Full Show Podcast: 07 September 2025

On The Resident Builder with Pete Wolfkamp Full Show Podcast for day month 2025, Pete shares his view on a new type of chisel, whether you should sharpen your drill bits or not, and lawyer Mike Thornton joins to answer your questions about the healthy homes act.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to The Resident Builder podcast with Peter Wolfcamp
from News talks ed by doing up the House's warning
the garden asked Pete for ahead. The Resident Builder with
Peter wolf Camp call eight hundred eighty us talks edby.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
The house sizzor even when it's dark, even when the
grass is overgrown in the yard, even when a dog
is too old to.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Borrow, and when you're sitting at the table trying.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Not to stop ause sissor home, even when we are
band ball, even when you're there.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Houses a home, even.

Speaker 4 (01:09):
When there's gohost, even when you go around from the
one you love your most, screams, broken pants appearing in
front the word.

Speaker 5 (01:22):
Locals.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
We's ball when they're going leaving the house, even when
wilbra bend, even when you're alone.

Speaker 6 (01:36):
Yea, and a very very good morning and a very
warm welcome to you all this morning to the Resident Builder.
On Sunday, you're with me Peter wolf Camp, the Resident Builder,
and we are going to talk all things building and construction.
That's the putting together part, the pulling apart part, the

(01:59):
which bits do you need to either do either of
those two tasks? Who do you need to talk to
What rules do you need to here too while you're
undertaking these these activities, And can I say as well
at the very get go a very happy Father's Day
to those of you who happen to be in that category.
And we might talk about that a little bit later

(02:20):
on as well in the show Ridio, let's get into it. Oh,
eight hundred eighty ten eighty. The text is up and
running as well. That's nine to nine two from your
mobile phone. And if you'd like to send me an email,
you're more than welcome. It's Pete at NEWSTALKSEB dot co
dot nz. So Pete p et at Newstalk SB dot
co dot nz. A couple of things coming up on

(02:40):
the show this morning. I promised to have a bit
of a rant last week and I didn't because it
got really busy. I promise you i'll have that rant.
This is This is about a tool that I saw
advertised over the last couple of weeks which claims to
solve a problem three thousand years in the making. I
have some rather strong opinions on this and I will

(03:02):
share those with you a little bit later on. Also
on the program, we have our painting expert, one of
two painting experts from Razine. He'll be joining us at
around seven twenty five this morning. J Razine will be along.
So if you've got any specific painting questions, just text
those through. That's nine two nine to two and we
can put those to Jay. I suggested to him that

(03:24):
we start optimistically right. Days are getting slightly longer, slightly warmer,
all of a sudden, where we might have been a
bit restrained or a bit limited in terms of outdoor painting,
well there's plenty of opportunity now, or there's more opportunity
every day to get stuck into those outside tasks. So
either way, if you've got a painting question inside, outside,
on top of the roof, wherever it needs to be,

(03:46):
text them through J from Razine. We both seven twenty five.
The other thing is that it is hard to ignore
at the moment, all of the discussion political discussion around
changes to various parts of the Building Act and the
various laws that govern building. One of the most significant, arguably,
and I think it genuinely is significant, is a proposed

(04:08):
change from joint and several liability in terms of defects
to proportional liability that's the suggested pathway. So what is
joint and several liability? What might the alternatives look like?
Over the next couple of weeks, we'll have a bit
of a focus on that, starting with Mike Thornton, who
is a lawyer who's been on the program a couple

(04:30):
of times. His specialty is construction law and I guess
litigation around building defects and that sort of thing. So
Mike is going to join us at eight o'clock this
morning or just after the eight o'clock news, and we're
going to talk about what is joint and several liability?
Is it actually a problem and why is it a problem?
And what does proportional liability look like? Is the sector

(04:52):
going to adopt it and what happens if they don't
adopt it, then where do we go? And is the
government going to back insurance or something like that. Now,
the reason this is particularly pertinent obviously it is a
fairly big sh in the way in which let's say
the liability defects part of the responsibilities of building a

(05:13):
house are covered. It also sets it up very nicely
for the minister who has proposed this or is heading
the charge. Chris Pink. He is the Minister for Building
in Construction, and next week on the show he'll be
joining me in the studio. Actually he's been very generous
for about an hour. So from seven point thirty next

(05:33):
week on the show, Chris Pink, the Minister will be
joining us, as he's done before, but on this occasion
I promise you that I will only ask him questions
for a period of time and then I will hand
over to you basically, so you can have your say
and ask your questions to the Minister next week on

(05:55):
the show. So really looking forward to that. Right now,
let's crack into it, folks. Good morning, welcome along to
the show. Lovely to have you company on this Sunday,
this Father's Day Sunday.

Speaker 5 (06:05):
We're into it. Eight eighty.

Speaker 6 (06:07):
The number the call mark good morning.

Speaker 7 (06:10):
Yeah, good morning Pete.

Speaker 8 (06:12):
Let's take a call pleasure, Pete. It's just we we
brought a villa about ten years ago. It's a nineteen
forties villa and as I so, i've been at ten years,
we've currently got it on the market and we had
we had a pretty firm offer on it that was

(06:34):
supposed to go unconditional. On Friday, the people that were
buying the villa had did all their compliance electrical and
building inspection and stuff prior to making their offer, which
was subject to limb. Anyway, they got the limb and

(06:54):
on the limb the the house is showing a wall
in the kitchen. What happened was this wall was removed
around nineteen eighty. It's not so it's not shown on
the limb has been removed. So the reason we kind
of know that is we actually bumped into the previous

(07:16):
owner that did quite a big renovation on the house
that is on the limb, and he had said that
the wall was gone. Then the kitchen had been done.

Speaker 5 (07:23):
Yep.

Speaker 8 (07:25):
So anyway, short story, they they brought back they were
concerned about the wall, so they brought back the builder
who then said, oh, look, you know it potentially could
have been a load bearing wall and it would be
something five to fifty thousand dollars to remedy it if
it was a low bearing wall. And anyway, we yeah, look,

(07:52):
they wanted to withdraw their offer. We didn't will see
anyone to buy a house. So the lawyer said, oh,
you could do this, do that, but we didn't want
to get into that. So that offer is gone, so
we ring the countcil. They were pretty They said, look,
this happens all the time with the older homes. Is
it a two storied home? We said, single dwelling. They said, oh,

(08:13):
it shouldn't really be an issue. We've had a new
reform in the last three years as well, so yeah,
we just don't really know where to go to from here.
The council said they recommended a couple of specialized builders
that could do some form of certificates, saying, although it

(08:34):
may have been a load nearing walls, it's I don't
really know the terminology. Maybe yeah, so I don't know.
We just don't know whether what to do in this situation.
And the council said, if you did that, they would
have just acknowledged that the walks now not there yea,
and yeah, and it's safe. But both the agent and

(08:57):
the council said, you know, it doesn't really come up
for these sort of homes very often, so we yeah,
we're kind of in a position of do we do
nothing and just wait and see it?

Speaker 6 (09:10):
Okay, let me offer some feedback in a sense, I think,
and I don't want to appear to be arrogant, but
as soon as you said, we've got a house. It's
an older house. The wall was taken out, but it's
not on the plan. I kind of knew where this
conversation was going to hit. So and look, for a

(09:33):
long time, houses were bought and sold and people accepted
all sorts of anomalies. Let's say, right in your situation,
someone around nineteen eighty, it's tracking back a few years now,
thought hey, we're going to open the back of the
house up, knock that wall down. I remember being in

(09:54):
a mates place when all I could hear inside was
the sound of a chainsaw, and his other mate was going,
I think this would look great, open plan and whips
out the chainsaw. Right, So you know, and that was
around that time. But anyway, so but increasingly, you know,
real estate agents have a duty to clear. Homeowners have

(10:16):
a I suppose in a sense of responsibility to present
their houses to market in a compliant manner. Counsels their
record keeping is actually getting better and better, so you
can find out more about the house, not always, but
a fair amount of it. And then lawyers, I guess,
are increasing and advising their clients to be risk averse, right,

(10:39):
so that the number of this is you've got a
house where they've pulled out the back wall or what
might have been the back wall, and then there'll be
a lean to with the kitchens in or something like that.
It doesn't show on the plan. There's no evidence that
the work was done in accordance with the building code,
and that's going to be the really critical bet, right,

(11:00):
And so without any evidence, any record keeping, there's a
change to the house and nobody really knows what happened,
who did it, and how did they make it compliant
with building code, in which case you're effectively selling something
that theoretically is defective to an owner. And a new
owner might look at that and go, look, I don't care, right,

(11:23):
Or a new owner might be advised by their lawyer
not to purchase something that has that uncertainty to it,
or if they do purchase it, they're going to take
off the cost of remediation, the proposed cost of remediation,
which you know your the scope is somewhere between five
and fifty thousand dollars, right, so you know the purchaser

(11:44):
has an option because it's let's be really clear, it
is not illegal to sell a house that's got unauthorized
work or undocumented work. It's you can sell it, right,
and someone can make an offer for it and they
can buy it and then they take the responsibility. So
in terms of a pathway to compliance, I think the

(12:07):
advice from the council's right. What they're talking when they're
talking about specialist builders, they're probably not talking about builders
like me. They'll be talking about building surveyors. So if
you look at like the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveys,
they will have people on their register you can look
it up online who will specialize in this sort of
compliance type work. And essentially what they could do is

(12:30):
and I've I've just facilitated this with another property, right,
so this is fresh in my mind. The scars are
there still there without overstating it, but it did take
a while and it did cost some money, right, So
in the end there was some work that was done
that didn't get signed off, so there was a building consent,

(12:52):
but it didn't get signed off. In your case, there's
no building consent. So someone has taken out a wall
which might or might not be load bearing without a
consent if it so the first thing is what is
the wall load bearing, and I suspect that it probably
is or was, in which case, in order to substitute

(13:15):
the wall what the wall's doing, there would need to
be a beam. The beam would need to be on
some posts. Those posts would be sufficiently bearing, and somewhere
along line you need to take account for bracing. So
a building surveyor could come review the as built what's
actually there. It might require some input from a structural

(13:35):
engineer who would look at it and go, ah, I
think that you might need to add some bracing, or
for example, I found that the point load created by
the posts that either end of the beam. Let's hope
there is a beam up there have insufficient bearing, in
which case you might go, oh, if I can get
under the house, I can put a pile here, and
I can put a pile there, and I can tie
them together, and maybe I have to take a piece

(13:57):
of jib off further down and replace that with some
braceline something like that. Right, And at the end of
that process so it gets it gets an inspection sort
of an assessment, you may need to do some remedial work.
At the end of that you can either Essentially what
you're going to do is apply to council for a

(14:17):
certificate of acceptance, and you need to provide evidence that
it is acceptable to the building Code. And so there
might be a very simple set of plans drawn showing
the span, the type of beam that's in there, how
it's held down, and then some evidence from the building
surveyor who suitably qualified to provide this evidence to say,

(14:41):
in my opinion, it now complies with the building Code.
And then that is simply added to the title or
to the limb, goes into the limb, and so when
someone reads through it and goes, oh, there was a
wall here, Now there isn't, but there is a certificate
of acceptance, then it's compliant. That's your pathway forward.

Speaker 8 (14:59):
Yeah, thats what's not a builder at all. Building You
know people talk about a load beer wall. Yes, all
walls and houses load bearing.

