21,000 warmer state homes
Housing New Zealand owns and maintains about 68,600 houses throughout New Zealand. Many of these properties were built before 1978, prior to insulation becoming mandatory. Many of these homes have poor or no insulation and inefficient heating such as open fires.
Housing New Zealand has been running a programme to progressively retrofit uninsulated state homes with energy efficient material since 2001. So far it has done this to about 16,500 homes. This has meant ceiling and underfloor insulation, ground moisture barriers, cylinder wraps and lagging on some hot water pipes, draft stop seals to doors and windows, installation of water efficient shower heads, energy efficient light bulbs and energy efficiency heaters.
Jeanette has just won a budget bid to fast track this project with $53.4 million. This will help retrofit a further 21,000 state homes in the next five years. This is double the current rate of progress.
In a win-win outcome, tenants will benefit both from electricity savings and improved health:
“The Greens see this as an investment in the future health of New Zealanders. We estimate that the country will recover this investment four-fold in 20 years in energy and health savings.
“Research indicates that insulated homes use on average a fifth less energy than uninsulated homes. People report health improvements, including half the number of respiratory symptoms. Children in insulated houses had half the number of days off school.”
May 15th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Good work.
May 15th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
This makes a lot more sense than buying a used train set.
May 15th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Used train sets aside, it is an extraordinarily good step.
Now we just need the lights to come on at the Beehive, and someone to work out what the health costs are of a country full of uninsulated homes, and start to invest in better health.
May 15th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
So state housing is going to be insulated while we continue to see battery chicken farming and pigs in crates.
Please do not tell me that getting something done about animal cruelty is not possible, it is clear that the Greens do not place any importance on Animal Cruelty at all.
May 15th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
This was in the govt release
“How will the programme be evaluated?
Up to 15 per cent of the newly insulated houses will be given a Home Energy Rating. The rating scheme was launched through the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority by the Government last year and is an assessment of the energy efficiency performance of a home. It includes the building itself, and the two biggest energy users in a home - the room heating and the water heating systems. A qualified assessor evaluates the home, then generates a report containing star ratings showing the energy performance of the home, and professional recommendations on the most appropriate actions to improve the home’s rating. Evaluating HNZC homes under the scheme will ensure the corporation has an independent assessment of its progress. ”
I would have thought it essential to do some actual measurements in-house to see if this investment is actually delivering what it says rather than these assessments. Seems a missed opportunity to me which makes me wonder if the benefits are being overstated.
May 15th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
insider, fair point, and I have no idea, but would you say the same for the health benefits?
May 15th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Wrong again big bro. See http://greens.org.nz/searchdocs/policy5349.html for the Greens amimal welfare policy.
May 15th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
insider - the benefits of such a programme, in NZ, have been thoroughly researched and because they are following the prescription pretty closely, we can be pretty confident that the benefits as described will be delivered. Besides, having seen the numbers myself, I know that they err on the conservative side and don’t promise all that the research says that they might.
As for the HERS rating, it is really a way to get HNZC to look at the energy efficiency effect of how they do their modernisations, not specifically the insulation retrofits for which there is excellent research. If the effect of getting the HERS ratings done is to gently nudge asset managers into more energy efficient modernisation choices, then it will be money well spent.
May 15th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
dbuckley - your point is well made, and the beehive was forced to look at the health figures for their own housing, by the Green Party, and now we have a successful budget bid. Only now do they have the moral right to even look at how the private sector does things. The Greens insist that they get their own affairs as a landlord in order before they go poking into private landlord’s business. (Not that EECA doesn’t already offer a generous subsidy for private landlords with low-income tenants to get the home insulated, they do.)
May 15th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Great to see. I am one of the assessors for the HERS scheme. What’s needed is to expand it across all public buildings and to set targets for them all to achieve a star rating appropriate to their climate zone.
The funding model needs to combine capital and maintenance budgets with operational grants to achieve least cost to the taxpayer in the long term.
At the moment these three streams of money are separated and don’t allow holistic budgeting of our money. Another win-win
So Greens there is something more for you to chew at.
Frog, you say that retrofitting insulation is well researched, I’d say we can do quite a bit better than the solutions rammed down BRANZ’s throat by the big names in the industry.
