Thermal Modeling for Environmentally Sustainable Design

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”, and the saying is also true for buildings. To model a building is to plan and refine its performance for the future. The Tas program is one of the software platforms used by engineers and building scientists to model how a building might typically behave in any [...]

Thermal Modeling of an Auckland House using SunREL

Using SunREL* to model a hypothetical house to see the effect of windows/glazing on solar gain, the amount of incoming solar energy into the house which leads to heating of the internal zones. To model a building you must specify all aspects of the building- its dimensions, the orientation of the walls, the positions of [...]

Insulation and Heating Grants

Here is a quick bit of research I did into the new NZ Government grants for home insulation and heating. Overview Gerry Brownlee says-  “Government grants of up to $1,800 will be available for houses built before 2000 that require ceiling and under floor insulation or a clean heating device, regardless of income,” “The programme will [...]

University of Otago Campus Sustainability Masterplan

Starting to help Dave Fullbrook with the development of the University of Otago Campus Sustainability Masterplan. This will serve as a a 20 year blueprint to guide the University towards sustainability. The goal at the end of this is to achieve a 30-40% increase in energy efficiency, a 50% increase in water conservation and reuse [...]