Full Show Podcast: 14 September 2025

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Resident Builder podcast with Peter wolf
Camp from US talks ed by doing up the house,
sorning the garden, asked Pete for ahead. The Resident Builder
with Peter wolf Camp Call eight hundred eighty US talks edb.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
A house sizzle even when it's dark, even when the
grass is overgrown in the.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Yard, even when the dog is too old to bar,
and when you're sitting at the table trying not to.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Start ouse scissor hole, even when we again gone, even
when you're there alone, house sizzle hole, even when those goes,

(01:05):
even when you go to run from the ones you love, your.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Monds scream brolding, pans apeing in front of the locals, westball
when they're going to living never even when Wilban Heaven,
when you're there alone.

Speaker 4 (01:29):
Yeah, and a very.

Speaker 5 (01:38):
Very good morning to you. Welcome along to the Resident
Builder on Sunday with me Peter wolf Camp, the Resident Builder,
and we are here to talk all things building and construction.
And it is your opportunity to ask questions, to engage,
to have a good old fashioned debate if you wish
about the products, about the services, about the contractors, about
the rules, the regulations, about what you can do, the

(02:01):
scope of what you can do when you need to
employ contractors. Anything to do with bill in construction, we
can talk about it here on the show. Maintenance, new builds, renovations, extensions, sustainability,
we can look at that energy efficiency I've spent My
voice might be a little bit croaky today. The last
pretty much three days at the Home show and just

(02:24):
being there, being there with Bailey water Tanks and Stark
Ambience Joinery and Metro with their retro fit. So having
a chat with people at those different stands and having
a bit of a moot around, catching up with a
few people. It does feel for me these events a
little bit like a sort of school reunion. You know,
you're bumping into people that I know, you know we

(02:45):
did a project together ten years ago or fifteen years
ago or even longer in some cases, and then lots
of people coming up for a bit of a chat
to talk about projects and ideas. Delightful woman came along
talked to me about her mum who listens to the show.
So Raywn, if you are part of the show this
early on a very good morning, delighted to meet you.

(03:06):
Grant your daughter yesterday and very nice to know you're
still listening to the show and have done for a
number of years, so that's very kind. Radio. Now on
the show, we will take your calls obviously. Then we're
going to change gear at about seven thirty this morning.
Some at the beginning of the year, we reached out
to the Minister for Building and Construction MP Chris Pink

(03:31):
invited him to sort of come in and have a
chat about so much of the you know, changes that
are underway at the moment, and then a little while
ago I reached out again to say, well, look, some
of those changes have come into place, you've announced new changes.
Is there a chance for an update? And there is.
So Chris Pink will be joining me in the studio

(03:53):
from seven thirty this morning, so in the next hour,
and he's been very generous with his time. He'll stay
right through till Rude gets on at around eight thirty
this morning. Or the primary focus is going to be
on the proposed change from joint and several liability for

(04:14):
building defects to proportional liability. Mike Thornton, who's a very
experienced barrister and solicitor works a lot in this space,
was on the show with us last week kind of
explaining what is joined in several and what might proportional
liability look like, and you know, potentially where are some

(04:35):
of the gaps in the system as well, So we'll
be able to I'll put that to Minister Chris Penk
at seven thirty. But my intention, and I promised you
last time he was on the show that I'd kind
of let you guys have a crack as well, So
if you've got questions for the Minister, feel free to
flick them through. I chatted with a bunch of people,
as I said, over the last couple of days at

(04:56):
the Home show, and a number of them came up
and went, oh, look here, you've got the Minister on
the show. Can you ask him this question? All that questions,
I've noted those down. I'll try and get through a
couple of those, but I do want to open it
up to you via the text machine if you've got
a question that you would like to put to the
Minister for Building in Construction, Chris Pink. He'll be with

(05:17):
me with us from about seven thirty this morning, so
looking forward to that, which also means, folks, we don't
have that many much time for your call. So if
you've got a question, now is a very very good
time to call. Oh wait, one hundred and eighty ten
eighty is that number to call? It was interesting just
trying to gauge the mood at the show yesterday. Reasonable

(05:41):
numbers of people. Is pretty well attended, I think Waxes
and Waynes during the course of the day, but generally
pretty good. And then talking to people, you know, are
you prepared to sort of open the wallet? Are you
prepared to start spending? Are you thinking that maybe a
project that you've delayed for a little while you'll actually

(06:01):
press go and get underway. I don't know. It doesn't
feel like there's a great deal of urgency. You talk
to most of the exhibitors, let's say, and I'm talking
wide range, right, we're talking glazing, We're talking joinery, we're
talking water tanks, we're talking tools, we're talking fireplaces, we're

