Healthy Homes Standards

Healthy Homes Standards

What are the Healthy Homes Standards?

The Healthy Homes Standards became law on 1 July, 2019.

The Healthy Homes Standards introduce specific and minimum standards for heating, ventilation, moisture ingress and drainage, and draught-stopping in rental properties.

  • All private rentals must comply within 90 days of any new or renewed tenancy after 1 July, 2021, with all private rentals complying by 1 July, 2024.
  • All boarding houses must comply by 1 July, 2021.
  • All houses rented by Kainga Ora (formerly Housing New Zealand) and registered Community Housing Providers must comply by 1 July, 2023

Landlords are responsible for maintaining and improving the quality of their rental properties. These standards will help ensure landlords have healthier, safer properties and lower maintenance costs for their investments.

The standards will also make it easier for tenants to keep their homes warm and dry.

 

Mechanical ventilation requirements to meet the Healthy Homes Standard

All kitchens and bathrooms must have an extractor fan vented to the outside. It is important that these fans work and there are some minimum performance standards:

Kitchens

  • In any room with a cook top, new fans or rangehoods installed after 1 July, 2019 must have a minimum diameter (including ducting) of 150mm or an exhaust capacity of at least 50 litres per second.

Bathrooms

  • In any room with a shower or bath, new fans installed after 1 July, 2019 must have a minimum diameter (including ducting) of 120mm or an exhaust capacity of at least 25 litres per second.

Landlords should ask installers for the details of the fan diameters, ducting and flowrate in writing, so they can show they are compliant with the Healthy Homes ventilation standard

 

If you have an existing fan

If you have an existing fan fitted before 1 July, 2019, it does not need to meet these standards and can be left in place. However, if it breaks and needs replacing, it will need to be upgraded to meet the new standards.

Many fans in New Zealand have historically been 100mm in diameter. These do not meet the standard and so do not meet the new standard. Simx would recommend that these fans are replaced with a fan that meets the new standard.

 

How do I select a fan?

The first consideration is where you want the fan to go. The best option is using ceiling mounted centrifugal fan systems that are mounted in the roof cavity. Other options available include inline fans, ceiling fans, through the wall fans or window fans. If a fan is near the bath or shower, Simx would also recommend that consideration is given to a safety extra low voltage fan which is only 12 volts. Details of compliant fans based on the different mounting options are detailed below.

 

Ceiling mounted centrifugal fans

If you are mounting the fan in the ceiling, we have a specific range of fans designed to meet the standard with a range of optional grilles. These are the best fans to use as they develop very high pressure which is designed to enable ducting to be used over long distances and difficult routes and still comply.

CLICK HERE for more information on our specifically designed  BATHROOM fan and KITCHEN fan

 

Inline fans

Inline fans are mounted in the roof cavity and extract air from a grille and exhaust outside.

 

We have three fans that are suitable dependent on the length of the duct and the room type you are ventilating (i.e. bathroom or kitchen). These are called the:

  • Hyper150 EC Axial fan – primarily for bathrooms with less complex duct runs
  • Mixflo 150 mixed flow fan – suitable for bathrooms with complex duct runs and kitchens with less complicated duct runs
  • Blue Jet mixed flow fan – well suited for complex duct runs in kitchens

The charts below provide an easy way of selecting the best fan for the application based on how long your ducting is and how many bends that you have

 

CLICK HERE for more information on HYPER150 EC fans

CLICK HERE for more information on MIXFLO fans

CLICK HERE for more information on BLUE JET fans

 

Inline extraction fan kits are available with a range of different internal grille options.

CLICK HERE for more information on INLINE EXTRACTION fan kits

 

Through wall and window fans

Through wall and window fans should be a minimum of 125mm in a bathroom and 150mm in a kitchen.

CLICK HERE for more information on THROUGH WALL fans

CLICK HERE for more information on WINDOW fans

 

Additional ventilation requirements

All habitable rooms in a rental property must have at least one window, door or skylight which opens to the outside and can be fixed in the open position.

In each room, the size of the openable window, doors and skylight together must be at least 5% of the floor area of that room. Each window door, window or skylight must be openable and must be able to remain fixed in an open position.