Build 180: Fire
Tackling fire safety
Plus: Ventilation pointers
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Tackling fire safety
Plus: Ventilation pointers
Ventilation of cold roof designs in New Zealand doesn’t always go smoothly. Here, BRANZ physicists hand over to a couple of professional builders who have long been at the coalface dealing with roof moisture issues on their projects.
BRANZ was called into a Dunedin school where too much ventilation caused excessive condensation in a large roof space. Understanding why this happened points to warm roofs being better in some locations.
Conventional ventilation keeps a home sufficiently aired but has an energy cost. An option is to install a mechanical ventilation heat recovery system that ventilates a home while efficiently conserving energy.
Recent BRANZ research into the airtightness of apartment buildings has prompted a shift in thinking around airtightness and ventilation. BRANZ now recommends that residential buildings are mechanically ventilated and are built to an airtightness target.