(06:23):
talking kitchens, all of these sorts of things, and it's
it's it's been good to be there. Whether or not
it generates the leads that they need to keep things
going be really interesting. But the great event, I really
enjoyed it. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty. What's on
your mind? What would you like to talk about? Questions
around building maintenance, additions, new builds, rules and regulations. Actually

(06:45):
the other thing that I you know, you kind of
pick up on themes when you go to these events,
and I would have spent I don't know, I would
have chatted to people for the better part of twenty
odd hours over the last couple of days. And the
basically energy loans. A number of banks are starting to

(07:05):
offer loans at one percent, let's say, for three years,
up to about eighty thousand dollars. If you go to
them and say, for example, I want to convert to
solar or I want to retro fit and install double glazing.
It's a good idea, and you know, here's the estimate.
Well here's the quote from the good people at retro DG.

(07:27):
You put that in the bank, looks at that, assesses it,
does all the other bits and pieces of the paperwork,
and forwards you that money and we'll loan that to you,
for example, at one percent or thereabouts. And a number
of people taking advantage of that and popped up on
the show a couple of weeks ago where people were
starting to talk about it. But it was interesting how
quickly that seems to have captured people's attention for very

(07:49):
good reason, and the number of people who are making
use of that facility, and the number of banks and
the sort of increasing number of banks that seem to
be offering that as well. So interesting. It's kind of
like a taking the pulse be interesting too. I'm in
Nelson on Saturday, so I'm down at Nelson at the
Nelson Home Garden Show, which will run from Friday through

(08:10):
Sunday in Nelson, and be interesting to take the sort
of pulse down there as well. Right, let's get into it.
Eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call.
It is fourteen minutes after six.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Whether you're painting the ceiling, fixing the fens, or wondering
how to fix that hole in the wall. Give Peter
Wolfgaffer call on eight hundred eighty ten eighty, the resident
builder on NEWSTALKSB.

Speaker 5 (08:33):
Indeed News TALKSB open line on all things building in
construction eight hundred eighty ten eighty text of course nine
to nine two And if you'd like to see me
an email, It's Pete at Newstalk SB dot co. Dot nz.
So Pete at Newstalk sb dot co dot nz. I'm
starting to get a couple of texts. I mean, this

(08:55):
is probably one that I can answer now, Hey, Pete,
where an internal leak occurs from the bath above onto
the lounge dining area below. Who is liable for damage
to furniture and fittings like the carpet below? He's asked
the minister it's kind of not really his wheelhouse, to
be blunt. This was a brand new unit in a
Then they tell me the brand of the group home
builder that we discussed earlier. We were told to claim insurance.

(09:18):
My question is why should we thank you from Gerrard
thanks for your text. I mean, if it's obviously I
assume that this is your integrated building, so the bathroom
above is your bathroom, it's dropped down into your lounge.
And if it's not terribly old so within ten years,
I would have expected that you'd go back to the

(09:40):
builders in the first place to go, Hey, you know,
there's obviously a defect with your work. If I've got
a leak that's not due to old age or anything else,
in which case, yeah, I probably wouldn't go to the insurer.
Either I'd go back to the main contractor in the
first instance and then go on to your insurance thereafter,

(10:03):
or you could go to insurance in the hope that
they then go after the main contractor, which is kind
of how it works overseas, interestingly enough, So we'll talk
about that with the minister. Thank you very much for
your text. Happy to take your text. We'll stack them
up and if when the ministers hear it seven thirty,
we will address as many of those as we possibly can.
Oh eight, one hundred and eighty ten eighty is the

(10:25):
name to is the number to call. And very good
morning to you.

Speaker 6 (10:29):
Ross, Yeah, good morning.

Speaker 7 (10:31):
How are you this morning?

Speaker 5 (10:32):
Very well? Thank you?

Speaker 7 (10:34):
Oh good Just to paint your little pictures. I your
producer said that you had the celiloquy very nice. It
was too. I've got a stucco house, yes, lovly stucco
planning with parapet russ gorgeous and well yes, and anyway,
it's got old wooden windows and they've been cemented and

(10:57):
the stuccos actually folded around them. Now we want to
add a couple of doors, open place up a little bit,
shift the window ship the barth room ship the kitchen
for that matter, and effectively redo the whole thing. So
we're moving into the territory of cutting and replacing some stucco.

(11:17):
So anyway, our local council's pretty dark on the stuff.
They view it as the water risk is quite high,
so they like it cut well back and selled right
around the windows and things like that. So what I've
been doing to a designer, and what they're basically saying is,
you know, since you're going to be doing all the
windows in the place, you know, refit double glazes. By

(11:41):
the time you've finished, you've basically going to have you
spend a fortune on refitting windows in the stucco because
of the way it is. And their advice to me is, basically,
I would simplify the whole thing and remove the stucco,
and then the second thing because we've got to parapet roof.

