jackinthetree

On facebook, I keep reading that NZ houses are bloody cooollllldddddd.

Is there any specific reason for this? I hate the cold! Is there any way to find ones that are at least normally insulated, or does it depend on where you live etc. I'm thinking of Whanganui or Nelson areas at the moment. Thanks.

BEVS

Buy a newish home or build a new one. Insulation , double glazing, heat pumps. Bob is your uncle.

Clappy

It is a common complaint of people that move to live here, the concept of central-heating was not embraced by the people of this country. The houses are fine to live in the during the summer but cold and draughty during the winter.

Very new houses will have insulation built in. When I was house-hunting five years ago I did see one (just one!) new house that had double-glazing so they do exist but are a minority.

As suggested above, buy a new-build.

jackinthetree

Thanks Clappy and BEVS, that sounds good. I wonder if adding heating is an option. The reason why I say this is because assume new builds are probably going to be very expensive!

BEVS

Depends what you feel is expensive. NZ is expensive.

We have a 40 yr old home set on 1/3rd acre. It is single glazed. It has wall , roof and floor insulation. It has one log burner for the entire house. It is fine. Warm in winter and sometimes too warm. Cool in summer. Not shaded.

Clappy

It is still a new country and there is still space free where a new build is a realistic option (not so much in the middle of the existing urban centres however).

The benefit of a newer build is that more up-to-date building standards will have been enforced. To get the idea of where they are with things like that here this is an article about the current proposals for improving insulation.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/124...building-costs

spouse of scouse

This reminded of something that happened when we returned to Oz from the UK (Liverpool) 3 years ago. We bought a new villa that had the standard single glazing, and got a few quotes for double glazing the windows.

Three companies said they don't do double glazing, the fourth said sure, it'll cost around $15,000. Oh well, we thought, it is Australia and everything's expensive here. When the company rep came out to measure up something twigged as he was rabbiting on - he was intending to install secondary glazing, not double glazing at all! When we asked him for a quote for double glazing he looked a bit shocked and said it's not really a thing here, we'd have to go to an industrial supplier and it'd cost upwards of $60,000. Needless to say, we didn't get double glazing.

The reverse cycle ducted air conditioning heats really well, and is actually very energy/cost efficient to run.

Bo-Jangles

Same here, there are a few firms offering retro-fit 'double glazing' however it's not the real deal and mostly is secondary glazing, like what we would have had on the UK in the 1970s and it's incredibly expensive. I've heard anything upwards from $30,000.

We've spent quite a bit to get ourselves a reasonably acceptable level of comfort over many years but have had the full experience of the misery of living first winter in our without any heating or insulation and our house was only a few years old when we bought it.

We had a 'heat pump' (AKA reverse cycle ducted air conditioning) installed, which heats reasonably well and quickly, as well as an HRV ventilation system which circulates the warmer air from the roof space through the house, But despite also adding insulation in the roof and floor, our house simply does not retain any heat. As soon as heating is off you can feel the cold and damp seeping in.

scrubbedexpat094

Snap! Our house was built in 2004, we added more insulation to the roof a couple of years ago, have HRV fitted and heat pumps and it is still cold once the heat pumps are turned off. Proper uPVC double glazing is beyond our means.
I'd love to build a house with Ehaus or similar but would need a decent lottery win to make that achievable. Dream on for us.

Justcol

Not sure how that's possible. Double glazing has been mandatory in all new homes since about 2009

I have a 120 year pold double brick villa. Loft and underfloor insulated. Central heating works a treat

jarv5116

You could buy a set of eBay for couple hundred quid and send them in a move cube or part container. it would probs costs 1 possible 2k max.
Especially if you have a timber house you could fix it however you want.

spouse of scouse

Something to think about, thanks Jarv

spouse of scouse

Hopefully in the future double glazing will be the standard rather than the exception in NZ and Oz, and with that the cost will go down. Sorry to hear that, despite you having a relatively new property and adding insulation, you still have to put up with cold and damp. That can make winter very unpleasant. Our RC air con heating seems to keep the house fairly warm with just being on for short bursts, but then again NZ is a hell of a lot colder than Perth WA.

jackinthetree

Sighs.

Hey do you guys have any recommendations for areas to look at? Looking for somewhere safe, close to skiing/mountains/hikes, maybe more of a semi-rural (well not rural but just a lot of peace and quiet).

Clappy with new builds, maybe then....I guess I just always associated that with a lot of money, but maybe that's unavoidable anyways

Bo-Jangles

Suggest look at some of the towns around Hamilton but mostly depends on where you need to be for work - there's not a huge amount of choice for some trades / professions who need to be near or rely on the masses for work. Being within reasonable commuting distance of any major centre is by default going to be expensive.