by every morning to properly air the house and throw money into the heaters. Minimum we should expect from nanny state - shouldn't we?

Might be cheaper than what we pay in hospital bills etc?

May not be the fault of the government but they could show some leadership and address the issue.
They have been saying for a long time that there isn't an issue.
Acceptance that there is an issue is the 1st step in addressing it.

[Joshuatree]

We don't know all the facts but modern house building techniques and materials make houses pretty airtight; they don't breathe like older ones. Keeps vermin and cockroaches out but a little education re opening a few windows for 30 min a day when its not hosing down may possibly help in this situ with the mould and dampness situ.

[iceman]

Does it matter that new builds are expensive? Surely each new dwelling frees up an older cheaper one for first home and lower income buyers. It's asking a lot to provide brand new homes for low equity people, unless we want a whole lot of shoddy dogboxes. We do not need to start at the top.

They do it in many countries in Europe, provide new and reasonably affordable apartments to young families, not all low income earners. The use of land is much more efficient and economical and I think we need the same in many parts of NZ, i.e. use the inner city and suburban land much more efficiently. I am not advocating apartments only but they need to be a significant part of the mix.

I might add it is also much more common to rent than buy, people (tenants) are content with it and the culture and respect between tenant and landlord is far superior to what we have here in NZ. At least that is my experience.

[blackcap]

I might add it is also much more common to rent than buy, people (tenants) are content with it and the culture and respect between tenant and landlord is far superior to what we have here in NZ. At least that is my experience.

Agree, in Holland the tenants even go as far as putting in new curtains, laying a new floor, painting the interior etc. No probs.

[dobby41]

Agree, in Holland the tenants even go as far as putting in new curtains, laying a new floor, painting the interior etc. No probs.

I bet they have a contract that says they have to be given much more than 90 days notice too.
I bet they security of tenure.
You have to look at the whole system to understand this.

[Bjauck]

And everyone goes and sits around in the kitchen. Maybe this is quite normal but I have never seen this method of heating used and wouldn't consider it myself.

Like your post about density of housing Rep. I have recently returned from a northern European country where there is a lot of building going on but most residential accommodation is being built in apartment blocks, with high quality and nice apartments. Nothing flash but good and fairly private. Young families simply don't entertain the thought of anything else for their first homes Visited a friend in his mid fifties that has recently sold his house and bought a nice apartment, after kids have all moved on. Reason he gave was a lot less maintenance work on gardens and buildings , much cheaper to run and quite a bit of money left over from changing from a house to an apartment. NZ needs an attitude change in this regards and it will come. The sooner the better.

Apartments are ideal for singles or busy childless couples.

With current prices, many foirst home buyers could not even afford the deposit on a several years old Auckland sardine can apartment. Even if they could, they would have to compete with the line of investors and overseas foreign buyers. Household investment in NZ has been channelled into pushing up the price of land.

A common Auckland scenario today is often with Granny alone in her stand alone villa with a garden, whilst families struggle to get a deposit for a tiny yardless flat.

[blackcap]

I bet they have a contract that says they have to be given much more than 90 days notice too.
I bet they security of tenure.
You have to look at the whole system to understand this.

They do, some have 10 year tenancies etc. Very common over there. It means that a rented home can still be a "family home". Works well and means the population has to move around a lot less often... gains all round.

[Bjauck]

We don't know all the facts but modern house building techniques and materials make houses pretty airtight; they don't breathe like older ones. Keeps vermin and cockroaches out but a little education re opening a few windows for 30 min a day when its not hosing down may possibly help in this situ with the mould and dampness situ.

Definitely true, but how do we know that they did not do that in the Herald story. If the house is overcrowded (because of the cost of accommodation) and unheated, the windows may need to be opened for much longer, thereby sucking out what ever little heat they could afford.

So it may still come down to the fact that too much was expected of the accommodation....Auckland just cannot provide sufficient appropriate accommodation for the increasing numbers of people trying to make Auckland their home.

[Rep]

We don't know all the facts but modern house building techniques and materials make houses pretty airtight; they don't breathe like older ones. Keeps vermin and cockroaches out but a little education re opening a few windows for 30 min a day when its not hosing down may possibly help in this situ with the mould and dampness situ.

I live in a modern and airtight home - I regularly don't open any of the windows for days if not weeks. You can build air tight homes that don't need windows to be opened if you address the ventilation issues with good design.

At the time of construction about 11 years ago, I did quite a lot of research and decided to install a balanced pressure heat recovery ventilation system into the house. It wasn't cheap but it's significantly better in performance than a positive pressure ventilation system. It was designed and installed to displace a minimum of around 0.3 of the internal volume EVERY HOUR so effectively there's a complete air change every 3 hours and effectively 8 complete fresh air changes a day. The stainless steel cross flow heat exchanger up in the roofspace uses the scavenged warm moist air in the house to warm the filtered incoming fresh air charge which effectively controls the humidity.

It has a power consumption of about 150-200 watts but the humidity in the house sits around 40 to 60% and the internal space is warmed with heat pumps and there is passive solar heating using some design features e.g. tiles on an insulated slab next to large ranchsliders and a thermostat controlled port on the ventilation system to run air from the roofspace if the temperature > 20 degrees via the exhaust side of the ventilation system to use warm roofspace air to provide additional heat to the fresh air charge.

It does require looking at details - our interior lights are LED units that don't port air up to a cavity or roofspace (incandescent lighting often does to get rid of excess heat) and looking at placement of the exhaust and intake ports (e.g. I have a scavenging exhaust port hidden behind the fridge in the kitchen).

BUT most homeowners don't know or place value on features like these that actually make homes liveable, dry, warm and well ventilated especially when they cost as much as a bathroom.

[fungus pudding]

I live in a modern and airtight home - I regularly don't open any of the windows for days if not weeks. You can build air tight homes that don't need windows to be opened if you address the ventilation issues with good design.

At the time of construction about 11 years ago, I did quite a lot of research and decided to install a balanced pressure heat recovery ventilation system into the house. It wasn't cheap but it's significantly better in performance than a positive pressure ventilation system. It was designed and installed to displace a minimum of around 0.3 of the internal volume EVERY HOUR so effectively there's a complete air change every 3 hours and effectively 8 complete fresh air changes a day. The stainless steel cross flow heat exchanger up in the roofspace uses the scavenged warm moist air in the house to warm the filtered incoming fresh air charge which effectively controls the humidity.

It has a power consumption of about 150-200 watts but the humidity in the house sits around 40 to 60% and the internal space is warmed with heat pumps and there is passive solar heating using some design features e.g. tiles on an insulated slab next to large ranchsliders and a thermostat controlled port on the ventilation system to run air from the roofspace if the temperature > 20 degrees via the exhaust side of the ventilation system to use warm roofspace air to provide additional heat to the fresh air charge.

It does require looking at details - our interior lights are LED units that don't port air up to a cavity or roofspace (incandescent lighting often does to get rid of excess heat) and looking at placement of the exhaust and intake ports (e.g. I have a scavenging exhaust port hidden behind the fridge in the kitchen).

BUT most homeowners don't know or place value on features like these that actually make homes liveable, dry, warm and well ventilated especially when they cost as much as a bathroom.

Interersting. I am building a new home shortly, after years in an older home with a very successful positive pressure vent system - but I can't for the life of me understand how they can be expected to work in a new near enough to air tight home.
What brand of balanced system did you install? Does the heat exchanger seem efficient, and of course - cost? Grateful for any info.