(12:02):
It's kind of like, well, that's not exactly a favorite
of theirs either due to weather type us. So perhaps
look at putting a gable roof or a hip roof
or something like that on top. And you know, therefore
we actually wander the small deck on the side you're
on a roof over that that way, you can sort
of combine that and at the same time, and you know,

(12:24):
so the young you know, there's sort of can of
worm where it's the old old houses are like a sponge,
you know, sort of the more you keep putting into them,
the more they'll keep taking.

Speaker 5 (12:35):
I'm going to write that down because that's such a
an insightful way of describing old houses, to be fair.

Speaker 7 (12:43):
Yeah, yeah, we're.

Speaker 5 (12:48):
Can I just just before we go into the details,
So when you describe a stucco house, because sometimes you know,
that's a rather elastic phrase. So if you're talking about
an older house circle nineteen thirties, so it's genuine stucco
and it's in that sort of art deco, I could
imagine the stucco with a slightly sort of rough cast

(13:10):
finished timber joinery. It'll have like a parapet on three sides,
and then beyond the parapet a big long mono pitch
roof that will extend to the back of the house.

Speaker 8 (13:20):
You got it, Okay, all.

Speaker 5 (13:22):
Right, okay, So I mean once you started describing what
you were going to do, changing windows, adding some changing
some other outlets and so on, I must have my
mind started to go to look, by the time you
do so many alterations to so many elements of the building,

(13:44):
you know, would you be better off just removing the
stucco completely? And then you've got a couple of options.
It's not terribly uncommon to see buildings of that vintage
in weatherboard, so that was a style. So you could
look at doing simply removing all of the existing stucco
right back to the bare frames. Then you could build

(14:04):
it up with you know, a building rad cavity batten
and weather board cladding. Or you could go and do
like a new rock coat or razin construction system which
will give you that rendered appearance again over the top
of it, and you could use some pr board to
get added insulation. And then you know, that system in

(14:28):
particular comes with a suite of flashings that will allow
you to tidy up around all of the windows. It's
known to counsel. So you put that on your specification.
Go look, what I'm going to do is I'm actually
going to strip all of the cladding off and I'm
going to redo it in a modern render and get
all of the benefits of flashings and insulation if you
want it, and certainly I would imagine, and this is

(14:53):
coming from I guess my perspective as a carpenter doing
work on old houses is there is that element where
it is tremendously time consuming, right, So you know, I'm
thinking about some who might be tasked with cutting the
stucco neatly around a window, removing the window, installing a
new window, trying to tie your patch into the existing one,

(15:17):
because in the end, when you cut the stucco, you've
got a cold join, right, so how are you going
to bond those two surfaces together. Tidying up around the
windows kind of easy because it's all new, but bonding
it to the existing stucco would be quite a challenge.
And then you know, you'll have parts of the stucco,
which if it's traditional stucco, it'll probably be timber framing,

(15:39):
maybe some building paper, some bottle caps with some chicken
wire attached to it, and the render the mortar mix
throw on it that and built up over two or
three layers. That's typically how they would have built then.
In fact, it's I remember doing a job when I
first started, which wasn't in the nineteen thirties. I hastened
to add and we used exactly that methodology, right, So yeah,

(16:07):
but I'm sort of jumping a couple of steps ahead
to and thinking what you do open yourself up to is, uh, well,
one thing is you don't want to submit it to
counsel as a reclad in terms of durability. Right, it's
not an issue of durability because the house is not

(16:29):
basically a lika. It's just you're changing the style or
the appearance or whatever. What might happen though, is if
you do opt to take all of the cladding off, Like,
how confident are you that the framing is in good kushion?

Speaker 7 (16:45):
Oh, I've already looked about the interior. Okay, it's really good, plotting,
roma flows, it's pretty good. The black building papers there,
it's okay, there's a couple of spots where basically a
little bit of rot in the corner where the black
building paper has let go.

Speaker 5 (17:01):
Yeah, but again, if you're taking the clouding, if you're
taking the stucco off, you know, it's a chance to
upgrade the building paper. You could add insulation or have
you done that from the inside.

Speaker 6 (17:14):
Well, well, not yet.

Speaker 7 (17:15):
There's been a couple of renovations done. This roof installation
and the bathroom catching them and done the past and
they're insulated.

Speaker 6 (17:21):
But there's the house know nothing in terms of the roof,
is it highlight roof?

Speaker 7 (17:29):
Single?

