These past few weeks have seen exciting news from the NZGBC (New Zealand Green Building Council) and the GBCA (Green Building Council Australia) that will have a direct impact on future work for ATTMA members. For years, ATTMA have been reaching out to these bodies and offering our help and it is yielding results.
This week, GBCA released Green Star Homes, which specifies mandatory air tightness targets for all homes in all climate zones and mandatory testing. Every test must be conducted by an ATTMA member and lodged on ATTMA Lodgement where there will be an ATTMA Lodgement Certificate to be used as proof.
GBCA also recently released their Green Star Buildings rating tool, requiring qualified testers like members to ATTMA to conduct all tests. Not only is testing required, but earlier stages of commissioning like plan and specification reviews, inspections, and reporting on defects are mandatory as well. This will help make buildings better
Lastly, NZGBC recently released their Homestar v5 Technical Manual, which lays groundwork for ATTMA members to help make big changes to New Zealand typical building practice. The rating tool calls for mandatory testing of 8, 9, and 10 Homestar projects, and gives credit for 6 and 7 star projects that take up testing on a voluntary basis. ATTMA will be sharing the data they collect with NZGBC, which will be used to make the decisions going forward
For more information – contact Sean Maxwell: sean.maxwell@attma.org and also visit the GBCA and NZGBC websites.
