daveandjue123

Hi everyone

Can anyone explain a couple of things on the housing front. We keep seeing things crop up on this forum about condensation damp and coldness of the houses. I think one said move to oz where the wet is on the outside of the house.

Can probably understand with some of the older timber houses, but surely the newer houses (most new have double glazing) if heated correctly shouldn’t have these problems. We know things like central heating are not common but are available and insulation is also normal on newer builds. If as some do buy a section and build a house surely these would eliminate the issues!! Or are we being naïve yet again.

Pls pls pls do not use this as another excuse to slag of NZ if it's constructive we'd love to hear, if it's insulting please use another thread.

Dave & Jue

Kiwiprincess

Houses from turn of 1900 – approx 1940s are almost certainly unlikely to be insulated.

Ok problem is that most of NZ’s housing stock was from the post ww2 era. The majority of these properties were built (up until the mid 70s) without insulation in the walls and minimal insulation in the ceiling. As of the 1970s houses were built with insulation in the walls but to be honest, it was probably quite loose. Densely packed insulation (pink batts mainly) was far more energy efficient. Oh yeah, most of the houses up until this point had fireplaces and by gosh were they used!

Oddly enough the older farm houses prior to 1900 could actually have ‘insulation’ because horsehair or something random like that was used.

Double glazed windows, and triple glazed etc are a relatively recent invention (last twenty years). Even then lots of places didn't come with double or triple glazed windows. Heck my parents house barely had glazing! Very thin windows...

Someone said on this forum that brits heat houses and kiwis heat rooms. That is probably true.

It is however, only recently that people have made the connection between asthma and breathing problems and cold houses. Therefore the government and various groups have started various schemes to get places insulated.

Other stuff…get a house facing North if possible. It is important to get morning sun as well. The reason for it (which is slightly less important in insulated/centrally heated homes) is that the house needs to warm up. You will have a warmer house if it starts warming up at 9:00am than if it started to warm up at 4:00pm!

Heaters – oil column heaters while not particularly great for electricity bills (apparently) are a good way to take the chill off the room. Don’t expect it to be warm….just that it wont be icy cold.

Use those little fan heaters sparingly unless you like to spend all your money on your electricity bills.

Do not buy a stupid boxy gas heater that has the gas bottle in the back of it. Yes they will warm up your house and make it toasty. But there is a reason that those kinds of heaters have been banned in just about every 1st world country on Earth. Besides the safety issues they will increase condensation (asthma, mould, blah blah blah).

Buy a dehumidifier. Doesn’t need to be on much but it will make a difference.

Get a good duvet and go to bed earlier

Sorry - yet another time when this kiwi princess goes off on a tangent and is writing a novel....

Wiz'n'Ton

Hi guys,

The fact that you are asking the question means that the message about this is getting through. As Kiwiprincess points out, the problems lie in 2 areas. 1 - old, weatherboard housing stock. Built with no/ little insulation, and lacking in anti-damp measures. 2 - more recent, poor quality houses giving rise to the 'leaky homes' problems of the late 90's and early 00's (I think - a google will find you loads of stuff on it) when poor building standards and materials resulted in many people living in rubbish houses.

The good news is that not all houses have to be this way. Old style weatherboard villas can be insulated using injection foam, under floorboard foam, and pink batts (spun glass insulation like the standard loft stuff is in the UK. It's pink, hence the name). Newer houses (last 10 years) have insulation built into them, and more people are becoming aware of the home heating options available here - including double glazing (a rare thing here except on new builds).

Obviously all this is expensive, and I imagine that Mr & Mrs Average Kiwi don't prioritise insulation in their home when they can stick on a jumper and 'harden up' and use the money on more important stuff like food and clothes - hence it being a bit of a shock when Brits arrive. In the UK we are used to central heating as a standard, not a luxury, so on coming here the whole 'heat a room not a house' approach was a surprise to us but nothing that couldn't be overcome and adapted to.

If you are building your own house on a section, then there are myriad options to build into your house, from water central heating, hot air central heating, open fires, pellet fires, under floor heating, to the ubiquitous Heat Pump (warm air from an air conditioning unit). Each have advantages and disadvantages.

The BIG problem here is the cost of energy. No North Sea gas here means that running a gas fired central heating system can be very costly. Running an electric system even more so. Ultimately, it all comes back to what you want to afford.

The main thing to think of - and I think this may be where some have found problems when buying in spring and summer - is how the house you are thinking of buying will be in Winter. If it's 'airy and cool' in summer, it's going to be an ice box in Winter. If it has a log fire and that's it, then - again - that will be the only warm room in Winter, and only when the fire is roaring away. That'll make for some chilly mornings I can tell you! If this is the case, then budget for a couple of heat pumps and a bunch of insulation and deduct if from the asking price of the house.

