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April 11, 2026 107 mins

On The Resident Builder with Pete Wolfkamp Full Show Podcast for April 12, 2026, Pete talks about exterior cladding, Jay from Resene joins to answer all your painting questions, and Ralf Kessel from Concrete NZ joins to discuss the different ways concrete is made.

And Ruud pops in to have a chat about compost - debunking the myths and giving you the facts. 

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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Resident Builder podcast with Peter wolf
Camp from News Talks at B turning us into She'll
be right The Resident Builder with Peter wolf Camp and
Independent Building Supplies the future of Kiwi Building Today Call
eight hundred youth talk, said B.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
The house sizzle even when it's dog, even when the
grass is overgrown in the yard, and even when the
dog is too old to barn, And when you're sitting
at the table trying not to starve.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Sissor even when.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
We again, even when you're therellone houses a home, even
when those goost, even when you got around from the

(01:15):
ones you love your most.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
Scream broken paints, appeal in front the wor.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Locals vestible when they're gone and leaving them the house
all even when we'll run, even when you're in there alone.

Speaker 5 (01:53):
Variety are very very good morning to you. My name's
Peak off Camp, the Resident Builder, and this is the
Resident Builder. On Sunday, we can talk about well, we
can talk about the weather for a start, because that's
going to impact on lots and lots of people. It
already has made its impact. Felt, let's say up in

(02:14):
the far North. Certainly, if you're in Auckland, where I
happen to be broadcasting from. We've had a number of
sort of warnings and you know, alerts around what the
weather might do, what the wind might do, sensible precautions
to take. So if you've been battening down the hatches
like I did yesterday and the day before, just had

(02:36):
to wander around, maybe pick up some of those things
that might have blown around. Actually had a stack of
roofing iron, four or five sheets that are there to
replace the roof, and they've been sitting there around the
side of the house. So I just you know, took
the time to put a piece of timber over the
top of them, buying them together. If the high winds
were actually going to hit, then at least they wouldn't

(02:59):
then become missiles through the air. So if you've sort
of battened down the hatches and prepared yourself, good on
you maybe had a look around, made sure that drains
are not blocked. Possibly even I've noticed there's a bit
of a campaign at the moment to say, hey, look,
go out and have a look at the curb outside
or near your property. If there's a catch pit there

(03:20):
that's prone to being covered in leaves and that sort
of thing. A little bit of time to clear that
away ahead of the expected rainfall will help there as well.
I've got a couple of questions around that particular little project.
I like the idea of being active and being involved.
There's a couple of issues with that as well. But
if you and so Auckland where we seems to have

(03:42):
not been terribly affected by it. I've driven across the
Harbor Bridge this morning, but obviously told on that there
are extensive there's about fourteen hundred houses I think that
have lost power, and as it tracks its way down
towards Napier and the we can expect some more heavy weather.
So if there are some updates, we will certainly bring
them to you. But I guess it's a timely reminder

(04:06):
to all of us around do we actively look at
how my property, how my home is going to perform
when it's really tested. And if you've ever been part
of or seen videos of testing of windows, for example,
I've seen some videos where it's been done in a laboratory.
I was part of a seminar a little while ago

(04:27):
where they were showing this, and I've actually been on
site where part of our building consent conditions was that
once the joinery had been installed, an independent tester came
out and tested the windows, as in, blasted water at
them from a certain distance a certain volume for a
certain period of time. And I was standing on the

(04:49):
inside looking at this person on the outside hosing down
the windows, thinking, gee, it feels like that's a lot
of water and a lot of pressure. Does that actually happen? Well,
it does, and I guess we're the conditions like this
is when it does happen. Thankfully we passed that as well,
which was good, right, So there is plenty to talk
about in terms of whether and preparedness. And someone sent

(05:10):
me an email about sandbags. I'll have a wee look
at that in just a moment as well. But hopefully,
I quite genuinely hope that you're okay, that if you've
made some preparations, they've been of benefit to you, and
this will pass in the next couple of days, and
that we haven't seen. Unfortunately this year, there have been

(05:33):
a number of weather events that have caused loss of life.
So we need to take a reasonably cautious approach. But
there are plenty of things that we can do to
help ourselves as well. We are talking all things building
and construction on the program this morning, so a actually
fairly stacked old morning for us. This morning we have
our regular contributor, our experts from Razine talking painting. It'll

(05:58):
be Jay will be around at about seven twenty five.
We'll take your text questions on painting. So any specific
questions around techniques or type of products, methodology systems. Which
of these products do I need to combine in order
to produce a result that I want a desired result?

(06:20):
We can talk about that with Jay at around seven
twenty A couple of months ago invited onto the program
as an expert, Ralph Kessel from Concrete, New Zealand, so
we talked about concrete in general. Ralph was going to
join it. It was a very very good interview and
I had a number of text messages saying, oh that
was quite interesting. We should have him back. Well, he's back,

(06:42):
So Ralph will be back after eight o'clock this morning.
A good solid conversation around concrete. Stand by this, I've
written down a whole list of really awful puns that
I can use to chat around concrete. So Ralph will
be with us at around just after eight o'clock. And
of course we've got Red Cline pass again a small
editorial piece or a shorter editorial piece at around eight

(07:05):
forty five this morning, so that's happening as well. But
right now, in the midst of the storm, the lines
are open to you. They're working right this part of
the world. The telephone lines are still up, so you
can call eight hundred eighty ten eighty, you can text
nine to nine two from your mobile phone, and of

(07:25):
course you can email me my password and it is
I'm not going to tell you what the password is,
but the email is. I know someone who almost did that.
I'm pretty sure I've almost done that once too. I
think on one occasion when I said this is the number,
I started to read out or talk out speak about
my own mobile number, and I thought I didn't quite

(07:46):
get to the end of that, and I was like,
hang on, hang on, hand it's eight hundred eighty ten eighty,
which isn't my mobile number. But anyway, well, we'll do that.
But the email is Pete atnewstalksb dot co dot NZ.
So let's rip into it. If there is a question
of a building nature eight hundred eighty ten eighty is
the number to call. I started reading. I'm doing a

(08:09):
course which is sort of the introductory models to the
New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyor's course. So I'm into
the third module. So it's over two days Tuesday Wednesday
in Auckland on exterior cladding and failures of exterior clouding
and being able to identify failure in clouding. And part

(08:32):
of the course reading is the Code of Practice, the
roof and Metal roof and Cladding wall cladding or roof
and wall Cladding Code of Practice, and I thought I'll
have a quick look at that. I had a few
minutes yesterday to six hundred and twenty four pages. I
didn't get through six hundred and twenty four pages yesterday,

(08:53):
but I am working my way through the Code of
Practice at this stage, particularly around durability. So it's a
bit of a study old week for me.

Speaker 4 (09:02):
Right, let's get into it.

Speaker 5 (09:03):
Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number
to call.

Speaker 6 (09:06):
Peak.

Speaker 5 (09:07):
Just left the mount Road, took off for work. Was
windy and wet that I've been in worse without all
of the warnings. I think we're going to probably get
a few of those sorts of texts this morning morning,
will you comment on what's happening with the storm this morning?
Certainly if there are any updates, we will keep you
up to date. So at the stage, I think the

(09:28):
main impact is going to be in Totro. I think
the high tide was early this morning for most of
the East coast, so that will be on its way out.
But certainly the impact of wind and tide will be
significant for some communities, hence the evacuations that have occurred.
But right now, let's talk building. So the lines are open.

(09:48):
Number is eight hundred and eighty ten eighty back in.

Speaker 4 (09:51):
A mom helping you finish that five and it fixed.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
You started the resident building with Peter Wolfcamp and Independent
Building Supplies.

Speaker 4 (09:59):
The future of Kiwi.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Building Today call eight hundred eighty ten eighty News talksz'd be.

Speaker 5 (10:05):
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Speaker 4 (11:05):
News talk said b rdio.

Speaker 5 (11:08):
I think everyone's hunkering down, but the text machine is working,
but your calls are better to be fair. Oh, eight
hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call a
text message. Quite a lengthy one house sale monolithic cladding stigma.
So this person, I think owns a two story, five
bedroom home in the eastern suburbs of Auckland, built in

(11:29):
nineteen ninety three. The lower level is brick and the
upper is stucco. I've lived in the house twenty six
years with no legs or problems on the house whatsoever.
I have an inspection done by a reputable house inspection
company and have a report available with moisture readings done
on the inside of the house and the report which
shows that there is no high or out of limit readings.

(11:54):
I have the outside photos of a drone. It's well painted,
the upper level sealed all the gaps and cracks so
that there's no water that can enter. This work was
done recently. The walls are also solid when tapped on,
so no evidence of any leaky home problems. I've checked
the lower side of the cladding and confirmed that there
are no events so fully sealed panels. The problem is

(12:15):
just about everyone viewing the property. I'm just going to
get to the bottom of this text. Just about everyone
viewing the property says that they like the house, they
just don't want to buy a house with this type
of clatting. The house is in very good condition, very
frustrated with the stigma put on this type of house.
There are many many owners and homes around that area

(12:38):
that are well built. Can you advise please on what
we can do to get the stigma removed and the
press is tarred all houses of this era with a
bad reputation. Are there any positive comments on this type
of house? I was told to get another report from
a cladding company, but this will help, and will this
help another with another expensive report? Thanks frustrated home seller.

(13:01):
Look in general, I would probably agree with your sentiment
in the sense that unfortunately there are plenty or there
are some examples. Maybe it's not plenty, but there are
certainly some examples of buildings that are built with all
of the elements that we think are a problem but
don't present as a problem, or are not actually a problem. However,

(13:27):
there has been we're getting onto almost thirty years of
discussion around this type of building, and I think I
wouldn't call it hysteria, but there has certainly been that
notion that basically all of these types of buildings are
tard with the same brush, saying that there's plenty of
evidence as to why people should be concerned about certain

(13:50):
building methodologies, certain combinations of products, an absence of a cavity, batten,
direct fixed cladding, lack of flashing details, and so on.
But in and amongst you, at the same time, there
were designers that designed well. There were builders that built
well and ended up with houses from that vintage of

(14:12):
that style that don't have leaking problems. Unfortunately. I think
there was a big discussion about this recently in terms
of banks and insurers becoming particularly risk averse unless someone
is buying the house without needing the bank, I know, mortgage.

