MINUTES OF AUCKLAND BRANCH TRAINING AND NETWORKING EVENT AND AGM
held on Wednesday, 16th November 2016
at 6.00pm
at Alexandra Park,
in the Rutherford Room
Greenlane, Auckland
Welcome:
Branch Chair, Tineke de Villiers, opened the meeting, welcoming all members, new members, guests and sponsors, Manfred Plagmann and Lynda Amitrano from BRANZ.
Tineke also acknowledged the recent North Canterbury earthquakes (14th November) that have taken place and all the people who have been affected by them. Tineke then provided an update on the BOINZ National Office team in Wellington.
Attendance:
83 members recorded their attendance with 4 guests
Moved: Peter Fourie Seconded: Ian C Murray
Apologies:
14 apologies were received.
Moved: Alistair Couper Seconded: Martin Reid
Previous Minutes & Matters Arising:
No matters arising from the minutes of the previous meeting that were distributed to all members by National Office via the usual manner
Correspondence In/Out:
- “Thank you” from Rangi Johnson for the get well card
- Members were asked to encourage colleagues to join BOINZ, and to remind them of the benefits of membership.
General Business:
- Tineke de Villiers reminded Branch Members who have recently gained or had relevant qualifications to apply to be Upgrade to Licensed Members before the new 2017 membership cards are distributed. Forms were made available to members at the meeting.
- Question from the floor: How many Licensed Members are part of the Auckland Branch? As at September 2016 Auckland Branch had 43 Licensed Members
BRANCH AGM:
The Chair opened thee AGM, welcoming everyone and advised the attendee and apologies as per the Branch Meeting.
Previous AGM Minutes & Minutes Arising:
The minutes from the 2015 AGM were distributed to the members via the BOINZ website.
These were accepted as a true and correct record with no matters arising.
Moved: Paul Vernon Seconded: Maurice Hinton
The Chairperson’s Annual Report:
The 2016 Chairperson’s report was distributed to members and read by Tineke. To view a copy, please click here.
Following the Chairperson’s Annual Report, the Chair closed the AGM and resumed the Branch Training and Networking Event.
Guest Presentations:
"House Condition Survey 2015, Occupant Behaviour and Indoor Climate" by Manfred Plagmann, Research Scientist for BRANZ
1. Survey of NZ houses
- The House Condition Survey has been carried out about every 5 years since 1994 and is designed to be broadly representative of NZ housing stock
- Country divided into 13 regions; cities to rural regions, houses that are owned or rented
- The survey gives an insight to:
- Material performance
- Extent and requirement of maintenance
- Trends in housing stock condition over time
- Condition of owner-occupied compared to rented houses
- Total of 560 houses surveyed; 411 owned; 149 rented
- Telephone surveys asked about:
- Repairs and maintenance undertaken: actual vs expected
- Perception of the house condition: time of moving in vs now
- Safety factor – i.e. safety from fire, whether the occupiers “feel” safe
- On site house inspections were carried out by BRANZ trained assessors and a summary report and photos is produced. Looks into:
- General house features
- Building materials
- Hot water, heating and ventilation
- Indicators of damp and mould
- Repair and maintenance required
- Overall defects and overall condition
- Grade scale:
- Excellent – no defects
- Good – nearly new
- Moderate – attention required within 2 years
- Poor – attention required within 3 months
- Serious – immediate attention required
- Results and early findings:
- Wet areas are an issue
- Rental properties showed worse conditions, particularly windows, external doors, decks
- Odour, i.e. musty smell, present in 8% of houses
- Subjective feel of dampness present in 18% of houses
- Visible mould in 48% of houses
- Overall assessment:
- 50% owner-occupied houses were in good condition; 14% in poor condition
- Rental properties are consistently worse than owner-occupied properties. This also showed in previous surveys
- One-third rental properties are in poor condition
- High proportion of houses need work in 2 years
- Almost half the houses show signs of visible mould
Questions:
Q: Are landlords not doing anything about the rental conditions? Is this because it’s too costly?
A: It could be, but currently the survey identifies what the current status is and the work that needs to be done. We don’t necessarily look into why it has gotten to this condition.
Q: Was a review of apartments carried out? Not opening windows is an issue in apartments.
A: This was a review of the current housing stock, it did not include apartments.
Q: Lately we’ve found designers use sliding doors as a solution for ventilation, which means they don’t have to put in opening windows as this is not compulsory in the NZBC. Is there something you can do to change this?
A: Agree that the NZBC needs updating. Houses are more airtight than they used to be and the NZBC hasn’t changed to reflect this. Currently there is a project within MBIE on updating the NZBC but it takes time to make changes.
Q: Did the survey show if the worst buildings were owned by government?
A: Haven’t identified this, but there is a problem with the number of occupants in government houses, and they are poorly managed.
Q: Did the survey include Housing NZ?