Speaker 6 (15:11):
No, No they're not so. But again, my guess would
be is that if this is kind of the typical
thing that happened in kitchens, what there might have been
is there might have been a fireplace between the adjacent
lounge in the kitchen, right, and that maybe they took
the fireplace out and opened up the wall at the
same time. Now, The way that those houses were constructed

(15:33):
is they often had some some of the roof structure
was sort of bearing on the chimney. If you take
the chimney down, what's holding the roof up. Or if
it's the end of the original form of the house
and then there was a lean to that wall will
be a load bearing wall. You might find that a
wall that runs parallel to the ceiling joists in between
rooms is not load bearing. And again a building surveyor

(15:57):
will be able to determine that fairly quickly. And look,
it might just come down to a building surveyor coming
assessing the building, determining it's not a load bearing wall,
giving you some evidence for that. You provide an updated
floor plan to the council, they stamp it and go, right,
we're just recording the work. Oh yeah, there's a couple

(16:18):
of pathways. I think it's ultimately it's always going to
come down to I think you're going to need to
get a building surveyor. And again, if you go to
building surveyor the website ins at IBS, you can scroll through,
find someone in your area and get that done.

Speaker 8 (16:37):
Oh so that's thank.

Speaker 6 (16:38):
You, No worries, mate, Sorry, I know it's it does
get quite complicated quite quickly, but I think you are
going to need the services of building survey in the sinstant.
Oh thanks you enjoy yeah, yeah, and thank you, thank
you very much. Take care, Bye bye. I won't get
to see my boy until sometime this afternoon anyway. That's

(17:00):
right on dighty ten eighty is the number to call.
Will take a call from Pauline shortly just after the news, sorry,
just after the break. If you've got a text that
you would like to send three, you can do that
on nine two ninety two. If you'd like to email me,
it's Pete at newstalksb dot co dot incided is twenty
three after six.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
Whether you're painting the ceiling, fixing with fans, or wondering
how to fix that hole in the wall, give Peter
wolf Gabber call on eighty the resident builder on news.

Speaker 6 (17:29):
Dogs'd be yeah with the news talks you'd be looking
forward to your calls your company. Oh, eight hundred and
eighty ten eighty is the number.

Speaker 9 (17:35):
Hello Pauling, Hello Kate, and happy Father's dating.

Speaker 6 (17:40):
Thank you very much, thank you for.

Speaker 9 (17:43):
The opportunity to run this problem that I'm having with
my garage door. No, true, I've okay sarpreen in my
house for a couple of years. The house is eight
years old, so the garage store for all the PaperWorks
for the garage door, you know, when I often saw
and everything, it's been leaking. And when I said leaking,

(18:06):
the water literally pours through the panels. Yeah, And I've
been like, this has been months. We're months in the
track now. I've been dealing with the rock wheeler at
the local branch, trying to kind of get some answers
and some help. They've serviced it that's come in and
they've put itulation between the panels, which helped but hasn't

(18:31):
certainly hasn't fixed the problem. I mean, the door is
faulty where it's got to now. And what I'm like,
you're wrenching on is because they escalated it finally about
a month ago to the local, to the supplier, and
because it's got a warranty. Of course, what they're prepared

(18:51):
to do is replace the panels and using all the
existing framework, hinges everything and basically it cops. So I
sort of thinking, well, I can't kind of say how
that's going to be the ideal solution.

Speaker 6 (19:14):
So, just to be clear, they're offering to repair the
door that's leaking, but you're going to pay for it.

Speaker 9 (19:22):
They're going to replace the.

Speaker 6 (19:24):
Panel, yes, but then they're going to charge you for
the privilege of repairing their mistake.

Speaker 9 (19:31):
Correct.

Speaker 6 (19:31):
Yeah, well that's not excepting thank you.

Speaker 9 (19:34):
For putting up like that.

Speaker 6 (19:38):
That's not how warranties work, right, So I think I'm
not going to ask you to mention the name of
the company or the brand. But I am curious obviously,
So when we finish this conversation, I'm going to get
you to go back to lock my producer and let
them know who that is, so I'll be interested in that. Look,

(20:01):
I think it's quite clear they have obligations under both
the Building Act as a supplier of building components and
also under the Consumer Guarantee you sorry, Consumer Guarantees Act
to you know they've sold you something. It's supposed to
be water tight, weather tight. Therefore it's not supposed to

(20:24):
have water ingress. If it has, then it's a failure
and they are responsible for it. So how old is
the door?

Speaker 9 (20:31):
Exactly eight eight years old? Was installed eight years ago,
and they keep telling me that it's an old door,
and I say, don't give me that nonsense. I've owned
lots of houses and I've had dogs a lot older
than that's and they never let at all.

Speaker 6 (20:47):
I suppose what this might come down to, though, paul In,
is you do you have their You've got the original
documentation when the door was installed. So there'll be a
warranty and there'll be instructions in bari bar. You may
read through the fine print and see what the warranty
offered is, and they might say that the door is

(21:08):
guaranteed for five years or something like that, in which case,
if you're out of warranty, then you're out of warranty.
But I and then it's going to become.

Speaker 9 (21:18):
As it is, out a warranty because.

Speaker 6 (21:22):
The warranty, how long is the warranty on it?

Speaker 7 (21:24):
Five?

Speaker 9 (21:25):
That was five and the original owners obviously didn't do
anything about it.

Speaker 10 (21:29):
They just lead a guid Yeah.

Speaker 6 (21:30):
Okay, So see this is where you know, let's say
lack of action on the part of the previous owners
contributes to issues with the door. So you know, if
someone had to fix something two or three years ago
prior to you buying the property, then maybe it wouldn't
be as much as you know. Is there a contributed
negligence type element? I If you see a problem, you

(21:52):
don't fix it for a couple of years, it's hard
to justify going back to the person that installed it
or built it and saying you've got a problem when
you should have fixed it years ago. It would It's
will be interesting to know even if the what I'm
wondering is like typically with buildings, most of us are

(22:15):
responsible for building, especially in terms of weather tightness.

Speaker 5 (22:19):
Right.

Speaker 6 (22:19):
So for example, for exterior cladding or for roofing, there
is a minimum fifteen year requirement that it performs for
fifteen years. So even if the warranty for the doors
five years, if their responsibility under the Building Act is
for it to perform for fifteen years, would they then

(22:42):
have a responsibility over and above their warranty to ensure
compliance with a building code. That might be something you
need to talk to your lawyer about if you've got
someone who can review that quickly and send them a
very succinct summary of their responsibilities under the Building Act
if they have any. So that would be an.

Speaker 10 (23:04):
Interesting So.

Speaker 9 (23:07):
I need to do some research around the building it
and around that all the warranty.

Speaker 6 (23:13):
Have a look through the warranty documents. You know, Look,
it's not unreasonable to expect that the door should remain
weather tight for longer than it has now. If there
was an issue which nobody alerted them to and it's
caused damage or further deterioration, that's not their responsibility because

(23:34):
somebody didn't talk to them, right, So maybe that's where
there's a sort of, like I say, a contributory negligence
type element to it, in which case, if they're prepared
to fix it and you have to contribute a little bit,
that might not be an unreasonable settlement. But at the
same time, if they are offering up a solution like that,
you would then want to say to them, do you

(23:57):
then offer let's say, a ten year warranty on the
repair rather than we'll have a go and then next
winter it leaks, Well, we had to go, but it's
not our responsibility. You want them to have some skin
in the game. Yeah, okay, good luck, don't don't hang up.
I'm going to pop you back to Locke and I'm

(24:20):
going to get the inside information. Eight hundred eighty ten
eighty is that number to call David, Very good morning
to you.

Speaker 7 (24:26):
Yeah, good morning, Kate. Where we have a nineteen seventy
one flat which has a set of metal stairs. Well
there's wood, but there's two metal runners and yeah, coming
up from the ground floor. The metal. The metal is

(24:47):
one hundred by fifty. I suspect it's three to four
mel flick through to the tube and bit of it.
And we're trying to attach a nine mil piece of
plywood to chase using metal drills and metal metal self
tappened brews and things. What I've got is and I

(25:09):
just really wanted a wee bit of advice with respect
to the screws, because I started doing it yesterday. And
first the metal, this must be Philly solid metal, because
to drill, I've got a three point five meal pilot
drill metal drunk pilot drill, and to drill that through
probably to do one thing took probably about ten minutes

(25:31):
of really really hard drilling, and then I started putting
in I do one at a time, obviously putting in
the self tapping metal screws. Now I've realized that I've got,
looking at my packet, I've got that says light duty metal.
When I'm suspecting that this because I had a couple

(25:53):
snap on me where the pilot but went in and
then it broke and then I had to redrill. So
I'm suspecting that I've got the wrong type of screw.
Can you give me a little advice? So we've got
nine nine mil play yep, and about say four mil
three or four mil of metal? Can you give me
advice as to the type of metal? Sure, the metal screw.

Speaker 6 (26:18):
I mean, good on you. I think you're doing it right.
I understand because I like, I've seen guys contractors just
take those screws with and they've got effectively what looks
like a drill head on them, right or you know
the end of it.

Speaker 7 (26:34):
These ones, I suspect there it says light light duty metal.
They're the Cotter Cotta brand, and but I've got forty meals,
So I suspect that that's one of the slight problems.

Speaker 6 (26:48):
Maybe too long, because remember, you know, the screw only
needs to be long enough to hold the ply. The
nine mil play plus the depth of the steel, which
let's say it's about three or four mil, so we're
talking thirteen So if you had a twenty mil long screw.
As long as the three is binding into the metal,
that's all that's required. Anything longer it doesn't hold anymore, right,

(27:13):
But you've still got to wind it all the way in.
But yeah, look, i've seen guys fixing, you know, cladding
to metal framing and that sort of thing. Often like
lighter gauge, by just starting drilling through, the drill does
its bit, and then the screw takes over and winds itself.
And I've had little success trying to do that, to
be fair, and so I would always do what you're doing,

(27:36):
which is you get a drill that's about the same
thickness as the shaft of the screw, right, so excluding
the thickness of the thread that goes.

Speaker 7 (27:45):
Round my screw is a team gauge.

Speaker 6 (27:49):
Yeah, so a three and a half mill drill, but
will be about right. The other thing that makes quite
a bit of difference when you're drilling through steel is
actually using It's basically like a little spray that you
can use that helps with the cutting. So it's a
cutting I don't think it's cutting compound. I'll find the

(28:10):
name for it in a minute.

Speaker 5 (28:10):
But the.

Speaker 6 (28:12):
It's like a just a spray that you use for
when you're cutting steel, when you're drilling into steel, that
will make the drilling part of it a lot easier
rather than kind of winding you way through for five minutes,
because chances are if it's taken you five minutes, the
drill bits blunt. So you're doing the right thing in
terms of pre drilling. In terms of the screws, make
sure that the screw is not much bigger than the

(28:34):
pilot hole that you need, and it only needs to
be long enough to securely fasten the timber to the steel.
And then the other thing is what are you using
to drive the screw in?

Speaker 7 (28:46):
Using a power driver?

Speaker 6 (28:48):
So like an impact driver or a drill no impact? Okay,
that's good as well. Then I think it might just
be a case of look, you can go down to
a large hot hardware store and get something off the shelf,
or you go to a specialist. As it happened. Actually,
I was at a little place in Glenfield other day
called the bolt Shop because I needed some good old

(29:10):
fashioned brass slotted screws right and they had them there.
They are expensive, they turn out they're about a dollar each,
but anyway, I needed them for a job, and I
could get them there. Now, if you went in there
and said this is what I'm doing, they would, you know,
so maybe a specialist engineering supplies firm or something like that.
You might find it at a large wholesaler, but typically

(29:32):
you'd get one that's they're kind of golden in color
rather than just yeah, they're often tempted. Oh so I
went to the bolt shop. The bolt shop in where
are they Piranha Road? I think in Glenfield, but there
will be other places like that around.

Speaker 7 (29:50):
The place, right, yeah, okay, okay, thanks for that. So
the only other thing was that these these drill bit
these are brand new drill bits. Can you is it,
you know, just from the sort of mighty Teams or Bunnings,
and you can you get higher quality? Is it better
to get a higher quality drill.

Speaker 6 (30:12):
It's like with most things, you know, the more you
spend on good quality tools, the better they are.

Speaker 5 (30:20):
Typically.

