Home Style Green
289 episodes - English - Latest episode: 8 days ago - ★★★★ - 13 ratingsBuilding a healthy, happy lifestyle without it costing the Earth. Tips, tricks and trends in green home building and remodeling.
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Episodes
Build Aotearoa 10: Warmer and Wetter
April 20, 2024 09:10 - 25 minutes - 23.8 MBThis week I attended a BRANZ seminar titled 'Building for our changing climate'. Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland was the last stop on the BRANZ seminar tour of the country and it's encouraging to think that rooms of designers, builders, product suppliers, building officials and others, were interested enough in this topic to take four hours out of their week. A key takeaway is that we're not prepared. We're already handicapped by having insufficient standards in our building code to deal with ou...
Build Aotearoa 9 with Steve Penny
April 13, 2024 22:27 - 37 minutes - 35.7 MBSteve Penny is the founder and director at Honoris, a building services consultancy in Christchurch, New Zealand. He is also the host of his own podcast, A Penny for Your Thoughts.
Build Aotearoa 8: Cool by Design with Siân Taylor
April 01, 2024 03:15 - 38 minutes - 35.7 MBMany people might be surprised to know that the New Zealand Building Code does not require any consideration of overheating in homes. The energy efficiency requirements in our code are based only on the ability of buildings to keep warm without excessive heat loss. There is nothing to prevent homes from being designed with large areas of unshaded north or west-facing glass. Siân Taylor is an Architect and Passive House Designer based in Queenstown. She has experience creating homes that ar...
Build Aotearoa 8: Cool by Deign with Siân Taylor
April 01, 2024 03:15 - 38 minutes - 35.7 MBMany people might be surprised to know that the New Zealand Building Code does not require any consideration of overheating in homes. The energy efficiency requirements in our code are based only on the ability of buildings to keep warm without excessive heat loss. There is nothing to prevent homes from being designed with large areas of unshaded north or west-facing glass. Siân Taylor is an Architect and Passive House Designer based in Queenstown. She has experience creating homes that ar...
Build Aotearoa: Changing the Window Industry with Benjy Simmons
March 23, 2024 02:36 - 39 minutes - 37.2 MBStärke has been in the window industry in New Zealand since the 80s. They were at the forefront of supplying aluminium frames to the building industry but have recently made some big changes. With a focus on building performance, Benjy Simmons describes the new direction of Stärke as a 'once-in-fifty-year' change. While the company has a long legacy, they've experienced rapid change over the last few years. Benjy credits some of the openness to change to him being from outside the industr...
Build Aotearoa 6: Framology with Pete Hammond
March 15, 2024 22:06 - 46 minutes - 43.3 MBMore is not always better, especially regarding the amount of timber in the frame of a house. The more timber there is, the less space there is for insulation. The way this is measured is called timber fraction. Most homes in Aotearoa are designed using the assumption that timber will make up around 14% - 18% of the area in a wall. A 2020 BRANZ research study found that in reality, the average timber fraction is closer to 40%. This means there is considerably less space available for insu...
Build Aotearoa: 5 Building Science with Denise Martin
March 09, 2024 04:30 - 40 minutes - 37 MBDenise Martin has been involved with many of Aotearoa's Passive House projects. As one of the most experienced blower door testers in the country, she's been involved with verifying a range of residential and commercial buildings both in New Zealand and Australia. I caught up with Denise to chat about how she got into building science in the first place and some of the challenges and opportunities facing the building sector in New Zealand. We also discuss the building code, energy modellin...
Build Aotearoa 4: Quality and Quantity
March 02, 2024 00:01 - 45 minutes - 42.8 MBI found it confronting listening to Tova O'Brien's guest this past week as she described the experiences of staying in motel emergency accommodation with a young daughter. From my relative privilege (of choosing the right parents and having things turn out ok for me so far), I find it hard to imagine being in this situation. But it's the reality for nearly 6,500 people across Aotearoa, half of whom are children. This is an emergency, and the problem is complex. The solution will require ...