(14:34):
In order to get a mortgage, you need to be
able to ensure the house. Given the number of claims
that have been made for leaky buildings and the number
of insurance claims that have had to pay out on it,
it's not surprising that insurers have a very risk averse
view to it. And the other challenge too is you know,

(14:55):
if as a vendor, you prepare a vendors report building report,
and you provide that to a potential purchaser, I would
always be cautious if I was acting for the purchaser
and I was presented with a builder's report paid for
by the vendor. Well, we'd all like to think that

(15:20):
there's professional standards and sort of there is an objective view,
is this house okay? What you'll find is you have
two experts and three opinions, right. That's typically how these
things work. So for this homeowner who's in that situation
where they're wanting to sell a house that has is
part of that group that has a reputation around, you know,

(15:44):
water ingress issues, providing a report paid for by the
owner to promote the house is going to be seen
with some caution by a potential purchaser. And I I'm
not absolutely sure, but I get a sense that, you know,

(16:05):
maybe and that that would request a building report a
building survey prior to settlement probably wouldn't accept one that
was done by the vendor as opposed by the purchaser. Yeah,
So saying that, and someone flicks through a quick text

(16:26):
as well, Hey Pete with the perception of monolithic cladding,
why a builders still using it to clad homes? Well,
because what we do today is different to what we
did back then. And I did houses back in the
nineteen nineties with what was a version of monolithic cladding,
and I've been on site with houses that are being
built now with a similar type of cladding. And how

(16:48):
we do it, how we put it together, the systems
that are in place, the training for the licensed practitioners
who are undertaking it is radically different. Than what we
did before. So if you do it today, basically, it'll
be fine. If you do it according to all of
the the standards and the methodologies, it'll be fine. In fact,

(17:10):
it's incredibly robust and simple to maintain, and there are
some benefits around acoustics and thermal performance and so on.
So go and have a look at the old Razine
construction website, look at all the details there and go,
that's a radically different cladding system and methodology than we
might have had before radio. But hey, look, if you're
the owner of a property, lovely property, you've lived there

(17:33):
for twenty five years, it's great. It's never caused you
any problems. It's hard to convince somebody else that it's
going to be okay. And I know of one house
built by a guy that I know who's a very
very good builder, happened to use one of those sort
of what we'd call back in the day monolithic cladding systems.

(17:53):
No issues whatsoever, but he simply realized that the perception
was going to be this is going to be a problem.
So even without having any weather type of issues whatsoever,
he simply to pull the cladding off and redo it
in something that is I guess more market friendly, which

(18:15):
seems like a really expensive way of fixing something that's
not actually a problem. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty
is the number to call if you'd like to talk
about that. We can talk about that, we can talk
about a little bit of storm preparedness as well. We
had got a text here about cesspits and sandbags. I'll
have a look at that in a moment, but right
now the lines are open, so that number to call
eight hundred eighty ten eighty. Remember as well, Jay, our

(18:38):
painting expert will be available in about an hour's time.
So if you've got any specific questions around painting, whether
that's products, methodology, the combination of the right type of
products to achieve the outcome you want, feel free to
fire those texts through as well. On nine to nine
two we'll heavily of this text about sandbags and just

(18:59):
a moment back.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
After the break where Diy gets unstuck, call oh eight
hundred eight the Resident Builder with Peter Wolfcam and Independent
Building Supplies the Future of Kiwi Building Today News Dogs
b so.

Speaker 5 (19:15):
I get an email during the week from Nigel yesterday
actually hopefully and he's he's obviously doing a bit of
storm preparation in the sense that he's fired me through
a photograph. And this is the beauty of email. So
I know we're all used to sending photographs via text
these days. Doesn't work here in the studio, right, So
if you need to send me a photograph, it's got

(19:36):
to be attached to an email. And he's looking to
buy one of those long black sandbags, the sort of
thing that you see to protect catch pits in the
curb in the and channels from sediment. And he's been
along to a couple of the big hardware stores. Can't
find them at all. They are a bit of a
not really a specialist thing, but you can get them

(19:58):
at NS Safety for example, geofabric Curtex c I R
T e X. There's a place up in Silverdale that's
got them as well. But they'll be around. And this
is they're often filled with it's like sawdust almost some

(20:18):
of them, and they just allow water to seep through,
but they stop sediment. So if you're doing sediment control
run off, this is a big issue for building sites.
You can put those around catch pits in the road.
They should be your last line of defense. Obviously, as
part of building consent requirements and resource consent, if you're

(20:38):
doing significant excavation on a site, you need to ensure
that no sediment runs off that site once you have
some heavy rain. So there's a particular design of filter
cloth and waratahs and so on that you have to do.
Saying that, I've got a mate who's been in a
constant battle with council inspectors around sediment control because basically

(21:04):
nothing can escape the site, but they still want to
to what sediment controlling, which was just nonsense. But anyway,
that's another story. But Nigel, you can you can find
that stuff if you just search for what did I
search for? Catch pit filter sock, that will bring you
the results you need. And a very good morning to you. Judith.

Speaker 7 (21:22):
Hello, I'm still here.

Speaker 5 (21:24):
Good, I'm delighted. Right I tell you what, Judith. In
the background, I can hear the radio, which is terribly confusing.
So if you just reach over, turn the radio off
for a second and then we can have a chat.
All right, right, how can I help?

Speaker 7 (21:44):
I've lived in my beautiful little flat now for eleven
years and the cladding is apparently fibrous cement.

Speaker 5 (21:53):
Yep.

Speaker 7 (21:55):
And in the last issacaite we got about ten years ago,
some of the cladding is just a tiny brad has
come apart.

Speaker 8 (22:04):
How do I text that?

Speaker 6 (22:05):
Please?

Speaker 5 (22:07):
When you say it's come apart? Oh, so it's fiber cement.
But does it have like a textured coat over it
or is it simply painted painted? And it's it's in
big sheets or strips of fiber cement. So is it
horizontal weatherboards or is it vertical like a ship lap

(22:27):
type profile?

Speaker 8 (22:31):
What's that when it's straight up and down?

Speaker 4 (22:33):
Is that vertical?

Speaker 5 (22:34):
Yeah? Vertical? Okay? Do you think that like? And is
it a an individual board that's been broken? Okay? I
guess the most straightforward solution would be to get a
build around to see whether or not that profile of
cladding is still available, and then you could carefully remove

(22:55):
the broken board and put in a new one. That
would be the most straightforward way. If that's not the case,
then maybe doing a flash that covers it might be
an option from Well, no, all of these things end
up having to be custom made, so it will require

(23:19):
a carpenter builder with some experience of older systems, older
clouding systems to come evaluate it, maybe I can replace it.
And if I can't replace it, can I do a repair.
It might be difficult to do a repair that's not
going to be obvious, as in, it's not like you
can glue or bog or or you know, epoxy these

(23:41):
sorts of things. It'll it'll have to be take something out,
flash it, and then put in a new piece of platting.
So it might appear different, but it'll still give you
a weather tight solution.

Speaker 8 (23:55):
Do you know what it's the most easy property to paint.
I'll paint to that.

Speaker 5 (23:59):
Yeah, I can imagine.

Speaker 9 (24:02):
I know.

Speaker 5 (24:03):
You know, there is a benefit to these sorts of materials.
So a lot of the fiber sment products, you know,
they've they've got real durability in them, because obviously they're
not they're not a timber product, and so all of
the issues that we get around rot and movement and
decay and so on, you don't get in fiber spent sheets.

(24:23):
But part of the issue with them in terms of
cracking and sign is there's all because they are rigid.
They have little flexibility. So if there's some stress on
the building, you tend to get cracking rather than movement
where the material moves but maintains its integrity in this
instance because there's no flexibility in it or very little,
you get movement and you get cracking. And maybe that's

(24:45):
what you've had as well. The other thing is if
you can tie it directly to the earthquake, I e.
There wasn't a crack there. You've had a seismic event
and there's a crack late. Ah, okay, all right, yeah.

Speaker 8 (25:01):
If it used to figure out figure it out.

Speaker 5 (25:05):
Yeah, And and look like I say, an older experienced
carpenter you know, who's familiar with that type of clouding
might be able to help you out there. You may
well be able to replace it. I think it's a
bit unlikely, or you'll have to do a replacement and
make something up including flashings. Good luck with that, Judith.
I'm sure it will work out for you. Eight hundred

(25:25):
eighty ten eighty is the number to call. We seem
to have got onto cladding straight away, particularly off the
back of that initial comment from someone who's house built
in nineteen ninety three, fairly large house by the sounds
of it, five bedrooms with a monolithic cladding on the
outside of what we would call generally monolithic cladding, So

(25:45):
it might be fiber cement with a texture over the top.
It might be genuine stucco, as in twenty millimeters of
solid plaster. But if it's direct fixed and maybe there's flashing,
a flashing system around the windows, maybe there isn't you know.
It becomes a real challenge when presenting those types of

(26:05):
property to market. I guess he was reaching out to see, hey,
what's my solutions here? What are my options? A number
of people have texted her and said, well, maybe it's
just a case if you have to rip it off
into a reclad But you know, reclad rates even a
couple of years ago, with consent, scaffolding experts, et cetera,
et cetera, we're running it well over one thousand dollars

(26:26):
a square meter. So you know, go outside with a
tape measure, work it out, take out your windows, and
then times that by figure out your square meterage. Times
it by one thousand bucks a meter, probably add another
twenty percent to that. You can see why someone would
be reluctant to do that in order to sell a house. Oh,
eight hundred eighty ten eighty. If you've got a comic

(26:47):
to make or a question to ask. More importantly, the
lines are open for this stormy Sunday morning here at
New Stork. Cre b O eight hundred eighty ten eighty
is the number.

Speaker 4 (26:56):
Measure twice, call once on eight hundred eighty ten eighty.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
The resident builder with Peter Wolfcamp and Independent Building supplies
the future of ken we Building Today News Talks be.

Speaker 5 (27:10):
Your news talks. There'd be six forty two. Remember in
the next hour, Jay, our painting expert, will be available,
in which case if you've got any specific painting questions,
feel free to text those through. Also after eight o'clock
this morning, Ralph Kessel from Concrete en Z is going
to join me again. Ralph's been on the show a
couple of months ago, invited and back. I wanted to

(27:30):
talk about and specifically around the difference. There are changes
to the way in which concrete is made, most of
that relating to how cement is made, which is resulting
in lower carbon concrete. This is quite a big change
for I suppose concrete in general in terms of how

(27:54):
it's perceived as an environmentally friendly product or what impact
it has in terms of the carbon sequestering and carbon issues.
Right anyway, so we'll have a bit of a chat
with Ralph about that. But he's also open to because
he's this super knowledgeable guy that's always on the show.
If you've got any questions about concrete, and this can

(28:17):
be as random as anything, right, feel free to fire
them through as well, and I'll put those aside, and
if we've got time with Ralph will take any specific
concrete questions. So you know, I'm tempted to ask him
as to why the concrete and the parthenon and Rome
still works right because obviously the Romans figured out how

(28:39):
to make concrete and it's lasted for a long time,
as opposed to the driveway that we discussed last week
on the show, where someone had had a contract around
who then applied water blasting to the driveway and pitted
the surface. See, I think Roman concrete would probably do
better than that particular driveway did. Anyway, Ralph will be

(29:03):
with us after eight o'clock. Remember Jay our painting expert
from around seven twenty five this morning, and good morning
to UKK.

