Cold weather... house insulation.

[Stu]

Aaaarrrhhhh.... harden up ya pack of sissies! How do you know what sorta clothes you will have to wear outside in the mornings if you don't have the old handy indicator of frost of the duvet?

Most houses do have insulation...later houses anyhow, and all new builds have ot have Batts installed in the walls etc (Pink Batts...fibreglass padding).
Getting the roofs done? Easy enough, even on old houses, they have this stuff they just spray/pump into your cielings, really keeps the place nice (We put it in here decades ago)
Double glazing? Never seen it here.

Central heating...well.... my Dad, being a Cannuck, was horrified like many of you to find kiwi homes so cold, and when we fianlly settled in this place (family home, here for the last 50 years!), Dad had a commercial deisel heater installed. It is great, really warms the place up when it is on...trouble is, the tank holds 600l, at around 90c-$1/l for heating oil (more than ord Deisel as it has kerosene in it), that lasts for around 3months .... makes for an expensive warm house.

Because it is such a damp climate though, what DOES help enormously is to have a dehumidifier... without actually heating a house, they sure make it far more comfortable!

I tihnk another reason our houses are cold is that we have quite large window areas in most houses, and as you say, no 2ble glazing....

Same climate as old blighty?? Hey, could be,but a LOT less gloomy in the winters...longer days, more sunlight hours, makes it a little less depressing than the Pom winters. And if the weather DOES get to you, hell, $1,000 gets you a week in fiji for a break away....

cheers, Stu.

[shagen]

Way to go Diny

I am just curious, with the number of Brits moving to New Zealand, why hasn't the concept of a warm house caught on?

[miep]

We've just finished building our house here in Welly.
It has underfloor heating, solar hot water, lots of insulation and double glazing in timber frames. It is also mostly made out of concrete and is just wonderfully warm and dry.
We were told that $1000 per square meter would build us a house. Yeah right! That would build you a cardboard shack with a tin roof. If you want anything resembling the quality of a modern european home you have to at least double that figure.
I think the weather here is much better (and more variable!) than in Holland but because all the houses are so cold it feels worse than it is. One of the first things I bought when we moved here was thermal underwear, never needed it before! Our first rental was beautifully renovated but absolutely b****Y freezing. Even when the sun was out it didn't really warm up because most of the windows were south facing (north is the warm side here). When we asked the landlord why he didn't put any heating in or underfloor insulation he basically told us to toughen up.
When we were building the house many people told us we were crazy to spend money on double glazing but now that its done everybody remarks on the pleasant climate inside and whether we have the heating on when mostly we don't.
Our living room window measures 8 m by 3 m, if that were single glazed you wouldnt be able to use that room on a cold night.

We've designed the house with the sun in mind, all the concrete serves as thermal mass to store the heat gained during the day and to release it at night. The main windows have eaves so that in winter when the sun is low it can shine inside under the eaves and warm up the house and in summer the sun will only come in late afternoon.
So far the theory seems to work, on sunny days in winter the house warms up so much during the day the heating doesn't need to come on at all at night. We're hoping for a long hot summer to find out if the theory works then aswell ( we only moved in last june)

BTW the NZ government has been to advising everybody to heat up their house more than they're used to as research shows that damp and cold housing gives a far greater incidence of asthma. And apparently NZ leads the developed world when it comes to the nr of people with asthma.


The building code is being tightened when it comes to insulation and there is talk about giving subsidies for solar hot water and other "green" incentives so things are definately moving in the right direction.

Cheers, Miep

[Diny]

Guess we must sound like a pack of sissies ops:

I think the cold weather and the cold houses came to me as one hell of a shock !! Having spent alot of time over the years with many Kiwis here in the UK, I've been told so many times that the UK weather is so cold, so wet, so dull, so windy etc etc.

I have to admit that I was lead to believe that NZ could boast endless summer days, temperatures in the high 30's, mild winters and rarely a need for a jacket. I think those chaps were hamming up the NZ climate as part of their 'NZ is best' mission.

When I first visited NZ in the summer of 1990 I was shocked by the amount of rain, cold winds and downright chilly days we had. Sure - we had some really nice weather too ..... but like I've already said, nowhere near as wonderful as I had been lead to believe. I think it's the 4 seasons in one day thing that amazes me - quite spectacular really. On my last trip to NZ (March this year), I was gobsmacked at how cold my inlaws house got at night, it was downright uncomfortable - and it wasn't even winter !!

A whinging, sissy pom I might be, but as a final thought, last year my Kiwi husband was getting ready for bed in his parents house, the room was like a walk-in freezer .... his exact words .......'this is bloody stupid isn't it'.

Hey - maybe we could start a 'suggestion thread' ....... 10 ways to keep warm without central heating

When all is said and done - cold houses won't kill us, but why be uncomfortable when the tools to make you warm are out there?

