Probably drying their clothes inside.

alasta:

Aredwood:

Fully agree. No point in forcing landlords to spend money installing heaters. If those heaters are no cheaper to run than a $20 plug in heater. On the other hand, if it is going to cost big $$$ to install efficient heating. The landlord would just increase the rent, or decide not to rent the property.

I just dont trust politicians to be able to properly balance such competing requirements.

According to this page it sounds like there will generally need to be a heat pump in the living room and an extraction fan in both the kitchen and bathroom. 

How much would it cost to install all of those things? If we assume that it would be about $10k then I would expect rents to only go up by about $10 a week to cover a 5% return on that capex, but this still feels like the sort of policy that tends to have unintended consequences.

alasta:

 

When smoke detectors became compulsory there were a lot of anecdotes about tenants taking them down and removing the batteries.

 

I used to have a couple of rentals, in one rental I had the smoke alarm go missing probably four times, another time I went to check the alarm and it did not work, the tennant or their offspring had replaced the 9v battery with 2 AA batteries. 

They just played dumb.

I installed a positive pressure system in my rentals.

In the olden days when I grew up, Mum was home and looked after the house, Dad went to work.

Today, typically Mum and Dad have to go to work just to pay rent, often leaving early to drop kids off to daycare and coming home late, they dont get to ventilate the house as they could do. Window stays are only so good particularly on cheap aluminium windows and even worse on ild wooden windows. 

I think that unflued gas heaters should be banned full stop, as with swamp coolers.

I dont think every house should have a heat pump, personally I prefer my old skope 3KW wall heater over my 5.5KW Toshiba heat pump, the Skope took longer to heat the room but keeps it warm better.

John

gchiu:

Well, yes you do need evidence before you legislate that landlords are going to have to spend $5k or whatever to install a heatpump if the target population are never going to turn it on because they can't afford it.  And what evidence we do have suggests that heat pumps end up increasing the electricity bills over the use of resistance heaters.  Instead of just warming the person, they instead warm the whole room so you're paying for something you may not have wanted.  I suspect some tenants will just get a $30 heater, and use that instead of the shiny new heat pump on the wall.

The new regulations want to address draughts as well.  Three heaters in one room sounds like they have a lot of glass or something else that's causing heat loss.

So what happens to us? We live in an old farmhouse, circa 1920s, sprawling, two stories, no insulation at all, draughty, modern wood burner in lounge/kitchen that keeps living area toasty, unflued gas heater in another room that has worked fine for years, no fans but windows for ventilation that also work fine, family farm but technically a rental as property has been passed on to the children who let us live here for token sum, everyone perfectly happy with things as they are. We are not exploited tenants. We don't want any 'improvements'. Also, heating is free because there is always more than enough dead wood on property. Hot water also free because of wetback. If we suddenly had to use electric heating in any form, we couldn't afford to live here, never mind that we are at the end of a long series of power poles extending out from town and boy racers and trees knocking them out are not unheard of. I am all in favour of regulations that protect vulnerable tenants from exploitation but one-size-fits-all bureaucratic standards with no flexibility are unlikely to fix anything.

Rikkitic:

 

So what happens to us? We live in an old farmhouse, circa 1920s, sprawling, two stories, no insulation at all, draughty, modern wood burner in lounge/kitchen that keeps living area toasty, unflued gas heater in another room that has worked fine for years, no fans but windows for ventilation that also work fine, family farm but technically a rental as property has been passed on to the children who let us live here for token sum, everyone perfectly happy with things as they are. We are not exploited tenants. We don't want any 'improvements'. Also, heating is free because there is always more than enough dead wood on property. Hot water also free because of wetback. If we suddenly had to use electric heating in any form, we couldn't afford to live here, never mind that we are at the end of a long series of power poles extending out from town and boy racers and trees knocking them out are not unheard of. I am all in favour of regulations that protect vulnerable tenants from exploitation but one-size-fits-all bureaucratic standards with no flexibility are unlikely to fix anything.

 

 

 

Agree.

They say there are 600,000 faulty houses. I can't see that at all, it must include a $3.5 million house where the smoke alarm is faulty, etc. You cant tell me that we have 600,000  homes that are damp and drafty. Moisture HAS to be fixed. Insulation should be what is sensible, without lifting a hammer. Drafts are easy to remedy. Heating, provide some $500 hard wired heater thats semi efficient, or maybe two, 1 in living room, one in hallway that feeds bedrooms. 

Rikkitic:

 

 If we suddenly had to use electric heating in any form, we couldn't afford to live here, never mind that we are at the end of a long series of power poles extending out from town and boy racers and trees knocking them out are not unheard of. I am all in favour of regulations that protect vulnerable tenants from exploitation but one-size-fits-all bureaucratic standards with no flexibility are unlikely to fix anything.

 

 

 

Wood burners are one of the approved heating sources.

davidcole:

 

Senecio:

 

I'm all for minimum standards on safety items on things such as fire & smoke alarms. Beyond that a tenant has to take responsibility for renting a place that is suitable for them and their family. 

 

 

The other bit I had an issue with, but we wont know the back story, is if the place failed on the porch light (like it did) why didn't the tenant notify the landlord that the bulb was out.