Build Aotearoa on Safe(ish) Ground
February 25, 2024 07:43 - 8 minutes - 8.68 MBLast week, February 22nd rolled around. This was a significant date in the Cutler-Welsh household thirteen years ago when our house was located close to the Avon River in Christchurch. While it was a life-changing day for us, life has gone on. We ultimately lost our recently renovated home in Richmond as a result of the Canterbury Earthquakes, but many lost so much more. What would a moratorium on consenting new buildings in known floodplains, tsunami or fire risk areas, look like? How wo...
Build Aotearoa 2 Principles and Performance.MP3
February 16, 2024 23:56 - 8 minutes - 9.84 MBThere are fundamental gaps in what the New Zealand Building Code covers and how well it covers the aspects that are included. These reasons should be enough to justify using standards like Passive House or Homestar to go above and beyond the building code. In this series, I'll be looking at reasons why it's better to ask about the value and risk minisation resulting from higher performance standards rather than focussing only on perceived upfront cost.
Build Aotearoa
February 06, 2024 04:21 - 5 minutes - 6 MBAs I draft this episode, there's a chorus of cicadas outside my window. The sun is shining and there's a faint breath of a breeze. It seems calm where I live, here in a relatively leafy part of Tāmaki Makaurau. But all is not calm everywhere in Aotearoa today, Waitangi Day 2024.
274: Doing Windows Well
August 28, 2022 04:47 - 38 minutes - 36.6 MBThere are not many new ideas in the building industry. The basic concepts have been around for a while. 'High-performance' products and design details that might be described as 'innovative' here in New Zealand are likely to be standard practice somewhere else. With building his experience in Europe and Scandanavia Richard Eden is well placed to help New Zealand builders do things better. He can often be found teaching builders around the country how to do a good quality install of good qu...
273: Our Homes Are Getting Smart
August 14, 2022 03:01 - 40 minutes - 37.2 MBBrad Wills is Director: Strategic Customers & Programs at Schneider Electric. Based in Tennessee, he has three decades of experience with the organisation. We discuss the diverse range of products and services now offered by Schneider as well as the exciting opportunities for smart metering, microgrids, onsite battery storage and more.
272: A Passive House in Taupō
August 06, 2022 05:39 - 26 minutes - 26.3 MBIn 2007 when Kim Feldborg arrived in New Zealand he was surprised at how cold and inefficient the houses were, despite growing up in much colder European climates. Originally from Denmark, Kim has built houses in Greenland, Norway, Germany and England. He now enjoys life in a Certifed Passive House he built himself in Taupō.
271: Super Reno
July 31, 2022 00:52 - 38 minutes - 35.8 MBGrowing up in a typical kiwi home, it wasn't until he had lived in the UK for a bit that Damien McGill realised we don't need to be suffering through winter in cold, damp houses. Damien is an engineer and knows how things should be put together so they don't fall apart. But he's interested in more than that. In this chat, Simon Cator and I discuss how Damien got into the Superhome Movement. We also review his experience working on his own 'Super-Reno'.
270 Richard Houghton
July 22, 2022 21:57 - 44 minutes - 40.7 MBRichard Houghton now lives in a very good, healthy home. But that wasn't always the case. Along with Simon Cator from Pro Clima NZ, we discuss Richard's journey in designing and building an energy-efficient SIP home just outside Auckland, New Zealand.
269 The Style of Sustainability
April 14, 2022 20:30 - 40 minutes - 37.5 MBBert Sarkkinen has built a successful timber framing company around a solid philosophy grounded in the style and craftsmanship of a unique and timeless form of building. Bert appeared on the Home Style Green podcast back in episode 176. A couple of years on, Arrow Timber Framing has expanded into a larger facility and Bert has recently released the second edition of his book, The Art of Hybrid Timber Framing.
