If you rent out a home in New Zealand, the Healthy Homes heating standard sets the minimum for the main living room. For most rentals, a correctly sized heat pump is the simplest way to clear it. The rules are picky about capacity, about what counts as a fixed heater, and about the records you keep to prove it.
What’s the deadline for the Healthy Homes heating standard?
It’s already gone. Every private rental has had to comply since 1 July 2025. Kāinga Ora and registered Community Housing Providers had until 1 July 2024, and boarding houses until 1 July 2021. If your rental doesn’t meet the heating standard today, it needs fixing now, not at the next tenancy.
What does the heating standard actually require?
There must be one or more fixed heaters that can directly heat the main living room.
- Main living room means the largest room used for general, everyday living, such as a lounge, family room or dining room.
- Fixed means not portable. A plug-in heater carried in from another room doesn’t count.
- Each heater must be at least 1.5 kW in heating capacity, and together they must meet the minimum heating capacity the room needs.
- Heaters must not be an open fire or an unflued combustion heater, such as a portable LPG bottle heater.
- A heat pump or electric heater must have a thermostat.
One rule pushes most landlords towards a heat pump. If the required heating capacity for the main living room is over 2.4 kW, you can’t use an electric heater, except a heat pump, unless you’re topping up existing heating installed before 1 July 2019. In most cases the acceptable options are the larger fixed devices: a heat pump, woodburner, pellet burner or flued gas heater.
The minimum heating capacity is based on what it takes to get the main living room to at least 18°C. That figure goes in your compliance statement.
How do you work out the heating capacity a rental needs?
Three routes.
The Heating Assessment Tool. This free online tool asks questions about the property and produces a report showing the minimum heating capacity for the main living room. The report can also help prove the rental meets the standard, so save a copy.
The formula in the regulations. The formulas sit in Schedule 2 of the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Regulations 2019, and the tool is built on them. There are two. A newer formula can be used for modern homes: those built to the 2008 Building Code, apartments in a residential building of at least three storeys with six or more units, and rentals whose insulation and glazing now meet or exceed the 2009 standards. It generally allows a smaller heater, because these homes hold heat better. Every other rental uses the original formula. Be careful with other calculators. An alternative tool or formula may underestimate the capacity and leave you short of compliance.
A qualified specialist. A chartered professional engineer, an IntPE registered with Engineering New Zealand, or someone with a level 7 or higher engineering, physics or building science qualification and at least five years’ heating design experience can assess the capacity. If you go this way, your records and compliance statement must name the specialist and their qualifications, explain how they calculated it, and state that you’re relying on regulation 10A.
Once you know the kW figure, compare it with the heating output on the heat pump’s energy label. Reading that label is its own small skill, and what size heat pump you need walks through it.
What if the living room already has a heater?
You don’t need to add heating if the existing heaters were installed before 1 July 2019, each have a heating capacity over 2.4 kW, meet the other requirements, are not electric heaters (heat pumps are fine) where the room needs more than 2.4 kW, and together provide at least 80% of the required capacity.
If the existing heating falls short, you can usually add another qualifying heater. There’s also a “top-up” allowance. If the existing heating went in before 1 July 2019, the room needs more than 2.4 kW, and the shortfall is 2.4 kW or less, you can add a smaller fixed electric heater with a thermostat. Say a 3.6 kW heat pump went in before July 2019 in a room that needs 6.0 kW. A fixed 2.4 kW electric heater can top it up.
Central heating counts too, as long as it heats the main living room directly, for example through vents, ducts or radiators, and meets the capacity. A ducted heat pump can do this if a vent serves the living room.
→ Related: Heat pump cost in New Zealand
When is a rental exempt from the heating standard?
A few exemptions apply to heating specifically.
- Not reasonably practicable. A professional installer can’t get to the area without substantial building work, substantial damage, greater than normal health and safety risks, or it is otherwise not reasonably practicable.
- Certified passive buildings.
- Landlords who don’t own the whole building, such as an apartment owner. Where you can’t install in a part of the building you don’t solely own, you must still do what you reasonably can. If the room needs more than 2.4 kW, that means at least one qualifying heater of at least 2 kW, and a fixed electric heater with a thermostat is acceptable here.
Some rentals, mainly in Rotorua, can meet the standard with geothermal heating that directly heats the main living room, relying on regulation 10B. General exemptions to the healthy homes standards also exist.
What records should a landlord keep?
Keep every record that shows how you comply, and be ready to produce it on request. For heating, that means:
- the Heating Assessment Tool report, formula workings or specialist’s assessment
- the heater type and its heating capacity in kW
- the installer’s invoice, and the electrician’s Certificate of Compliance
- a note of any tolerance or top-up allowance you rely on, with a short reason.
New, renewed or varied tenancy agreements must include a signed compliance statement covering the heating standard. When you hire someone, check the electrician on the EWRB public register. The licence and certificate side of that is explained in who can install a heat pump.
How do you pick an installer for a rental?
Most rentals suit a high-wall heat pump in the living room. Pick your town to compare local installers, and give them the kW figure from your heating report when you ask for a quote.
→ Related: Questions to ask a heat pump installer