Zero Energy House - Project Blog

David Shearer radio show follow-up

admin — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 00:26:52 +0000

David Shearer interviewed us on his radio show a few weeks back. We talked about the Zero Energy House project, planning policies we've had to deal with, and New Zealand's solar potential. Listen to the interview below.

Roots Before Branches - ZEH Intro

Shay — Sat, 19 May 2012 03:21:54 +0000

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

Shay — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 04:06:52 +0000

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

Passivation

Jo Woods — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 22:56:43 +0000

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

Shay — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 07:48:15 +0000

A brilliant short movie about carbon weevils.

Structural progress

Shay — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 07:15:41 +0000

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

Shay — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 07:12:02 +0000

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

admin — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 23:18:22 +0000

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

Shay — Mon, 03 May 2010 09:28:00 +0000

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

Shay — Mon, 03 May 2010 09:25:58 +0000

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.