268: Regenerative Housing
March 26, 2022 02:27 - 45 minutes - 42.3 MBZola Rose has a vision for regenerative housing as a solution for improving communities and sustainability. She brings diverse and international experience to Aotearoa New Zealand where she now calls Nelson her home. Real estate has long been used as an investment and a means of making a profit in New Zealand. Zola explains how this has tended to undermine the values that we should otherwise associate with where we live. Housing should protect, shelter and foster community, but we've tende...
267 Architecturally Designed Modular Homes Built in New Zealand
March 13, 2022 03:40 - 36 minutes - 33.8 MBMariano Croce is an Argentine entrepreneur who relocated into Queenstown with his young family just before the first COVID lockdown in 2020. He has a background in prefabrication, having co-founded a modular building company in Argentina when he was 24. More than 15 years on, Mariano has created Modulo.nz to provide architecturally designed, high-performance, modular homes built in New Zealand.
266: It's Time to Speckel!
February 13, 2022 04:51 - 47 minutes - 44.2 MBDarren O'Dea is a self-confessed building physics nerd. Along with co-founder David Carroll, he has helped to create Speckel, a platform for designing low carbon, healthier, durable and energy-efficient buildings. Having proven popular with architects and consultants in Australia, Speckel is now available in New Zealand. Find out more at https://www.speckel.io/
265: Smart Healthy Green
December 04, 2021 02:08 - 24 minutes - 23.1 MBSabine Schoenberg is co-founder of the Smart Healthy Green Living network, a collection of videos and streaming content on everything from tiny homes and carpentry to interior design and gardening. Through her network, Sabine is promoting the 'Do One Thing' campaign to help everyone take a step towards living a more sustainable life.
264 How to Control Air
November 27, 2021 21:54 - 39 minutes - 36.1 MBMy third conversation with Simon Cator in our series on the control layers of a well-performing building envelope. In this episode, we cover the why and how of airtightness.
The Many Benefits of Building with Hemp
November 20, 2021 19:54 - 37.9 MBHemp is an extremely versatile material. It may have a complicated recent history due to medicinal and other uses, but the benefits of industrial hemp have been known for a long time. Jo Say, co-founder of the Hemp Building Association New Zealand explains why it's a great time to start rediscovering some of the many benefits of building with hemp.
263: The Many Benefits of Building with Hemp
November 20, 2021 19:54 - 41 minutes - 37.9 MBHemp is an extremely versatile material. It may have a complicated recent history due to medicinal and other uses, but the benefits of industrial hemp have been known for a long time. Jo Say, co-founder of the Hemp Building Association New Zealand explains why it's a great time to start rediscovering some of the many benefits of building with hemp.
262: Weathertight vs Waterproof
November 12, 2021 19:47 - 29 minutes - 27.5 MBFollowing my previous chat with Simon Cator we continue our discussion about how to construct a good building envelope. This week we're focussing on keeping the weather out. We cover the benefits of a monolithic membrane instead of a microporous one, the importance of being resistant to water while maintaining permeability to vapour, and how to keep everything connected.
261 Casey Curtis
October 23, 2021 19:56 - 43 minutes - 40.1 MBCasey Curtis shares tips on how and why to create airtight buildings, the benefits of mid-build open homes, and using collaborative design to create the right house on any given site.
260 The Mold Medic
October 17, 2021 04:06 - 38 minutes - 35.4 MBMichael Rubino is an educator, author and an expert in mould remediation of homes. In this interview he shares his journey and some tips on how we can make our homes a better, healthier place to live.
259: Building Better Homes
August 06, 2021 22:56 - 20 minutes - 18.9 MBSimon Cator is passionate about helping people to build better homes. Prior to becoming Regional Sales Manager for the Upper North Island at Pro Clima NZ, he worked for New Zealand's online architectural products library - EBOSS and also HRV before that. In this introductory episode, I spoke with Simon about the diversity of his role at Pro Clima and how he talks with people throughout the whole building industry to help change the way we do things.