Speaker 6 (30:21):
So yeah, I'm always a little bit cautious about buying
really cheap drawll bits. But if you go in like
to Mine to ten or somewhere like that, and they've
got some sudden drall bits for example, that's actually the
really cool thing about them. Is their New Zealand made
so sudden drill bits. The other thing to Eddie has
texture and go and has suggested that a ten gauge
screw needs a four point five millimeter pilot hole in

(30:45):
heavier meta, so that will help as well.

Speaker 7 (30:49):
Four point five four point.

Speaker 6 (30:51):
Five and that's that's actually you know, if you think
about the difference of three point five to four point five,
it's almost twenty five percent larger, right, So that will
actually make quite a significant difference because all you need
is the thread to bind right the shaft of the
screw that's just holding you back basically.

Speaker 7 (31:09):
Yeah, and effectively the do you mention some form of paste.

Speaker 6 (31:14):
Or yeah, it's one of those things.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
I know.

Speaker 6 (31:20):
I've got it sitting on my shelf at home, drill compound.
I'll read it out in the second. We'll take a
break and then I'll stay listening for a couple of
minutes and I'll let you know what it is. Good
luck with that, all the very best, take care and

(31:42):
talking about good tools. I promise you before seven o'clock
I will I will vent my spleen on this tool
that was advertised, as you know, here's a problem three
thousand years in the making. We've solved it. I have
some very strong opinions on this. We are back after
the break. Squeaky door or squeaky floor.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Give the right advice from Peter wolf Care he's a
resident builder on newstalk SAB.

Speaker 6 (32:09):
Thank you for the texts that are coming in. This
is fantastic actually so with regard to the pilot hole,
it t engauged screw typically needs a four and a
half mill pilot hole. Thanks Addie for that. Someone suggested
using nuts and bolts. I guess you don't necessarily want
to drill right through effectively what it is you think
about those classic nineteen seventies sort of open plan stairs,

(32:31):
a steel stringer with bits of metal welded on the top,
little l bracket that holds the tread. You don't necessarily
want to drill all the way through and have a
nut and a bolt because it kind of looks ugly
on the inside, Not that anyone would see it on
the inside once you put the ply on, but it
still would. And I've been schooled by Michael, which is

(32:52):
great Morning Peak. The self drilling screws are known as
tech screws TEK screws and should not be used with
an impact driver use a standard drill. The impact can
cause the screw shaft to break. I may have experienced
that myself, which is interesting. And the mysterious product that

(33:12):
is sitting on my shelf along with a thousand other
mysterious products, is simply called cutting oil. You can get
it as a paste or a liquid, or in my case,
I've got it as an aerosol, so CRC CDT cutting oil,
And there's other brands that make them as well. Suit
will make one, and a whole bunch of people make them.
But cutting and tapping fluid or cutting and tapping oil

(33:36):
is what you're after. That will make it easier. But
for our previous call it David. If you're putting the
plywood up and then screwing through it, and you're drilling
through the plywood, I wouldn't apply the oil then because
it will stain the plywood. So if you mark all
the holes and then take the plywood away, use the oil,
then clean it up, then put the plywood on, it'll

(33:57):
save you marking the ply because it will. Now this
is also I'm just going to read this out and
then park it because this is the perfect exam of
what we're discussing in terms of joint and several liability
and a move to proportional liability and how might this
actually work in the future. So the text is high, Peete,
we have a new home, but over winter we have

(34:19):
experienced a couple of small leaks from the roof The
roofing company Engage has gone under, but the LBP, who
is an independent contractor who did the work, is still
about what options do I have to get this issue resolved? Thanks, Well,
that's a perfect example of what we're talking about in
terms of joint and several liability that in this instance

(34:42):
here where the roofing contractor is now out of business,
who then is going to be responsible for repairing the leak?
Even if the roofing company had insurance, some sort of
indemnity insurance, given that they're no longer in business, that
doesn't help a homeowner now either. So that's the sort

(35:03):
of thing that we might talk about with Mike when
he joins me on at a round just after eight o'clock. Right, Oh,
we're into it. Eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is
the number, Pracash, Good morning to you.

Speaker 11 (35:14):
Oh, good morning, Peter, howse thing's there.

Speaker 6 (35:17):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 11 (35:18):
Look, I've just finished a laundry conversion in my at
the end of my garage. Now the final piece and
everything is the garage floor. So carryly garudge floor's just
got old paint on it. I can see sort of
orange maybe old paint coming through. It might have been
an old adhesive or something underneath it, so that the

(35:41):
top player is sort of okay, getting a bit grimy,
and I thought, okay, time to just sort of take
it all out. I could probably use the garage for
multiple uses and things like that. So I was thinking,
I don't really like garage carpet. I always think, Okay,
it's going to get dirty, It's going to get stuff
stuck in there, you know, can you vacuum it or not?
So I thought I either I'm going to grind it

(36:04):
down too, maybe expose it a seal or on it
or something like that, or maybe get them to paint
over it. I don't know if they need to still
grind it, but maybe a POxy paint.

Speaker 12 (36:19):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 11 (36:21):
Now the grudge is sort of at the moment, it's
all got you know, old paint, old pieces of all
the stuff normal garage would have, and I was thinking
over time, I might like to sort of use it
for dual purpose sort of thing. So I'm not really
experiencing the concrete grinding and polishing and ceiling and stuff
like that. Sort of sort of just see what your

(36:43):
views were on, you know, these sort of two options,
because I know some of the newer modern homes love
that concrete grind exposed look even inside the loungerry and
stuff like that, and I think, you know, that's kind
of nice, but will that stand up to like a
garage era, which might you know, might get a lot
of use.

Speaker 5 (37:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (37:03):
Obviously, if you're going to apply coating, you need to
know that the substrate i e. The existing garage is
reasonably clean, and the best way to get that done
would be to grind it right. So even if you're
going to do an epoxy, I'd probably get someone in,
whether that's a specialist concrete floor grinding crew or some

(37:25):
people that do preparation for overlay flooring and that sort
of thing. Have've got the right equipment, so the right
type of grinder attached to some extraction and then they
could come along and grind the surface back and then
if it comes up nice and it looks really good
and you're happy with it, then you could just use
a clear seala over it. And again you'd need to

(37:49):
read the label to see is it traffickable if I
drive a car on it? Is it going to be okay? Obviously,
exposed concrete floors are quite popular in new houses these days,
so there's plenty of sealers out there that are suitable.
Then if let's say you didn't want to go concrete sealer,
but you did want to do like an epoxy coating
over it, again, plenty of those on the market, but

(38:13):
you've got to get the preparation right, which you've done
by grinding the floor. There is kind of one other
option as well, which would be as long as your
preparations right, you could do like a micro cement render
over the entire surface. This is I had some experience
with it recently where we used it on an old

(38:34):
concrete table which had become very weathered, and what I
wanted to do is sort of restore it. So it's
a razine construction product micro stone, and then we rendered
essentially over the top of the old plaster, put a
sealer on it, and that's reasonably traffickable. I don't know
if it's really designed to have vehicles driving on it.

(38:55):
But if let's say the garage is sort of for
you're working around, but you're not necessarily driving into it,
then that would be another option. So you can have
a look for microstone.

Speaker 11 (39:04):
So there's a option, and that's just applied by just
a normal painting roller.

Speaker 6 (39:09):
No this, If you're doing the microstone, it's applied with
a trail and then buffed and finished off and you'd
need to get a license applicated to do it. But
in terms of something that you can do, then by
all means look at I mean grinding grinding the floor
looks really simple, but it's actually kind of not like

(39:30):
you really need to know what you're doing. And also
you don't want to get lots and lots of dust everywhere,
so you need the right gear with extraction on it
to do it.

Speaker 11 (39:38):
Professional. Sounds like I need a professional for that job.
And the sealer versus the epoxy paint, are they the
durability of them would be very similar or has one
got a more beneficial.

Speaker 6 (39:53):
I would probably say that in terms of long lasting
an epoxy is you know, just because the build up
is more you're going to get more epoxy on the floor,
so it's going to have more wear ability to where
I would say that a POxy would probably outlast a.

Speaker 11 (40:10):
Sealer, right, okay, And as a seal is something that
you may need to apply in a number of years.
That's right again sort of thing.

Speaker 6 (40:20):
Which is, you know, not necessarily the end of the world. Again,
if you've got a product that is able to be reapplied,
so a thorough clean and then reapply, it might be
the answer. So some options therefore.

Speaker 11 (40:29):
You okay, thank you, Peter, No trouble answers it.

Speaker 6 (40:33):
Take care.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
It is six fifty two News Talks ed B helping
you get those DIY projects done right the resident builder
with Peter wolf Care Call eight hundred eighty eight Youth
Talk EDB.

Speaker 6 (40:45):
Your News Talks EDB. We've got new sport and weather
coming up for you in just a few minutes. In
the next hour of the show, Jay, our painting expert
from Razine will be joining us. After eight o'clock we
have our legal expert, lawyer Michael Thornton, will be joining us.
We're going to talk about joint in several liability and
of course at eight thirty. We've got a decline pass.

(41:06):
We're into the garden with Rid from eight point thirty
this morning on this good this Faur's Day morning, which
I'm enjoying thus far. Radio. We are back afternoons Sport
and weather.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
Meta twice God was but maybe call Pete first, feed
your wolfcaf The Resident Builder, News Talks.

Speaker 6 (41:31):
B rdio, Welcome back, folks. Lovely to have your company
this morning on the Sunday Here at News Talks. Heb
the Resident Builder on Sunday as always talking about building
construction rules, regulations, and in particular today or in about
an hour's time, my guest will be Mike Thornton. Michael Thornton,

(41:51):
who's a lawyer who specializes in construction law. He's been
a guest on the show before. Given all of the
discussion around the signal change from joint and several liability
to proportional liability, I thought we'd get a chance to
talk about it from a legal point of view. I
when this does become law, this is in that's their playground, right.

(42:14):
We'll talk with Mike about that ahead of having the
Minister Chris Pink in the studio next week on the show,
to talk about that and a whole bunch of other
proposed changes as well, So really looking forward to that. Yes,
now someone has thank you for reminding me, Liz. I
keep saying that I've got lots of time to talk
about these things, and I don't because I want to

(42:35):
talk to you, but I do want to take a
moment to talk about this. And I quite honestly, I
was apoplectic with rage when I saw this advertising the
other day. So what triggered me was the sort of
the lead up in social media to this new arrival
of a new tool was here's a problem three thousand

(42:56):
years in the making, and we've solved it. And then
it talked about chisels. So chisels three thousand year old
piece of technology. It's in my aprah and my drawer,
use them all the time, years and years and years.
So then they went on to say that they've done
some research and they've discovered that about six percent of
chisels get thrown out after a week because people either

(43:21):
well they can't sharpen them, right, that's the number of
the problem. So they've come up with a solution. Now,
the people that I'm talking about, I've got no particular
beef with OX Tools, but they're the ones that have
introduced this tool, right, So what it is is it's
a chisel with a replacement tip. So you buy the
chisel and it's got a little screw at the end there,

(43:41):
and you get a couple of spare tips, and the
thinking behind it is when the chisel tip is blunt,
then you just swap it out for a new bit,
a new chisel end. And I kind of looked at that, thinking,
three thousand years of challenges and we've solved it by
giving you a tool that you can swap the end

(44:02):
out of. And I kind of looked at that and went,
it feels like to meeousand years of using it, Okay,
now we've got users who don't know how to sharpen tools.
That's the end of civilization for me. I was just
I looked at that and I sent it around to
a couple of mates as well. And look, again, I've

(44:23):
got no beefs with Ox Tools. They've actually got some
quite cool tools, and I've met them a couple of times,
but a chisel, a replaceable tip chisel to me just
seems like it's the end of standards, right. It's the
ends of ability, the end of trades people being able
to look after their tools and being able to sharpen tools.
It's a core competency right of being a trades person.

