One Tree Hill College is redefining trades education through a unique hands-on project where students are renovating a 1970s state house purchased for $1.
According to ENERGY STAR®, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s trusted energy efficiency program, air leakage can account for 25–40% of the energy used for heating and cooling in a typical home. Air leakage doesn’t just waste energy—it also reduces indoor comfort, allows in moisture, dust, and pollutants, and increases the risk of mould and structural damage.
Stage 1. Initial airtightness testing. One Tree Hill College is undertaking a deep retrofit of an ex-state house from Māngere East where Kāinga Ora - Home and Communities are doing a major redevelopment programme. The One Tree Hill College Trade Academy is working in partnership with Kāinga Ora to upgrade this house into a healthy, dry, home while preparing our pre-trade students for building apprenticeships.
Three three townhouses airsealed to below 1.5 ACH50 in one day, exceeding Homestar 6, version 5 standards. Built to rent, the owner wanted to provide tenants with comfortable, energy efficient and healthy homes to live in. Both the builders and energy modeler found AeroBarrier's performance simple and dependable, offering a superior solution for meeting airtightness targets compared to traditional methods.
Australian homes can be made climate-ready, reducing bills and emissions – a new report shows how. Millions of homes were built before Australia introduced housing energy efficiency standards in 2003. They’re leaky. Gaps around windows, doors and between building materials allow air to move in and out. So people tend to compensate, with more heating and cooling. It’s costly and damaging for the environment. Using a national sample of 102,000 Australian homes across all 69 climate zones, we identified the most common housing types. Then we worked out how to make them “climate ready” and what benefits would flow.
Bill Gates talks about Aeroseal ahead of his COP28 address.
