Skip to content

 Homestar Technical Clarification Rulings

How to most efficiently use this page:

1) Filter for the relevant tool version
2) If known, use the credit name field to search for credit keywords or corresponding credit number - please note, this field will ONLY search the "Credit Name" field
3) Use your CTRL+F to search keywords on the page

Technical Question Title Tool Version Date Released Credit Name Tool Category TC Link
TQ162 Climate Zones for Homestar Ready v5 v5 August 2022 HC1 - Winter Comfort, HC2 - Summer Comfort, EN4 - Construction Waste Minimisation Link
Approved Ruling:
For Volume assessments of homes achieving no higher than 7 Stars,it is acceptable to split the volume assessed homes into typologies that are representative of each of the 6 climate zones in the H1 Fifth edition. Energy modelling/ECCHO modelling should be carried out using either the ECCHO climate file representative of the climate zone in the table below or the corresponding NIWA EPW file at the altitude of the weather station in ECCHO or EPW file. As follows : Climate Zone- Representative Climate Data 1-Auckland 2-Napier 3-Wellington 4-Turangi 5-Christchurch 6-Queenstown The overheating risk matrix should be submitted with the volume assessment. This should make conservative assumptions about the neighbourhood, such as that the homes are being built in the ‘City’ (factor 2), have two barriers to opening windows (factor 3) and have no shading from surrounding buildings or foliage (factor 8). Factor 7 (bedroom window orientation) should take the worst case for submitted orientations. Less conservative assumptions may be made, however, they must be recorded on the volume assessment and be limiting factors on the applicability of the volume assessments, i.e. volume assessed homes that have been risk assessed for Rural and Urban environments may not be used for the City environments. Modellers may decide the prevailing wind direction for the purposes of overheating at their discretion. Also, default assumptions may be made for shading from surrounding buildings and foliage. In ECCHO this would be 80% for winter sun admitted and 90% for summer sun admitted. Account must be taken of self-shading from the building itself, i.e. from a wing of the home in an L-shaped house.