Speaker 6 (29:10):
How are you, yeah, Good morning Peter.

Speaker 10 (29:14):
I just need a bit of advice you may you
may not. So I live in a two bedroom flex
a comber Aura place and it's quite quite a big
section g roomed to park my car down the back
and all that. We've got one small shed that's got
my more Marik.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
So my Christian is on, do you ditch my car?
I've had nothing my car. I don't really need it.
Now I'm getting the mobility stood yes, So I can't
get on the side obviously, and it won't fit them
the shed. So I'm not sure of the legalities of
this when you build a lean to, so do I

(29:54):
get a builder to come and build it? So I
want to have the mobility scooter out of the weather,
of course, backed up against the house so I can
charge yep? So can you bot tents for them?

Speaker 9 (30:10):
How do Yeah?

Speaker 5 (30:12):
That's a really good I guess. Well, given your specific situation,
which is, as you've already said, you're in a kind
of order house and this is a change in circumstance
for you, I would have thought that you would go
back to the property managers, to the team at KO

(30:34):
that administer the property and go, hey, look, this is
now my circumstance. Are you able to provide some assistance?
Now it might be KO who can provide the assistance
it may well be that again because of your change
in circumstance, you can go not necessarily through acc but
it might be age concern or wins and so on

(30:55):
and get some assistance. So I know, we've had a
number of discussions over the years with people who find
that it's more difficult to move around and they might
need a ramp, they might need an extra handrail, they
might need to have the shower changed, and so on.
Surely you can get support for this.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
I've gotta be honest, No, no, no, I'm not disabled.

Speaker 11 (31:19):
No choice, You're okay, all right, I'm with you, and
I'm going to get on. Ye I don't need a car,
okay all.

Speaker 10 (31:34):
And a nuisance to buddy pack.

Speaker 5 (31:36):
Yeah sure, yeah, well I get it, absolutely okay in
that sense. But there would still be in terms of,
you know, if you wanted to make any significant changes
to the house, in terms of like building a lean
to for example, you'd need to go back to KO,
wouldn't you, just like any tenant would to any landlord.

(31:57):
I suppose you could something that's quite straight You could
just get a gazebo.

Speaker 6 (32:05):
Oh yeah, you know what I mean that that would.

Speaker 5 (32:08):
Be a really straightforward solution, or if you wanted someone
to come and do a lean to again, I think
you know, as a as a tenant to a landlord,
regardless of who the landlord is, you'd need to talk
about that with the landlord, with the property owner and say, look,
is it okay to establish a temporary or well it'll

(32:28):
be a reasonably permanent structure. I mean, what would be
really helpful for you would be to have an outdoor
power point, for example, if it was in a little
bit of a sheltered area, to have a PowerPoint that
you could plug in the lead for the charging rather
than you know, running a cord out through the window
and that sort of thing. Those sorts of things would
make it a lot easier. And really one of the.

Speaker 8 (32:53):
One was to do was.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
To charge sure, well it's outside, out of the weather,
and the other thing is a security thing.

Speaker 5 (33:05):
Yeah, fair enough. Maybe I wonder whether the other option
is to look at getting you know, a kit's said
shed right that you could put up. If it's a
I don't know, two and a half by two meter shed,
that would be enough room as long as the doors
were wide enough that you could drive in park it.
You could get a temporary PowerPoint put there by registered

(33:27):
electrician and then it's under cover. Slide the doors or
close the door lockable, and there's a little bit of
security as well, so that's probably a reasonably straightforward solution
as well. As you know, there's some quite good quality sheds.
I've seen some nifty little ones with a small roller
door on them, like a meter and a half wide
or twelve hundred wide roller door with a because what

(33:52):
you'd want is something that's easy for you to drive in,
so you'd want it sitting on the ground level and
then you can just drive straight into it. So might
be the way.

Speaker 10 (34:03):
From anyone else, absolutely, and the mobility students, it's what
they've done.

Speaker 5 (34:11):
Yeah, all right, all the best UKK, take care, all
the best, bye bye. Now just in general, because I
get a little note that says this is what we
want to talk about on the text. There's a tremendous
organization called Life Mark. So if you're interested in basically
designing a building that allows you to stay there throughout

(34:35):
your life, there are some really key principles and ideas.
So if you're interested in this, either for yourself or
for you know, family members and so on, it's very
very good life mark. It's called so Lifemark dot co
dot Nz. I've been in a couple of houses where
they've used their design principles. It's simple things like going,

(34:58):
I don't know why we have a particular height that
we put powerpoints right, but typically there are about three
hundred and fifty millimeters from the ground something like that,
and all New Zealand houses put them all at that height.
That makes sense if you're reasonably able and able to
bend down to either plug things and turn switches on
and off and that sort of thing. But imagine if
in a house you actually had those powerpoints at five

(35:20):
hundred millimeters off the ground, so it's not as far
to bend. Little things like that. Making all doorways at
least seven sixty or eight ten wide rather than narrow,
which makes access easier. Level entry thresholds at and entrance
doesn't have to be every single door in the house,
but at least one of them that allows for an

(35:41):
easy transition from inside to outside. So all of those
sorts of principles and many many, many more are all
on that lifemark dot co dot nz website. It's awesome, Carol,
A very good morning to you.

Speaker 12 (35:52):
Oh, good morning to you, Peter. I'm ringing about a
two story rental property with the word above concrete block below,
and I have an upstairs concrete deck covered in butautinol.
But after many years it's of course it's broken down,
so the and fleaking into the two flats below, leaking
through their ceilings. Yes, So the contractor it has looked

(36:17):
at it has suggested that, of course I recover in
the decking membrane or use a paint sealant. And that's
where I was concerned, because because it's rentally said, well,
the paint sealant would may be the best way to go,
but I just I had doubts about that whether that.

Speaker 5 (36:40):
Would be yeah, and I probably wouldn't. It's probably not
helpful to describe the solution as a paint sealant. It's
more like a membrane, a brushable membrane that you can
apply over the top, so it has a much thicker
consistency than paint wood, and it's its own waterproofing solution. Effectively,

(37:01):
what you're doing is that becomes your waterproof solution applied
over the top of the earlier substrate, which now happens
to the beautiful of course, and so on.

Speaker 9 (37:11):
You know.

Speaker 5 (37:12):
The challenge sometimes with those types of repairs is you
do have to be confidence that there is some integrity
to the substrate below it. So depending on when the
house was built on time.

Speaker 12 (37:27):
Well we'll say nineteen seventy four.

Speaker 5 (37:30):
Ah, okay, all right, so.

Speaker 12 (37:33):
An older building, you know, like for example, even older
than that.

Speaker 5 (37:37):
Yeah, if for example, it'll be nailed down, right, because
we didn't typically screw down substrates at that time. I
wasn't building at that time, but my experience would tell
me that they we didn't or they didn't. So one
of the things that I've seen so for me been
the membrane.

Speaker 12 (37:56):
The present beautin all that went down some years.

Speaker 5 (37:59):
After Again, right, okay, built, I guess The summary is
that if that members and the membranes below it are unstable,
then applying a coating to the top is not a
great solution because you're not addressing the actual issue, which
is a decay or a decline or a failure of

(38:19):
those membranes. So if for example, the substrate is sound,
if the by and large the butte nyl has stayed
reasonably well adhered to it and is firm, it doesn't
have lots of bubbles in it. You don't see I mean,
I've seen it where fixings I nails have worked their
way out of the substrate and are pushing up through

(38:43):
in this instance butteanyl and in some cases through the butteannyl. Right,
So if it's one nail, it'll be more nails.

Speaker 12 (38:49):
So that's nothing to be nailed. It just appears to.

Speaker 13 (38:52):
Be you know, glue.

Speaker 5 (38:54):
Yeah, you know they won't nail the butteanole down to
what's below. It is that below? It is that a
concrete deck? Is that true?

Speaker 12 (39:03):
Yes, concrete deck, the long deck too, it's about forty yeah.

Speaker 5 (39:07):
Sure. I wonder in that instance whether actually removing the butteanole,
completely cleaning the substraight, cleaning the concrete then and then
applying a waterproof membrane over that that's traffickable because you're
going to walk on it, aren't you?

Speaker 12 (39:23):
Yes, yes, yes, they said the removal of existing beautyol
and grind and prep of substrate, okay.

Speaker 5 (39:31):
And the other thing then is check out you know
the product, the warranties, the guarantees, and will the contractor
give you a guarantee that it will become watertight. And
if they do, and they're a reputable contractor and you
think they're going to be around and the product that
they're using has got a good reputation, then it's probably
a good solution.

Speaker 12 (39:52):
Well, this was a company actually that you recommended a
couple of years ago, just with a five year workmanship warranty.

Speaker 5 (39:59):
Will that's probably reasonable. I mean, it would be nice
if it was longer, but that's not unreasonable in given
that they're having to do remedial work, right, Yes, but.

Speaker 12 (40:09):
You really feel it the major part is the substrate.

Speaker 5 (40:12):
Yeah, absolutely, So you know, if they pull off the
butteinole expose the concrete, they might be able to seal
and treat any cracks. Make sure that the upstand is okay,
because it's that junction between the vertical surfaces and the
horizontal ones that you want to make sure that you're
getting waterproofing through there to ensure that you don't get

(40:34):
any You know, you can paint all the flat surfaces,
but if the wind drives it over those surfaces onto
a vertical surface and you get water in there, that's
another issue. But it sounds like they're pretty thorough and
know what they're talking about. And I think if it's
a solid substrate, we're good.

Speaker 12 (40:53):
But you do think you would think the membrane over
the sealant that their membrane sealent solution that they're talking about,
you feel that would be superior respective of being a
mental property.

Speaker 5 (41:08):
I think I think it will give you the durability
that you need and it should be. It's a it
seems like a straightforward solution to sorting out the moisture
and gress issue. So I've got to run for the news, Carol,
but I think you're on the right track. It's it's
really about checking out the warranties that'll give you some certainty.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
Back after the break, bexing what they forgot to mention
on that YouTube video, The resident Builder with Peter Wolfcamp
and Independent Building supplies the future of Kiwi Building Today.