Speaker 5 (17:29):
You know at maybe three degrees or something like that,
like it won't Yeah, okay, So again, have you had
leaks from the roof?

Speaker 7 (17:39):
No, it's fine, okay.

Speaker 5 (17:41):
Will you replace the roof as part of this process?

Speaker 6 (17:44):
Well, that was what.

Speaker 7 (17:45):
We're talking about is some effectively you go around, you
cut the stack off, and then you effectively cut off
the parapet and go to a normal sort of gable
roof where you've got eaves hanging over the over the edge.
So we change the style of the house there together
and that that will give you douse you want to

(18:06):
dick on one side? You know, going back to a parapet.
It's kind of hard work, you know, it's sort of
for yeah.

Speaker 5 (18:13):
Well yeah, I mean, I mean, look, I understand the
risks and the concern around parapets, but I think one
of the things where we had leaks where what we
ended up with is often cladding that came up and
over the parapet and down the other side, right, so
it didn't have a capping it didn't have a flashing
on the top, and that was always going to be
a problem. Right, So in this instance, you're going to

(18:35):
have your roofing iron, You'll have a nice big apron
flashing that comes up. You're going to do your cladding.
You're going to have a nice big capping over the
top of it. That's going to have some fall on it.
It's not going to sit flat. You're not going to
nail through the top of it. You're going to do
fixing through the side. You know, from that point of view,
in terms of weather tightness, you can do a parapet
that won't leak, right, and you'll be able to do that.

(18:57):
I suppose where eves are an advantage is they shelter
the vertical face of the cladding. Right, So if you
have an eve and you've got that's just coming straight down,
you tend not to have that much rain on your cladding,
which if you don't have an e and obviously you'll
get that, but you know it will change the appear.
I suppose. The other thing then, is how much of

(19:19):
the classic appearance of the house do you want to
keep or are you happy to sort of make fairly
significant changes that mean that the house is unrecognizable kind
of from where you are now.

Speaker 7 (19:33):
Well, the house was built in the early forties, then
it's been you know, it's it's had bits of work
done through years. Yeah, a door added, some you know,
door moved and window added, that other thing that sort
of back in the days.

Speaker 5 (19:48):
Oh, Ross, I'd lost Ross. Ah, we'll see what.

Speaker 9 (19:58):
What we can do.

Speaker 5 (19:58):
We might be able to get them back somehow. Right,
either way, we'll have to continue on. I think slightly
tongue in cheek from Simon Pete. I have a simple,
cheap and fast solution for the guy wanting to alter
his stucco house so significantly, sell it and buy the
house you actually want. Yeah, but look for a thousand

(20:21):
different reasons. People want to stay where they are, or
they love the house that they are. It's got history
and heritage and meaning to them. But I can see
this becoming a reasonably large project. Obviously great call. It
in exactly the same situation with the stucco house from
the nineteen forties with a parapet roof. Some of the
stucco is cracking. It is worth repairing or recladding. I

(20:43):
have heard that the new plaster cladding doesn't last as long. Well,
we don't know that because if you put it on today,
you've got to wait seventy odd years to be able
to make that judgment, and I think some of it
will be around seventy years time to be fair. So
in terms of the hairline cracking for that text, yeah,
you can do repairs. You can definitely do targeted repairs.

(21:04):
I think where Ross was heading is that by the
time if every single window is coming out and a
few other alterations are being done, you spend an awful
lot of time doing the make good the repair plants.
Whereas you know, if you can imagine bear framing, new
joinery installed and then the people coming to do the

(21:27):
work come and they're fixing the new vapor barrier, they
might be doing cavity, they'll fix their new cladding. They've
got a suite of flashings that go around the joinery
that integrate with it. You know, the same number of hours,
well probably even less hours will be spent on a
new cladding than you will repairing old cladding. And that's

(21:48):
me kind of talking from a point of view where
I've spent you know, hours and hours and hours doing
repairs that you go. Maybe it would have been just
quicker to rip it all out and start again. Oh
eight hundred and eighty ten eighty. We'll take a break.
We'll come back with your calls. Remember, Minister for Building
Construction Chris Pink will be joining me in the studio

(22:09):
in about nour's time. So if you've got a question
for the Minister, text it through nine to nine two.
If you want to do something slightly longer, then feel
free to email me. It's Pete at NEWSTALKSB dot co
dot nz. It is six thirty one here News Talks
eb Squeaky door or Squeaky floor.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Get the right advice from Peter Wolfcare, the resident builder
on NEWSTALKSB.

Speaker 5 (22:33):
Taking your calls about all things building in construction. Oh
eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is that number to call.
We've got rossback so we can wrap this one up. Ross,
thanks for coming back to us.