 

exactly landlord does not living there. 

tdgeek:

They say there are 600,000 faulty houses. I can't see that at all, it must include a $3.5 million house where the smoke alarm is faulty, etc. You cant tell me that we have 600,000  homes that are damp and drafty. Moisture HAS to be fixed. Insulation should be what is sensible, without lifting a hammer. Drafts are easy to remedy. Heating, provide some $500 hard wired heater thats semi efficient, or maybe two, 1 in living room, one in hallway that feeds bedrooms. 

Aredwood:

tdgeek:

 

They say there are 600,000 faulty houses. I can't see that at all, it must include a $3.5 million house where the smoke alarm is faulty, etc. You cant tell me that we have 600,000  homes that are damp and drafty. Moisture HAS to be fixed. Insulation should be what is sensible, without lifting a hammer. Drafts are easy to remedy. Heating, provide some $500 hard wired heater thats semi efficient, or maybe two, 1 in living room, one in hallway that feeds bedrooms. 

 

What type of heater is a semi efficient $500 heater? If it is an electric resistance heater, then it is no more efficient than a $20 heater. And you would be forcing landlords to spend money on something that would have zero benefits for the tenants.


And why do people still insist on heating hallways? When it is actually the bedrooms that need heating?

I think the above is simply a throwback to when permanently installed unflued gas heaters were popular. You were not allowed to install them in bedrooms. So they were often installed in hallways as that was the only possible way to get heat from them into a bedroom. The gas companies also ran promotions, if you got gas hot water and heating installed. They would give you a free or very cheap gas connection. Two cosypanel heaters (unflued) were the cheapest heating option that the gas companies would accept. They had 2.2KW of heating capacity, similar to alot of electric heaters. And since they would struggle to effectively heat the bedrooms. They would often be running for ages. Which was good for the gas company as they would sell more gas.

Then there are the old villas and some UK houses where the front door would open into the hallway. Meaning big heat loss when the door is opened. So there is some merit when designing a central heating system, to also install a radiator in the hallway in those type of houses. Even though from mid century onwards in NZ, it became alot less common to have an external door opening into the hallway. So the need to quickly make up for heat loss from the front door opening didn't apply.

Yet now people are stuck with the idea that heating hallways is somehow a good thing. All because of the need to comply with rules that only ever applied to unflued gas heaters.

I chose $500 as that "should" be better than a $20 heater, more likely to get a more efficient heater. As to what, I have no idea but someone who is knowledgeable... :-) would have a better idea. The hallway isn't a throwback from me. My take was no one wants cost, so to heat 3 bedrooms, a good heater in the hall is a cost saving option than three good heaters

Having read a few articles on this, but none of the legislation, I can only comment as a former tenant and current home owner. 

1. Why do tenants not have to take responsibility for their own welfare? 

2. Why do landlords have to bear the brunt of the cost of installing heating, insulation etc, when if this was a home owned by the tenant, they would be responsible for all of these costs? 

3. Is there no legislation that addresses idiocy? Many of those that bemoan a damp house, dry clothes indoors, cook with windows closed with no fan going and have hot showers, steaming up the bathroom and don't wipe down the walls/mirrors etc, but allow the steam to simply escape into the house. I include homeowners here, too...not just tenants. 

What I don't understand is that as a homeowner, all of the remedial work that I undertake to make my home livable and healthy is entirely on me. I have no Great and Powerful Oz to force someone else to pay for it. I've paid a fortune over the years to install underfloor and ceiling insulation (house built in 90's - no insulation other than foil-backed gib). I've paid a fortune on heating and cooling, eventually getting a heatpump installed a few years ago. We also had a positive pressure system installed early on in the piece as we were sold the dream of it being the perfect heating/cooling solution (it wasn't). 

When I was a renter, I changed lightbulbs as they blew, I put my rubbish out, I cleaned the house and I mowed the lawns. If I needed heat, I bought a heater. If I was too hot, I bought a fan. 

Why do tenants need to be assisted constantly, when those that have gone to the trouble and hardship of buying their own home (I know not everyone is so "lucky") have to fend for themselves? 

I'm not a landlord, as I've never had the spare coin to invest in property, but my experiences as a renter in the past were that if you treated your rented property as home, not just someone else's property, you fended for yourself and just got on with it. It worked for me and my wife and all of our friends at the time we were all renting...how come it's all changed so much? 

Handsomedan:

 

Having read a few articles on this, but none of the legislation, I can only comment as a former tenant and current home owner. 

 

 

 

1. Why do tenants not have to take responsibility for their own welfare? 

 

2. Why do landlords have to bear the brunt of the cost of installing heating, insulation etc, when if this was a home owned by the tenant, they would be responsible for all of these costs? 

 

3. Is there no legislation that addresses idiocy? Many of those that bemoan a damp house, dry clothes indoors, cook with windows closed with no fan going and have hot showers, steaming up the bathroom and don't wipe down the walls/mirrors etc, but allow the steam to simply escape into the house. I include homeowners here, too...not just tenants. 

 

1 and 2, cos generally without explicit landlord permission, you can't make modifications to their property.  And while an a tenant you could offer, I'm not sure how many do, and if you leave the properly, while it has made your living conditions better, you'd be giving up the improvements.

3, doesn't seem to be.  Lack of ventilating (open the curtains/windows) doesn't seem to be a thing.....just look out at the high rise apartment block, and take note of the closed blinds all day/night.  Regardless of who owns that, it's can't be helping anyone.