There are new tenancy updates to the Healthy Homes Standards that came into force on 12/05/2022. Updates have been made to the heating, ventilation, and moisture ingress and drainage standards that allow for a more tailored approach to meeting those standards.

Updates Include:

• New heating formula under the heating standard. This reflects how these types of properties are better at retaining heat. The new formula applies to the following types of rental properties:

1. Properties built to the 2008 building code.
2. Certain apartments which are a part of a residential building of at least 3 storeys and have 6 or more commercial or residential units.
3. Properties where the insulation and glazing has been installed throughout, so that it now meets or exceeds the 2009 insulation and glazing standards.

The changes to the heating standard generally enable smaller heating devices to be installed in these types of properties, to better reflect how they retain heat. All other types of rental properties continue to use the original formula. Landlords of all properties will be able to use the heating assessment tool to calculate their heating requirements.

• Extra allowances for situations where acceptable heating was installed prior to 1 July 2019

• Changes to the ventilation standard

The ventilation standard now allows properties with certain continious mechanical ventilation in kitchens and bathrooms to meet the ventilation standard:

1. be designed to vent extracted air continuously from residential property to the outdoors, and for a kitchen or bathroom, extracts the air directly from the room, and
2. have been installed in the property or a tenancy building that first received building consent on or after 1 November 2019 and was part of that original building consent, and continues to meet the requirements of the building consent.

Alternatively, if your home has been renovated and now includes a continuous mechanical ventilation system, to meet the standard, the system must:

1. be designed to provide ventilation for multiple rooms and to continuously vent extracted air to the outdoors, and
2. extract air directly out of the kitchen and bathroom, with an exhaust capacity of at least 12 ℓ/s in the kitchen and 10 ℓ/s in the bathroom. The actual flow rate may be varied (manually or automatically), in response to the demand for ventilation.

Recirculating systems (products like HRV and DVS systems), or fans that do not extract to the outdoors are not suitable to meet the ventilation standard.

• Clarification for the moisture ingress and drainage standard

Clarification that landlords are not required to install alternative moisture barriers where installation of a polythene barrier isn’t reasonably practicable in the subfloor area.

Additional changes:

• Heating assessment tool has been updated and can now calculate the required minimum heating capacity using both the new and original formula.

(All information extracted from the Tenancy services Government Website on: https://www.tenancy.govt.nz/healthy-homes/?utm_source=Tenancy+Services&utm_campaign=3e26a15a7b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_25_03_28_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ce11ad1ef2-3e26a15a7b-59858482)