Heating a house in NZ
 

Could someone tell me the best and most efficient way to heat a house in NZ.
As most of you know here in the UK most have gas central heating with a boiler heating both radiators and hot water but you never hear of this in NZ. I have heard about heat pumps? and the more you have the better but why not the good old gas boiler, is gas so expensive in NZ or central heating so expensive to have fitted i don know so please can someone let me know.
Thanks

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

There are usually 2 choices:
Electric heat pumps (Huge heaters mounted on the wall)
Wood burner

We have both, although it's only a small heat pump so not grunty enough to do anything more than take the chill off.

So, our front room is toasty, and some of the heat makes it out towards the kids rooms but that's it. Have a wall mount fan heater in the bathroom, and a couple of plug-in electric heaters for the kiddies rooms.

Price? Our electricity is about $120 a month
Wood - we've gotten through about 8 cubic metres this winter ... so about $500 (say May-end Octover)

HTH
Lou

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

You can get European style gas central heating in NZ. Although I think in most places it won't be piped gas but bottled gas.

Traditional NZ houses are built for sun - lots of large windows, main living areas facing North - so it gets heated for free and a log burner in the main living area. Traditionally you'd close the doors to the rooms that aren't being used so the heat isn't wasted and you go to bed in flannelette PJs with flannette sheets on your bed and possibly a hot water bottle - like how you're ol' grandma would have!

There are heaps of ways to heat your house cheaply and effectively rather than full gas CH, which I personally wouldn't go back to. If you've a pitched roof you can have a DVS system which takes the warm dry air from your wasted loft space and distributes it via vents to the rooms you want heated. This system is also supposed to help dry out your home and reduce the condensation on your windows.

We have one heat pump at the end of our open plan living area downstairs, which the bedrooms are off of, and a log burner at the other end. Despite being quite a large area, the heat pump is sufficient to warm this area and our bedrooms. The kids don't complain of being cold in their rooms and have not used hot water bottles or electric blankets over the last winter, which was supposed to have been the coldest so far. We light the log burner in the afternoon, evening but use the heat pump on very low overnight and in the morning. We also have a smaller heat pump for upstairs.
Heat pumps also used as air con in summer. They have timers so you can set them to come on an hour before you get up, or get in from work to warm the place up.

Depending on the void space available in your ceiling and house layout you can also get a simple ventilation system to take the warm air from the room with your log burner to distribute to your bedrooms.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

We have a DVS style ventilation and heat recovery system and it does reduce condensation and take a bit of the chill off.
We have a large wood burner in the lounge.
Something to bear in mind though, many old houses (anything over 25yrs) do not have insulation in the walls, we had a foam insulation injected into the walls, the expol stuff put under the floor boards.

Yes its flannelette PJ's and sheets for bed during the winter and a truck load of wood for the wood burner.

Heat pumps are fine but if you live in a rural area which is prone to regular power cuts......its going to be a cold one!

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

Bottom line you will have to live differntly than the UK....no more running round the house in your underwear :)

Bearing in mind the average heating costs here are about the same as the UK, and that they get much warmer sun, and milder winters, and only heat rooms not houses, it speaks volumes about the state of efficiency of the heating systems and insulation.

The government is currently subsidising insulation and some heating and surprise surprise the take up has been about 4 to 5 times what they expected!

So first tip - make sure the house is well insulated (or you have budget over to get it insulated). If you can insist on double glazing. it will keep the heat in and vastly reduce condensation and dampness.

By the way central heating systems here tend to be forced warm air systems which don't have a thermal mass, so once they switch off it gets cold quickly....they are also noisy.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

Gas not piped? I knew it wasn't piped in the South Island. What about the North Island? I thought it was but realised that while I know wellington is mains gas (although you can get bottles should you wish) I didn't know if the rest of the Island was. Interesting.

You would think as a born and raised kiwi I should know this. But I don't.

So....you lot....does the rest of the NI have mains gas?

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

Oh ignore me. I found my answer here

Thought I would add that rather than delete my question.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

We have piped gas CH. There is lots of piped gas in the major towns all over NZ I guess. For CH in NZ go to www.savona.co.nz


They did us and did a good job. Run by a brit called Andy I think from up north.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

I lived in Auckland for 6 years and despite Kiwis telling me its a tropical paradise, ITS NOT. Its gets very cold in the morning and kiwi idea is to use a blast furnace (wood fire) in there main living area and hope it heats the rest of the house, generally it just cooks all the furniture which prematurely falls apart.

