Changes to the healthy homes standards - finalised

Amendments include changes to the heating requirements, to reflect the higher thermal performance of new homes built to the 2008 building code requirements for insulation and glazing and certain apartments, as well as other minor changes to the ventilation and moisture ingress and drainage standards. 

Changes will become law on 12 May 2022. 

Changes to the heating standard

The heating formula

The changes to the heating standard will generally allow smaller heaters to be installed in homes built to the 2008 building code requirements for insulation and glazing and apartments.

The updated formula for these building types means that tenants will still benefit from a living room which can be heated to and maintained at 18ºC on the coldest day of the year.

The heating assessment tool on the Tenancy Services website will be updated to reflect these changes on 12 May 2022, when they become law.

Heating assessment tool(external link)

The original heating formula remains suitable for most of the rental housing stock in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Buildings which are not apartments and are not built to the 2008 building code requirements for insulation and glazing still need to comply with the original Healthy Homes Standards heating requirements unless they meet the requirements of one of the alternative pathways, described below.

Compliance date for landlords

To assist in transitioning to these new arrangements, private landlords of new homes built to the 2008 building code requirements for insulation and glazing and certain apartments will have a later deadline to meet the heating standard.

Landlords will have until 12 February 2023 to comply with the heating standard.

Alternative pathways to comply with the heating standard using innovative and energy-efficient technologies

The Government has also introduced more flexibility for properties with innovative and energy-efficient technologies.

Developers can now use new and different heating technologies to comply with the heating standard. This requires a specialist to estimate the housing needs according to specific criteria including that the system must be able to heat the living room to 18ºC on the coldest day of the year.

In many new housing developments, a heating specialist will already be engaged for code compliance and/or design purposes.

Also, geothermal heating systems that provide direct heat to a living room will also meet the heating standard. This will be utilised primarily by homes in Rotorua.

Heaters installed prior to 1 July 2019

The Government is also allowing electrical heaters to boost the heating capacity to what is required when qualifying heaters installed prior to 1 July 2019 are short capacity by 2.4kW or less, rather than 1.5kW or less.

The trigger point to top up or replace existing heating installed before 1 July 2019 has been revised to existing heaters that are at 80% of the required heating capacity, instead of 90%.

Over time, as heaters need to be replaced due to wear and tear, they will need to meet the full requirement of the heating standard.

Clarification to the heating standard if the landlord is not the owner of the whole tenancy building

A minor change to the heating standard has been made to clarify situations where the landlord is not the owner of the whole tenancy building and so cannot meet the heating standard. If the required heating capacity is over 2.4 Kw, a landlord must install at least one qualifying heater that has a heating capacity of at least 2 kW. A fixed electric heater with a thermostat is an acceptable heater for this situation.  

Changes to the ventilation standard

Amendments to the healthy homes ventilation standard now support the use of continuous mechanical ventilation, which extracts moisture to the outdoors from kitchens and bathrooms.

Continuous mechanical ventilation will meet the ventilation standard where they have been installed in homes that have first received building consent, and the system was part of that original consent, on or after 1 November 2019. 

For retrofitted homes where installation of continuous mechanical ventilation happened before 1 November 2019, or if the mechanical ventilation system wasn’t part of the original consent, the system must provide ventilation for multiple rooms and meet minimum exhaust capacity requirements.

Clarification to the moisture ingress and drainage standard

A minor change to the moisture ingress and drainage standard for moisture barriers has been made. It clarifies that landlords are not required to install alternative moisture barriers where installation of a polythene barrier isn’t reasonably practical.