Kāinga Ora Passive Houses

These homes regulate their own temperature through smart design, the use of high performing construction materials, and a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery.

For our customers, living in a Passive House means more affordable heating, fresh indoor air quality and comfortable and healthy temperatures year-round. Environmentally, it means we’re delivering high performing homes with significantly reduced operational carbon emissions.

Passive House is still a very new concept in New Zealand, and it takes a specialised design team to achieve the Passive House standard or equivalent performance.

Passive House features

Passive House pilot

We are pleased to be leading lower carbon construction by example in our Bader Ventura development. Bader Ventura is the first Passive House pilot development for Kāinga Ora and the first in its Carbon Neutral Housing Programme. The project is also on track to deliver Australasia’s first Passive House public housing funded by central government. 

Industry leadership

To build expertise and capacity, we have committed to adopting the Passive House standard on select projects:​

• Seven Auckland-based Passive House projects are currently in the design phase​
• All built to 3 level walk-up typology​
•  We will undertake continuous reporting of performance and learnings throughout construction and post occupancy, sharing findings with the wider industry.

Every Passive House is designed specifically to meet the needs of its local climate, also taking into account the wider urban environment and specific building form.​ For this reason, focusing all projects in Auckland and in the 3 level walk-up typology allows us to build stronger localised knowledge in the region of highest housing demand. 

Delivering homes to Passive House standard is critical in transitioning our public housing portfolio to be low/carbon neutral and climate safe. We have committed to the below milestones to ensure we meet the MBIE Building for Climate Change programme draft performance caps ahead of industry expectations.

View the Kāinga Ora Carbon Continiuum in a new tab [PNG, 909 KB]

Passive House certification process

1. Receiving Passive House design endorsement means construction can begin based on an approved design.
2. On-site testing and calibration is carried out. Blower door testing is done twice at different stages of construction and the ventilation system is commissioned (tested and adjusted). Key parts of the construction process are carefully recorded with photographs and supporting documentation. 
3. The certifier reviews all of the documentation against the Passive House standard to verify the building was built according to the design and has met its performance targets, and if so, certification is issued.

Resources

• New Zealand currently has approximately 61 certified Passive Houses and more on the way. The Passive House Institute of NZ keeps a list of Certified Passive Houses: passivehouse.nz(external link)
• A map of New Zealand’s Certified Passive Houses, and homes in the process of achieving Certification: sustainableengineering.co.nz/nz-au-certified-passive-house-projects-map/(external link)