The New Zealanders are suffering major ill health and economic costs because their homes are not performing properly.
The Business Council’s two-year long $300,000 research project on how to deliver “Better Performing Homes for New Zealanders” has produced a five point policy solution.
The report finds more than a million homes are not adequately insulated. An accompanying 2008 New Zealand Housing Survey, commission by the Business Council, finds more than
410,000 homes could be making their occupants sick, some seriously.
By making homes warmer, drier and more energy and water efficient, the country could:
- Avoid sending 50 people a day to hospital with respiratory illnesses (saving $54 million a year)
- Cut sick days off work by 180,000 a year (lifting production by $17 million a year)
- Cut household power bills by $475 million a year by using a combination of insulation and double glazing
- Stop households wasting enough water a year to fill 9,200 Olympic swimming pools.
The Business Council is proposing a five point policy package to the incoming Government, local government, the building industry and home users to help improve the
performance of the nation’s 1.6 million homes. Of these, about a million are not adequately insulated. These perform well below the standards now set for new homes.
Policies proposed include:
- A mandatory home performance ratings system to apply over time to all new and existing homes when they are sold or rented out
- From a date in the future, linking Government accommodation supplements only to homes and flats that are performance-rated to an adequate level, and also consider paying a rent supplement to the landlord of homes with the new “warrant of fitness”
- “Green tape” building code reforms to sweep aside consenting delays for innovative designs for better performing homes, caused by overly cautious local councils in the wake of the leaky buildings problem
- Government-funded consumer market research into home performance improvement solutions New Zealand home owners want, followed by
- A Government - building sector strategy to deliver whole solutions to householders, not just individual products, and a
- Targeted campaigns to let consumers’ know what solutions are available
- Training for the renovation industry, undertaking more than 80,000 renovation projects a year, to offer solutions which improve home performance, not just offer individual products
- New finance packages so homeowners can afford to improve home performance – and pay back the loans from energy savings, or have the cost reclaimed from their estates.
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Download the Building Better Homes for New Zealanders Summary Report
Click here to download (PDF - 2.59MB)
Download the Mainstreaming sustainability in Building Detailed Report
Click here to download (PDF - 719KB)
Download the 2008 New Zealand Housing Survey
Click here to download the survey of 3526 New Zealanders on their experiences with their
homes, and their views on policy solutions (PDF - 840KB)
Media releases
Click here for the main media release home page, or key word search our site for media releases on the reports and the performance of New Zealand homes.
Click here to watch the TV3 housing interview with Peter Neilson video.
Feedback:
The Business Council seeks your comments on the Better performing Homes for New Zealanders report.
Please e-mail our project leader, Heather Stonyer
Heather.stonyer@nzbcsd.org.nz.
Telephone: 64 9 525 9727
Office@nzbcsd.org.nz
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