Speaker 7 (22:43):
Oh sorry, that's fine.

Speaker 5 (22:44):
You at the stage like we're you know, it's a
bit of a seesaw thing. Do the repairs or do
the the remedia work, leaving the bulk of the stucco
on or kind of bite the bullet and strip it off.
How how do you think you'll make your decision?

Speaker 7 (23:04):
Well, basically, I was just sort of getting a guideline
from you on you know, once you go so far
with stucco, and from what you said, you know, spend
a day literally during one window, you pretty much as
you said, for the time that involved, you would have
been quicker to strip it off. That's in that sentence
you sum it up for me.

Speaker 5 (23:23):
I mean, look, you'd want to do a bit of
a cost analysis of that as well, so you know,
I if it was me, i'd probably reach out to
a local razine contractor, so a razine construction guy. They'll
be just even if you go through the Rasine construction,
They'll give you names of contractors in your area. Maybe
get two of them to come out have a walk around.

(23:43):
Because you're not extending the house tremendously the footprint, so
you can literally measure what's there and go even if
you have some laborers strip it off and then go okay,
when you arrive on site, new joiner will be in,
cladding will be removed, existing stucco will be gone. I
want you to take it basically from frames through to

(24:05):
finished and and get a price. I suppose What will
be really hard is to get a contractor to give
you a price for the alternative, which is leaving some
of the the bulk of the stucco in, but then
you know, doing the tidy up around the windows, because
those sorts of jobs almost no one will price for it.
Pretty much. Everyone will be looking at well, it'll be

(24:26):
an hourly rate and it'll take as long as it
takes sort of thing, which is, you know, if you're
the contractor, that's not an unfair stance to take because
you just don't know whereas if it's clean and ready
to go, you can go, Okay, here's my square meter rate,
or I think it'll be this amount of time, a
little bit of scaffolding. We're into it, so you know,

(24:47):
do a bit of a cost analysis.

Speaker 7 (24:50):
Yeah, and I had I spoke to Mason, the guy,
and he's actually been up for a look, and he said,
you know about overall cost benefit. He said, yeah, probably
do it, And you know, it's just I'm sort of
getting this picture, but you know, of course you're looking
at he re estimated probably it's going to an excessive
We'll probably fifteen tons of concrete on the outside.

Speaker 6 (25:10):
So you think okayh yeah, you got to get rid
of that too.

Speaker 5 (25:13):
Eh.

Speaker 10 (25:15):
Oh.

Speaker 5 (25:15):
We're really struggling with the phone line, but I think
we got there in the end. Hey, Ross, thank you
very much for your call. Really good to talk with
you today, and I hope it all works out in
the in the project eight hundred eighty ten eighty, we've
got a couple of spear lines for you right now.
Remember minister coming in at around seven thirty. But the
plan is that we talk with you before then, So

(25:36):
now is a great time to call eight hundred eighty
ten eighty.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
Helping you get those DIY projects done right. The resident
builder with peta Wolfcat call, Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty.

Speaker 6 (25:47):
You've talk ZB.

Speaker 5 (25:49):
Yeah and news talk c B. We are talking all
things building in construction. We've had a couple of technical
issues with the phone system, so I think we've got
that sorted out now, So don't let that get a
new eight. Give us a call right now on eight
hundred eighty ten eighty to discuss anything to do with
building construction alterations. I mean, real challenge for Ross with
his house, so nineteen thirties maybe nineteen forties stucco house

(26:12):
I've got a fairly clear picture in mind, you know,
sort of reasonably straightforward front long return, big longs low
pitch roof, tucked in behind some parapets on three sides,
and that beautiful classic stucco appearance. But the challenge will
be take out a window. You've got to try and
join your new stucco to your existing stucco. There'll be

(26:35):
a whole lot of changes. That sort of work is
quite labor intensive. It's doable, and if you're doing one window, sure,
but once you start doing every single window and make
some other changes, then you kind of go gosh by
the time I fix this one, fix that, one fix,
that one fix, that one fix that one, et cetera,
et cetera. Do I look at just stripping everything off
and being able to do modern stucco into the same place.