Speaker 4 (41:38):
Call oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty News dogsb.

Speaker 5 (41:42):
Welcome back to the program. It is just on six
and a half minutes after seven on what's been a
fairly well reasonably stormy morning here in Auckland. Certainly if
you're in the far North, if you're around Tarronger and
later on in the Hawks Bay as well, we can
expect some fairly inclement weather conditions as well with a

(42:03):
whole bunch of advisories. So hopefully PEE have prepared themselves
for this, and I mean this is one of those
things around I mentioned at the beginning of the show.
You know, there is a reason that we do testing
for products, particularly for exterior cladding products, and in order
for them to either get a brand's appraisal or code
mark and be acceptable for use in terms of the

(42:26):
New Zealand building Code, you have to prove their durability.
And it's quite fascinating. I was watching one at a
seminar the other day where in a testing environments or
in a laboratory test they're able to build a wall,
for example, including things like a flashing adjunction of a
right angle or where a window was installed, for example,

(42:49):
and then see what happens when you apply storm like
conditions to that replica that wall that's been built in
a test lab. And then it's typically in terms of
how buildings perform during these adverse weather events, it's a
combination of two things. I'm going to sneeze, you can

(43:10):
it's coming. If I suddenly it might have gone anyway,
Maybe testing cladding makes me sneeze. Anyway, it was quite
fascinating to watch one of these tests being undertaken and
it was a combination of variation and air pressure. So
what tends to happen in these extreme weather events is

(43:30):
you've got very low pressure outside and because inside typically
as a higher pressure, everything wants to balance and so
moisture will be drawn through the building envelope by that
variation and pressure. So you've got this pressure difference which
is sucking moisture into the building, and then the combination
of just a lot of water on the outside. And
it's fascinating to see how different systems perform. And then

(43:54):
I mentioned a couple of years ago on a building
that required on site testing of the joinery installation team
came along. They have a special tool, basically a high
pressure nozzle. They have to stay and a certain distance
away from the window and spray a certain volume of
water as elits per second at the joinery for a

(44:16):
specified amount of time. And then you're standing on the
inside as the person that was responsible for putting the
windows in along with the rest of the team. We're
looking at that going gee, that's a lot of water.
I think I've still got a video of it somewhere
on the phone. It's a scary old thing to be
part of, and hey, look, you feel pretty good when
it passes, and it did in this instance one or

(44:36):
two little areas that we had to gone tidy up,
but generally it was a pass. I'm sure a lot
of these things fail. And I've was chanting with someone
who's involved in sort of construction management. You know, they've
been to a site where Jewnery has been installed and
they had about a fifty percent failure rate at the testing.
So they addressed all of that. But it's good that

(45:00):
the testing happens. Failure is not great, but at least
the testing has happen so that you know it's not
going to be a problem ten twenty thirty years down
the track. We've talked a bit about durability on the show.
This morning, we can talk all things building in construction. Jay,
our painting expert from Razine, will be along in about
fifteen minutes or so, and then after the eight o'clock news,
Ralph Kessel, who joined us on the show a couple

(45:22):
of months ago from Construction from Concrete en Z. We
can have a bit of a chat about concrete in general.
If you've got any specific concrete questions, feel free to
text those through and I'll put them aside for Ralph
and if and then we're also going to be talking
about I suppose changes in the way that concrete has made,
so I'll get Ralph to explain it. But concrete is

(45:43):
basically an aggregate water and cement, and the aggregate might
be set a bit of sand and some stone, some
heavy metal, but the way in which that is put
together now is different than it used to be, and
that makes quite a big difference in terms of its carbon.
So we'll talk about that with Ralph after eight o'clock

(46:04):
and Rood from around eight footy five. So we're just
going to be talking about composts this morning, actually on
the program from around eight forty five, So no question
and answer through it this morning. Oh eight hundred and
eighty ten eighty the number to call. James A very
good morning to you.

Speaker 6 (46:19):
Oh good morning.

Speaker 9 (46:23):
Ah. You've acually told me everything I wanted to ask
you about.

Speaker 13 (46:30):
Just where you just talk.

Speaker 9 (46:32):
He just explained everything we.

Speaker 5 (46:34):
Wanted right, So thank you. Question James, it was about I.

Speaker 14 (46:40):
Was quite about everything. Actually, I just wanted to know
about kevity doors and and then prying them into the
house and using them was in the house instead of
just having a door that opens and closes. And what
was your sort about having a cavity door? But what

(47:03):
you explained just before it was fantastic.

Speaker 9 (47:07):
Thank you.

Speaker 5 (47:09):
I'm not sure that there was actually about cavity doors,
but I mean, look, they're they're useful. We you don't
have an option to have the door swinging because you're
you're a bit tight on space, so things like sometimes
you know, into an en suite in a master bedroom
or into a walk and wardrobe, that sort of thing
that that's where they're typically used. Maybe a downstairs toilet

(47:33):
that you don't have space to open the door inwards
into the toilet, but you don't want it swinging outwards either,
those sorts of things. The only I suppose the only
challenge with them sometimes is if they happen to be
in a load bearing wall, you need to install, you know,
a larger lintel because of course the opening that you need.

Speaker 13 (47:51):
To carry the way that's exactly the right.

Speaker 9 (47:56):
Also just for another cook thing, what's your was your
thought one? And then you know, you know the old
shower dome. You know, what's your idea on there? And
watched your.

Speaker 13 (48:11):
Sort on them.

Speaker 10 (48:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (48:12):
Look, I mean every time we talk about moisture in
a bathroom, I get lots and lots of texts from
people saying I've got a shower dome. It works really well.
And you know you can't deny that, right. So I
think because it's encapsulating that area that you're creating moisture
and humidity in a room, that's fine. Yeah, what I

(48:34):
suppose it doesn't do is deal with the rest of
the moisture in that bathroom space. So turning on a
hot tap, turning on a shower, turning on a bath
hot tap, the moisture that's there in your towel, right,
So you know, when you hang a towel up like
I did this morning at five o'clock, jumped in the shower,

(48:55):
quickly dried myself off the towel, which weighed a certain
amount when I grabbed it off the heated towel rail
weighs more went on because it's absorbed, it's soaked up
the moisture, right, So that moisture has to be released
in terms of drying. So the question is what takes
away that moisture. So I think you've got to look.
I always look at the whole bathroom and go, how

(49:16):
are you controlling dealing with moisture in that space? That's
would be my issue. Appreciate your comments and your questions. James,
have a great day. Eight hundred eighty ten eighty is
the number to call. A couple of texts coming in
for Ralph who'll be joining us. This is around concrete
after eight o'clock. If you've got any specific painting questions,
give us a call. Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty

(49:38):
is the number. Lucy, Good morning to you.

Speaker 6 (49:42):
Hi there, how are you very well?

Speaker 5 (49:43):
Thank you and yourself go to thank you.

Speaker 6 (49:46):
So I've got a.

Speaker 15 (49:47):
Question related to drain it. So I've got two down
pipes at the center of my property and a short
states concrete drive. One of the down pipes goes straight
into the ground. When it was constructured in nineteen seventy
that obviously wasn't connected to a storm water outlet. The
other side is connected to something. So I've had drainage

(50:11):
advice to connect them both to a storm water outlet,
but it's going to require cutting the concrete across the
front of my driveway. And so my question is there's
probably going to be like, you know, holes under the
driveway from where the water has been draining out to
the straight or the ground. Should that be back filled

(50:33):
once the connection is put in place to take the
pipe that's not connected to any storm water to a
stormwater pipe.

Speaker 5 (50:40):
Why do you think that there would be essentially like
erosion under the driveways. Is there a subsidence in the
driveway now or there's actually.

Speaker 15 (50:52):
No subsidence in the driveway. However, on the side of
the house that is connected there's the dumb hype that
should be connected to stormwater. There's a one meter hole
beside the house, and yeah, I know, and so okay, yeah,

(51:13):
and so in the rain you can say that the
downpipe that there's water going sort of underneath the house,
which is the corner of a concrete paired under the driveway.
But probably you know, I've had one one drainage quote.
But then I got told I should get different opinion
on how to deal with this, and so it's kind

(51:36):
of left me a little confused. And then also I
don't know because the concrete paired of the garage is
not tied to the side of the house. I don't
know if I should be like looking at that and
getting a structural engineer or if it's like literally a
drain layer problem to get connectors and then see what

(51:57):
happens after that.

Speaker 5 (51:58):
Look, I think a recently experienced drain layer will be
able to sort of, you know, determine what do I
need to do in order to make this safe. And
I'm thinking about, you know, if there has been some
scouring out right, So if you've had persistent the downpipe
literally dropping onto the ground and that's washed away some

(52:19):
of the ground underneath the drive or adjacent to the drive,
then yes, when they cut up the drive, install the
new drainage, and then backfill it, they'll they'll be able
to make an assessment at that time. It would be
my feeling.

Speaker 8 (52:36):
Yep, yeah, that's not.

Speaker 16 (52:40):
Right.

Speaker 15 (52:40):
Okay, yeah, yeah, that same principle, I guess, Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 5 (52:44):
So once you know, once you've actually controlled your stormwater
discharge and you're not having that sort of uncontrolled discharge
onto the ground which is then causing erosion effectively, maybe
it's just a case of backfilling that if it felt
like it had undermined the driveway it could be an
option of using it's kind of an extreme solution, but

(53:09):
flowable fill, which is basically a low MPa concrete, so
typically concrete twenty MPa, right, that's what allows it to set.
In some instances, you can just use like a two
MPa concrete that will bind together, so it means that
your material won't separate. But it doesn't have the same

(53:30):
strength as regular concrete, but it doesn't need to because
it's not doing the same job. So you know, there
are some solutions around that. But to me, I get
the sense that once you sort out the drainage, and
good on you for doing it, because you know, I
think we've all seen examples where back in the day,
you know, nineteen seventies and so on, it was fine,
you just dump the down pipe onto the ground and

(53:52):
so on, and then it just becomes somebody else's problem,
which is inevitably what happens. It flows down the driveway,
out across the footpath and into the channel, and if
you drive along with any heavy weather event in almost
any city or town and all in the country, you'll
see that the curb is overflowing. Because we've allowed curb

(54:13):
discharges for such a long period of time, councils really
reluctant to allow those Today, I think I.

Speaker 15 (54:21):
Always thought those those flooded straight sides was because the
councils weren't like connecting up properly.

Speaker 6 (54:28):
To the storm.