If you live in a major Nth Island city you may have access to Natural Gas if so the easiest and cheapest option for full heating is use a Brivis or similar Warm air furnace for central heating (ducted warm air). If you dont have access to NG then look at Heat pump systems (ducted or cassette whole house). Heat recovery systems help if using log fires but are certainly not capable of heating a house properly like CH and if you are a climate change fanatic burning wood is the one of the worst environmentally damaging ways to heat your home.

Buy some wooly jumpers or move to Queensland

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

if you are a climate change fanatic burning wood is the one of the worst environmentally damaging ways to heat your home

No it's not. It's a very good way to heat your home if you use the correct burner and the correct wood/fuel.

It's slow burning a chopped down pohutakawa for hours on end in a 10 year old fireplace that's a problem.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

We are looking at building , so I have been researching heating fairly extensively.
This website provides lots of helpful advice.
http://www.centralheating.co.nz/
Main line gas is available throughout many towns and cities in the NI. I was speaking to someone who decided it was cheaper to use bottled gas rather than connect to the main gas line because they felt the monthly rental charge did not justify the very little amount of gas they used. Their house was very warm, facing due north with large windows for passive heating. Small windows along the south side.
If you want to be really chic you could opt for a thermal hot water bore. Expect that to hit the wallet though !
We will probably go for central heating with a boiler which can be run on diesel or gas. I like the notion of a wood pellet boiler but would really like to see one in action first.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

we are building at the moment and we are having a pellet fire in the open plan living room and a heat pump in the hallway outside the sleeping quarters, we are also insulating the house with wool and not pink batts, hopefully this will be ok.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

We have recently had heating installed right through our place.
The options were
1) heat pump = crap. if they are so good why do the rest of the world use a different system ?
They are noisey ( you shouldnt be able to hear heat in my opinion), they cause a draft and unless you are prepared to
leave every door open in you house and use other smaller fans to re direct the one directional airflow around corners
and into cold bathrooms or bedrooms at the ends of passageways then they are a complete and utter waste of time and money.
If you want to heat the core of the house and still have to use expensive to run electric or dangerous old fashioned calor gas style gas heaters
then by all meens buy one and live in what i consider to be a dangerous and ineficient house

2)Traditional gas central heating with radiators. this is available with mains gas.
there are only two or three installers who have been mentioned already in this thread.
We decided against this as it was VERY expensive to install. We were quoted
around $17k for a 4 bed house and we didnt know after being here for a year that it would be switched off for around 9 months of the year.

3) We chose to go for a Bonair ducted gas heateing system.
This consists of a central gas heater that is positioned in the loft that has air drawn through it that is then distributed via 10 outlets right through the house.
The warmed air heats even our largest room (32ft long X 18ft wide) from around an averageunheated overnight low of 12 degrees to a toastey
20 degrees (or what ever temp you like) in about 5 minutes.
The whole system is centrally controlled. It can be programmed just like uk central heating to come on and go off at any given time during the day or night.
It can be zoned so that if you ar an early riser and simply want your bedroom and ensuite heated then it can easily be done.
In the summer you can simply run the fan with no heat so you then get cool air circulated through the house without the need for noisey electric fans in every corner.
It cost around half what the radiator system would quoted at and it works very very well

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

Agree, been through two winters now in Auckland and though they are mild they are anything but that inside. I'm renting, so have to make do with what's available rather than go about installing insulation and heat pumps.

The standard of heating/insulation in most rented places is pretty poor, and alot of the housing stock isn't a great deal better from my experience of looking round. And dampness is common too, through the policy of only heating the main room. Only the new houses now have to have double glazing installed and so it is very rare to see it.

All too often we here about having north facing rooms, and sure that will help, but there's fair no. of grey days in the winter when the sun doesn't shine, and it certainly doesn't shine in the night and so the coldest part of the day is first thing in the morning. Woodfires are hardly great for clean air quality and are obviously not programmable so it'll be cold before you get it going.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

Hello,
I`m from North Yorkshire, I stayed in Wellington for four months from January this year with my son, his house. like many houses in NZ, is made of wood, there is no insulation, no double glazing and no central heating. My son has a calor gas heater and some oil filled radiators, by the time we got to April, because I had ignored his advice to bring warm clothes with me, I was cold in the house so ended up buying some fleeces just to keep warm in the house! I had a hot water bottle and radiator in the room at night. I think the New Zealanders are so active and fit that they may not feel the cold, or it could be that they are kidding themselves! I did visit some friends who had a log fire and it felt very cosy.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