(44:46):
I feel so strongly about it. To be fair, if
I saw a young fellow turn up on my side
who had one of these, I'd probably sack them straight away.
You don't know, you don't care. This is a bad idea,
simple as that.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Right.

Speaker 6 (44:59):
That's oh, I feel so much better getting that off
my chest.

Speaker 5 (45:02):
Right.

Speaker 6 (45:02):
We've got Jay coming along in about fifteen minutes time,
so if you've got some painting quick it is ninety
two to send those through and remember our legal expert
Mike Thornton along after eight o'clock. But right now, John, good.

Speaker 5 (45:15):
Morning, Good morning.

Speaker 6 (45:17):
How do you think I'm well? I got off my test?

Speaker 13 (45:22):
Yeah, no, I had a rider in at that listen.
I have a question as advice. A few months ago
I came I listened to your show on a Sunday morning.
I came out and I caught the tail end of
a discussion you were having. Was to do with doing
a heat lot test in a room and if you'd
use the guide, which is sorry, the calculated which is

(45:46):
a guide. It gave you a certain rating and you
had decided to get a do a proper physical evidence
based test, and there was a great disparity between the
two results. And I'm in the situation I find myself.
So I'm looking to either approach the Engineers Institute, perhaps

(46:06):
go to I'm an Auckland Massive University if they've got
a building science department or something along that line, and
try and find basically somebody with some credentials who can
give me a physical test of the room. And the
reason for that is that it's a thirty square me room,
carpeting on the floor jib board, and fortunately we don't

(46:29):
know the bats in the walls, certainly plenty of bats
in the ceiling, and the normal rant slider situation. It's
the main living room. It's got a three point two
megawatt heat pump, and the Healthy Home assessments come back
and said you need a minimum of five point three
and because there's more than two point four difference, you'd

(46:50):
have to reinstall a brand new unit. Now I'm going
three point two megawatts. We'll pump that up to certain
one degrees in no time at all. It just seems
bizarre to me. So I want to actually get the
Physical Care Star.

Speaker 6 (47:09):
Okay, can I ask? Can I offer up a couple
of thoughts.

Speaker 5 (47:13):
One is.

Speaker 6 (47:17):
The take a step back and looking at the situation,
like I actually think we've got a little bit of
an issue around who is doing the healthy homes assessments
right because right now there is no requirement for anyone
to be qualified to do them yep. So potentially we've
got unqualified people undertaking healthy homes assessments, offering up opinions

(47:40):
about heating use and other condition reports who have no
qualifications whatsoever to do them yep. So that's a problem.
Good news is there are actually qualifications that you can
get or there are courses that will give you some
insight into it. So for example, at the moment, I'm
probably going to do the New Zealand Green Building Council

(48:03):
Home Fit course that will at least give me some
qualification to say that I understand the basic principles, that
I can use the tool, and that I understand what
the requirements are. So that's one. There's actually there's another
module that I'm looking at doing through the New Zealand
Institute of Building Surveys around pre purchase inspections that will

(48:24):
give you an insight. So there we've got a problem.
So I wonder whether in your place, a simple solution
would be to invite someone else to undertake the healthy
Homes assessment who may have a better understanding of the
tool and the built environment and might end up coming
up with a different solution where I went with the
particular case that I was involved in, I ended up

(48:47):
going to a essentially building scientist. Right, So companies that
do energy modeling for houses, now this group or this
sector of the building design and engineering world are going
to be much busier than they have been because H one,

(49:11):
the schedule method for H one, which is a tech
box approach you reads for a listing. I'm going to
put this insallation here and that and that's going right
in about twelve months time. So all new builds and
all renovations, all building consents will need to be either
using a calculation method or a modeling method. So there's
going to be a lot more modeling. What I did

(49:32):
in the case that I was involved in, I went
to a building surveyor who undertakes this energy modeling and
asked them to create It's not a real model. It's
a digital model of the environment, and that determined the
heating calculation. It's much more nuanced, it's much more understanding
of the physical elements of the building, and that's what

(49:53):
that's the heating requirement that I got. Bearing in mind
that in my situation, the situation I was involved in,
one healthy homes assessor determined that it required four kilowatts
of heating. The determination, scientifically based ended up being point
five to seven.

Speaker 13 (50:13):
That's exactly pretty much like Field, it was a quarter.

Speaker 6 (50:16):
So I think if you had a look for building
surveyors or energy modeling, you will find someone who's doing
that work.

Speaker 13 (50:24):
Fantastic people. Okay, really appreciate that trouble And just one
poll up question, just briefly, it is a tendant able
to request a healthy homes assessment without going through the landlord.
Must a landlord my understanding of the landlord cannot refuse it,

(50:44):
but they have to be notified that it's going to occur.

Speaker 6 (50:47):
I would think you're right in terms of being notified.
It's interesting. Yeah, it's an interesting one. I'm just trying
to think about the circumstances why someone would do that,
because you know, potentially another challenge to that. And I'm
a big supporter of healthy homes, right, I think it's great.
I think that landlords have got a way worth renting
out really appalling properties for too long. So good. I

(51:10):
think it's great. But there is also there is also
the possibility that an unscrupulous landlord will contract someone who
just tells them what they want to hear, right, And
in that case, you might have properties that have a
healthy home assessment done and a standard that says it
complies when they don't, and so a tenant in that

(51:31):
instance maybe smells a rat and goes, I'm going to
get my own healthy homes assessment done. Whether or not
they need to inform the landlord, that's a really good question.
Certainly we know that every new tenancy new tendency agreement
you must have a healthy homes assessment attached to that
and you have to offer it to the tenant, right, Okay, yep,

(51:55):
that's a very good question. Though I might do a
bit of reading about that.

Speaker 13 (51:59):
Okay, I appreciate it. Yeah, because of course that's a
two way street, it is. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (52:06):
Again, you know, this would be so much simpler if
we said, or if the government said, in order to
undertake a healthy homes assessment, you need to have some qualification.
Now that might be as simple as you've got to
be an LBP building. Right at least you understand what
the building is, or you're a designer, or you've got
some sort of qualification that indicates that you have the

(52:29):
core competency to undertake this. And right now, to the
best of my knowledge, it's not there.

Speaker 5 (52:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (52:35):
Well in this particular case, I mean, the room's got
thermal drugs, it's got carved on the floor, and that
none of that's taken a look cout.

Speaker 6 (52:41):
No, it's not because those things are movable.

Speaker 13 (52:44):
Yeah, I understand, Yeah, but I mean a physical reality.
I really appreciate that.

Speaker 6 (52:52):
Great talking with you. Great talking with you, And there
are plenty of people out there who'll be able to
help you with.

Speaker 5 (52:58):
Us, I hope.

Speaker 13 (52:59):
So scratching my hand to remember the conversation.

Speaker 6 (53:03):
Yeah, and if you have trouble, come back to me
and I'll put you in touch with all the best. John,
take care all the radio eight hundred eighty ten eighty.
We've got Jay who'll be available in just a moment,
So we'll just crack through a couple of calls and
then we'll talk to Jay about all things painting. Eve,
good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 14 (53:22):
I'm an epoxy novice, yes, and I want to fix
something to the wall using the epoxy. And I know
it's one april parts, but it's so runny.

Speaker 6 (53:35):
But what what would you want to fix to the
wall with a possy.

Speaker 14 (53:42):
It's yeah, coat wreck.

Speaker 6 (53:46):
Yeah, I mean, you know the whole point of they're
very permanent, right, if it's going on, it ain't coming
off again.

Speaker 8 (53:54):
No, I don't mind that.

Speaker 11 (53:56):
Okay, Well, I put my some heavy things on and
there's not a lot.

Speaker 6 (54:01):
Of but remember that when you if you're going to
glue the coat right to the wall, it's only glued
to the surface, right, So in effect, you're bluing it
to the paint. And what's to stop the paint coming
off the wall? So I would suggest that you look
at you know, like screw fixing it or something like that,

(54:25):
even if it's got to be a toggle, if it's
into plaster board and there's no because that I think
just gluing to the wall will mean that you're just
like literally glued to the paint. And I don't know
that that will that will work terribly well. We can
take another quick call from Mark and then we're talking
to Jay, our painting expert.

Speaker 15 (54:44):
Hello, Mark, Hey, good morning. I just foll up with
the previous call, so I make feel a proppy manager.
And yes, tenants can get healthy home assessments done for themselves.
I myself have had that casey nine to nine the time.
It's because they're experiencing mold issues and like you rightly
point it out, they don't trust the previous assessment and

(55:04):
people don't know that assessments actually like they expire, you
actually have to get them redone.

Speaker 6 (55:11):
But can I just ask you a question on that?
So when you say they expire, so let's say you
issue or have a healthy homes assessment done prior to occupancy,
the tenant stays for a year, and a new tenant
moves in a year later, can you use the existing
healthy homes assessment for the next tenant a year later.

Speaker 15 (55:33):
Technically, it really depends on the warranty that their company provides.
Like one of my clients to stay and enable, they
warranty their healthy Home assessments for up to three years.

Speaker 5 (55:43):
But they they're.

Speaker 15 (55:45):
Home that their HA two qualified, so the HA is
a really good one for people to look out for.
A yeah, yeah, so it takes people through the entire course.
They learn all the bits and pieces and what kinds
of heating is acceptable, and how to measure out of
room and all the rest of it. I myself an
HA one level qualified, so yeah, it gets really technical.

(56:09):
It's not for the same pass. But for my question,
I have a situation. I'm a tenant and I've had
a situation where three and a half years ago, I
reported a unhealthy staircase external staircase. It goes up to
the second story and the I don't know, forgive me,

(56:30):
I don't know the jargon, but the triangle pieces that
hold up the steps that sit on top of the
two by ten they were splitting apart, and incidentally, in
the last weekend storm, the entire rail came off. And
my understanding, because this is the seventies home this time,
the staircase would have been built around then, the prior

(56:52):
building code would have required that they last at least
thirsty years. My other concern is that when the new
staircase gets eventually put in, the current one prevents my
bedroom window from opening. And I'm wondering if if it's
still compliant with current building code. If it blocks a

(57:12):
window being opened.

Speaker 6 (57:15):
Well, I suppose this is where two parts of the
building intersect and one impacts on the other. So obviously
a new staircase needs to be compliant with the current
code in terms of height and you know the going
and the run and those sorts of things. Also because
you're wasn't bolted. Yeah, okay, so new staircase goes in

(57:35):
and then the problem is that it means you can't
open the window, which means that the ventilation requirements of
the code are not met, in which case one part
one pathway to compliance blocks another effectively, quite literally and figuratively.
So that would be an issue for the landlord in

(57:57):
terms of then having a property that wouldn't meet the
requirements of the Healthy Homes Act, nor would it meet
the requirements Building Code. Yeah.

Speaker 15 (58:06):
I mean, you know, it's one of those situations where
we get to allow we're allowed to have our dogs,
and so there's a lot of things that we One
other thing I forgot to mention is the tenants should
be aware that the house must comply within one hundred
and twenty days of every renewed tenancy So if you're
on a fixed term and you've finished your fixed term

(58:27):
and you moved to a periodic after one year or
six months, if you've got a six month fixed term,
your landlord needs one hundred and twenty days to comply.
So for example, we signed in the stember between twenty
one and well he's you know, eventually when it gets
to the end of tendency, we'll raise it at the tribunal.

Speaker 6 (58:45):
Yeah. Yeah, the tribunal is going to be busy now.
But all tenancies now must comply. So all of the
exemptions are over. So whether you've got a sitting tenant
or not, you're built your lettable property, your residential tenancy
building needs to comply now there's no more exemptions.

Speaker 15 (59:07):
Correct. And if you're a landlord and you want to
put a tenant into your property and you think you
can just sit on your hands and you know, maybe
for a couple of months work with a tenants to
get your health in a client to be complied given
and a half grand worth to punish it. I've just
gone through multiple tribunal cases and for exactly this case,
new tenant moves in. Landlord needs to upgrade the heat

(59:29):
pump is give me a couple of weeks slap with
six and a half grand fine.

