Healthy Homes Confusion - Re heating tool

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Ultimate Geek

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#3102768 11-Jul-2023 15:31

Sadly - the Government is the last to bother complying with 'healthy Homes Standards" - and they house the largest portion of low income families who would benefit from it most.

Handle9

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#3102774 11-Jul-2023 15:49

SirHumphreyAppleby:

Handle9:

If you bother to read the notes it states that it’s conservative and will likely oversize the heating required, which means that it meets the intent of the legislation.

My understanding is the calculator implements the calculations set out in Schedule 2 of the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Regulations 2019. The intent, which the regulation states can be met if a suitably qualified professional says so, does not align with the requirements to establish compliance by other means (i.e. the calculator).

The risk of non-compliance is a pro-tenant Tenancy Tribunal. I'd rather spend a few hundred dollars more on a larger AC unit to be on the safe side.

The legislation provides the relevant calculations. Using the calculations is an acceptable method to comply. As with most design calculations there's interpretation involved which means that the can be different outcomes depending on your assumptions.

If anyone cares it's listed here.. There's nothing particularly difficult to understand in the regulations and the calculations are pretty standard design calculations.

Handle9

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#3102777 11-Jul-2023 15:50

concordnz: Beauracrats don't care about real world experience.
(or what's been done to improve the insulation)

Except the regulations use the insulation as the basis of the calculations.

Handle9

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#3102781 11-Jul-2023 15:57

Bung: The Government knows the calculator is a lemon and made changes for homes built after 2008. The method used in the calculations should be fixed instead. Why should a fully retrofitted building not be treated the same?

Funnily enough a fully retrofitted building is treated the same. From the legislation:

modern dwelling, in relation to premises or a tenancy building, means premises or a tenancy building that first received building consent—

(a) on or after the following date for its zone:

(i) 30 September 2008, for zone 1:

(ii) 30 June 2008, for zone 2:

(iii) 31 October 2007, for zone 3; or

(b) before the applicable date in paragraph (a) if—

(i) insulation and glazing have been installed throughout the thermal envelope of the premises or tenancy building; and

(ii) the insulation and glazing meets or exceeds NZS 4218:2009 for that zone

Stephendnz

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#3102831 11-Jul-2023 18:11

Thanks for all the replies. There sure are some interesting ones, and sadly a few snarky ones that I would have expected more from a FaceBook post than from the, I thought, more intelligent users of GeekZone.

Someone suggested that there was "no confusion". Hmm- The Tenancy Sevices Healthy Homes Standards PDF document Titled Healthy Homes Standards, says in the very first paragraph:

"The heating standard requires landlords to provide one or more fixed heater(s) that can directly heat the main living room of every rental property. These must be acceptable types of heaters and must meet a required minimum heating capacity. The minimum heating capacity shows the heater(s) can heat the main living room to 18˚C."

I had also read elsewhere: On the coldest day of the year, and within a 2-hour period from having had no heating on.

So from that, I had deduced that our home would easily meet that requirement, given that the 18degrees was the ultimate objective.

So what I am trying to establish is. Is that 18 degrees the criteria to be achieved, or not?

If it is, I am more than happy to have someone from Tenancy Services sit in my lounge for 2 hours in the morning to verify it will indeed achieve this level, usually from a morning start point of around 14-15 without any overnight heating being used.

One would think that would be a simple test that would be done. But no, this government and I am sure any other government for that matter, has to spend millions on expensive consultants to come up with a whole bunch of complicated formulas by which to measure what should be sa very simple process.

I note also by the way, that while the Tool, asks you to input all the measurements of the walls, windows, insulation thickness etc, it makes no allowance for the quality, thickness, of curtains, floor coverings, carpet or bare timber, is the room south or north facing, has it benefitted from hours of hot afternoon sun? Is there a ventilation system that ensures the house is nice and dry and free of moisture? All of these factors would have as much impact as insulation.

So again, thank you to those that have offered helpful answers and information, and to those that just want to make snide comments, like the OP having to spend some money to become a landlord, maybe you should move back to your Facebook groups were that kind of talk is more common. Oh and for the record, I have been a landlord on and off for the last 40 years, both domestic and commercial. And I sure hope I never get to that numbed state where I will just comply, without question, with every law or regulation foisted upon me by any government.

:-)

Handle9

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#3102836 11-Jul-2023 18:23

Have you read the legislation? It’s straightforward. It describes the design temperatures, the way to calculate the heating performance of the building and the environmental constraints.