258 Matariki
July 03, 2021 08:50 - 10 minutes - 9.74 MBMatariki is a festival that makes sense for New Zealand. It feels good to respect and learn from the wisdom of those who have inhabited this place for generations. It may have taken us 200 years, but we're creating our own vernacular; our own geographically appropriate culture of design.
257: What is Comfort?
June 20, 2021 22:17 - 46 minutes - 42.4 MBGermán Molina trained as an engineer in Chile and has recently completed fascinating research posing the question 'what is comfort? at Victoria University in Wellington. Having come from what he describes as the 'warm side of engineering, he's long had an interest in energy efficiency. He didn't expect to be looking so much into human behavior. Germán has made some of the output of his research, freely available - The Atlas of Comfort. Find it at https://buildingsforpeople.org/
256 An update on New Zealand's First Passive House Co-Housing Project
June 12, 2021 01:32 - 28 minutes - 26.2 MBTim Ross featured on Home Style Green back in episode 191 to talk about getting starting on New Zealand's first Passive House co-housing project. I interviewed Tim again a year ago as we were kicking off the Passive House Podcast, and the Dunedin High Street Co-housing project was well underway.
255 From Biophilic Design to Passive House
May 28, 2021 20:51 - 31 minutes - 29.5 MBJustine Money describes herself as a British-Maori-Australian Architect. She brings a strong cultural sensibility to her practice. In this discussion, we chat about why Justine decided to take up the challenge of studying architecture as a mature-aged student, and her journey from biophilic design to Passive House.
The Impact of Interior Design
May 15, 2021 20:48 - 44 minutes - 36 MBGeorgia Ezra has a lot on the go. Based in Melbourne, she's the Founder and Director of her own interior design practice Studio Ezra. She also sources and supplies artisan tiles through Tiles of Ezra and bespoke homewares via AHW. Georgia calls herself a 'treasure hunter and market maven'. She has a passion for pushing the boundaries of modern design to create truly unique interior spaces for her clients.
253: How to build a Passive House family home on a very tight budget
May 01, 2021 01:00 - 43 minutes - 40.1 MBJoe Lyth is building his family home on a very tight budget. He's also building to the Passive House standard. In this interview, he shares some of his insights into why we must change the way we've been building 'wooden tents' in New Zealand, and how to go about creating a fit-for-purpose family home with very limited capital.
252: Let's Change the Building Code
April 25, 2021 22:49 - 37 minutes - 35 MBThe Ministry of Innovation Building and Employment (MBIE) has released its consultation document for proposed changes to the New Zealand Building Code. This represents a great opportunity to positively impact the future of building standards. But does it go far enough?
How to get paid for giving sustainability advice
April 18, 2021 03:46 - 26 minutes - 24.6 MBDanielle King moved into the sustainability field about fifteen years ago and has built up her consultancy Green Move Australia with a diverse range of services. We discuss some of the typical advice she provides to clients and Danielle shares some of her own advice for running a viable sustainability business.
The two key principles of home performance
April 10, 2021 22:16 - 33 minutes - 31 MBStuart Lee loves what he does, which is mostly building Passive House homes in Victoria, Australia. He was an early adopter of sustainable building and it was during a Master Builder Green Living event that he heard Clare Parry speak about Passive House. It all made a lot of sense and Stuart enrolled himself on a Passive House Tradesperson course. In this interview, he describes what makes a home really perform, and why he loves what he does.
249: How to build a healthy home for an ideal lifestyle
April 02, 2021 20:02 - 31 minutes - 29 MBMike Pickering is building an affordable but high quality, healthy and very energy efficient home for himself and his family on a lifestyle block in Napier. He's taken some learning from his experience building tiny homes and is sharing his project online. Check it out at https://ourlifeblock.co.nz
248: What does a Passive House have in common with an F-111?
March 27, 2021 00:39 - 46 minutes - 42.5 MBScott Stewart used to fly in high performance aircraft with the Royal Australian Air Force. Now he helps architects, designers and builders with the high performance details of Passive House homes.
