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Renovations & Extensions

Renovating, extending or reworking an existing home to the same high-performance standard as a new build.

Written for people planning a home in Nelson, Tasman, Richmond, Motueka and across the top of the South. New to the terms below? Our glossary explains them in plain English.

6 guides in Renovations & Extensions← All guides

High-End Renovations and Extensions: Doing It Properly

Why renovations are harder to price than new builds, what you can and cannot fix in an existing home, and how to decide between extending and starting again.

9 min read

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Renovations & Extensions

Renovate or Rebuild? Making the Call on a High-Performance Home

How far you can realistically lift an existing home’s performance, where the ceiling sits, and the honest test for when rebuilding returns more than renovating.

9 min read

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Renovations & Extensions

Whole-House Renovation: A New Zealand Guide

What a whole-house renovation actually involves, how to decide between renovating and rebuilding, why renovations carry more unknowns and how open-book pricing handles them, what an older home will and will not let you change, and how to renovate to a warmer, healthier standard.

9 min read

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Renovations & Extensions

Renovating a Cold, Damp Villa Into a Warm, Dry Home

Why older villas are cold and damp, and how a sympathetic renovation adds insulation, better glazing, gentle heating and ventilation to make a character home warm and dry without losing what makes it special.

9 min read

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Renovations & Extensions

Retrofitting Insulation and Double Glazing to an Existing Home

How to make an existing New Zealand home warmer and drier: what you can retrofit, how to add ceiling, underfloor and wall insulation, the double-glazing options and their trade-offs, the sensible order to do the work, and the real gains in comfort and running cost.

9 min read

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Renovations & Extensions

Adding a High-Performance Extension to an Older Home

Yes, you can build a warm, airtight, efficient extension onto an old house. The real work is the junction where new meets old: matching insulation lines, sealing air leaks and avoiding a cold bridge, then deciding how far to upgrade the existing home so the comfort is not undone.

9 min read

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