Hope this helps a bit. Yes, there are issues here, but they are not insurmountable with planning and forethought.

ned

I like the posts on this thread.
They're not your average "houses are shite in New Zealand"
They're all about giving us prospective buyers options

luvwelly

Have the new build regulations been recently tightened then? Someone I know bought a new-build in Wellington within the last 5 years which lacked double glazing and any heating but she had warm air heating installed and the installer commented that it hadn't even been built with that in mind and therefore access was difficult and he had to compromise in where he put the downward vents. She still gets a bit of inner condensation but probably wouldn't if she kept it on all the time - you can't really afford to keep it heated all the time. So Kiwis heat rooms not houses is alas invariably true.

Yes, the problems can be overcome if you have the resources but don't underestimate it. My 'wooden villa' rental has warm air heating throughout but it only works properly in the main part of the house, I have to supplement with free-standing heaters in 2 of the bedrooms even in summer if the kids want to play down there - it's so chilly compared to the main part. There's no insulation from what I can gather. I'd be dead miserable if my whole house were like that. My winter bills are very high though as I succeed in keeping the condensation at bay...at a price.

daveandjue123

I agree ned, thanks guys this is the type of responses we are looking for. More of the same always welcome particularly from anyone with a house with insulation double glazing and heating....

cheers

happynz

I'm one of those immigrants with low expectations (an advantage 'cos then I'm not often living with disappointment) and our flat - 1970s build I suspect - has next to no insulation and thin single pane windows. Summer is no problem, but winter is condensation city so the morning routine is to get up, crank on the heater to warm things up a bit. Then it's cook breakfast, shower, get dressed, turn off heater and give all the windows a good squeegee before heading out for the day.

RobClubley

We have a 1950s NZ home which had a small amount of loft insulation and that was it. Our first winter we could see our breath inside the house!

So last year we added injected wall insulation, loft insulation, underfloor insulation, double glazing all around, and painted the house.

This has made it much more comfortable and nice to live in!!

To show how much kiwis prioritise these things, the cost to do all of this was over $60k. Increase in house value? The surveyor said "If you renovated the bathroom or kitchen it would have gone up"

Not that the value of our house is relevant to us as we don't have any intentiOn of selling it!

Wiz'n'Ton

I think the main thing for any soon-to-be-immigrants is to bear these issues in mind especially when getting a rental on arriving here. Getting locked into a 6 month contract in a damp, mouldy & miserable rental (which was great in summer - hence you renting it) is going to put the miseries on anyone.

Keep a look out for mould at the back of storage cupboards, around window frames, on walls under windows and the like. Rotton frames from all the water pooling around them are also a giveaway. Ask the neighbours (if it's a flat in a block) what the place is like in winter and just do a bit of homework before signing.

At least when it comes to buying your own place, you have options about the standard of house you can and will accept. As per Rob'he is the stig'Clubley, you can make changes for the better.

Oh, and brand new houses are still being built in Rolleston with single glazing. Double glazing is a luxury 'option' in the case of some builders. When we finally get to building, you can be damn sure it'll be a 'standard' option in our place.

RobClubley

We also got a DVS to help with ventilation and condensation

I can't understand the logic in spending, say $200-300k building a house and not spending the extra $10k on double glazing. For the amount of extra comfort, sound insulation and long-term energy savings it gives, you'd be mad not to!
Same with all types of insulation. They're much cheaper and less messy to fit in a new build.

Nerine

T'was I who said the condensation was on the outside in Oz - it's very warm and humid here during this time of year so I've got the air con on this morning - literally can't see through my ranchsliders due to the consdensation running down the outside of the glass. I've just switched it off for a while to let things clear a bit.

Yes, you're right insulation is usually only available on newer builds depending on where you are, basic standards have been incorporated into the more recent building codes so it tends to be the older houses that have poor/no insulation and likely to be damp.

If you're building a new house then it will probably be well insulated and reasonably free from damp, of course there will be some drying out which could cause a bit of a problem to start with - windows usually have no trickle ventilation built into them.

The trick though is to heat properly during the winter, air the house well (or use a dehumidifier) and never use unvented gas heaters.

irnbru14

I have a sudden urge to find a section and build my own house for some reason...

My rental is up in May, so will be looking for somewhere a wee bit cheaper, got to bear all this in mind as its winter coming up...

garryhg

the house we are renting is only about 4-5 years old,lovely house,but still no double glazing,central heating,you still have to wipe down the windows in winter to prevent the mold

wood burner heats up the living area but the rest of the house is freezing,and it costs a fortune to run these plug in heaters......jacky

Ash1

Hi guys,

Our second rental here was only 12 years old but after only 6 weeks of renting it we realised why it was referred to as "The chilly bin" by neighbours. Not only was it made from the materials that are blamed for "leaky homes" but it had no insulation in the walls and the standard single glazing. After 6 weeks , all around the window frames began to get mouldy and black. We all developed coughs and colds that appeared really hard to shift.
I believe that alot of this can be put down to air flow within the house. Having said this the last thing that you would do on a cold winters night is open the window!!
I have been told that more and more places in NZ are having to put double glazing in as standard in new builds. As demand increases I`m sure that costs will come down.
Cheers
Ash

RobClubley

The daft thing is it's not that expensive. Around 25% extra on the cost of a single glazed window.
If you're replacing them anyway, why muck about?