Speaker 6 (59:34):
You've got to do it straight away. Yeah, there's a
lot to talk about in that, but we don't have
time right now. I hete really appreciate you calling all
the very best to you. Take care. It is a
problem with the healthy home standards. That the healthy home
standards not a problem. And it's not a terribly high

(59:54):
bar either, right, So I have no time for landlords
who would say, look, you know it's better than my
own house. Well that's your problem, right. The standard is
not that high. But to impose a standard and then
to not regulate or set standards for the people undertaking

(01:00:17):
the inspections, I think is foolish and probably needs That
might be a good thing to talk about with the Minister,
But to be fair, I think by the time I
let you guys loose on the Minister, I won't have
a lot of time to talk with him about anything.
We will make a real effort next week, I promise
you that will take as many texts as we can
for Chris Pink when he joins me in the studio

(01:00:39):
next week, which I'm really looking forward to. Radio If
you've got a painting question, text them through right now.
I've got a couple of great ones already. Jay, our
painting expert from the good people at Razine with us
straight after.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
The break doing up the house, storting the garden, asked
Pete for a hand the resident builder with Peter Wolfcap call.

Speaker 5 (01:00:59):
News talks be your.

Speaker 6 (01:01:01):
News talks 'd be and bang on time or in
fact I'm a little late. Hey Jay from Razine, A
very good morning to you.

Speaker 16 (01:01:10):
How are you?

Speaker 6 (01:01:10):
I'm very well, Thank you very much. Oh Taylor of
Two Cities, wasn't it you would have been watching the
footy on Friday night going.

Speaker 16 (01:01:21):
A little bit annoyed with that last night?

Speaker 9 (01:01:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:01:28):
Yeah, anyway, look, we'll we'll move on. We'll move on.
Next week's another week. I'm pottering around the other day
and suddenly I look at my watch and I realized
jets at six o'clock and it's still light outside. Right,
So you know, it's great. It happens every year, funnily enough.
But we can start to have some optimism, some sense

(01:01:49):
of anticipation for the coming summer, in which case we
can start to think about painting outdoors again. With a
little bit more time to either start a bit earlier
work a little bit later. You know things will start
to dry a little bit easier when you look at problems,
because I know you go out and do the troubleshooting

(01:02:10):
for Raizine as well, and you look at someone who goes, look,
I've just painted the house that's peeling off. What's the issue.

Speaker 16 (01:02:16):
Typically, let's say, although yes, it is getting lighter in
the morning and ye lighter later in the day, the
temperature is still up and down, so you think about
the temperature as well, Like obviously you need to finish
painting to give the paint enough time to dry before
the dew point hits. So although it's light, it's sort

(01:02:37):
of still around six o'clock, south side of the property
might not be in light. It might already be cold
and starting to get a little bit damp. So so
I think I say every time I come on, if
you're going to do exterior work, planet and think about
it and finish in those areas early enough to allow
the paint to dry.

Speaker 5 (01:02:58):
Right.

Speaker 16 (01:02:58):
So a lot of the time when we go out,
the issues are relating to the environmental conditions when the
paint was actually applied or after it's being applied and
it's drying, yes.

Speaker 6 (01:03:12):
Right, so allowing sufficient time for it to dry. And
I guess drying is more than just touch dry, isn't it.

Speaker 5 (01:03:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 16 (01:03:19):
Yeah, So, like I said, reco time on most of
the waterborne paints is a few hours.

Speaker 5 (01:03:25):
Yep.

Speaker 16 (01:03:26):
So that that's kind of way were saying. During winter
finish around two o'clock, so you've got a good couple
of hours before it starts getting darker and colder.

Speaker 6 (01:03:35):
Right, right, we're getting in six coming through. Let's start
with the most challenging one that I think I've seen
for a little while ago. For a little while, the
question is what do you do for a ceiling If
a rat has peed in the roof cavity and there
is a stain on the ceiling, Well, that's got to
be a serious amount of rat pee for it to

(01:03:56):
be evident on the underside. But that's what we've.

Speaker 16 (01:03:58):
Got, is it? I suppose trigger kind of like moisture damage. Right,
if it's that much weed that's come through, is it
all soft and damaged or is it just staining?

Speaker 13 (01:04:13):
Good?

Speaker 16 (01:04:14):
But I suppose if it's just staining, we've got let's
say we've got water borne shore seal. It's going to
help block it out. Ye've got solvent born shore seal,
which will help block it out, and we've got a
water born stain lock, all of which should help block
it out. But i'd say cleaner as best you can
first to remove any residue, and then yeah, he use

(01:04:39):
one of the stain blockers and then to the top.
That's a good question.

Speaker 6 (01:04:46):
Yeah, I know, you know, but I mean often if
we're talking, like, for example, the other thing that often
stained ceilings is those little automatic aerosold.

Speaker 16 (01:04:56):
Say the same thing. Yes, so again, shore seal does
a good job of blocking that in, maybe, depending on
how bad it is. I've seen some that are pretty horrendous. Yes,
do a couple of coats, but obviously you want to
clean as much of it off, right, and before you
start applying any sealers over the top?

Speaker 6 (01:05:17):
All right, perfect ten year old plaster over brick house
that needs painting, a housewash and two top coats. Question
mark from mark. So ten year old plaster over.

Speaker 16 (01:05:27):
Brick there's never been sealed or painted? Or is it
just a repaint?

Speaker 6 (01:05:33):
No, I think it's going to let's assume that it's
a repaint, So it's some straight render over the top
maybe so you can see all the bricks and that
sort of thing. Maybe slightly rough past.

Speaker 16 (01:05:43):
Yeah, so any bear areas that are back to brick,
if any of the paint's broken down, the plasters back
to brick, maybe damaged areas. Spot prime that with solvent
born shawteel and then over the top you could use Aquashield,
which is a mineral flat. You could use Lumbersider, which

(01:06:04):
is lochine. You could use Sonnets which is semigloss, but
having that extra gloss might look a little bit odd
on the textured plaster. Or you could use was Enux
seven hundred right, Okay, so the multiple options, Yeah, depending
on what sort of finished you're after.

Speaker 6 (01:06:23):
Okay, perfect, and again always about preparation.

Speaker 16 (01:06:27):
A yeah, real good clean treat running moss and mold
with the moss and molecular and then give it a
good clean down with I was in paint prepping the housewolds.

Speaker 6 (01:06:37):
Perfect right, painting question. Metal flashings above our windows are rusty.
I sented them back to metal and rust and put
some rust converter on them, then coated with some gray
rustkill primer, then top coated with the house color. A
few months later, they're rusting through again onto the cedar weatherboard.
So it's nineteen sixty seven house. What do I do?

(01:06:58):
Where's the rust coming from?

Speaker 16 (01:07:00):
Yeah, obviously you can treat the area and you can
paint it to change the appearance, but that doesn't stop
whatever is causing the rust. Yes, so there's moisture getting
in somewhere that's causing it. It's kind of find that
ingress point or what the cause of the issue is
in fix that our recommendation for that. We've got an

(01:07:24):
armor x RUS cedar that could go over to us.
Then you've got GP medal primer. I think it's actually
armor x GP medal primer now, and then you'd go
summit roof over the top or sonics or lumbersider, whichever
sort of finish you've got in the house. On the
flashings see the house, it's probably stayed.

Speaker 6 (01:07:45):
Yeah, sure, okay, thank you for that morning, Pete. I
need to reputty a correct window sash, and a builder
has told me it depends on the sash would type
whether to paint it first, like a primer or not.
I think it's cedar if so what paint now? Can
I offer up an opinion here, if it's a painted sash,

(01:08:05):
you may just paint all of the rebates before you
do the glazing. Right, So on Cedar, what primer would
you recommend?

Speaker 16 (01:08:14):
We got razine wood primer, solvent born Primal, right, just
think that would be my go to. Just rezine wood
primer and all of that, and then whichever putty you use,
check to see what they recommend that would go over that. Yes,
some will be certain time frames and would have to

(01:08:37):
be an oil based system. Some will sipulate you can
do it within a couple of days and use a
water based So just double check whatever putty you use,
what they recommend.

Speaker 6 (01:08:46):
Because the good old fashioned sort of lincid oil putty
generally you needed to let that skin off and then
paint it. But now today these other glazing putties that
you can put paint much earlier.

Speaker 16 (01:08:58):
That's it. So some of the linseeeds you'd have to
wait two three weeks before you could do anything with it.
Now we've got repair Care I seel MP, which you
can go over with the water based primal within.

Speaker 5 (01:09:10):
A couple of hours. Well, yeah, so there's.

Speaker 16 (01:09:14):
Different options over different prices as well.

Speaker 6 (01:09:18):
Yeah, of course, of course now we've actually we had
a couple of conversations with people today about sort of
you know, cleaning up garage floors. For example, in along
the same line, someone has ticked through what's the best
way to paint a garage floor. Let's assume that, like
most garages, it's just concrete with a trail finish. It's
probably eighteen fifteen years old, so that's had all of

(01:09:40):
that use, and then you decide I'm going to jure
it up by giving it a coat of paint. What's
the process?

Speaker 16 (01:09:46):
So if you're going to be driving on it, yes,
which most garages you do, or the sort of hot
tires go in and sat there, you need to do
the best prep, which our recommendation is diamond grinding yep.
And then you'd be looking at we've got several systems,
one with the Usine armor bond followed by three coats

(01:10:09):
of aqua POxy, or we've got euroicreal systems or armor
coat five ten. There's several sort of two pot systems
to go on the garage floor yep. But it's really
the diamond grind that needs to be done just to
make sure the surfaces as sound as possible. And let's
say if it's not being painted for fifteen twenty years,

(01:10:33):
the coatings are usually breaking down a bit. There's a
few bear bear pots spots, and so you kind of
need to remove everything can start again.

Speaker 6 (01:10:42):
Right, maybe the last one for today, someone's with a
dichromastic roof that has some surface rust. That's not a
painting question that there's no painting dichromastic roofs unless you're
spraying the entire thing and coating at ay, there's no
sort of.

Speaker 16 (01:11:00):
You can There's lots of people don't like, lots of
contractors don't like doing decromassage roofs. There can be easily
damaged walk around on. So you need to make sure
the person you get to do it and knows what
they're doing. And then we've got generally spraying is going
to be the easiest option. But I mean, depending on

(01:11:21):
what areas you're trying to touch up, you might be
able to do some smaller areas.

Speaker 5 (01:11:25):
Yes.

Speaker 16 (01:11:25):
Well, if we've got seeing Galvo prime as the primer
and then Summit roof over the top.

Speaker 6 (01:11:31):
Gotcha, I said it was the last one, but it's not.
I'm going to sneak this one and lime we have
lime or similar stains on a painted concrete block retaining
wall with a plaster to finish, do we just paint
over it or is there a treatment for the stains
prior to painting.

Speaker 16 (01:11:50):
Is it, I suppose is it lime lime stains or
is it effhorescence coming through the other side.

Speaker 6 (01:11:57):
Well, yeah, I'm thinking that it's activated by moisture.

Speaker 16 (01:12:02):
Yeah. A lot of the times of those retaining walls
are not sealed the other side, so you can keep
cleaning and painting the front, but unless you can kind
of dig out the other side, dry it out, seal
it all up, it's going to be an ongoing issue
with that moisture coming through. Sometimes that's feasible, sometimes it isn't.

Speaker 6 (01:12:22):
Yeah, so it's actually solving the problem, which is the
moisture coming in, rather than trying to paint the front base.

Speaker 5 (01:12:29):
Yeah, that's it, But I.

Speaker 16 (01:12:30):
Mean to paint it, give it a good clean down,
remove all that white sort of powder off of it,
prime or seal with razine shore seal, and then just
two top coats.