A good info site on heat pumps and how to choose the correct one for your needs: http://www.consumer.org.nz/reports/heat-pumps

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

Hmmmmm this old chestnut again.
Heating is pure and simple a matter of preferance to the individual, we had our housse built a year ago and was fitted with one heat pump in the main living area, we found our pretty fast that this is not enough to heat a whole house.
We looked about and finally chose a second heat pump albeit a smaller one to be fitted in the second living room and to be hoest this had did the trick for us, are they noisy .... you are aware of a light noise of air moving about but is it enough to stop you watching TV, having dinner, having company over,.......... not atall, are heat pumps efficient IMO yes they are, they can quickly move air about and you have full control over how warm or how cool you want it to be.

Do i miss GCH ....... yes i do, i liked the fully central heated house, but this is not the UK, it does not get as cold as the UK, but it does get a lot hotter, we have been here 2 years next month and I have wore short sleeved shirts every day outside (unless it raining ;) )
We generally set the pumps to 18 - 20 degrees in the morning before we go to work and the house is pretty cozy when we come home.

BUT if your cold blooded then you are likely to feel the cold more, i still hear people at work complainig of how cold it is and heres me sitting im my shirt.

So to sum up im pretty happy with the two heat pumps to heat a 4 bed house

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

So are we (with 3, one for each living area). We have electric radiators in the bedrooms but they haven't been used this year. There is a heat pump in the living room adjacent to the kids' bedrooms and I turn this on when I get up early to warm the rooms through.
The thing about heat pumps is that NZ has over 75% renewable electricity and heat pumps are a very efficient way of using it. This is probably why they are so popular here

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

I tend to ignore any and all KIWI based info on heating and heatpumps.
they havent got a clue when it comes to keeping warm.
Even the engineer who installed our system told us we would probably never
need to set it any higher than 16 degrees :ohmy:

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/...mp/booklet.pdf A fairly good booklet published by the Canadian Office of Energy Efficiency. Gives basic information about heat pumps and how they work and what things need to be considered before purchasing one.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

Quite right, what on earth would johhny foreigner know about anything anyway? One thing to remember when emigrating to the colonies is that the British way is best; it's just a shame some of the locals are so slow to realise this.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

karma for that post...........:rofl:

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

Yes, and 16C is the av winter temperature of the typical Kiwi home, against WHO recommendation of 18C, or 21C if there are children or elderly in the home.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

Last time I looked coal was the cheapest energy source followed closely by oil. All the others looked silly by comparison.

Insulating New Zealand houses is like trying to carry water in a colander, possible but usually futile.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

16 is fine if you enjoy wearing winter woolies inside your home, me , i like to be comfortable.
there is no strict norm, its a variable betwen 15 and 25 degrees depending on internal design,
insulation levels, number of occupants, ages of occupants, origin of occupants and of course the
biggest variable of all personal preferences.

16 degrees is recomended for a bedroom during the night as the most suitable temp for a restful nights sleep.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly jonny foreigner gets upset when some one
dares to comment that they might have a different point of view to the "kiwi way".
A willingness to agree with anything a kiwi says and thinks wasnt one of the stipulations of my visa.
Pull your head in mate and get over it. we obviously have different points of view so lets leave there.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

So, I guess you just disproved the myth that Kiwis have no sense of humour but Brits have an abundance of it

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

From my experience the Kiwis have a better sense of humour than most UK people, well unless you actually get sarcasm that is.

The one thing that really bursts my nut is people who emigrate and then bleat on about "British this and British that, we don't do it that way ..... blah blah blah" The whole point is to integrate into the the country and embrace it, not to move to another country and then try to have a little Britain, I mean if we want a little Britain go back there.

Sorry rant over

Im sure I will get pelter for this one :)

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

If the Krankies and Dai H are your benchmarks then fair point........:rofl:

Seems to me that Bill English is the best of the NZ comedians at the moment as he can take the piss out of us all and get away with it..........whilst laughing all the way to the bank. :lol:

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

I think there is a difference between wanting things to be the same as the UK or elsewhere, and things to be as good as the UK (or elsewhere).

There is nothing wrong in trying to improve things. As customers, and workers aiming for improvement is a good thing, even if the standards are set overseas!