The “complicated formulas” are how buildings are designed. You may not like it but it’s industry standard practice. A design engineer uses these same types of calculations to design a large commercial building. In a domestic situation they form the basis of the building code. You need to be able to heat the building from ambient to 18 degrees on a design day. That’s the design conditions.

How do you plan on testing a houses heating performance? To test it you need a design day. These happen at best once or twice a year?

Using these “complicated formulas” is far cheaper for landlords than having the government charge you for having people on standby for testing the building on a 1 degree day.

Handle9

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#3102847 11-Jul-2023 19:07

As above it’s really not that complicated. The alternative method for compliance is as below.

For the purposes of this clause, the required heating capacity for a living room is the heating capacity that a suitably qualified specialist has assessed as sufficient—
(a) to heat the living room to at least 18°C; and
(b) to do so within 2 hours after an 8-hour period of disuse; and
(c) to maintain the living room at 18°C despite the expected transmission, infiltration, and ventilation heat losses of the living room, including heat losses to—
(i) external air; and
(ii) the ground; and
(iii) other parts of the building or any adjoining structure.
(3) The specialist must base the assessment on the assumed external temperature for residential premises in the relevant district set out in clause 5 of Schedule 2.
Regulation 10A: inserted, on 12 May 2022, by regulation 7 of the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Amendment Regulations 2022 (SL 2022/109).

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tweake

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#3102853 11-Jul-2023 19:48

Stephendnz:

One would think that would be a simple test that would be done. But no, this government and I am sure any other government for that matter, has to spend millions on expensive consultants to come up with a whole bunch of complicated formulas by which to measure what should be sa very simple process.

I note also by the way, that while the Tool, asks you to input all the measurements of the walls, windows, insulation thickness etc, it makes no allowance for the quality, thickness, of curtains, floor coverings, carpet or bare timber, is the room south or north facing, has it benefitted from hours of hot afternoon sun? Is there a ventilation system that ensures the house is nice and dry and free of moisture? All of these factors would have as much impact as insulation.

the formulas is off the shelf, i'm sure handle9 has the commercial software version. there is free versions of the residential available from a few places. the govt would have spent nothing because they already have the software just like every council, architect etc.

however it has some limits and quirks. they typically don't take in account curtains flor covers or anything home owners can easily change. as this is about insulation heating from other sources like the sun is not included. what happens if you get a dark winter day with no sun? in fact working out solar input is something many get wrong and the simulation software to do it well is really expensive.

air leakage (ventilation) is also crudely done because you have to actually test the house as every house is different. also ventilation requirement is handled by existing building laws, having opening windows is a pass.

the catch with the govt calc has always been what design day they use and what house temp they aim for. the 18c comes from WHO's minimum temp. design day is meant to come from existing weather data.

mattwnz

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#3102865 11-Jul-2023 20:05

I am a little surprised that the fixed minimum sized heater requirement doesn't apply to bedrooms, and only the main living area.

tweake

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#3102868 11-Jul-2023 20:17

mattwnz: I am a little surprised that the fixed minimum sized heater requirement doesn't apply to bedrooms, and only the main living area.

don't get me started.

the amount of flak from people complaining about "tenants have better heating than owners" is bad enough. imagen the cries of foul if they required the whole house to be heated. even i get called extravagant for having more than one heatpump.

but kiwis are slowly improving. its good to see the interest in ducted systems and other whole home heating.

wellygary

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#3102871 11-Jul-2023 20:29

mattwnz: I am a little surprised that the fixed minimum sized heater requirement doesn't apply to bedrooms, and only the main living area.

Its what the Green's have in their manifesto,

But I'm sure that it was considered when the original spec was drafted, However its got downsides,

The first is that bedrooms tend to be smaller thus its harder (via their heating calculator) to justify the installation of a heating appliance over 2.4Kw, ( once you get over 2.4, they can easily make it slam dunk that a heat pump is the only solution)

Because of that, all that would happen is that landlords wire in a resistance wall heater and the tenants would never use them because with a COF of 1 they get expensive to run real quick....

Also telling landlords they had to install a heat pump that is capable of heating the whole house would have caused huge installer and supplier bottlenecks ( not that their weren't when the original standard was introduce)

Handle9

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#3102952 12-Jul-2023 00:41

tweake:
Stephendnz:

One would think that would be a simple test that would be done. But no, this government and I am sure any other government for that matter, has to spend millions on expensive consultants to come up with a whole bunch of complicated formulas by which to measure what should be sa very simple process.