A: Yes it should in appropriate numbers, as it was designed to be representative of NZ housing stock.
Q: These surveys have been carried out for a long time. Is there any conclusion on the condition of pre-Building Act houses vs. post-Building Act houses?
A: We don’t have a conclusion on that data yet, but we could look into pre-1991 houses.
Q: The on-site inspection shows 48% moderate-to-poor condition and mould present. What advice was given to the occupant at the time?
A: Mould needs to be removed, but the survey focused on how to prevent these issues.
2. Occupant behaviour and indoor climate – how do occupants open windows?
- Motivation:
- There are technical solutions for indoor climate, but we still observe failure because occupants intervene with operation
- Instruments:
- Sensors were installed on doors and windows that were connected wirelessly
- Recorded the relative humidity
- Recorded the orientation – shows what degree the window was open or closed
- Sent data every 15 min
- Currently recording data – will be following up with a questionnaire
- The houses used are a subset of the housing condition survey
- Current state of project:
- 100 houses from Auckland to Dunedin (excluding Christchurch)
- 600 sensors in operation
- Collaboration with international research
- Sliding doors/windows are difficult to measure
- Data analysis on:
- Behaviour around windows and doors
- Ventilation effectiveness
- Indoor climate – humidity, temperature
- Window data analysis:
- Example: the probability of finding an opening window in Dunedin is approximately 3% for 1 hour duration
- Angle measures how far they are open. Average is approximately 12°
Questions:
Q: Once the data is collated, what do you do with it?
A: The data will be analysed to find how effective Clause G4 (ventilation) is. Aim to use this to make a case for updating G4 or not
Q: Alternative cladding systems on new houses have shown failures. Have you taken the cladding systems of these houses into consideration? Do new houses seem to perform worse?
A: The 2010 House Condition Survey showed that newer is better. Houses from 1950s or 1970s had a worse performance; this was a similar trend from previous surveys. We want want to use data on houses from 1980, 1990, 2000s to see compare trends in deterioration and performance. Maintenance is an issue with owners in NZ
Q: Does the stock of houses include houses with compulsory mechanical ventilation?
A: By default the house stock would have included houses with mechanical ventilation. We could look into the data to see if there is a difference in performance between these houses.
There is another project currently on the effect of forced air ventilation. Some older houses, e.g. from the 1950s, don’t require mechanical ventilation and they are now over ventilated. We need to understand the current airtightness of the house. Mixed mode ventilation in modern houses is a good idea
Q: With regards to sustainability what do you know of block houses becoming too airtight?
A: Passive house must have mechanical ventilation because they are too airtight. They are designed to have mechanical ventilation. We are working on educating architects, who can then educate owners, on maintaining air quality in passive houses.
We also need to look into the sustainability effects of opening windows in a passive house. The NZBC does not accommodate passive or mixed mode ventilation.
Q: Is the cavity taken into consideration with passive houses?
A: Modelling would be required to show the dew point of moisture settling in the cavity. Passive houses are quite different to our style of building
Q: In a passive house if there is over supply of air, moisture can be forced into the building fabric. Is this an issue?
A: Yes it happens, but constant air movement means the moisture will dry. A balanced supply and extract system is required for passive house. Forced ventilation needs an extract to release the air otherwise the room will be pressurised
Q: Have the building surveys shown an improved performance of houses in Auckland since the formation of the Durability team?
A: Can’t say as we haven’t recorded this data in the surveys
Q: When retrofitting insulation into old villas with direct fix cladding, the insulation has to be reduced if we follow the BRANZ recommendation to leave a gap between the insulation and the cladding.
A: Yes, it is a trade-off between reduced insulation thickness and the cladding leaking onto the insulation. The risk is that moisture will get into the insulation and start rotting.
The safest approach is to leave a gap. There is less insulation but it will still perform better than no insulation. More research needs to be done on the amount of water that will cause damage
“Assurance Services” by Lynda Amitrano, Assurance Services Team Leader for BRANZ
- BRANZ is currently working towards offering Codemark as well as Appraisals
- The Appraisal process will still be supported
- Reasons for applying for Codemark
- Some suppliers like the idea of “deemed to comply” and Appraisals can’t do that
- Another way to support MBIE
- We won’t be cherry picking code clauses. The Codemark system isn’t for specific clauses
- If products need certain clauses, they must comply with all relevant clauses as a system
Q: Are the survey’s publically available? Is there a cost?
A: Yes, there is a study report released to the public at no cost. We do not release the raw data because we want to ensure it is used well and correctly. We can take suggestions on topics to investigate using the data
Next Branch Training and Networking Event: scheduled for Wednesday, 15th February 2017 at Alexandra Park
Special thank you to: BRANZ for venue and catering provided
The Chair thanked Manfred and Lynda for their informative presentations and closed the meeting at 7:30pm.
Christine Watkinson
Auckland Branch Secretary