Speaker 5 (54:29):
No, No, that might be part of the issue. And
I think councils have been criticized, and rightly so, for
maybe not putting the resources into going along and cleaning
out catch pits right in the curbs. And I've to
be fair, and two days ago there's an area near

(54:51):
where I live, on a road that floods seemingly and
you know, a drop of rain seems to cause flooding there, right,
and it's it's been like that for twenty years. On Friday,
just heading out, they had a sucker truck there cleaning
out those catch pits that have been you know, we

(55:12):
know that there's a problem here, so let's go and
be preemptive and go to those sort of high risk
areas and clean them out. So I think councils finally
are waking up to the fact that not terribly exciting,
but this is the sort of thing that they need
to do.

Speaker 15 (55:28):
Yes, Yeah, one other question for you, just thinking about
this the side that does go into the ground without
any issues. What theres another option to leave that side
and just steal to the side with the big holer.

Speaker 5 (55:44):
Well, that would be I wonder whether you know the
person who's come to have a look at the work. If,
for example, your nearest stormwater connection is where you're existing
downpipe connects to storm water, then and the shortest routers
through your driveway, that might be the go because otherwise

(56:05):
it depends on where you know, where you've got an
existing storm water connection that might be going in a
completely different direction to your other downpipe, in which case
connecting the two via the shortest route is the best solution. However,
if for example, there's a stormwater connection close to your
downpipe which is not connected, then you could separate your

(56:28):
feeds and take one into one connection and one to
another one. But again that's you know, that comes down
to the experience of the contractor that you're engaging, and
they should be able to make a plan going well,
this is the best plan and for these reasons, and
you should be happy with that, you know, once they've
explained it to you, if you're happy with it, go
for it.

Speaker 15 (56:48):
Awesome, Thank you.

Speaker 5 (56:49):
Nice to talk with you, and good luck with that.
All the best Gooba then, And look, I think there
is increasingly a responsibility on us as homeowners to ensure
that you know, we are controlling. There's a requirement in
the Property Act anyway, that you can't have uncontrolled stormwater
discharge from your own property, So you know, and probably

(57:09):
I think when we got our place years ago, there
was no stormwater right the downpipes either went onto the well.
They did they literally went onto the ground. So some
years ago we formalized all of that, bought all of
the storm water together, and created a new connection out
to the public stormwater line further out in the street.

(57:30):
But prior to that, now I don't think it was
ever a nuisance because we happen to be in an
area where it drains quite well. But the principle is there,
you need to all of us as homeowners, if we
are homeowners property owners, need to control stormwater from our
own property. It shouldn't become I'm just going to push
it out to the street and let it become somebody
else's problem. Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the

(57:51):
number called twenty two minutes after seven.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
Turning those into She'd be right the resident builder with
Peter Wolfcamp and Independent Building Supplies a future of kei
we building today call eight hundred and eighty ten eighty
news talks.

Speaker 5 (58:06):
There be Independent Building Supplies have been helping Kiwis better
build for over thirty years. There are family owned New
Zealand business and they really know their stuff. From plywood
to fiber cement to orientated strandboard. They supply the products
that you'll find on building sites right across the country
every single day. Quality materials sourced from some of the

(58:29):
world's leading manufacturers. They created the smart systems like rigid
rap and rigid rap XT, a rigid air barrier system
that handles both bracing and air barrier performance in one go.
That means less fuss, less time on site, better outcomes
for compliant, more sustainable builds. Whether it's a family home

(58:49):
or a large commercial project. Independent Building Supplies works closely
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making the whole build process simpler and more efficient. Because
at the end of the day, New Zealand deserves stronger, warmer,

(59:10):
better buildings. Independent building supplies the future of key We
Building Today News Talk zby. So we've got Ja on standby.
Still time for you to flick through. A quick text
for Jabe. Just a mystery that we need to solve first, Brian,
A very good morning to you, Mornie. How are you
very well? Mystery pipe in the ground.

Speaker 6 (59:31):
Yeah, so just about sort of ten feet off our house.
I was thinking in a new orange tree, a lovely
heritage lemon tree, fell over and found a gray, gray,
one hundred mild pipe. So I did a bit of
Google and sort of maybe assumption that it was a
storm water train, but it was quite and when I

(59:52):
dug down to the put the tree in, that was
very you know, it's very sloppy that you know, obviously
we've got some sort of leak in that pipe, but
where it would be I have no idea. So what
you know, like do I just I mean we're talking,
you know, you're talking about stormwater consibility. I mean it

(01:00:13):
is in our property, so I mean sort of other
than working from that point forward and and and and
digging it out and trying to ascertain where the of
the water. Yeah, you know, open open the suggestions.

Speaker 5 (01:00:29):
Okay, if it's gray PVC, then yes, you're probably right.
It's either storm water or wastewater, so they're not necessarily
different colored pipes. But if it's one hundred milli PVC,
it's in the ground, it'll be one of those two things.

Speaker 6 (01:00:43):
Can can I can I? Can I drop something under here?
So we're we're a street front house and there's there's
no toilet with the neighbors or with ourselves that I
would think would line up with the direction the pipe
is lying. No, so that what that what? That's what
makes me think it's possibly more stormwater than the.

Speaker 5 (01:01:06):
That's cool. So what you can do is if you
go to a plumber's merchant, drain layer's place and ask
for some dye, and then where you've got a stormwater
connection at the house, just pour the dye into. If
there's like where you down pipe comes down, it's an
eighty mil down pipe into one hundred mil fitting, let's
say you can pour some dye down there, and then

(01:01:26):
before you put your new lemon tree in, if you
leave that hole open and just see whether the dye
is in the water that you see it that at
that point then you'll know that maybe there's a leak
in the pipe and it's it's coming out there. The
other thing, that's because there's moisture around in that pipe.
What often happens is that drains. You know, when you

(01:01:48):
dig a trench, you put in a bit of fine
metal and then you bed you pipe into that, put
a little bit more over the top to cover it,
and then you backfill. But that effectively acts like a
field drain. Right, So the fact that there's water in
there might just be that groundwater is tracking along there
in which it's not a leak, it's just where the

(01:02:08):
ground is saturated.

Speaker 4 (01:02:10):
Yeah, the other and I wonder.

Speaker 6 (01:02:11):
If that's the case, because it was actually orange tree.
I've already planted it. I went I went out, I
went out three feet from their pipe and and and
the thing and there it was. It was it was
tough airs that you know, it was clay and yeah,
sure and solid solid dirty whatever whatever it is. It's minimal.

Speaker 7 (01:02:29):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:02:30):
It might just be that the trench is acting as
a field drain effectively, and that's not uncommon. But if
if if you are at all concerned, the other option
is to get in some of the c c t
V teams that will be able to find the manhole
in the street, or maybe they'll disconnect the down pipe,
poke the camera through, just run it through and just

(01:02:52):
check the condition of your drains.

Speaker 6 (01:02:55):
Okay, it's okay, yeah, to be fair.

Speaker 5 (01:02:58):
But anyway, yeah, I.

Speaker 6 (01:03:00):
Think I'll just read the three REREADI that hole and
drop a bit of die.

Speaker 4 (01:03:03):
In it and absolutely see what happens.

Speaker 6 (01:03:06):
It's it's only it's only twelve inches down forty inches down,
so that it's not a big dig.

Speaker 5 (01:03:10):
You open it up and tip the dye and further
up right, so you know, tip it in there. And
I tell you what, I've done that once when someone
said no, no, no, it's not my pipe that's leaking,
and about an hour later the backyard was was bright green.
I'm like, that's your pipe that's leaking, mate. So it's
pretty cool. All the best you, Brian, have a great day,

(01:03:31):
take care your news, talk seed be and Jay our
painting expert, very patiently. I just wanted to I wanted
to solve that mystery, Jay, but I've done that and
now a very good morning Jay from razille are you.

Speaker 13 (01:03:43):
I'm all good, mate? All good?

Speaker 5 (01:03:44):
How are you I'm very well, excellent, batten down the hatches.

Speaker 13 (01:03:50):
Yeah, where I am. It just seemed to be much
about nothing in the end, right, thankfully, thankfully. Yes, obviously
I've only been on my property, so I don't know
what it's like everywhere else, but here seems okay, I.

Speaker 5 (01:04:04):
Guess this must be the Oh no, no, this isn't
necessarily related to painting. We'll get onto painting in a second.
But you can understand the challenge. Let's say, for the
meteorological people to go. You know, there is this thing,
we know it's up there, and where will it go?
And at one stage it looked like it was going
to track sort of through Auckland and then particularly through

(01:04:24):
the Corimandal. Now it's moved further to the east, so
you and I might be able to go, oh, thank goodness,
we've dodged a bullet there. But if you happen to
be without power and tower wrong, you're probably not feeling
that great about it either.

Speaker 13 (01:04:37):
So yeah, and like I say, it's giving everyone the
heads up, get prepared, get ready, and nothing happens, then
at least you're ready for it, just in case, well
than the other way around us.

Speaker 5 (01:04:48):
Hey, Now, just in terms of painting. This is just
a bit of a It was one of those light
bulb moments for me because you know, we've talked about
painting and the importance of a good coating of paint
to the exterior of your building in terms of protecting
your investment. Right, So almost all of our bild have
some sort of paint system on the outside, whether it's

(01:05:09):
over fiber cement sheet, whether it's over timber weather boards,
whether it's over stucco and renders and so on. And
you hear the manufacturers of all of those different products
and systems going you need to maintain your paint coating,
and I wonder whether there's a complacency that grows about yeah, okay,

(01:05:30):
well whatever sort of thing. And then I was at
a seminar the other day around moisture, and it was
a guy from Brands, a scientist at Brands who they've
done testing of what happens when you don't have a
good paint coating on the exterior. And it was fascinating

(01:05:50):
to see the impact of like a poor paint coating
on a weatherboard as opposed to a good condition. And
it was like radically different in terms of the moisture
content and the durability and so on, and like's that's science, right,
is Actually paint's really really important on the outside of
a building.

Speaker 13 (01:06:11):
One hundred per It sounds like it would have been
interest in seminar to go to.

Speaker 5 (01:06:14):
It was really really good, actually, and you know the
data will be there through the brand's website. I'm sure
I can find it for you. But I suppose it
was one of those things we kind of we know
that it's important to maintain the paint on the exterior building.
But he's the proof, right, this is what happens when
you don't. Here's the numbers.

Speaker 9 (01:06:35):
It was.

Speaker 5 (01:06:35):
It was fascinating.