(26:57):
So that's an interesting dilemma to work through. And sometimes
the kind of bite the bullet, strip it off and
start afresh might actually end up costing you hopefully a
little bit less or the same, but probably give you
a better result in the long run. So an interesting dilemma.
He has another dilemma, but it's about joinery. Hey, Pete

(27:17):
can you please explain the benefits of steel window joinery
compared to aluminium jowinery. Is it just the smaller profile
size of the steel section or are there other advantages.
I'm aware of how much more expensive the steel is
thanks from BREM. Certainly I hear what you're saying about
the small profile. I wonder how they get by now

(27:38):
in terms of getting steel joinery, which I mean, I
get it. I think it can add real character and
so on. And I've seen, in fact, a house that
recently won an award at the Architectural Designers in New Zealand,
Auckland and Northland awards featured some of that steel joinery

(28:00):
and it did look stunning. What I always wonder about
is how then you achieve the H one requirements, because
obviously steel, like aluminium, is a really good conductor of energy,
in which case, how do you ensure that you've got
a thermal break. I'm sure there are ways of doing it,
but it would start to get quite complicated at that point.

(28:21):
If it's just a choice between those two, then yes,
I guess the advantage is that you can have a
much slimmer profile with steel joinery than you can with aluminium.
But it's performance wise that it'd be quite a challenge,
I think in terms of its thermal performance. And yeah,

(28:42):
you're right, it is expensive. There are very few people
that do it. It's quite it's not complicated. It's just
that there's not many people doing it, and that makes
it a bit scarce and a bit more expensive. You
could always look at your PVC. It'd be awesome. Oh eight,
one hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call
cord it six or cold to seven. Rather, if you've
got a question of building nature, we can do that.

(29:05):
Some questions are coming through the minister as well. There
are some things that are outside of his jurisdiction. So
I'm not going to ask why this question from Bill?
Why waste so much money and time changing the unitary Plan,
which was only introduced relatively recently. It's already cost ratepayers
and taxpayers of fortune achieved similar goals to intensification around
transport hubs. I think you're probably right, Bill. I'm not

(29:30):
sure that this change, given that the Unitary Plan seemed
to have some support and made a lot of sense,
why we're suddenly doing the change. It's certainly sorry. This
is kind of a bit of an Auckland issue at
the moment. But the recent proposed changes to the zoning
regulations have come out. It's prompted all sorts of kind

(29:52):
of you know, community meetings, people getting together thinking, gosh,
here I am in my nice little leafy street, and
now apparently my neighbor, if they were so inclined, can
build to ten stories. It's quite unsettling. In the last
couple of days, with all the discussions I've had with people,
that came up as a bit of a theme too. Hey, look,

(30:12):
we're in a kind of a heritage zone, or we're
close to transport, but we're in a kind of leafy street.
And now potentially my neighbor could go to five stories,
which is quite imposing. Or my neighbor can now remove
the house and put three three story townhouses that will
be one meter from my side boundary, and my heightened

(30:34):
relation to boundary has gone from sort of two point
four meters with maybe a forty five degree pitch or
even in some cases lower than that, to a three
meter at forty five degrees. It becomes quite imposing. I
think we need to intensify. That's true for all cities.
I'd rather see more development inside the city boundaries than
continually spreading out. But have they got the mix right?

(31:00):
I'm happy to talk about that. Oh eight hundred eighty
ten eighty is that number to call if you've got
a question of a building. Nature will take your calls
in just a moment. If you want to send through
your questions for the Minister, you are more than Malcolm
to do that as well. Send those through on text
nine to nine two. We're starting to get some really
good concise questions that we will put to the Minister

(31:23):
when he comes into the studio, which will be awesome.
Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty is that number to call.
I think we've got some callers on the line, will
come to them in just a moment. Also, in the
next hour we will chat with Mike Olds from Razine Construction.
Bit of a quick catch up with Mike just ahead
of the Minister being here. And remember we will continue
to have rid on at eight thirty as well, So

(31:46):
if you've got any gardening questions, get those ready and
we'll have the minister after Chris Pink finishes up at
eight thirty, then.

Speaker 8 (31:55):
We'll have.

Speaker 5 (31:57):
Ridd here as well. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty
is that number to call?

Speaker 6 (32:02):
Just go and check.

Speaker 5 (32:03):
Can we take that call? Ah, I'm not sure yet.
All right, Now here we go, going to build a
Queler deck over a concrete pad. What's the recommended with
between the joists and any other tips and pitfalls? A
couple of things on that. What I would suggest is
that you make sure that whatever timber you put on

(32:24):
the concrete pad, that you separate it with some DPC. Right, So,
with some Malthoid or other type of DPC, you make
sure that the timber is not sitting directly on the concrete.
And typically for Quela, if it's sort of ninety mili wide,
Quilla four fifty is about the comfortable span for that.
And if it's going to be that close to the ground,

(32:45):
it might be worth investing in stainless steel fixings for
your connections rather because it's just so close to the ground,
rather than conventional galve. Apart from that, get stuck in, Bruce,
Good morning to you.

Speaker 4 (33:02):
Right, this is interesting, interesting one I think a lot
of people would be interested in.