Diny

[bbq]

When all is said and done - cold houses won't kill us, but why be uncomfortable when the tools to make you warm are out there?

Diny

Dead right, when I moved to England at first we all lived in a old fashioned Gypsy caravan for over 2 years. Permanently emptying the buckets on the floor for the leaks, mum walking half a mile for water collected in buckets every morning, one tiny heater, no toilets (the wood are only a hundred yards away). Some of the heaviest snow falls in England for ever (1960-62), and of course the proverbial tin bath outside.

Did it affect us, I am sure it did my mum, thinking back how she had to break the ice of that tap to get water .....Us kids, not really, I remember how cold and wet it was, but we got through it. We kept warm, by all sleeping in one bed (Mum, 3 kids, and Dad when he was around - he travelled the UK looking for work and was seldom with us)

BUT NOW, the thought of leaving my lovely warm house for a draughty one in NZ is not appealing, and I think I will be doing my best to get the best insulation poss

cheers

alex

[Moorf]

Well, I have to come clean here - I thought everyone moaning about heating or LACK OF heating in NZ houses were wusses.... ops:

BOY I look stooopid now. I can cope with chilly (we renovated a cottage in Scotland and thought THAT was cold before we got a fire going...) but no, these places are FREEEEZING... and most rentals have the fireplaces blocked up :eek so you are stuck with one poxy heater!

We got back from the casino on Saturday night - our first night in the house - and I was in tears.. it was so miserably cold - I'm talking "bone deep" cold and we had 2 duvets and one cover on the bed and even that took us a while to warm up

We bought 2 oil heaters in the sale at Bond & Bond ($99 for two) and they are taking the edge off, but I am still sat here in my hooded fleece with the hood up!!

At least we haven't bought yet and we'll know what to budget for when we do!! Insulation, double glazing and central heating!

[goldwheels]

I agree with you veronica about the weather here on the south island, we are down near Timaru, and it hardly rains compared to the UK. Where as in the UK you used to sit in doors because it was always peeing it down or it was to bloody cold, here even in the winter there have been several T-shirt days. You do get the cold frost at night but when there's a frost your more than likely to have a glorious day.

We looked into central heating bearing in mind there is no mains gas on the south island, so it would have to be diesel. There was a firm in Christchurch that quoted us about $8000 parts only, this is to heat a large 4 bed house. Nearly all the parts would have to be exported from the UK.

Looking at statistics for home heating, we found that the most economical was heat pumps, and surprisingly wood is the dearest. We have two down stairs (5.5 kw heat out) and yet to fit a larger cassette type ducting of to the bed rooms upstairs (8kw heat out). They say it's a dollar a day to run one continuously through the day and night.

[Diny]

Goldwheels

You and I must be talking about a different NZ !!!

Diny

[Yogi]

Someone posted some excellent links on heatpumps a while back.

Does anyone know how cold it needs to get outside before they will not work?

Additionally, does anyone know approximate purchase install costs for a 4 bedroom place?

Cheers,

Yogi.

[Raeven]

Aaaarrrhhhh.... harden up ya pack of sissies! How do you know what sorta clothes you will have to wear outside in the mornings if you don't have the old handy indicator of frost of the duvet? cheers, Stu.

LOLOL, Stu, you kill me!! But I know it's no exaggeration.. my husband has spoken of frost on the duvet, although only when staying down Invercargill way with family. And he admitted that there, it was bone-crushing-standing-nekkid-out-in-the-chill-arctic-wind cold. We're heading to the top of the South, so hopefully not as bad as that!!

I'm having a hard time gauging the whole cold thing. For the past 20 years, I've lived in a climate with so little variation you can't tell summer from winter. It's pretty much 70F (21C) year round. We close our windows and doors occasionally to clean them. But before I moved here, I lived in one of the most extreme temperature-swing areas in the US, in the great plains of Montana far up north. We frequently had cold temperatures of -30F (-34C) and occasionally -50F (-45C) -- and that was before wind chill was factored in. Hated it, stayed in a lot, worried about frost bite when I went outside but can't say I worried about it endlessly. But I'm worried about the cold in NZ!! I know it will get colder than where we are now, and I know it's a lot more humid there than in north central Montana, so that will make it feel colder. I also know it will take time to acclimate, but I just can't get a handle on how miserable I'll be.

We hope to build a home eventually, but we won't be doing it for awhile. If we manage to get there before the end of the year, we hope we can acclimatize gradually as winter sets in. Insulation and proper heating in any house we buy is a big priority.

All your postings have been very enlightening, and I guess I'm going over expecting to be unhappily cold for awhile!! Thanks for preparing me for the reality!!

All the best, Rae