Speaker 13 (01:06:37):
I just have to imagine it was let's say, just
the whole maintenancing as well. Like people are will evan
not clean their car, even if you just said once
a month, but people don't clean their house or clean
their roof once a year. In all that sort of
surface contaminants build up, which break down the coatings and

(01:06:58):
then you get moisture and grass and just simply getting
out and giving your house a soft wash, even if
it's one side at a time. I live in a
single story property, so that it's really easy for me,
sure that compared to some people, but just plan for
it and work with it. Like everything's going to last

(01:07:18):
that much longer and be that much more protected if
you maintain it.

Speaker 4 (01:07:23):
Which.

Speaker 5 (01:07:25):
You know, if you're looking at Auckland for example, and
most of the main centers, the majority building consents are
for attached dwellings at townhouses and the like, and a
number of those are going to be two, if not
three stories high. So that's something that if you were
to buy a three story building, you should be looking

(01:07:48):
at that cladding around those top levels and go, is
that something that I can readily maintain? You know, like
you say, single story building, you and me both access
most of it standing on the ground with a long
brush or something like that. There's no way in the
world that I'm reaching up to the third story to
clean my cladding.

Speaker 13 (01:08:06):
So that's like these issues, right, I've got to think
about it. It's still going to be an issue. There's
plenty of houses in that sort of building scope to
three stories that all have timber features that get stained
and then maintaining that you need to restain every two

(01:08:26):
or three summers. So if you buy a house that
sort of feature, think about it because you are going
to have to maintain it, and like I say, cleaning
is kind of a no brainer. You need to do it,
so sort of start thinking about it. Even if it
is just a yearly clean. You can say it gets

(01:08:47):
a bit of a wash with the rain, but not entirely.
You need to give it a soft wash to agitate
the surface with a brush, soft bristle brush and some
like we'd say zee paint paper and the house wash
just to remove that kind of chalky nurse and surface
contamina and the glossier the surface, the easier it is

(01:09:10):
to maintain as well.

Speaker 5 (01:09:12):
Right, So that's something around the which type of exterior
paint you choose. If you have something with a slightly
higher gloss level, it will have, for want of a
better term, a harder surface, and the.

Speaker 13 (01:09:27):
Gloss here and shinier is things are going to find
it harder to stick to it. Right, So even dirts
and pollends and salts, Yes, it's just going to be
easier to wash off compared to a flat or dull surface.
So okay, yeah, a surface that hasn't been repainted or
restained recently.

Speaker 5 (01:09:46):
Yes, excellent. Hey, now we've got a couple of tics
that are starting to come through some certain questions for you,
and we'll get to those in a moment. We'll just
take a short break and then we beck with j
our painting expert from Razine. Just hold the line there.

Speaker 4 (01:09:59):
Jake back in a moment helping you finish that fibe.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
But it fixed you started the resident builder with Peter
Wilf Gap Independent Building Supplies the future of Kiwi Building
Today Call eight.

Speaker 4 (01:10:12):
Youth Talks.

Speaker 5 (01:10:13):
There be Radio Jay from Razine is with us. Thanks
for sticking around hand. There we go, got you back
Hate Jay with this from Mike with regards to We
started talking a little bit about monolithic cladding at the
beginning of the show. What's the best covering to use
for this type of cladding? And then they did say

(01:10:33):
is there a company you can recommend? We'll leave that aside,
but can you do it yourself? So for most houses
that might have what we generally refer to as as
monolithic cladding, whether that's spray coating over fiber cement or
a genuine render or some of the modern renders and
so on, like the Integra and so on, would what's

(01:10:56):
the best coating? Yellow Jay, who's Jay Goon hang on,
good a jay you there?

Speaker 8 (01:11:12):
Ya gotcha?

Speaker 11 (01:11:13):
Now?

Speaker 13 (01:11:14):
Okay, So I would recommend you've got razine aquashield YEP,
which is a flat mineral effect finish with kind of
self cleaning coptics, razine X two hundred, which is a
weather type membrane. Yes, it's got a bit more of
a gloss to it. So it really depends on the
sort of look you're going for on the building. But

(01:11:36):
either of those two would be top of the list
to go on to new or repaint none as a cladhouse.

Speaker 5 (01:11:43):
Okay, that's awesome. Now someone is describing a situation where Pete,
my partner, recently prepped her house in Auckland to paint
as some of it had faded and correct. After eight years, however,
large areas became coming started to come off and it
seems like the product that she was recommended to use

(01:12:05):
was not the right product. So in terms of removing
the incorrect product and redoing it, what's the process there?
That sounds incredibly frustrating?

Speaker 13 (01:12:16):
Yeah, is it just the new product that's come off
or is it one of the underlying coating.

Speaker 5 (01:12:25):
No, it seems to be the new product has not
adhered to the old coating the old one.

Speaker 13 (01:12:31):
I mean that could be an incompatibility of systems. It
happens a bit with stains, with some stains aren't compatible
with other stains. It can also happen a bit if
with the conditions we keep having were one minute it's
really hot, next minute it's really wet or really humid.

(01:12:54):
You can if the paint goes on too thin, you
can end up with bubbles and blisters from getting caught
with the humidity, which can cause the paint to sort
of come off and not adhere to the underlying surfaces.
It can be a matter of kind of not cleaning properly,
or you think you've just water blasted, but you haven't

(01:13:15):
actually removed the surface sort of contaminants, and you really
need to clean down agitate the surface with a cleaner
like paint prep and housewa wash to really remove everything.
Otherwise the new coding can't stick. So whether it is
the wrong coding that's been used, or whether the prep
wasn't the best prep, or whether it's an incompatibility of

(01:13:36):
the two products, but to remove the coding that's on there,
we've got sort of a seed sky gel stripper that
you could put on which will help remove everything. You
could sand though I'm not sure what the surface is
if it's moved surface and sounding is a good way

(01:13:56):
of removing everything. If it's textured, a stripper might be better,
and then washing off right and then maybe go into
it's pretty open question, but maybe go into a local
razine color shop or ask an expert on our website. Yes,
so you can take some pictures in or upload some
pictures and we might be able to give you a

(01:14:17):
better system moving forward.

Speaker 5 (01:14:19):
Right in a quick one to wrap up best paint
for a poorly ventilated bathroom, so I would say do
some ventilation. But in terms of painting a bathroom where
you know these moisture issues, what would you use.

Speaker 13 (01:14:33):
As a top coat. We've got room velvet, which is
there's a hybrid version and solvent born version, yes, which
is just better for areas that are poorly ventilated, and
the primal would be razine shore seal. But I'm kind
of with you. Better ventilation is going to go a
long way to help in that situation.

Speaker 5 (01:14:53):
Yes, so do the two things to combine. But you know,
if you're aware that these particular issues, then and that
velvet I used in little bathroom where I had some
issues as well, and it's actually lasted really really well. Yeah,
brilliant as always. Go and see the team at your
Razine Color shop. Get the good advice and Jay, thank
you for joining us this morning. Stay drive, take care,

(01:15:16):
all the.

Speaker 17 (01:15:16):
Best, Take care your news talks there'd b it is
seven forty six vexing what they forgot to mention on
that YouTube video The resident builder with Peter Wolfcamp and
Independent Building Supplies the future of Kiwi Building today call
oh eight.

Speaker 4 (01:15:33):
News TALKSB.

Speaker 5 (01:15:35):
Now, I had the opportunity the other day to visit
a mid build open home. This is a house that's
going to be a high performance house and halfway through
the build, the performance and some other suppliers invite people
to come and have a look at it, which is
kind of interesting for someone like me. So what really
caught my eye, and I shouldn't have been surprised, is

(01:15:55):
the joinery, not aluminium, not timber, but uPVC and the
homeowners were absolutely stoked. So I thought, let's get someone
who knows about this to me. So today Benji from
Ambience by Stark, it was your joinery that was there
and it looked awesome, but more importantly, it performed so well.

(01:16:16):
So we've seen it overseas. I've just been in Europe.
It's everywhere there. New Zealand. It feels like it's only
been here for a little while, last ten years or so.

Speaker 6 (01:16:24):
Why is that?

Speaker 18 (01:16:26):
Yeah, thanks Peter, it's an interesting one. I think it's
probably because we're a long way from the rest of
the world. But aluminium windows and doors have been the
standard here sure, for probably fifty years. But the uPVC
in the last ten years has made a real a
real made its presence very much known.

Speaker 5 (01:16:50):
So the key, I suppose it's something we've seen overseas.
It's here now, it's well established here now. And so
when I say, you know, better windows, people think it's
just numbers on a spec sheet. But if I say
a better window, what does it actually mean for the home?

Speaker 18 (01:17:06):
Yeah, it's comfort. Comfort is the word we always use.
And I think a lot of people think that a
new home will be comfortable. But then you say to them,
well is it ever too hot or too cold? And
they might say, oh, yeah, in summer it is, or
in winter it's too cold. A good window will give
you a consistent indoor temperature, no matter what's happening outside,

(01:17:27):
and we call that comfort and that's what the window does.

Speaker 5 (01:17:30):
Now, condensation is another real big challenge for Kiwi Holmes.
I think most of us have woken up. We've seen
it running down the inside of the window. How does
the right joinery make a difference there?

Speaker 18 (01:17:42):
Yeah, condensation happens when basically high humidity meets a bad window.
And of course it's a much bigger problem than that.
It causes mold growth and asthma as well. So a
good window will not get cold to the touch, and
so it reduces that likelihood of condensation. Now, other part
of it is the course of ventilation and trying to

(01:18:04):
get rid of some of the internal moisture. Sure, a
good window will dramatically reduce that condensation, obviously making your
home more healthy.

Speaker 5 (01:18:14):
And the other thing is, you know, every time I
have a conversation with someone and I go are U
PVC windows? They go yeah, and wait, last New Zealand,
hash uv. We're completely different than the rest of the world,
is it? What's the concern there?

Speaker 18 (01:18:27):
Yeah, it's a legacy issue and obviously we get that
all the time, but very much no longer an issue.
It was certainly one from the seventies and eighties when
parallel imported product that was designed for use in the
UK mostly came out here and failed. Yes, but you know,
we're fifty years more technology on from that point, and

(01:18:51):
the windows these days have a special formulation basically to
resist the UV and here and in Australia where it's
worse in Northern Australia and also South America do buy
all these places have been using the product for a
long time. And yeah, no durability concerns there now.

Speaker 5 (01:19:13):
Yeah. Now I've been out to the factory out and
Wary the ambience factory there, and I've seen the workmanship
first heart hand. It is really first class and there's
a lot of automation which is awesome.

