Category: Passive House
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188: How to Have a Comfortable, Safe and Affordable Home
Paul Hennessey has an inspiring vision of a thriving community in which people live in their own warm, dry comfortable and affordable homes. He’s partnered with his wife, Pascale to create Park Homes in order to turn that vision into reality. But is it really possible to have an affordable and a comfortable home? Affordability…
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186: Beautiful High Performance Windows
Where do you go to get beautiful, high performance doors and windows, made in New Zealand? In 2005 Christian and Sandra Rampe moved to New Zealand from Germany. Despite the milder climate of New Zealand, they were surprise just how cold they were here, inside their house. They were also surprised how much condensation there…
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How to Become a Certified Passive House Professional
Are you interested in becoming a Certified Passive House Designer, Consultant or Tradesperson? It’s a tough road that usually includes a challenging exam. But I for one would like a world where there are more Passive House Professionals. Here’s how to do it. Certified Passive House Training My brain feels stuffed with fluffy insulation. I’ve…
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185: What is Airtightness and Why do we Need it?
The topic of airtightness keeps coming up. Derek Ward of Clioma House shared his thoughts on the topic back in episode 103 and Jon Davies of Pro Clima went into some detail in episode 163. This episode is a reading of a presentation I prepared recently on the topic of airtightness, why we’re scared of…
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184: From Rocket Science to Building Science
Rocket science is so complicated it’s a cliche. But Jason Quinn, New Zealand’s only current Passive House Certifier, considers the science of high performance buildings to be on par, or perhaps even trickier than the science of designing rocket engines. It’s all physics, just applied in a different way. After a first career working for…
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181: Hütt – Tomorrow’s House Today
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…
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178: Cutting Edge Craftsmanship
In the early 1800s there was a rapid migration westward across the United States of America. Newer, faster ways of building were needed to house people in the booming towns of the “early west”. The craft of careful timber framed construction quickly gave way to mass production of stick frame housing. Tedd Benson refers to…
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174: Housing, Not Just Houses
Karen Manson likes thinking about and designing housing, not just houses. With over 15 years of design experience, include 10 years overseas, 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.…
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170: A Stunning Multi-Generational Passive House in Auckland
Harpal Kler comes from an accounting background, but during the last four years he’s learnt a lot about building and living in a multi-generational Passive House. Now, he’s a big advocate. Their stunning family home was completed in December 2015 by ehaus and is one of a growing number of Certified Passive House homes in…
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169: Passive House Canada
Earlier this year, I caught up with Passive House Canada CEO, Rob Bernhardt while he was in the country courtesy of the New Zealand Institute of Quantity Surveyors. I was keen to ask Rob what we could learn from his success in growing Passive House in Canada.