Once the star ratings are finalised by ECCA it will then be appropriate for the building code to require homes achieve a specified star rating as a preference to blanket rules such as ‘all windows shall be double glazed’ or ‘thou shalt fit R2.5 batts’.
May 15th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Great news! When I came here in 1986 I could not belief that houses in NZ were not double glazed and insulated…there is still a lot of work to be done and substantial tax breaks did work in the 1970ies in Germany, they would work here just the same…the economical incentive is very important to get people from all political spectrums ‘involved’. Why not use the tax cuts to help people to save money in the long run on fossil fuels!
May 15th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Oh, Iforgot to mention…
Greens, push for all these houses to have Hot Water Heat Pumps, better than solar for a number of reasons.
May 15th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Eh? Never heard of those. I think. Sounds like the heat pumps that heat air?
May 15th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
This is great news, we are guaranteed to get a return on the money spent on these properties when the incoming government does the right thing and sells them.
May 15th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
# big bro Says:
May 15th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
> This is great news, we are guaranteed to get a return on the money spent on these properties when the incoming government does the right thing and sells them.
not necessarily. Currently a lot of reasonably basic energy efficiency improvements don’t seem to make much difference to the sale price of a house, because potential buyers usually don’t have a very good sense of the energy efficiency of a house when they’re buying it. That’s why so many developers find it’s not worth their while to do anything more than the minimum required by law.
If we had a compulsory energy rating system like they have in Canberra, the market would be more aware of these issues, and house buyers would be more likely to pay for them what they’re worth. Because so many people expect to sell their houses within a few years, and want to get back any money they spent on them, this would probably make a big difference to New Zealand’s housing stock.
May 15th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
# StephenR Says:
May 15th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
> Eh? Never heard of those. I think. Sounds like the heat pumps that heat air?
Yep. It works on the same principle.
May 15th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Ah. So why are they SO much better than solar? Just more cost effective per kilowatt hour etc? I’d sort of thought of solar as a panacea of sorts in the sense that the sun is free and rather carbon friendly…
May 15th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
(cont from the Gareth Hughes thread - hmm how did that happen? :-D)
BP said:
You seem to be fairly with it, so I assume (and I do) you’ve thought about the long term cost i.e. not having to use as much heating in several years? That is of course, numbers, and I think the Greens understand that people do not necessarily act rationally and sit down with a calculator and work these things out, hence the ratings that are mentioned at the top of the thread, and perhaps the efficiency ratings for cars that are now in force. As you mentioned they have slightly subsidised solar water heating, as well as insulation costs for landlords! What more do you want? Or just simply ‘more’…?
May 15th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
it is of course debatable that they *fully* understand incentives, but surely part way there…
May 15th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
I’ve just recently completed a review of how hot water is heated here at Chez Buckley, and the straight cost winner is off peak electricity using an ordinary element. The capital costs associated with either heat pump or solar at todays interest rates make these options unattractive, and instant gas heating has more reasonable capital costs, but is now ruled out as LPG is over 18c/KWH and presumably will continue to rise.
Having said all that, the wetback in the logburner has performed water heating duties for several days now, having used just 1KWH of electricity for water heating in 5 days
May 16th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Why are heat pumps better
Houses tend to use hot water morning and evening, solar works in the middle of a sunny day.
When I turn on my hot tap hot water runs out the top of the cylinder and is replaced by cold running in, in the evening is solar going to heat that cold water? No. For the morning usage I need to have stored the hot water from yesterdays solar gain less the amount used the previous evening. To achieve this solar systems need far larger storage cylinders. That means greater weight. Building permits are needed, installation is a major etc etc, all for a system that’s heating water at the wrong time of the day, or not at all on a dull day. Don’t we tend to use more hot water during bad weather? That’s when the electric element kicks in.
A heat pump can be fitted to an existing cylinder, without a building permit.
Nearly all of these 21,000 houses will have standard 180 litre electric cylinders powered by 100% electricity.
Whack a heat pump into each and it will save 2/3 of that power 24/7, good weather or bad in all of NZ’s climate zones. They are cheaper to set up than solar.
Clever installations take the heat out of the attic to heat the water, now that is solar water heating anyway isn’t it? Caveat: you must insulate your ceilings to do that or you’ll suck heat out of the house, but you must insulate anyway.