Speaker 18 (01:19:25):
Yeah. Yeah, we've pretty much got a European window factory
right here in Worry in South Auckland. So it's got
European machines, European inputs and really European quality windows coming
out the back, all at you know, a reasonable price point,
making differences in Kiwi Holmes, which is really what we're
passionate about.

Speaker 5 (01:19:46):
Absolutely. Hey, really appreciate your time this morning, Benji. And
the website Folks is ambience dot co dot nz or
pop out to the showroom zeb your news talk zed B.
It is seven fifty four and we've got new sport
and weather. Of course top of the hour at eight
o'clock might be able to quick call before then. Now.

(01:20:07):
Funnily enough, Jay, who's very passionate as you can tell
about his painting, said, oh hey, when we're talking about
durability of paint coatings, and both he and I should
have mentioned it's like one of my bugbears is watching
people do exterior cladding and not priming the ends the cuts, right,

(01:20:28):
So anything any timber that you use on the exterior,
Obviously the timber itself needs to be treated, but you
need to end seal as well. Sometimes it's a manufacturer's requirement.
So any if you cut something to fit it, like
a scriber, for example. I'm sure it's in the guide,
the manufacturer's guides and all the rest of it, but

(01:20:49):
you know you buy the scriber, it's pre primed you
cut it. You've got all of those bear surfaces, all
of those need to be treated and primed, preferably even
a first coat before they're installed. Ends of weather boards,
ends of facings, anything like that any timber surface needs
to be sealed, and I must have. I watched people
building sometimes, you know packet fences that I know are

(01:21:12):
going to be painted, and they just put the whole
thing together and then they paint it later. I'm like, okay,
so that where you've got two pieces of wood unpainted,
you're going to trap moisture in there and you've got
no paint protecting it at all. So I've often looked
that slightly curiously. Anyway, Jade techs through that and I
said I'd mentioned that, so that's really good advice as well.

(01:21:33):
Now after the break, we do have Ralph Kessel from
Concrete New Zealand we're going to be talking about concrete.
We've got a couple of texts as well, some of
which i'll i'll ask Ralph about. He's quite open to
having a bit of a conversation around some of your
questions about concrete. And just before the break, just a
moment ago talking with Benji from Ambience by Stark that

(01:21:58):
around the uPVC, it's worth going and having a look
at the website. So if you just go Ambience dot
co dot NZ, have a look at some of the
information there around how they assemble the joinery, what the
performance is like. I said, I went to this midbuild
open home a couple of weeks ago and they achieved
some remarkable air tightness. This is like you know, independent testing,

(01:22:19):
how air tight is this building? And it effectively tests
the joinery as well, and it did extremely well. So
have a look at that ambience dot co dot NZET
Radio New Sport and weare the top of the are
at eight o'clock. Ralph Kessel from Concrete, New Zealand. The
red climb passed from eight forty five this morning here
at New Salk SEDB.

Speaker 1 (01:22:42):
Turning os into She'll be right the Resident Builder with
Peter Wolfcamp and Independent Building Supplies the future of Kiwi
building today Call eight hundred eight News Talks B.

Speaker 5 (01:22:56):
Well, welcome back to the program. My name's Pete wolf Camp,
the resident builder, and this is the Resident Builder on Sunday,
on a day where we've certainly been well parts of
the country batted at and if it hasn't arrived, it's
probably on its way to you. I was having a
quick look online a moment ago. There's certainly extensive power
outages around the Auckland region as well. There's still some

(01:23:18):
various advisories and a number of houses in the tol
Wrong area that are without power. Interesting enough, Kerry who's
on sorry, yes not Kerry Francesca after nine o'clock will
also be getting an update from the METS Service, so
stay tuned for that, rightio this morning on the program,

(01:23:40):
I mentioned earlier a couple of weeks months ago Ralph
Kessel from Concrete New Zealand joined us and it was
a great interview then, and it's a fairly big topic,
so I thought, well let's get Ralph back and it
despite great pleasure to welcome back to the program Ralph Kessel,
Good morning to you.

Speaker 16 (01:23:57):
Yeah, good minded Pete, thanks for having me again.

Speaker 5 (01:23:59):
It's a pleasure. Hey look just quickly concrete end z
What is it?

Speaker 11 (01:24:06):
What?

Speaker 5 (01:24:06):
What does that body represent?

Speaker 16 (01:24:09):
So we are the organ speaking for concrete, so we
ensure that concrete is used as the best possibilities for
on resaliness.

Speaker 9 (01:24:18):
So we.

Speaker 16 (01:24:20):
Also look after the education in parts of education for
ter free education institutes, universities, but also building officials, the
building force on the ground. So we have a lot
of courses for construction workers, for technicians, et cetera. So Basically,

(01:24:43):
we are the organ representing concrete all over all over
the place, if you want.

Speaker 5 (01:24:49):
So, right, So it's sort of like the manufacturers as
well as the users and ensuring that the standards are
maintained as well. So that's why you're in the training space.

Speaker 16 (01:24:59):
Yes, absolutely, standards as well. We have sector groups, the
masonry block sector groups, the cement group. We have Learned
Society where we combine the knowledge of practicing engineers and architects.
So we are definitely an all around tool for concrete
if you want so right.

Speaker 5 (01:25:21):
Excellent. Now, one of the things that I was quite
keen to talk about, and we've I've invited people to
send some texts and so we might do some general
Q and A with a whole random selection of texts
if we have time this morning. But one of the
things that I guess has been a debate for a
number of years is as we move as a sector,

(01:25:43):
the construction sector in general wants to move to a
lower carbon future, right, And one of the criticisms and
sometimes you talk to people who are really really passionate
about sustainability and protecting the environment and they look at
concrete and they go, it's just got too much embodied

(01:26:05):
carbon because of its manufacturer, and I'm not going to
use concrete because i want a sustainable building. That's probably
you've probably been bailed up at conferences and so on
where people want to challenge concrete. The other part of
that is that the way in which concrete is manufactured today,

(01:26:25):
with the various components, there are some changes there. So
when you see an ad that says this is a
low carbon concrete, what are they talking about.

Speaker 16 (01:26:37):
Well, what I have mentioned in the last interview that
we must look at replacing cement because cement is the culprit.
Cement eighty five percent emissions of the total of concrete.
And here we replace cement with substitutes such as fly
ash and volcanic ash which is a natural product, but

(01:27:03):
also slag which is a reminder from steap production. And
so the by products from industry would other guys otherwise
go to land field, but we chuck it into concrete
and reduce the emissions significantly. But what we also see
there has been further progress in reducing the emissions to
the benefit of all listeners. Structural concrete is always reinforced,

(01:27:26):
usually with steel bars. By stood concrete performs well under compression,
but poorly intentioned. So steel, on the other hand, performs
very well intension. So we combine those two materials and
so a structural concrete building always has steel reinforcement. And
until recently, the carbon footprint of steel was significant, about

(01:27:49):
four ton of carbon dioxide per ton of steel, when
concrete comes with just eighty two hundred kilogram of carbon
dioxide perton. But New Zealand Steel has now built a
new electric arc furnace. Not sure if you've burned through
the media, yeah, and that enables the production of low

(01:28:10):
carbon steel and as a result, the carbon footprint of
the rebar four concrete can be reduced from around four
ton to five hundred kilograms.

Speaker 5 (01:28:21):
So because numbers like that, you know, sometimes they tend
to we hear them and there it's in one ear
and out the other. But what you're saying there is
four tons, so four thousand kilos to five hundred Yeah, yeah, But.

Speaker 16 (01:28:36):
I think it's important to put this into perspective. So
in a typical concrete slab on grade, steel accounts for
only about let's say five percent of the volume, and
concrete is ninety five to ninety six. But nevertheless, under
previous production metals.

Speaker 6 (01:28:52):
With the old.

Speaker 16 (01:28:55):
Fog four ton, approximately two thirds of the embodied emissions
of reinforced concrete came from the steel and only one
third from the concrete itself. But by reducing steel emissions
by about eighty seven percent, the overall emissions of reinforced
concrete can be reduced by fifty to sixty percent. So

(01:29:19):
looking at a thirty MPa concrete, that will reduce the
emissions per cubic meter from around five hundred and fifty
kilogram to two hundred and fifty kilogram, and these values
are comparable to the em missions of timber theercubic meter.
If biogenic carbon is excluded right now should possibly explain
what biogenic carbon is. The biogenic carbon refers to carbon

(01:29:42):
temporarily stored in materials like timber. So there's a chemical
process that the carbon dioxide is taken up by the
timber by the cells in it, says, but this storage
is short term. Once the material decays or is burned,
the carbon is released back into the atmosphere. So we're
talking about the end of life of the building. Maybe

(01:30:05):
after twenty, after fifty, or after sixty years that carbon
will be released back into the atmosphere and concrete, by contrast,
is recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in
twenty twenty one can store carbon permanently two carbonations, so

(01:30:25):
the carbon dioxide reacts with calcium and oxygen to form
calcium carbonate, which is limestone, so which locks the carbon
into the material for the long term. This is not
that much, but it's better than nothing. And with this
combination of cement replacement, low carbon steel and natural carbonation,

(01:30:49):
we are definitely certain we get to carbon net carbon
zero by twenty fifty with so that's our vision. And
also coming back to your earlier question, what is completely Zealand,
we also have brought together all our concrete manufacturers to

(01:31:09):
sign up to this vision. And maybe one important thing
for what are what's concrete the Zealand And we have
also the Concrete New Zealand Planned Audit Scheme. So what
many people may not know is that the majority of
concrete New Zealand is independently checked through this Planned Audit Scheme.
So through us concrete reduced by our members is regularly

(01:31:34):
tested under the scheme, which gives the engineers the certainty
that the concrete is as specified. So otherwise you would
be exposed to a costly and time consuming audit for
concrete quality to each single project. So in simple terms,
the scheme gives you confidence that the concrete supplied will
perform as specified. At the moment, there are two hundred

(01:31:58):
plants nationwide signed up to this scheme. And yes, this
is also very important part we do as concret New
Zealand you check on them as we check the qualities.

Speaker 5 (01:32:10):
Which I think is actually you know, because often we
find that that companies with greatest respect will make claims right,
you know, this this product performs this way, or it's
of this standard, or it's it has this environmental you know,
qualification to it, and then you go, so prove it

(01:32:30):
and sometimes it's like, actually, we can't really prove it.
And what you're saying is in terms of you know,
because in the end, you know, concrete we often use.
This is just from a practical point of view. You know,
it's often the foundation of many buildings, right, so if
as a carpenter, I might take care of all of
the timber work above it, but I need to know

(01:32:51):
and my clients need to know that the concrete that
went into the foundations and the slab is going to
be is going to perform as we expect it to
in terms of strength and durability and so on.

