Zero Energy House - Project Blog

Roots Before Branches - ZEH Intro

2012-05-19T03:21:54Z

I live in a bungalow that was built in 1940. Over the past seventy years insulation has been put in the roof, gas central heating piped in, and the old wood burner replaced with a more efficient fireplace. Tomorrow a guy is coming around to look at what more insulation we might need, and we've recently investigated installing double-glazed windows. This is part of the fun of owning an old house. For as long as we live here we'll wage a war against creeping cold and moisture, weighing up the short-term costs of possible improvements with the long-term risks of rising energy bills.

ZEH on the Radio

2011-11-10T04:06:52Z

Jo and I were interviewed on the David Shearer show this week about the Zero Energy House project.

Passivation

2010-09-19T22:56:43Z

After the three years of living in a house that was cold and damp in the winter, we were convinced that a ventilation system with heat recovery was necessary to provide fresh air in the winter with minimal heat loss. However recently our opinion has changed...

Carbon Weevils

2010-08-27T07:48:15Z

A brilliant short movie about carbon weevils.

Structural progress

2010-08-17T07:15:41Z

We engaged a structural engineer this week. This is pretty exciting as it means we are moving into the next stage of the design, "Detailing". A full set of plans for Council consent will be produced in this stage.

In the paper

2010-07-03T07:12:02Z

Last week our project was profiled in the local Howick paper. You can read the article on the ourhomes.co.nz website.

Cutting through the tape

2010-06-26T23:18:22Z

When we started the ZEH project one of the challenges we foresaw was with the consenting of the low impact building techniques and technologies that we wanted to implement. Many aspects of the house will differ from the conventional approach of building

PV roof and latest

2010-05-03T09:28:00Z

Over the last couple of weeks I have been continuing my research into how we will integrate the photovoltaic (PV) system into the roof. Internationally there are many PV products that double as a roofing material, in NZ however there is only one that I know of.

Project Schedule

2010-05-03T09:25:58Z

It has been a busy couple of weeks since we launched the Zero Energy House (Z.E.H.) website. Thanks to some excelent feedback on the site we have added two more sections.

The Project Schedule page shows the time-line of the project.
In the Image Gallery we will be updating the plans as they evolve and adding pictures.

Welcome to zeroenergyhouse.co.nz

2010-04-20T08:46:50Z

Welcome to zeroenergyhouse.co.nz

This website is about the zero energy house that we're currently designing to build on our section in the Auckland suburb of Pt Chev.

On this website we will document the design and build of our house. We hope that people in New Zealand and internationally will find this a useful resource when designing or building their own home.