Speaker 6 (01:12:41):
Awesome mat On that note, let's let's rock on. Hey,
Happy Father's Day to you too, and you enjoy your
day having good nice talk to you all the very
busy bother they you and news talks B that's Jay,
our painting expert from Razine of course for good advice.
Go and talk to all the experts at your local
Razine color shop. Oh eight, one hundred and eighty ten eighty.

(01:13:01):
We all take your calls through to eight o'clock. After
eight o'clock, we're going legal. We have Mike Thornton available,
a lawyer who specializes in construction law. We're going to
talk about what is the current situation joined in several liability?
This is in terms of it's often much of this
focus is on councils, right, because we'll run through this,

(01:13:23):
but typically if there's a problem, everyone else has gone,
it's counsel who is the last one standing and they
end up bearing the responsibility for remediation. Government wants to
change that by introducing proportional liability. What does that look like?
Can they make it work? Mike Thornton with us after
eight o'clock. Bearing in mind that next week on the program,

(01:13:45):
Chris Penk, the minister who was driving these changes and
introducing this into the House, will be joining us here
in the studio Next Sunday, so rarely looking forward to
his company. Next Sunday, we're back with Michael after the break.

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
Whether you're paidimus ceiling fixings or wondering how to fix
that hole in the wall.

Speaker 6 (01:14:03):
Give Peter wolf caabacole on.

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
The resident builder, on.

Speaker 6 (01:14:10):
You and your stalk. Sa'd be plenty of texts coming in.
We'll try and get to a few of those shortly.
The couple of texts on the chisel. My comments about
the chisel and this innovation, so to speak, of introducing
a chisel with replacement tips. A couple of people have said, hey, look,
that's not a bad idea. You know, you don't always

(01:14:30):
have your gear to sharpen things on site, but typically
if you've got a sharp chisel, it doesn't go blunt
in a day. Maybe it does, but you know, generally
something you go home and do on the weekend or
come home at night. And look, most of us have
got sort of a butcher what I'd call a butcher's
chisel in your apron, which is sort of sharp, but

(01:14:52):
it's the sort of thing that you might use for
opening a paint t And not that I'm suggesting you
should or you know, you chip something off, but a
concrete or something. You know, you use it right, and
it's a butcher's chisel. It's in your apron and it's
not terribly pretty. But then your other chisels should be
in your toolbox and they should be in a role,
and there should be a diamondstone or a whetstone with them,
and that's what you keep them, keep the tip sharp

(01:15:16):
or the head sharp, and then when that does off,
as inevitably does, you sharpen them at home. But sharpening chisels,
I think is just a core competency, right, So to
encourage people just to buy replacement tips, to me, hundreds
of years of carpenters will be shaking their heads going,
what have we come to? That's my attitude. Michael Greetings.

Speaker 14 (01:15:38):
Yeah, what prompt me to ring is the topic of
healthy arms. So I just live in a tin shed,
the cargo's iron shed, Yes, a basic concrete flow, no coverings,

(01:16:01):
no paintings, no nothing on it. And our first four
children were less than three and a half years apart,
and they grew up in that tim shed yep. And
they never wore shoes. It was a cold, conflict floor

(01:16:26):
and they were the most healthy kids in the town.
So there was no painting, no, no, nothing, no insolation.

Speaker 6 (01:16:39):
Michael, was that your own shed or were you renting
it from someone?

Speaker 14 (01:16:43):
My own one?

Speaker 7 (01:16:44):
I look at myself, make.

Speaker 6 (01:16:47):
Knock yourself out, is my attitude. If that's what you
want for yourself and it's your property, I'm not standing
any way, right. I have no right to tell you
how to live your life. I can provide you with
a truckload of events to say that in general, living

(01:17:08):
in cold, damp conditions has a negative impact on people's
health and health, and there's vast amounts of evidence to
back that up.

Speaker 14 (01:17:20):
Yeah, so then I've got evidence of four children.

Speaker 6 (01:17:25):
No, you've got experience, not evidence.

Speaker 14 (01:17:28):
I experience a fair fair comment that. Yeah, so I
never had a day of school. My son, one of
my sons actually got a recommendation from the school to
say that he never had a day of school. Well,

(01:17:49):
you know, for the whole year or two, three, four years.
So it's quite interinge that when you say healthy homes,
it's quite what's worden? Yet you made a comment whether
I own it or render it? Yeah, only it's probably

(01:18:10):
different than wanting. There's no way to get a way
with property.

Speaker 6 (01:18:16):
And nor should you and I think that's the whole
point of the legislation is that if we're going to
provide housing for other people, it needs to be of
a certain standard, and that's what the Healthy Homes legislation
is all about. Appreciate you call and love these sorts
of chats, you know, I think this is something that
should be debated, right, what's a minimum standard, what's considered

(01:18:39):
a healthy home? And what impact has it on our community?
And in your instance, that's your lived experience. Again, knock
yourself out, filure Boots. But I'm also happy to say
that there's plenty of evidence to say that growing up
or living in poor conditions damp, cold, moldy, lacking and ventilation,

(01:19:02):
lacking and heat does have a negative income outcome in
terms of health. Plenty of information about that. Now a
couple of quack texts as well. Hey Pete, can you
please be getting the Minister Pink to update the progress
on the Granny flat building? Yes, I will certainly add
that to the list, and you're more than welcome to
send that text again next week as well. Hey Wolfy,

(01:19:25):
just curious do you sharpen your draw bits. I've never
quite mastered that chairs from Simon Simon. I have to
say it's always been a bit of a challenge for
me as well in terms of, you know, just small
metal bits, so let's say up to twelve mil or
something like that. And despite my better self, I bought
the other day a really cheap tool off trade me

(01:19:48):
and it was a drill bit sharpening kit, and it
was basically a little bit of plastic with three little
slots in it and then a abrasive disc at one
end that you attached to the drill, and so it's
not quite as dodge as it sounds, but you kind
of hold the plastic tool in one hand with the
drill bit in location, use the drill to spin it
and then sharpen it, and it's kind of set up

(01:20:10):
for pretty much the right angle. You can buy much
more expensive tools than that, right with all sorts of
devices to hold it and get the angle right and
the right sort of stone and all the rest of it.
This one, at a grand total of about eleven dollars
seventy five cents, has actually proved to be quite good.
Initially wood chisel wood drills like spade bits or orgabits,

(01:20:35):
and that I typically sharpened by hand, and I've got
a set of fine files that I use for that.
But yes, sharpening them is a really, really good idea.
We're talking to Joe after the break.

Speaker 1 (01:20:48):
Squeaky door or squeaky floor Get the right advice from
Peta Wolfcare, the resident builder on News Talk sab righty.

Speaker 6 (01:20:56):
Oh, welcome back to the show. Joe, Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 10 (01:21:00):
We've got a nineteen fifties weatherboard house and we had
inchil pumped in from the outside, and as you know,
they drill their small holes and then they replace a
whole red gluey material that hardens, but then it causes
those areas to crack, and there's multiple holes around the

(01:21:23):
house and we were wondering if there's anything else we
could replace that with. We tried some wooden cores, include
them trying because that material that they replace it with
is much harder than timber or appears.

Speaker 6 (01:21:38):
To be right, So differential movement, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:21:42):
And a lot of cracking.

Speaker 6 (01:21:43):
How did you have the work done or was it
done prior to you purchasing the house?

Speaker 5 (01:21:48):
No, no, we had it done right, I.

Speaker 6 (01:21:51):
Mean, look I and please don't say which company it is.
We'll keep that off. But in the first instance, you'd
go back to them and go, hey, look you should
warrantye your work and which case can you come back
and look at that? So that would be my first step.
The second one might be a slightly more flexible two
pot of POxy that you could use, but you'd need

(01:22:14):
to remove whatever they put in there, or at least
the surface of it. And I've noticed that some of
them now when they do that type of repair, instead
of you there's a drill hole through, right, they'll actually
grind the surface and scollop it slightly, so you've got
you don't have a straight edge around it. Let's say
that's an option to back after the news folks freak.

Speaker 1 (01:22:37):
Helping you get those DIY projects done right. The resident
builder with Peter Wolfcat Call Talk said, be your.

Speaker 6 (01:22:46):
News Talk said, be a very good morning. Welcome along
to the program. We are talking all things building and construction,
well for the next the legal side of it anyway,
for the next half hour or so, and then from
eight thirty this morning, as always we're into the garden
with the delightful recline past from eight thirty this morning.
So if you've listened to the show, or if you're
in student building in construction. One of there's there's I

(01:23:11):
was going to say new government not so new now,
but have come in with a whole raft of changes.
So we've seen things around, you know, granny flats and
consenting and extensions to schedule one of the Act and
a whole bunch of things. And then one of the
things that's been talked about as a bit of a
handbreak on efficiency and possibly affordability is this whole issue

(01:23:34):
of joint and several liability. So previously on the show
we've had Mike Thornton join us to talk about some
of the legal sides of what happens when you have
a dispute and so on. And it's my great pleasure
to welcome back to the show. Very happy. Did you
go to the Rugby last night?

Speaker 3 (01:23:50):
Mike?

Speaker 5 (01:23:51):
By any chance, I certainly was.

Speaker 6 (01:23:55):
And what a way to celebrate.

Speaker 5 (01:23:59):
My birthday?

Speaker 6 (01:24:01):
Awesome double where double where me? Happy birthday? Believe much radio.
Now let's let's try and let's say what where are
we at right now? What is joint and several liability?

Speaker 17 (01:24:16):
Right, So we're more than one party damages a property
or creates defects and a property they're all they're all
at fault, and they're liable for the full amount of
the damage. That's what we currently got. That's called joint
and several liability. The several bit is the individual bits
they caused, and the joint is they're all liable for it.
So what that means is if a plantiff decides to

(01:24:37):
sue those parties, they can see all of them. And
if and if the plantiff can't recover a share of
that liability from a party because they're no longer around
or they're insolvent, they can get it off another party,
typically the council. So that's the current system.

Speaker 6 (01:24:53):
So again, in a practical sense, let's say I build
a house five years ago, and I'm a licensed building practitioner.
We have a building consent, we do the build, it
gets signed off by council, so there's a certificate code compliance,
and then five years later there's a leak. But the
leak comes from let's say, and I'm not picking on waterproofers,
but let's say the waterproofing in the shower fails. It

(01:25:16):
leaks and it rots out, the floor joists below, and
the homeowner goes, right, I need to get someone to
fix this. They chase the waterproofer, but the waterproof is gone.
They might chase me, but maybe I've retired or something
like that. So ultimately they'll go through and they'll figure
out that council is still around. And we often use

(01:25:36):
the phrase last man standing or last one standing, and
that's often counseled because they don't have an option to disappear,
So they end up having to pay all of the
costs because they can't recover it from anyone else. Is
that kind of how it works?

Speaker 5 (01:25:50):
Correct? Essentially, that's correct.

Speaker 17 (01:25:52):
I mean it might not be all of the costs,
depending on what happens in settlement, but yes, you're quite right,
that's exactly what happens. The council ends up having to
bear the share of any insolvent or parties that no
longer exist, gone into liquidation, or are no longer trading.

Speaker 6 (01:26:10):
So what is being proposed is what has been called
proportional liability, in which case each person or each entity
is assigned a portion of the liability and only responsible
for that. How's that going to work? What do you think?

Speaker 17 (01:26:27):
There's say it's proportionate liability is a situation where the
courts will allocate liability to each party according to.

Speaker 5 (01:26:39):
How much at faults they are.

Speaker 17 (01:26:41):
Yes, so typically for counsels that's twenty percent. So in
this scenario that you described with the homeowner, if a
council is liable, but the court says council is only
liable for twenty percent, and your waterproofer and your builder
might be liable for the balance of it, if both
of those parties are no longer around the most the

(01:27:02):
council will have to pay under that under that system
twenty percent. So that would mean that the under recovery
would fall on the homeowner. Now, one of the justifications
for having joined in several liability strongest one in my view,
is that it's much fairer that an innocent homeowner is
compensated by wrongdoers rather than it's fairer than that that

(01:27:28):
happens rather than the council bear the entire amount of
the loss.

