National environmental standards (NES) for ambient air quality in New Zealand were introduced by the Ministry for the Environment (Ministry for the Environment) in 2004 [Ministry for the Environment, 2004,National Environmental Standards for Air Quality, Ministry for the Environment, Wellington.] and are effective from September 2005. The main contaminant that currently exceeds these standards in urban areas of New Zealand is suspended particles (PM10). [Particle matter of less than 10 microns in diameter.]
The main source of PM10 in most urban areas of New Zealand is solid fuel burning for domestic home heating. The amount of emissions from this source in each area varies depending on the number of households using solid fuel, the types and quantities of fuel being used, and the types of appliances the fuel is burnt in. To reduce emissions from this source over time, the Ministry for the Environment has introduced an NES for wood burners, which restricts new installations to those burners that meet an emission criterion of 1.5 grams of emissions per kilogram of fuel burnt.
The Ministry is evaluating ways of helping regional and local government to achieve the NES by encouraging households to replace open fires and older, more polluting burners with cleaner forms of heating. This evaluation forms a part of the Ministry for the Environment's Warm Homes Project, which has been set up to examine a broad range of objectives, including ways to encourage New Zealand households to:
- move to cleaner heating sources
- increase household energy efficiency
- encourage generally warmer and healthier homes.
The project is investigating and developing possible national programmes that work with regional and local government, energy suppliers, manufacturers and communities to achieve these objectives. As part of this project, a domestic home heating survey was carried out for 29 urban areas within New Zealand. A random survey was also carried out across the whole of New Zealand to provide an average across the country.
The surveys collected data on home heating methods and fuels in the main living area of the home, as well as energy efficiency indicators and other variables relating to warm homes. The latter information included indicators of house age, size, income, insulation and cost of heating. This report presents the results of the surveys. Although some discussion on results is provided, the main aim of this report is to provide data from the survey that may be of use to different groups working on the Warm Homes Project.
1 Introduction
November 2005
© Ministry for the Environment