West Auckland, by the numbers
Winter air that's rarely dry
Henderson River Park's mean 9 am relative humidity is 86% over the year and 92% in June and July. Auckland Airport's yearly figure is 82%.
Rain off the ranges
NIWA says the Waitākere Ranges, a dissected plateau rising to 480 m, collect more rain than urban Auckland and the east coast, and get more showers when southwesterlies blow.
Wood still heats the hills
In 2023, 35.5% of homes in the Waitākere Ranges Local Board area used a wood burner as a main heater, against 28.2% nationally, and 25.2% were always or sometimes damp.
Mostly stand-alone houses
Separate houses made up 86.7% of occupied dwellings in the Waitākere Ranges area and 80.2% in Henderson-Massey in 2023, against 71.7% for Auckland as a whole.
More renters on the flat
Rent was paid by 42.7% of Whau households and 41.3% in Henderson-Massey in 2023, against 25.4% in the Waitākere Ranges.
Growth on the edges
Total dwellings in the Westgate area rose 83% between 2018 and 2023, and joined dwellings in Swanson rose 344%.
Which job suits which part of the west
In the hills, a heat pump beside or instead of the burner. With a third of Waitākere Ranges homes on wood, the usual ask is a heat pump that can carry the house through a wet week. EECA stopped taking new Warmer Kiwi Homes applications for wood burners on 9 January 2026.
In frosty hollows, size on the cold figure. EECA says that where nights fall to 2 degrees or lower, the heating capacity at 2 degrees should match or beat the 7 degree figure. The size calculator is a sensible first step.
In a stand-alone house, think whole-home. A ducted heat pump specialist will want to see the ceiling space before quoting, because BRANZ says ducts running through uninsulated roof space can lose more than 30% of the heat.
In a Henderson-Massey or Whau rental. Every private rental has had to meet the healthy homes standards since 1 July 2025, and the heating part is about the main living room. Our healthy homes heating guide walks through it.
Tell us what you're heating and roughly where. If no one close by takes the job within 48 hours, heat pump installers further afield in the Auckland region may see it.
What we'd do
Where we'd start out west
We'd tackle the damp alongside the heat. In bush-edged houses with wet winter air, extractor fans that vent outside and a look at home ventilation in Auckland can matter as much as the heat pump. Then we'd size on the 2 degree figure and put the outdoor unit on a north or west wall, as BRANZ suggests, rather than under a deck, where Mitsubishi Electric NZ says units can create their own microclimate.