Speaker 6 (01:27:33):
So again, in practical terms, let's say again we're talking
about a situation where I might be the LBP for
the job. I've got a waterproofer who's got a license,
and they're a license applicator in accordance with the council
regulations and all the rest of it. But there's a failure,
and let's say the failure costs one hundred thousand dollars
to remediate in the event that no one else is

(01:27:55):
going to pay, if someone sought redress from council, they
would be limited to twenty percent, in which case the
homeowner might get twenty thousand dollars and nothing else.

Speaker 5 (01:28:05):
Correct.

Speaker 17 (01:28:06):
Now, that's where the whole issue of how is that
shortfall going to be compensated under this new scheme comes in,
And that's where we don't really know what the government
is proposing. There are a number of ways to deal
with that, and we must look, of course to other
jurisdictions comparable to ours, such as Australia and Canada, and

(01:28:28):
there's various ways that they go about doing it. And
we can talk a bit about that home warranty, home
warranty schemes, builder insurance, that type of thing, but until
we really know how that's how the government and will
be very helpful to hear from the minister next week.
Other government is proposing to cover the scenario that you've
just described of an innocent homeowner having a shortfall and

(01:28:51):
recovery when they've really done nothing wrong. We don't really
know how that system's likely to operate. There is a risk,
there is a risk in that scenario that the innocent
homeowner bears a proportion of the loss that it currently
wouldn't have to bear it under the parent's current liability settings.

Speaker 6 (01:29:12):
Which is not really a desirable outcome, is it if
you're a homeowner.

Speaker 17 (01:29:15):
Well, well, as I said the artsets, it's always been
considered fairer that the parties that have actually at fault,
that have done the wrong things that have caused the defects,
compensate the innocent homeowner. Now that's shifting unless there's there's
a way to cover that shortfall, that shifting to the
innocent homeowner. So it really when the Law Commission looked

(01:29:40):
at this a couple of times, it decided that that
was it was. It's always much fairer for that party
to be compensated than it is for counsel to be
able to say, well, we shouldn't have to pick up
the slack because other insolvent parties can't.

Speaker 6 (01:29:56):
This is a bit of crystal ball. What what is
going to be the solution then to prevent that shortfall
from occurring.

Speaker 5 (01:30:06):
Well, that's what we don't know, Pete, and.

Speaker 17 (01:30:10):
The Minister has said that he has been consulting with
the insurance and to see, for example, about what the
insurance industry wants to do about it.

Speaker 5 (01:30:21):
Now.

Speaker 17 (01:30:21):
I saw in the Herald Yes today the managing director
of the only current insurer that offers that offers defects
insurances and effectively effectively saying well, we're not really that interested,
thank you very much. So unless that attitude changes and
there's only one insurer offering that that that type of

(01:30:41):
insurance at the moment, or or there's a building warranty
scheme which one assumes that if there's no appetite from
the insurance industry to underwrite that, that would involve some
sort of government involvement. We simply don't know how that
shortball is likely to be met. I mean, there's various
ways that it's dealt with overseas. I don't particularly know

(01:31:04):
exactly how each jurisdiction deals with it. But what I
know that in Australia they have a mix, They have
some schemes that are underwritten by the government and in
Canada they're privately provided and they're mandatory all builders have
to have provide third party new home warranties. In the

(01:31:27):
UK it's privately provided and in the US there's a
set of statutory warranties. So there's various ways you can
go about it. But what I'm seeing in terms of
the insurance industry stepping up as perhaps a reluctance and
probably well founded given what happened with the leaky building crisis,

(01:31:51):
because insurers insurers have for a long time excluded cover
for whether titaness defects and insurance policy since since early
the early two thousands, I believe, so it's difficult to
see how how the insurance market is going to step
in to provide that level of cover. But it remains

(01:32:13):
to be seen what proposals the government has in terms
of providing some sort of assurance to homeowners that that
short fall will be covered. The Minister has alluded to
there being a strong consumer protection focus in this approach,
and I applaud that because without some sort of backstop,

(01:32:35):
then you're really going to see a situation where people
people miss out through this change in policy.

Speaker 5 (01:32:43):
Exist.

Speaker 6 (01:32:43):
In terms of the other thing, you go ahead, okay, no, no.

Speaker 5 (01:32:46):
The other thing I was going to say was.

Speaker 17 (01:32:51):
That the Law Commission and MB have had a really
good look at this in terms of the policy justification,
and one of the things that's being argued is that
it's slowing down consenting, that the attitude of counsels to liability,
But both both the MB and the Law Commission could

(01:33:12):
actually find no evidence of that, and in fact we
ranked pretty highly. And this is a surprising Pete. I
don't know if you know this, but we're ranked by
about seventh out of two hundred and thirteen jurisdiction threes
of dealing with construction permits, ahead of Ossie, the UK
and the US, which absolutely staggered me. And also when

(01:33:35):
you look at the amount of claims that are made
and the amounts Council has had to pay as a
proportion of overall building consents over a ten year period,
I mean it's something like seventy five billion, and the
amounts paid to cover the shortfalls from indigent parties is
a very tiny fraction of those overall consents and the

(01:33:59):
amount of consents that result results in that result in
litigation is also very tiny. About two point five percent
of consents issued over over a ten year period from
two thousand and eight to twenty eighteen. So the argument
that consenting has been slowed by risk averse councils is

(01:34:20):
from what I've seen for what MB's produced and what
the Law Commissioner has looked at, is not really supported
by any empirical evidence, but it might make a difference,
but that the evidence is not really there.

Speaker 6 (01:34:35):
Which is a fascinating insight when you sort of unplug
that a little bit and dig down into that. So
in my mind, what I'm thinking is, are we solving
a problem that we've already fixed in the sense that
you know, most of our focus for those of us
with a bit of a long memory, is leaky buildings, Right,

(01:34:56):
So a series of buildings that were consented that we're
going to leak, and they were going to leak from
the minute somebody started drawing them. Arguably, today we're not
des and building like that. Not to say that there
won't be failures in the future, but they won't be
at the same level as in the past. So we've
already fixed the problem. So what are we now trying

(01:35:16):
to fix?

Speaker 5 (01:35:18):
Yes?

Speaker 17 (01:35:18):
Correct, Well, remember also that you'd have to say that
the leaky building scenario was really a systemic failure. There
was a lot of stuff that went wrong, and I
agree that one would hope that with the amendment to
the Building Act in the two thousand and four that
that systemic failure can't really occur again. But we do

(01:35:39):
still see building defects sure. So that's why a switch
from a situation which favors the homeowner in a litigation
scenario to compensate them as the innocent party, to something
which goes to proportionate liability needs to have the backstop
of either a building warranty insurance scheme and or compulsory compulsion.

(01:36:06):
You're building insurance to cover off the the risk of
a shortfall. Now in terms of in terms of the warranty,
I'm not an insurance I can't speak for them, but
it just doesn't really exist in New Zealand. So and
there might be many reasons why that is, and I
think chief amongst them is probably the fact that the

(01:36:29):
insurance industry has to take a premium in year one
and may face a liability in year ten. You know,
for a defect that's sat there are what we call
a latent defect, so that's a long time. It's what
we call long tail risk. That's a long time to
have something on your box that might come that you
might have to account for when you're when you're doing

(01:36:50):
your claims. So we're sort of getting into the air
of insurance, and it would be helpful to hear from
some of them about that. But my understanding is that
the I don't a sense of reluctance in the insurance
market to to offer anything more than is currently being provided.
And remember back in the day that when under the

(01:37:14):
nineteen ninety one Building Act count the Act empowered building
certifiers to stand in the place of councils as a
means of also speeding up building consents, they had professional
indemnity insurance. And I recall that at the time the
government was advised that it wouldn't be possible to obtain
the level of professional and demnity cover for ten years

(01:37:36):
that those certifiers required, but right with the change went
ahead with the change anyway, with the result that when
all of the leaky building crisis eventuated, the insurance cover
was avoided and those certifies all promptly went out of business.
So that just tells you that there's not an appetite
amongst insurers to ensure building defects.

Speaker 5 (01:37:59):
It might develop.

Speaker 17 (01:38:00):
I don't know, but I don't think it's going to
happen immediately. Know that, for example, in Australia that builders,
I think of Victoria builders are required it's compulsory to
have liability cover, and.

Speaker 6 (01:38:18):
I think in New Zealand people might be shocked to
know that not all builders have insurance.

Speaker 5 (01:38:24):
Correct. Yeah, well it's not a requirement.

Speaker 17 (01:38:27):
If you've got public liability cover, it's not going to
cover defect where the Titan's defects anyway.

Speaker 5 (01:38:32):
Yep.

Speaker 17 (01:38:33):
So it's quite a shift in terms of is that
if that's going to be the solution is, how is
it actually going to be? Who's going to provide it?

Speaker 5 (01:38:43):
Now that.

Speaker 17 (01:38:45):
In the I think in Australia some of the schemes,
some of the warranty schemes are under written by the government.

Speaker 5 (01:38:52):
So I would probably sense a.

Speaker 17 (01:38:54):
Reluctance of this government, with all the other things that's
got on its plate, to step in and take that
sort of attitude. But again, until we hear from the
Minister and see the legislation next year, we simply don't know, Pete.

Speaker 6 (01:39:07):
But there does seem to me this is the gaping
hole in the process at the stage isn't it that
we know that it's probably going to fall on insurance,
but insurance is not stepping up at the stage.

Speaker 17 (01:39:19):
Well, we're just the people that deal with the claims
and we can see an issue arising and we can see,
well that's fine if you're going to move from a
system that look, it's not great, but it does actually
compensate homeowners that there's a lot of costs that goes
into it, but outcomes are achieved. If you're going to
move to a situation where you remove that safeguard, you'd

(01:39:41):
better have something in place. Otherwise, are people in your
scenario of the waterproofing, you're going to carry a lot
of that cost yourself. And that's a very common as
you know, that's a very common scenario that we see
an awful lot.

Speaker 6 (01:39:54):
Of for sure. For sure, I've taken some notes. I've
got a whole bunch of questions now for the Minister
when you're in the studio next week. And again, really
appreciate your insights and thank you very much for joining us.

Speaker 5 (01:40:06):
This one.

Speaker 6 (01:40:08):
Great to talk with you all the very best. Mike Thornton,
specialist in construction law. Yeah, been a guest on the show.
A number of times really good to get his insight
into it.

Speaker 5 (01:40:19):
So and I have.

Speaker 6 (01:40:20):
I've taken a whole lot of notes thinking about questions
that I can put to the Minister Chris Penk when
he joins us in the studio next week, which I'm
really looking.

Speaker 1 (01:40:28):
Forward to measure twice god once, but maybe called Pete
first for your all. Keav the Resident Builder news talks, they'd.

Speaker 6 (01:40:36):
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Ridyoh jump into the garden with reclimb past. Good morning
to you, sir, Good morning, Peter, good morning. Indeed everything yeah,

(01:42:01):
be fat as to thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:42:03):
It's good fun, isn't it?

Speaker 6 (01:42:05):
I think so?

Speaker 16 (01:42:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:42:06):
Absolutely. And when I walked intoday, Locke, the producer, said, gee,
you're awfully dressed up, and I said, well, actually I've
got a speaking engagement. I've got to talk at a
Father's Day breakfast affter this, So.

Speaker 5 (01:42:17):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (01:42:18):
God, really I do that's nice, that's nice.

Speaker 6 (01:42:21):
It'll be awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:42:23):
I'll be going to theself. It's just for Father's Day
at the at the end of this month, on the
twenty eight, I might be in the studio with you.
How's that?

Speaker 6 (01:42:30):
Oh fantastic?