What this will achieve nicely is a reduction in the electrical base load, something that our grid badly needs, saving the country $$$. It’ll save the state house tenants $$$. It will provide employment.
It’s one of those issues that both the green Greens and the red Greens can back.
And, no, I don’t sell heat pumps, in case you were wondering.
In private homes people are installing heat pump room heating like there’s no tomorrow. They would be far better to install water heating heat pumps and take the savings 365 days of the year to run old bar heaters for the (relatively) few cold times. But that’s where the insulation steps back on the stage…
May 16th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Thanks samiam. Though I was under the impression that solar works much better during bad weather now than it used to…
May 16th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Good news, well done.
There IS an environmental incentive in using less power. If we are to look after our environment it is imperative that people stop thinking on limited economic terms.
It’s obvious there is an increasing trend towards considering the preservation of the environment and minimizing pollution. We still have a long way to go yet till we start reversing the systems of entrenched habitat trashing.
There are some serious changes to be made and those who are blindly opposed to this kind of ‘progress’ lack the foresight and vision of those wanting to live in a healthy and sustainable eco-system.
May 16th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Unfortunately, for most people, “limited economic terms” is all the scope they have in which to think.
For anyone with a significant hot water heating bill, and a decent sized tank, switching to off peak heating of the water saves over 50% of the electricity cost, with zero capital investment. It’s not perfect,as you have to factor in the increased standing charge for a two meter system, (about 50c a day) but if you spend more than that on average heating water, you’re onto an economic winner.
To go from over 50% cost saving to 67% cost saving (and an actual reduction in energy used) requires a capital investment of over $5000 for a heat pump. For a domestic installation, that’s an almost impossible argument to make sense of. There is no economic sense in hot water heating by heat pump for most people.
Solar is theoretically better-ish, as you have free input energy when the sun is shining, but… the sun doesn’t always shine, so a backup heat system is generally needed.
Solar frustrates me, as my garden hose lying in the grass on a sunny day collects a kilowatt of heat (yes, I’ve measured it!). A 100m roll of irrigation tube ($40) would do even better as it’s black. Yet a solar installed system is several $000’s. A $500 solar hot water system would have massive implications.
Recycling heat is a possibility, and looks to have a decent ROI, but needs some interesting design work to be compatible with ground floor showers ubiquitous in NZ. See the GFX shower heat exchanger and this work from the Duke smart home programme.
To actually use less energy to heat water requires investment. As I’ve noted before, if a government wished to, it could invest in measures to reduce electricity consumption rather than investing in new power stations. But don’t hold your breath.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:21 am
>If a government wished to, it could invest in measures to reduce electricity consumption rather than investing in new power stations.requires a capital investment of over $5000 for a heat pump. For a domestic installation, that’s an almost impossible<
We are talking state houses here, I’d put the price at more in the $3-4,000 range, and would represent a greater return on tax $ than building more power stations.
Tax incentives to private landlords would help too, but sorting out the public housing stock would make a great start.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
The reason I asked for measurement is that the theory often doesn’t pan out in practice. In Britian they thought double glzing and insulation would solve their energy growth concerns - all very logical and planned. Unfortunately it didn’t work. Energy kept growing because people liked the warmth and kept consuming the same energy as that gave warmer temperatures, rather than turn down their heaters, maintain the old temperature and save money.
People can be the confounding factor, so it is important to know how they and their environment are responding to ensure the policies are working
May 16th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Same goes with air conditioning in hot climates, they just consume more and more.
That, however, does not apply to heat pump (or solar) water heating, hence it’s such an elegant answer to reducing base load.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
insider
Energy companies could deal with that issue by installing smart meters and implement dynamic pricing models so as to both make people more aware of and better manage their energy use.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I also think it important for government to seperate electricity generation from distribution as power companies may feel tempted to manipulate supply in order to boost prices as they did in California after deregulation.
http://www.aol.co.nz/men/story/Smart-power-meters-herald-future-of-our -electricity-use/428821/index.html
May 16th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
“Unfortunately, for most people, “limited economic termsâ€? is all the scope they have in which to think.”
You’re right. What can we do about it?
Education is the key. People need to be educated about the full extent of their rights and responsibilities in social, environmental and economic context. The symbiotic nature of these three “economies” should be recognized and acted upon.
Anyway, start the energy revolution already!