Speaker 5 (33:07):
Just sorry, just hang, you didn't quite go to where
when I pressed the button. So let's start from the beginning.
Good morning, Bruce, what's on your mind?

Speaker 9 (33:17):
In the UK?

Speaker 4 (33:19):
In London, there's a thing called which you will see
under some windows. It's called ancient lights.

Speaker 5 (33:25):
And what's it called ancient lights?

Speaker 4 (33:27):
Ancient lights? It's written under some of the windows. We can't.
I come across it the way back in the seventies.
And what it means is that if you have that,
there are some conditions under which it is you are
not allowed to box the person's light right, And I
think that would be a good idea. There's something like
that here.

Speaker 5 (33:46):
Yeah, I'm just typing it into right to lights. The
right to light is a form of Easbenton English law
that gives a long standing owner of a building with
windows a right to maintain an adequate level of illumination.
The rightless traditional ancient lights.

Speaker 4 (34:07):
Yeah, so would that be good if we had there here?

Speaker 5 (34:09):
Okay, it's a really interesting thing. That's fascinating. I quite
like that. I might even find myself later.

Speaker 6 (34:17):
On this year A lot of people would like it.

Speaker 5 (34:20):
Okay, it's fabulous.

Speaker 4 (34:22):
I really like that.

Speaker 5 (34:23):
Thank you very much, mate, That's awesome. All the bestie, Bruce. Oh,
eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call.
Pete Northland don't need to worry about H one. They're exempt.
No they're not. No, No they're not. Oh this is extraordinary.
Pete Northland don't need to worry about H one. They

(34:43):
are exempt. No they're not. No one's going to be
exempt from H one. How we calculate H one is
going to change. But I wonder if this is a
Shane Jones things He's wandering around up north going to
the people. Don't worry folks, building code doesn't apply to us.
We're kind of special. We've got an exemption from H one.

(35:05):
That is not that's true, Okay. H one applies to
the entire country. The biggest change to H one is
we're going to remove the proposal is to remove the
schedule method, which is kind of a tick box approach,
and all buildings will need to either be modeled or calculated.
So you need to use the calculation model to determine

(35:28):
the energy efficiency of the building, and that will tell
you what types of insulation go well. And it's a
combination of all factors that will give you basically a
sense of energy rating. So if for example, you put
smaller windows in, you put high performing double glazing in
there you use high performing joinery, you might find that

(35:50):
you don't need to put as much insulation in the
roof space or in the wall, or do edge insulation
those sorts of things. So that's the change schedule method
is on the way out. It'll be gone by about
November of twenty twenty six, I think, and calculation and
modeling will be the pathway to compliance and to the text.

(36:12):
Northland is not going to be exempt from that as well.
Time for your calls, Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten
eighty is the number to call. Are the texts came through?
Did the interview? Did I miss the interview last week?
Read the extraction systems? It was interesting with that guy
and running the heat chairs from Andrew. I spoke with
about my expert our expert storm last or week before.

(36:35):
And so the theory behind it is is in the
bathroom you put the heaters on first, which warms up
the space. Then you have the shower without running the extraction,
and only turn the extraction on when you've finished in
the shower. And if that was the process, you would
get less or you don't get much condensation. The reason

(36:58):
being is that the surfaces inside the bathroom theoretically will
be warmer, and so you won't get condensation collecting on
there because there's not that contrast between cold and moist
air and a cold surface. If you warm the surface up,
you'll get less condensation. You'll still get condensation in the
space because the steam. The same amount of steam has
created just won't be as evident. So the analysis was basically,

(37:22):
if it works for you, that's fine. I did kind
of try it the other day. Didn't work right, So
I will do what I always do when I'm ready
to have a shower. I turn the extraction on, I
turn the shower on, I have my shower. There's no
steam in the bathroom because the extraction's big. It runs correctly.

(37:43):
It's a straight line to the outside of the building.
It's not going up and over joists and doing a
dog leg and a turn, and I haven't crushed it
so that it can fit outside all those sorts of things.
It's a nice straight run from where there's a hole
in the ceiling basically to where I've put an outlet
in the safita. And it works well, and I leave

(38:05):
it running for as long as I possibly can. The
other one that we installed a little while ago that
works I think is going to work extremely well. It's
an a rental property that I look after for a
landlord where we put in essentially a constant flow fan,
which means that we'll run at a very low rate
all of the time, just encouraging airflow, extracting moist are

(38:27):
out of the room and then when it detects it's
got a little sensor in it when it detects that
there's moisture. And we tested it the other day, so
put the fan in, you can hear it running, turn
the shower on super hot, get the steam going, and
you can hear the fan ramping up and you can
actually see the steam being directed to the extraction and
out it goes, and it will run until it detects

(38:47):
that the moisture has reduced to a certain level and
you can set that level on there as well. So
that's a Cimix fan SIMX fan that we just installed
and be interesting to monitor that over time worked really
really well. So if you want to talk about that,
we can do that.