Speaker 3 (01:42:33):
If everything is going well, there's their Peter Blake Trust
for two weeks. Yes, usually in Auckland.

Speaker 6 (01:42:38):
Yeah, and this is school whole days, isn't it? This
literacy and so on?

Speaker 3 (01:42:44):
Yeah, that's that's actually I'm looking forward to that this
year because it's we're totally booked out for quite a
long time now. It's good. So we're taking thirty teachers
for a week into a really nice hotel and then
take them to all sorts of wonderful places like stardom
but also outside for anui and things like that. Beautiful

(01:43:05):
and boy, the stuff we see this stuff, it's lovely
to see eyes go open. Last time we found a
sleeping kiwi and that was that was for me, that
was brilliant. It was one of those days when everything
rained and it was awful and things like that, and
and and I thought, oh gosh, it's going to be

(01:43:26):
a disaster. And in the end we found this kiwi
and nobody talked about the rain anymore.

Speaker 7 (01:43:31):
That was it.

Speaker 3 (01:43:32):
That was such a good point.

Speaker 6 (01:43:33):
And so I see the other day, I think they've
reintroduced to Atara. To Terry Martinui.

Speaker 3 (01:43:40):
Teary has had two a towel for a long time.

Speaker 6 (01:43:42):
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, that's that's fantastic.

Speaker 3 (01:43:46):
Yeah yeah. And and Kiwi as well, little spots and things.
I remember I remember going, I remember flying at a
chopper with those with those Kiwi when I came off
the radio because there was no time for me to
drive there, so they just picked me up.

Speaker 6 (01:44:00):
How brilliant, brilliant. And you know, because sometimes I think
when we look at nature and the environment, that's easy
to get a bit downheartened. But like I saw the
other day, the little local ecological restoration group that I've
had some association with, they're doing like an open day
at the nursery giving away seedlings. And I've noticed this

(01:44:22):
across the country and councils are supporting this as well.
That as these groups grow and their capacity to produce
new seedlings, new native plants, they're also being really generous,
just going hey, folks, if you need them, come and
get them. You know, we're open today, come and grab them,
and then take those and go and plant them and
restore your own native habitat. So there's some really exciting
things happening.

Speaker 3 (01:44:42):
Absolutely, And that's the one, isn't it. That's exactly what
you should be doing. Anyway, say something quite different and
it's a bit more towards your thing. I've been we've
put a new garage in at home and took a
long time and all this sort of stuff. But around
there we put, you know, we put if you like,
regret and the stone around there for their entrance off
the garage. I came across this little company here in

(01:45:05):
christ called Graystone Screening and Crushing. What do you normally
pay for a cubic meter of let's say, you know,
fourteen mil stuff that you can use on your It's unbelievable.
There were so cheap these people. There was just unbelievable.
I couldn't believe you could get a ton of that

(01:45:26):
stuff for thirty thirty five bucks.

Speaker 6 (01:45:29):
That's actually pretty sharp price. Look, a lot of it
depends on things like how far they have to travel
from the quarry, and that's an issue for Auckland. For example,
when I first started building right the first house we
did was in Saint John's and when we needed some scoria,
you hoked the trailer on. You drove down Lane AV
into the quarry at Mount Wellington and they loaded up

(01:45:50):
the trailer and you drove out right now. That quarry's gone.
That's housing three queens has gone. Now, if you're looking
at quarried material talking about drury or rama rama, no,
you know, because there's no quarries in Auckland. People don't
like quarries next to the back fits, no, I can imagine.
So hence the cost goes up.

Speaker 3 (01:46:10):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (01:46:12):
But yeah, that'll that'll be a large part. The other
really cool thing is that obviously we're now reasonably engaged
with being able to recycle concrete waste, so you know,
rather than that going into hardvill it'll go get crushed
and recycled as phil.

Speaker 3 (01:46:27):
Yeah, that makes total sense.

Speaker 5 (01:46:29):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:46:30):
The guy, the guy of Graystown, he told me also
about something that he was looking at in the Rakaia
River and things like that, and mucking around there with
literally creating new habitats at the same time. So it's
it's almost like a quarry of a river if you like,
made it made back into a wonderful place for creatures
to live and birds to live and plants to live.

(01:46:52):
And I love that when I see that. By the way,
did you, by the way, did you see this this
week's dock advertisements of uh, you know, it's the conservation week,
if you're right. So the idea was that we are
not just with what do you call it, five point

(01:47:13):
three million New Zealanders, we are basically with something like
six hundred and ninety five billion residents in New Zealand, right,
and twenty eight thousand species of those are endemic and
only live in music. I love stuff like that. Do
the maths and talk to the kids and the teachers

(01:47:35):
at schools and talk about these sort of things. Well done, Doc,
I think that was a great week we just had.
I just thought it'd, you know, make that point.

Speaker 6 (01:47:43):
And you know the numbers are great, and the numbers
make you feel proud.

Speaker 3 (01:47:47):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (01:47:47):
Yes, that's kind of how I say it.

Speaker 3 (01:47:49):
Yeah, so we're looking after a lot of different creatures.

Speaker 6 (01:47:52):
Yeah, we've talked to a few people like Helen. Good
morning to you.

Speaker 18 (01:47:57):
Yes, good morning Helen. From my very point, happy father,
say gentlemen, thank you. Hi. I just wanted to know
when is the correct time in Auckland to prune tamarillo trees.

Speaker 3 (01:48:15):
I think that should have happened in winter, so you
could still have a go at that, right, Okay, but
make it make it reasonably quick, I would say.

Speaker 18 (01:48:28):
Okay, before it warms up too much.

Speaker 3 (01:48:30):
Do you have good Do you have good fruit coming
off your tree? Is it large enough to to live properly?

Speaker 18 (01:48:41):
There?

Speaker 3 (01:48:42):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 18 (01:48:43):
Is they go beautifully here? Yes, that's all lovely virgin soil,
and all the fruit trees too.

Speaker 3 (01:48:50):
Well, nice, that's really lovely. Yeah.

Speaker 18 (01:48:54):
I have many varieties of the tamarillo, you know, the
golden ones and the red ones, and they're just delicious.

Speaker 3 (01:49:03):
Yeah, good, good, Now this is a good time. You
can still do it, but but be reasonably smart with it,
because of course this thing starts to flower soon and
you need some You need some good good wood for that.

Speaker 18 (01:49:15):
Yep, yep, I'll do it today, Thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:49:21):
You take care it quick. Tikest as well. So do
I need to fertilize a young avocado tree?

Speaker 5 (01:49:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:49:27):
I wish this person would ring up, because of course
you fertilize a young evagada tree. You fertilize every plant
if you like that you've got in your garden. But
I was wondering if there was another story behind that.
So the answer is yes I would, and what I
would do from now on is do a little bit

(01:49:48):
of general fertilizer with a little bit of sulfate of
potash to make sure that they will start to flower
as soon as they can, and that means also having
fruit going, right, Yes, good time to do it.

Speaker 6 (01:50:02):
I've got to get onto that round my place as well.
Now someone sticks through as well.

Speaker 15 (01:50:06):
Well.

Speaker 6 (01:50:06):
Is it normal to be infisted by ants at this
time of year in christ Church?

Speaker 3 (01:50:11):
Good news and bad news. Good news is yes. The
bad news is they're not native.

Speaker 5 (01:50:17):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:50:18):
In other words, what I've noticed is we are getting
more and more introduced ants in christ Church, and they
have an ability to literally keep going despite the fact
that it's quite cold in christ Church in the wintertime.
They keep going, and they will come into your house.
That's right. Yeah, many different species now, okay, And it's

(01:50:38):
really it's unbelievable how these things travel and getting to
to Soudain places now with I suppose climate disruption.

Speaker 6 (01:50:45):
Yeah, wow, okay, well right, hey, grunt, a very good
morning to.

Speaker 12 (01:50:51):
You at the top of the morning, gentlemen. A cross
collination of fruit trees. Yeah, I have two feed o trees.
One's the small fruit bit sweet, one's the big fruit
bet sweet. And they seem to be they seem to
be happy as my free the theatre of fruit are
now big and sweet became. My problem is with my

(01:51:12):
lemon tree. It's doing something with my mandarin tree. Because
now I've got easy peel lemons. Does that happen?

Speaker 11 (01:51:23):
You know?

Speaker 3 (01:51:23):
I don't maybe, but I hadn't heard about that.

Speaker 5 (01:51:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (01:51:27):
I like that.

Speaker 3 (01:51:28):
I like the way you describe it easy peel lemons.
Are you sure?

Speaker 12 (01:51:33):
Because yesterday as a lemon tree, as a maya lemon,
and I have an easy peel menda in the sanumi
one whatever it's called.

Speaker 3 (01:51:45):
Ah, you got a different variety there, Okay, got you? Yeah,
all right, Okay.

Speaker 12 (01:51:49):
Now the problem with the lemon is the lemons the
lemon fruit all of the time. Because I am singing
you bother it twice a year, once in the autumn
and once in the spring, because I've heard you talk
about that before, so I've done it an autumn and spring.

Speaker 7 (01:52:03):
Ye.

Speaker 12 (01:52:05):
But yeah, but the the fruit inside the lemon is
like really small and appeals off and sigmaents. That's why
I'm thinking of the story and something with the men
their entry at night time.

Speaker 3 (01:52:15):
I don't I wouldn't think that that would be the case.
But what I would do if I were you, And
that is probably a good idea is to have a
second mayor lemon, because mayor lemon has this ability, has
ability to go on for one year and the next
year going like nap, and then the next year.

Speaker 16 (01:52:33):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:52:35):
So if you want constant lemons, you know what I mean,
I usually say, get two or three, put them together.
In fact, plant them in the same hole if you like,
because by having three different lemons, if you like lemon
trees in one hole, you treat them like one. But
their genetic one off, one off year system will change.

Speaker 7 (01:53:00):
Yeap.

Speaker 12 (01:53:00):
When I bought the when I bought the two citrus trees,
I bought them at the same time. I hear you,
I bought them because you're about three years old.

Speaker 3 (01:53:08):
Yeah, did you say?

Speaker 5 (01:53:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 12 (01:53:12):
The lemitary that they do everything perfect, everything's perfect. They
set for the lemon. It's the fruit inside the lemon
is actually quite small. But I was thinking about planting
another lemonary beside it.

Speaker 14 (01:53:23):
Yeah, I do, yeah, because because when I first bought them,
you go, no, yeah, you go you fish for them.

Speaker 7 (01:53:31):
Okay.

Speaker 12 (01:53:32):
When I when I first brought them, I did cut
the flowers off the first lot of flowers that I
saw as soon as the start of flowing, because I
heard you say something that they need growth in the
first year or something like that. So I just topped
all the flowers off and I did that on both
of them, and the second year they fruited.

Speaker 13 (01:53:47):
Like wow, look at this, you know, Yeah, you got it.

Speaker 3 (01:53:50):
Yeah, you got to give them time, and you've got
to give build a cut and if you like, build
a body for those things so they can actually then
have fruit later on.

Speaker 16 (01:53:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:53:59):
No, that's a good idea. But the ideas of having
different the same variety, like the maya in one one
finishes one year and the other one doesn't do that
very well, and they swap faces if you like. Yeah,
it's no. But you know, from now on, yeah, go on.
From from now on. What I would do is is

(01:54:21):
fertilize your lemon trees from now on. Absolutely, have a
good go with them.

Speaker 12 (01:54:26):
Yeah, okay, copanas, thank you very much. Y.

Speaker 3 (01:54:29):
Hey morning, welcome friend ground.

Speaker 6 (01:54:33):
You have a great day. Take care, right, we might
take short break. We'll be back. Actually, we've got some
spear line, so if you have a question for it,
call us right now. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty.

Speaker 1 (01:54:44):
Doing other house storting the garden, asked Pete for a hand.
The Resident Builder with Peter Wolfcamp. Call eight hundred eighty
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