I note also by the way, that while the Tool, asks you to input all the measurements of the walls, windows, insulation thickness etc, it makes no allowance for the quality, thickness, of curtains, floor coverings, carpet or bare timber, is the room south or north facing, has it benefitted from hours of hot afternoon sun? Is there a ventilation system that ensures the house is nice and dry and free of moisture? All of these factors would have as much impact as insulation.

the formulas is off the shelf, i'm sure handle9 has the commercial software version. there is free versions of the residential available from a few places. the govt would have spent nothing because they already have the software just like every council, architect etc.

however it has some limits and quirks. they typically don't take in account curtains flor covers or anything home owners can easily change. as this is about insulation heating from other sources like the sun is not included. what happens if you get a dark winter day with no sun? in fact working out solar input is something many get wrong and the simulation software to do it well is really expensive.

air leakage (ventilation) is also crudely done because you have to actually test the house as every house is different. also ventilation requirement is handled by existing building laws, having opening windows is a pass.

the catch with the govt calc has always been what design day they use and what house temp they aim for. the 18c comes from WHO's minimum temp. design day is meant to come from existing weather data.

I’m not a mechanical engineer (thank god) so I’ve never done a heat load calculation. I’ve just controlled a ton of mechanical systems.

As you say the calculations are likely the ASHRAE or CIBSE calculations. There’s nothing unusual and the legislation is quite simply described. They give even give multiple options for compliance. You can use their calculator, where the indemnify you, their calculation formula or you can get an independent expert to certify the design.

It’s really hard to see how this is a problem.

MikeAqua

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#3103068 12-Jul-2023 10:30

I inferred that the OP is bringing the house to the market for rent for the first time, which means it's relatively easy to set an appropriate rent. This is my assumption for the below.

If this was me, I'd just spend the money on heat pumps to meet the standard. I would then increase my planned rent to have a positive NPV after 5 years. I would have thought a WAAC of >0% would be appropriate, given the risk to assets (and little prospect of compensation) and the inability to claim interest as a tax deduction, in the residential tenancy market.

The govt is entitled to set standards and expect landlord to pay to enforce them, and landlords are entitled to set rents that recoup the investment required to meet standards.

The good news is that you can depreciate the heat pumps. The asset value for depreciation should include any installation costs and incidentals.

I would also reimburse myself for any kms driven at 79c/km and either add that to the asset value (flows through to rental and depreciation calcs) or claim it as a tax-deductible expense in that year.

Mike

mattwnz

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#3103407 12-Jul-2023 18:20

MikeAqua:

I inferred that the OP is bringing the house to the market for rent for the first time, which means it's relatively easy to set an appropriate rent.

Also with the recent tax changes around rentals, it is clear that the government would prefer the rentals were new houses that meet the building standards. However they have just dramatically improved the insulation standards on new builds, so most of the new homes built over the last decade do not have great insulation, as many were just built to the minimum standard. Most developers tend to build to the minimum standards to keep their build costs to a minimum, so they can maximise profit. Whereas someone building a home for themselves will often upspec things like insulation, as it will save on heating costs in the long run.

Many people renting are lower income, but end up having higher heating costs due to many older houses not being able to retain heat as a well as a new house. So often lower income people end up with higher electricity bills as a result. They essentially have not control over this as they can't improve the house due to not owning it, so their only option is to move to a better house. So it is a good thig that the governments are slowly improving the standard of housing and incentivizing landlords to go down the new build route. But often a new build may not be as good an investment, as often they are on small parcels of land that can't be subdivided, so they can't have it both ways.

Handle9

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#3103408 12-Jul-2023 18:34

MikeAqua:
I inferred that the OP is bringing the house to the market for rent for the first time, which means it's relatively easy to set an appropriate rent. This is my assumption for the below.

If this was me, I'd just spend the money on heat pumps to meet the standard. I would then increase my planned rent to have a positive NPV after 5 years. I would have thought a WAAC of >0% would be appropriate, given the risk to assets (and little prospect of compensation) and the inability to claim interest as a tax deduction, in the residential tenancy market.

The govt is entitled to set standards and expect landlord to pay to enforce them, and landlords are entitled to set rents that recoup the investment required to meet standards.

The good news is that you can depreciate the heat pumps. The asset value for depreciation should include any installation costs and incidentals.

I would also reimburse myself for any kms driven at 79c/km and either add that to the asset value (flows through to rental and depreciation calcs) or claim it as a tax-deductible expense in that year.

You’re making the assumption that rentals are priced cost plus rather than what the market will bear. You can try and build whatever pricing model you like but if the property down the road is priced $50 a week cheaper then you’re SOL. Similarly if there is a scarcity of properties the rental cost is based on what people will pay not the landlords costs.

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