"but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us? "

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

Well said, Mr Woolly......:thumbup:

Continuing on the self-depricating humour theme.....and lets see if the Kiwis and adopted Kiwis can live with it.....


.....it must be said mind that our "sweaty" friends probably find the standards of driving, heating, humour, etc a real step up in NZ compared to the old country........:rofl:

so fair play to them.........:lol:

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

Actually health problems related to cold are only likely below 16 °C.

Temperatures people find comfortable depend on their conditioning; a person brought up in Africa will probably be able to tolerate higher temperatures than someone from Invercargill and vice versa with the cold.

My Brit OH used to wear shorts summer and winter here for years. He is older now and over the years he has become conditioned to the Auckland climate and feels the cold.

Personally I hate air conditioning. I sit in it all day at work and much prefer natural temperatures.

I think there is a difference between wanting things to be the same as the UK or elsewhere, and things to be as good as the UK (or elsewhere).

There is nothing wrong in trying to improve things. As customers, and workers aiming for improvement is a good thing, even if the standards are set overseas!

As good for whom though, that's likely what many Kiwi's would think I suspect.

If you have not been brought up with central heating you learn to dress accordingly.

There are horses for courses and free will for all. Neither opinion is better or worse, just different.

If you want your central heating go for it, install it.

However that does not neccessarily make your choice best for me as I find air conditioning an unhealthy.

But I don't try to tell you my way is an improvement on yours.

:)

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

:p
......the comedy on this thread just gets better and better..............:rofl:

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

:D So when my bean bag gets damp because it's on the floor in the unheated part of our centrally heated rental, it should just put on another jumper should it?

My Landlord installed heatpumps downstairs for us this week....(Upstairs has gas warm air central heating stuff)trouble is I know it will mean the bills will be even more horrendous if I use the heat pumps because of the lack of double glazing and insulation....so nice to have them but...

The installer told me my standard dehumidifers would dehumidify much better than the setting on heat pump for this.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

16 degrees means very little as you can tell.....

It all depends as you say on humidity, ventilation and temperature which depending upon house construction and your background "health" will have a different effect on infants, kids, adults and the old/infirm.

You could keep a damp hole at 16 degrees background and it still would be a damp hell hole with cold spots on the walls producing black mould.

Of course we call all adopt the great Kiwi "invention" of airing the house in the day - might have worked for your grandma (or you in the 1920s when you ere a girl Aunty) but life is not that simple any more and those nasty insurance companies (typical Pomm invention!) won't play ball if we leave our windows open whilst we are out at work (bailing this god-foresaken third world country out by bringing in overseas curency..... only joking, its not totally god-foresaken....yet!)

Then you could heat it way up and it wouldn't cure penetrating damp or those hard to reach spots or poor ventilation - not only the extract ventilation but also the "make up" air where it comes in and what it comes in like will have considerable effects - hence DVS, etc, etc.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

Wasting energy by not adopting good building standards accepted the world over is not a matter of opinion or conditioning, it's just burying the collective head in the sand and saying 'not invented here....harden the f--k up!'

If no-one had ever taken the trouble to accept that others might have improved things, we'd all be still living in caves and clubbing each other!

There are plenty of things the world (and the UK) could learn from New Zealand, and many of those reasons is why I am here....but building and heating standards are not one of them so let's stop claiming they are 'suitable for the climate and people' because the world has moved on and improved...it's time to do so here.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

You mean similar to what happens on here if you dare to make a comment that might
possibly be taken as anti kiwi.

Careful you'll have the lynch mob calling round .

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

:blink: Try being a kiwi and posting comments in here.

They can create a bigger wave than a Tsuanami.

My comments weren't a response to anything taken as anti Kiwi colandras.

They were meant to be constructive which is more than I can say for some of the high and mighty responses.

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

pot kettle black......

time to step down from the high horse where you never ever criticise another's way as being inferior..........just their opinions.......not much difference IMHO m'lady.......:thumbdown:

......cause you are doing it all the time, just like the rest of us.......

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

Polish your crystal ball and have another look Sir :)

Re: Heating a house in NZ
 

So Bellasmum - what about my beanbag? Should it put on another jumper? No because relative dampness is an issue, heating or not, as Lardyl said.

Heat pumps may work brilliantly (don't know yet) but I wouldn't want one in UK because I'd be worried someone would sabotage the outside box of tricks.

Also the instructions say don't place outside box where leaves could gather...guess where the installers have put it...yes under a deciduous tree in the front garden lol.