247 Sanctum Homes
March 19, 2021 22:48 - 30 minutes - 28.3 MBHamish White is Director of Sanctum Homes, based in Victoria Australia. He's a registered Domestic Builder with a marketing degree! Since discovering Passive House, Hamish has been inspired to become a Passive House business. Architects, designers and other builders can be encouraged that there's a market out there and willing clients who want healthy, comfortable and energy efficient homes. I discuss with Hamish, how he got into the building industry and any advice he has for others interes...
246: Hawea Flat Passivhaus
March 06, 2021 03:25 - 45 minutes - 42 MBThe Hawea Flat Passive House in the middle of the South Island is a very special home. It boasts a number of 'firsts' for New Zealand and the journey of its creation has arguably changed more than just the way Jonathan Holmes lives.
245 Your Surroundings are Everything
February 27, 2021 01:14 - 29 minutes - 27.7 MBMichelle Rohrer-Lauer is an interior designer and business owner with nearly four decades of experience. She works with discerning clients out of her studio in Chicago, but her approach to sustainable design is applicable everywhere.
244: Best Techs Contracting
February 12, 2021 22:21 - 50 minutes - 46.3 MBJason Scheurer has always been a business owner and he's always been motived to learn. Today, he and his wife Penny own and operate Best Techs Contracting where they design, build and remodel homes. But not just any homes. I connected with Jason during an online Passive House event recently. In this interview, we discuss how he's gone from an inquisitive general contractor to a newly elected board member of Passive House California.
243 Get rid of Gas
February 05, 2021 23:06 - 37 minutes - 34.8 MBRichard Keech lives in a zero-carbon home in Melbourne. After some time in the Royal Australian Air Force and then as a software engineering and consultant in the private sector, Richard now helps people to understand energy. Specifically, renewable energy and energy efficiency. We discuss why it's a good idea to get rid of gas and electrify your home.
242: Sustainable Furnishings Council
January 16, 2021 00:54 - 41 minutes - 38.1 MBSusan Inglis has always been a conscious consumer. In 2007 she helped set up the Sustainable Furnishings Council to promote awareness of all the 'stuff' we bring into our buildings. From curtains to carpets, and fittings and furniture, the products we bring into our homes have a huge impact on the environment. The Sustainable Furnishings Council works with industry to help inspire designers and consumers to make better choices about all the products inside our buildings.
241: What's so Good about Wood?
December 18, 2020 20:58 - 35 minutes - 32.7 MBJohn Stulen is Co-Founder and Communications Director for Innovatek. He's passionate about wood and through the WoodWorks brand, John helps the construction industry by promoting the many benefits of engineered wood.
What's so Good about Wood?
December 18, 2020 20:58 - 32.7 MBJohn Stulen is Co-Founder and Communications Director for Innovatek. He's passionate about wood and through the WoodWorks brand, John helps the construction industry by promoting the many benefits of engineered wood.
240: Unearthing Passive House
December 13, 2020 04:35 - 28 minutes - 26.1 MBDean Hoggart found geology fascinating. He followed this passion hoping for a career in geothermal energy. After becoming a successful geotechnical engineer and drilling holes looking for oil and minerals, Dean realised he wasn't really doing what he'd like to be doing. So he took a leap and changed career. Today, he's a Certified Passive House Designer and is very happy to be applying science to the design of energy efficient homes.
239: How to Build the Right Home
December 05, 2020 21:53 - 39 minutes - 32 MBJennifer Crawford first appeared on Home Style Green when Our New Home Coach was just getting started. Six years on, she's back to discuss her journey and why she still believes strongly in helping people build the right home.
238: Building Passive Houses
November 28, 2020 03:54 - 28 minutes - 22.9 MBWD Homes (Wayne Dyet Homes Ltd) is a family run residential construction company, established in January 2005, based in Dunedin. 'Certified Passive House' or 'Passivhaus' Construction has quickly become a speciality for WD Homes. In this episode, we discuss how Wayne got started as a builder and what he enjoys about building Passive Houses.