Speaker 16 (01:33:02):
Yeah, you're absolutely right, so that that relates to quality,
but that also relates to the claims we we spread
in regards to carbon emissions, and so the carbon emission claims,
they are supported by EPDs, so called Environmental product declarations,

(01:33:24):
which are a third party, independent, third party checked statements
and data. So epeds not only cover carbon dioxide, but
they cover all kinds of gases because we have to
consider we have to see the environment holistically, so we

(01:33:46):
have to think of biodiversity. There are other gases which
are maybe not bad or not contributing to climate change,
but they would be bad for our respiratory rhydoons, you know. So,
and most of the gases are covered in EPDs. There
are several countries companies in the country who are able

(01:34:09):
to conduct these right and verified and you're absolutely right,
it has to be scientifically proven that or claims are
true and hold up to scrutinity.

Speaker 5 (01:34:25):
Absolutely, we're going to take a break in a moment,
but before we do, the thought that's in my mind
is also you know, A big part of sort of
sustainability is around controlling waste, and so I've got two
quick questions on that. One is, you know, let's say
you've ordered some concrete, you've done the drive, and then
you realize that you didn't quite need as much as

(01:34:46):
you needed, and so there's half a cubic meter or
so still left in the truck. What happens to that
when it goes back to the plant, Like, is any
of that able to be not reused, because obviously it's
it's going to go off, but the aggregate that's in
there and that sort of thing, what happens there is
that just waste or is it able to be reused
in some way?

Speaker 16 (01:35:07):
Well, in the past it has been wasted, but say
since the last six to seven years, and we have
measures to take the leftover concrete and they are basically
cars into forms, and the result is we have large,
maybe oversized blocks which can be reduced for coastal production,

(01:35:30):
but also for organizing a yard on a farm. We
just want to have your you know, storage sorted that
has been done. And because the architect or engineer or
build our contract or whatever need enough concrete on site,
they always order a little bit more, a little bit

(01:35:51):
of surplus to not run out of concrete suddenly. So
there's always a leftover and our plans have take the
necessary steps and yeah, all the leftovers will be cars
into forms back on the plant.

Speaker 5 (01:36:06):
Right Well, that's and actually it's a bigger question than
we've got time for right now. So take a short
break and I want to look at sort of end
of life, what we might be able to do with
concrete end of life. So Ralph Kessel from Concrete, New
Zealand is my guest this morning. It is eight point
twenty with News Talk SEB. We'll be back with Ralph after.

Speaker 1 (01:36:23):
The break, helping you finish that five and it fixed.
You started the resident builder with better Wolfcamp and independent
building supplies the future of Kiwi building today call oh
eight hundred eighty ten eighty News Talk SEDB.

Speaker 5 (01:36:38):
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(01:37:43):
with his time this morning, Rough Kessel from Concrete, New Zealand,
thanks again for joining us. I'll try and hit a
couple of texts in a minute. But the other thing
that I think has been an interesting change is in
a sense the recycling reuse of left either demolition, concrete
and so on. So are we seeing more providers being

(01:38:06):
able to accept demolition material. You know I've cut up
part of a driveway and I need to dispose of that.
Whereas it used to go just hard fill to landfill,
it's now being repurposed.

Speaker 16 (01:38:22):
Yes, there are definitely schemes in place and being in
Auckland Green Gorilla for example, is one or larger ones.
They take conc they take construction waste, and amongst that
there is concrete waste and as I mentioned in my
last interview that the bulk of it will be used
for hardfill, for back strainable backfill around properties, et cetera.

(01:38:47):
But were just ending with waste management before the break
and so the use of repurposed demolition waste and also
less of cards into blocks. It doesn't end there. So

(01:39:08):
we have to look at the production of concrete as well.
Where we have a lot of heat to generate for
the kill. That's actually where the emissions come from from
the kiln, from the process where we manufacture the cement.
So the one part of the emissions comes from a
chemical process within the kill when we separate the line

(01:39:29):
from the limestone to gain the cement, and the other
part is the fossil fuel coal which we use to
heat the kilns up to fourteen hundred degrees and here
we use now waste materials as well for heating the kilns.
The first one is waste timber and the second one
is actually old car tires. And I call you that

(01:39:53):
I think you may have heard about that the bulk
of old car tires in New Zealand is used by
the cement industry whether replace the coal as a fuel.
This scheme has also reduced illegal tire dumping around fifty percent.
And I should mention that our cimento industry has gas
cleaning filter systems in place to manage all emissions responsibly.

(01:40:16):
So there's a lot going on in achieving also not
just cavern zero by twenty fifty, but also to achieve
a fully operating circular economy within the concrete industry.

Speaker 5 (01:40:29):
Because sometimes people will ask, well, if I you know
there used to be a quarry near me that would
take you know, liftover concrete or waste concrete. You cut
up a driveway, put it on the trailer, dump it there.
They'd seen it through the crusher and turn it into
hard filt, which was great because there is a challenge
with the idea of crushing used concrete and reusing the

(01:40:53):
aggregate in new concrete isn't there.

Speaker 16 (01:40:57):
Yes, that can be done as well, but you have
to be careful once if you don't know the original
location or source of that regard, it may it may
be more difficult to understand the finer quality and maybe
even the compressive strength which we have to test anyway.
But so it's important that in all the source of

(01:41:17):
the aggregat. And it's also time consuming and ended it
consuming to get just really the pabblets and the agregots
away from some smentitious parts, So that's not ideas. So
what we see more and more is that the concrete
demolition waste is crushed and then used for for backfield

(01:41:40):
under rolling and around also for coastal protection partly. So
there are lots of things happening.

Speaker 5 (01:41:49):
And I guess what that does is that substitutes let's say,
virgin material, you know, from a quarry going directly from
a quarry to just being the base course that my
driveway sits on. I'm better off using crush concrete recycled
for that type of purpose.

Speaker 16 (01:42:06):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean the recycled material that's all very
professionally done. It will will be run through sieves so
we get our gap sizes, whatever pebble sizes they need
for the project, So you can choose really from the
shelves that various gap sizes for your projects from recycled material.

(01:42:29):
That's definitely happening. But the other thing which you may
find interesting, that we see new construction ways and not true.
If you heard about three D printing.

Speaker 5 (01:42:41):
Factory, I've seen one of them, absolutely, yes, so.

Speaker 16 (01:42:44):
And that's so three DE concrete printing is definitely becoming
more mainstream, at least in the US. What we see
there is that three D printed homes are now costly
neutral already or even cheaper than timber framed houses. They are.
They're also popular because they're withstand weather events, which is
becoming increasing important. As a reminder, you may just look

(01:43:06):
outside walk your window to awful. They are wind and
noise resistant too, which you really notice on lust three days.
And then as climate change brings more fire risks, these
concrete houses are naturally fire resistant. For comparison, one hundred

(01:43:27):
millimeters concrete world gives you around sixty minutes of fire resistance. Typically,
structure walls even thicker one hundred and fifty millimeter, which
gives you almost two hours, so that gives people a
good shelter and peace of mind and also combating climate change.
We shall use local materials, so concrete is a local material.

(01:43:47):
We don't have packaging. There are no large shipping distances,
right yeah. So, and the other thing which I find
at least in the US, that some people like to
have a distinctive home, and a three DEEP printed home
is definitely a very distinctive. So this is another reason
why three D printed houses pick up in the US.

(01:44:11):
So in New Zealand at the moment there are so
far only four projects, including two in Auckland too in Hamilton,
and one of them as a daycare center. So it
takes a better while until we get to that stage.
So the mix is always a little bit different, small viscouss,
it has less, a smaller aggregat to be fed into

(01:44:37):
the three D printer, et cetera. But I see that
definitely coming. And three D printing means less people on
the ground, but also it also means less injuries, less
health and safety risks, so it's just cleaner building site.
We will see this in the future. It's not quite

(01:44:57):
there where we have it in the US, and maybe
other European countries. That's definitely coming and we can.

Speaker 5 (01:45:05):
Do lost lucky enough to visit the Auckland one and
one of the ones in Hamilton, So it is real.
It's just that, you know, we've got the space to go. Hey,
is there space for innovation and is there more than
just one way to do everything?

Speaker 7 (01:45:20):
You know?

Speaker 5 (01:45:21):
And I think that's where it is really really exciting.
Excuse me, just before we go, I've got this text
from Darren. Hey, We've just purchased thirty of those leftover blocks,
nine hundred by nine hundred and nine hundred. They've got
a lifting hoc on them. We utilize them on the
Farmer's Flood Protection and Bank Stabilization said. We paid ten
bucks each for them, which makes them very cost effective

(01:45:42):
even after the freight. So there you go. That's a
classic example of what you're saying. You know, trucks returning
with some surplus concrete gets poured into forms that then
and I you know, goes out to farms and yards
and storage facilities and all sorts. So it is real.
I think it's I think it's really exciting when an

(01:46:02):
industry responds to the challenges and you know, in the
sense we all know for very good reasons. We've got
a concern around carbon and the carbon used in construction
and it's a huge part of the amount of carbon
that we use in New Zealand, right, so every part
of the construction sector needs to address it's the way
in which it deals with that, and obviously Concrete New

(01:46:24):
Zealand is part of that as well. Ralph. I think
we're going to get you back and have a bit
more of a chat than a couple of weeks or
a few months or so as well. But my thanks
to you for giving up mer time on a Sunday morning.
Really appreciate it this morning.

Speaker 13 (01:46:39):
Thank you very much. Be lovely to chat.

Speaker 5 (01:46:42):
Take care. Ralph Kessel from Concrete end Z.

Speaker 6 (01:46:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:46:48):
Yeah, I find the whole thing, you know, in terms
of how we have to respond to carbon, how we
have to respond to life cycle, how we deal with
the waste that our sector generates, which is appallingly large.
Let's not make any bones about that. Construction sect is
shockingly wasteful and we do all need to do a

(01:47:12):
hell of a lot better. Your news talk said b
it is eight point thirty four quick break and then
we've got a couple of calls and then we're having
a bit of a chat with through It about compost.

Speaker 4 (01:47:23):
Where DIY gets unstuck. Call oh eight eight.

Speaker 1 (01:47:29):
The Resident Builder with Peter Wolfcamp and Independent Building supplies
the future of Kiwi Building Today, News Talk sad B.

Speaker 4 (01:47:37):
For more from the Resident Builder with Peter Wolfcamp.

Speaker 1 (01:47:40):
Listen live to Newstalk st B on Sunday mornings from Sex,
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