Healthy Homes Heating Standard explained

Healthy Homes Standard 1 (Heating) says a rental must have one or more fixed heaters that directly heat the main living room and together meet the required heating capacity for that room. As a landlord or the builder fitting it out, you need to size the heater correctly, install the right type, and keep the evidence — get it wrong and it’s an unlawful act.

What “main living room” and “fixed” actually mean

The two words that decide whether a heater counts are “main living room” and “fixed”.

• Main living room — the largest room the tenants use for everyday living (the lounge or family room). Bedrooms don’t need fixed heating under this standard.
• Fixed — permanently attached to the building: wall or floor mounted, plumbed, hard-wired or built-in. Portable plug-in heaters never count, no matter how powerful.

How the required capacity is set

The Tenancy Services heating assessment tool (or its formula) sizes the heater from the living-room volume, glazing, wall and ceiling insulation, and climate zone. A big, single-glazed, uninsulated lounge in Otago needs far more output than a small insulated one in Auckland. Two rules cap the result at each end:

• The minimum is 1.5 kW, even for a tiny room. If the calculation returns less than 1.5 kW, you must still install at least 1.5 kW of fixed heating.
• A single fixed electric heater can’t be relied on above 2.4 kW. Where the required capacity is over 2.4 kW, a fixed electric resistance heater can’t be the sole heater (it’s expensive for tenants to run) — use a heat pump, wood or pellet burner, or flued gas instead.

Record the tool’s result — room dimensions, inputs and the kW figure. That’s your evidence for the compliance statement.

Heaters that qualify — and that don’t

Acceptable fixed heaters include:

• Heat pumps (with thermostat)
• Fixed electric heaters with a thermostat (the ≤2.4 kW sole-heater limit applies)
• Wood burners and pellet burners
• Flued gas heaters
• Central, geothermal, or electric heat-of-storage systems

These don’t count:

• Open fires
• Unflued combustion heaters (portable LPG or gas) — banned, and also a moisture risk
• Portable plug-in electric heaters
• Heaters in bedrooms (they don’t count toward the living-room figure)

The top-up rule for existing heating

There’s one exception to the 2.4 kW electric cap. If a qualifying fixed heater was already installed before 1 July 2019 and falls a little short of the required capacity, you can make up the difference with a smaller additional fixed heater. That top-up heater can be electric even above the usual cap — provided the top-up itself is ≤2.4 kW. Outside that specific case, the 2.4 kW electric limit stands.

Deadline and penalties

All private rentals have had to meet this standard since 1 July 2025. There’s no remaining grace period — non-compliance is an unlawful act under the Residential Tenancies Act, with penalties up to $7,200.