Superhome Movement Launches Healthy Home Design Guide

Craft Homes is happy to announce the Superhome Movement’s release of the Healthy Home Design Guide. The Superhome Movement is a not-for-profit organisation that has facilitated the development of this guide, working with 70 industry-leading professionals on a volunteer basis to improve New Zealand’s housing quality. 
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Launched in November and still at its first official iteration as a live document, this guide serves not as a home rating tool, but as a guide for designers, architects, builders, and other industry participants. The aim of this guide is to:

• help improve quality of living for Kiwis across the country, and 
• bridge the gap between the current poor building code in New Zealand and more advanced international building standards.

As part of The Superhome Movement’s team of home builders, we believe that this is an immensely positive and progressive guide for the building industry as a whole. Below, we’ve highlighted some great insights from the guide that inform our work as eco-home builders and resonate with our values and mission to build healthier, high-performance homes. 

Defining a healthy home
According to the guide, a healthy home is described as one that boasts high indoor environment quality (IEQ). This is determined from four key metrics: 

• thermal comfort (temperature), 
• visual comfort, 
• acoustic comfort (noise transfer), and 
• indoor air quality.

Furthermore, the Superhome Movement characterises a healthy home as: Healthy, Efficient, Resilient, On Purpose, Environmental, and Sustainable (HEROES).

 The guide offers recommendations on how to design a home that delivers in all these areas. However, there are many factors that can affect the design and build of a home, such as a capital costs and operational costs, which is why they have also implemented a pathway for changing targets: The Healthy Home Step Change. 

The Healthy Home Step Change is a tier system that defines a healthy home or a super home, divided into BASE, BETTER, and BEST. Healthy homes meet or exceeds minimum BASE standards, while Superhomes meets or exceeds the BETTER or BEST requirements. 

4 Home Designs Steps for Improving Your Family’s Health & Welfare
The Healthy Home Design Guide is comprehensive and detailed, containing a wealthy of information. However, we understand that it can seem highly technical to the everyday consumer. As mentioned by the guide’s Introduction page, not everyone may be able to follow the guide to the T. To help with this, they’ve highlighted four simple steps to follow when designing your new build home to help improve the health and welfare of your family.

1. Prioritise design and make sure you engage with the right experts. Have a design workshop with your full project team as soon as you are able to ensure that everyone involved fully understands why you want to build a healthy home.
2. Upgrade your windows to low E glass with thermally broken or nonconductive frames and installed within the thermal envelope in line with the insulation. This will reduce heat loss by up to 50% compared with standard double glazing and minimise the risk of condensation.
3. Make your home as airtight as you can to reduce the initial cost of installing heating and ongoing running costs.
4. Install an appropriate ventilation system to reduce humidity and increase comfort health and durability.

Easy Resource Links
To read the full guide and learn more about it, simply visit the links below.

• Healthy Home Design Guide (HTML Version) 
• Healthy Home Design Guide Download

Interested in building a healthy home in Auckland?
If you’re interested in starting your journey to building a sustainable, healthy home, request a consultation with the Craft Homes team today and we can discuss your needs!