How much heating does a rental living room need under the Healthy Homes standard?

The main living room needs a fixed heater that can warm the room to 18 degrees Celsius. The exact required capacity is calculated from the room's floor area, its windows and glazing, and its location, using a formula in Schedule 2 of the regulations. Work out the figure with the official Heating Assessment Tool rather than estimating it.

What is the 2.4 kW rule for Healthy Homes heating?

If the calculated heating requirement for the main living room is above 2.4 kW, you cannot meet it with a fixed electric resistance heater as the main heat source — a heat pump (or another qualifying heater type) is the exception. Below that threshold, more heater types can qualify. The main heater must also generally be at least 1.5 kW.

Does a heat pump satisfy the Healthy Homes heating standard?

A heat pump of sufficient capacity is the usual way to meet the standard where the required capacity is above 2.4 kW, which is why heat pumps are so common in compliance. The heater still has to be correctly sized to warm the room to 18 degrees Celsius per the official Heating Assessment Tool.

Do portable heaters, open fires or gas heaters count for Healthy Homes?

No. Portable heaters, open fires and unflued gas heaters do not count as compliant heating for the main living room. The standard requires a fixed heater of the right type and capacity.

Can I use an online calculator instead of the official Heating Assessment Tool?

Tenancy Services warns that alternative tools cannot guarantee the same result as the official Heating Assessment Tool, and the capacity figure is a straight pass or fail. Use the official tool for the number you will rely on, and treat any summary — including this article — as background only.

How much heating does my rental living room need? The 2.4 kW rule, explained

The short answer

Your main living room needs a fixed heater that can warm it to 18 °C. The required capacity is calculated from the room's size, glazing and location. The main heater must generally be at least 1.5 kW, and if the required capacity is above 2.4 kW you can't rely on a fixed electric resistance heater — a heat pump is the exception. Get the exact figure from the official Heating Assessment Tool.

Heating trips up more Healthy Homes assessments than any other standard, because it's the one with real maths behind it. The rule isn't "have a heater" — it's "have a fixed heater that can warm the main living room to 18 °C" — and whether you pass turns on a capacity number, not a guess.

What the required capacity depends on

The heating standard requires enough fixed heating to reach 18 °C in the main living room. How much capacity that takes isn't one-size-fits-all — it's calculated from a formula in Schedule 2 of the regulations, and it depends on:

The floor area of the living room — a bigger room needs more.
The windows and glazing — glass loses heat, so more (or single) glazing pushes the number up.
Where in the country the home is — the climate zone changes the calculation.

That's why two rooms the same size can land on different capacity requirements, and why you can't reliably eyeball it from floor area alone.

The three rules worth knowing before you buy a heater

The 1.5 kW minimum. The main heater generally needs to be at least 1.5 kW, whatever the calculated figure.
The 2.4 kW electric-resistance limit. If the calculated requirement comes out above 2.4 kW, you can't satisfy it with a fixed electric resistance heater as the main source. This is the rule people mean when they talk about "the 2.4 kW rule."
The heat-pump exception. Heat pumps (and certain other qualifying heater types) are the way to meet a requirement above 2.4 kW — which is exactly why heat pumps are so common in Healthy Homes compliance.

What doesn't count

Some heat sources don't count toward the standard at all, no matter how warm they make the room:

Portable heaters — the heater has to be fixed.
Open fires — not a qualifying fixed heater.
Unflued gas heaters — excluded (and a moisture and safety concern besides).

So a living room kept warm by a plug-in panel heater or an open fire can still fail the standard, even though it feels heated.

Use the official tool for the number you'll rely on

Here's the honest part: the exact capacity figure comes from that Schedule 2 formula, and Tenancy Services itself warns that alternative tools can't guarantee the same result. Because the number is a straight pass or fail, use the official Heating Assessment Tool for the figure you'll actually rely on — don't trust a rule of thumb, and don't trust this article's summary as a substitute for it.

Sizing heating on real assessments?

HammerHand's heating helper walks you through the inputs and flags "confirm against the official tool" rather than pretending to be the authority — the same honest posture that makes the whole report defensible. It captures the walkthrough by voice and photo, offline on site, with numeric pass/fail against each standard.

Frequently asked questions

How much heating does a rental living room need?

Enough fixed heating to warm the main living room to 18 °C. The exact capacity is calculated from the room's floor area, glazing and location using a formula in Schedule 2 of the regulations — work it out with the official Heating Assessment Tool rather than estimating.

What is the 2.4 kW rule?

If the calculated heating requirement is above 2.4 kW, you can't meet it with a fixed electric resistance heater as the main source — a heat pump or other qualifying type is the exception. The main heater must also generally be at least 1.5 kW.

Does a heat pump satisfy the standard?

A correctly sized heat pump is the usual way to meet the standard where the requirement is above 2.4 kW. It still has to be sized to reach 18 °C per the official tool.

Do portable heaters, open fires or gas heaters count?

No — portable heaters, open fires and unflued gas heaters don't count as compliant heating for the main living room.

Can I use an online calculator instead of the official tool?

Tenancy Services warns other tools can't guarantee the same result, and the figure is pass/fail — so use the official Heating Assessment Tool for the number you rely on, and treat any summary (including this one) as background.

This guide explains the heating standard in plain English; it doesn't replace the Healthy Homes Standards regulations or an assessor's judgement. Figures last checked August 2026 — re-verify at tenancy.govt.nz and use the official Heating Assessment Tool for capacity.

How much heating does my rental living room need?

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