Speaker 9 (39:04):
Pete.

Speaker 5 (39:05):
You are correct, there is a those change coming. In summary,
While a potential change could make insulation requirements less stringent
in parts of Northland. The region is not currently exempt
from the H one rules, nor will it ever be
exempt from the H one rules. But yes, you will
be able to calculate and you will be able to
go in this climatic zone. If it's unlikely to ever

(39:25):
get to zero or degrees outside, then how much insulation
do I actually need in order to keep warm?

Speaker 6 (39:36):
You know?

Speaker 5 (39:36):
And I mean I did chuckle when I saw the
interview several months ago, someone saying, well, look it's crazy
that I have to put R six point six in
the ceiling. You know, the house will be nice and warm,
and they're standing there with these massive ranch sliders with
the glass, which obviously will is not as thermly effective
as a wall. Going, well, that's why lots of glass.

(39:59):
You're probably going to need to put more insulation somewhere else.
You can get higher performance double glazing units obviously, but
you're still going to have to accommodate for or the
heat loss that you inevitably get through the glass. So anyway,
an interesting discussion might be something we mentioned to the
Minister when he joins us at around seven thirty. But
we'll take your calls if you've got a question. Eight
hundred and eighty ten eighty is that number to call?

(40:20):
And we'll, like I say, we'll talk to the minister
in the next hour. So we talked about the concrete pad. Oh,
some really good texts. Tiny homes yes again last couple
of days. Lots of conversations, lots of people saying, where
are we at with the tiny home, minor dwelling or

(40:41):
what are they calling it now? SSD simple standalone dwelling
is going to be the new word for granny flats?
When is it coming in? When can we start building?
Might have a bit of a chat around the changes
to where you put your sheds as well, might do
that as well. Right here, we've got a new sport
where the top of the are at seven will take
your calls after seven and from seven to thirty. Crisspink

(41:03):
minister here in the studio.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
Good isn't it selling?

Speaker 3 (41:13):
Mamie Bee ten them.

Speaker 4 (41:17):
It is a little.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
Meta twice god once. But maybe call Pete first, pet
your Wolfcamp the Resident Builder News Talks.

Speaker 5 (41:27):
They'd be well, very good morning, welcome back to the show.
My name's Pete wolf Camp, resident builder, and we are
talking all things building. And Construction. So if you've got
a question, we've got a bit of time this morning
to take your calls about sort of general you know,
at edition's maintenance, renovations, contractors, products, et cetera. We can
talk about that. And then we have a guest coming
into the studio from around seven thirty this morning, so

(41:50):
the Minister for Building and Construction, Chris Pink will be
joining me in the studio, happy to take your texts
questions on that. So if you would, if you've got
a specific question. I mean, there's a whole lot of
sort of hot topics in the sense that there is
talk about then sort of freeing up the ability to
import building materials and products from overseas. How's that going

(42:13):
to work? We're talking about standalone minor dwellings without necessarily
requiring resource consent and building consent. How's that going to work?

Speaker 8 (42:22):
We are?

Speaker 9 (42:22):
Are we at?

Speaker 5 (42:23):
And then the most recent fairly significant announcement is a
proposed change to the I suppose remediation or insurance side
of things, which is, if something goes wrong it is
joint and several liability at the moment that will move
to or it's proposed to move to proportional liability. How's
that going to work? And most importantly how homeowners consumer

(42:48):
is going to be protected in the future so that
if there is a problem that they can get all
of the costs met, not just a proportion of it
from the people who are still around to pay for it.
So we'll be talking about that and probably a whole
lot more with the Minister from around seventyir ety this morning. Mark,
Good morning to you, Pete. How are you very well

(43:10):
in yourself?

Speaker 10 (43:11):
Good things, mate, go for it. So got a renovation
gate on at the moment. A couple of bathrooms.

Speaker 6 (43:17):
Yes, just putting in the picture.

Speaker 10 (43:20):
We had no under floor heating. Previously had a extractor,
fans in the in the roof with the with the
heat lamps.

Speaker 9 (43:29):
Yep.

Speaker 10 (43:30):
What we founds were actually those women in stored properly
and we're getting moisture creep with the obviously the fans
had blocked up in the cavity getting moisture keeps through
the pink bets. But anyway, yes, we ripped all those
out and putting in under floor heating in the new bathrooms.

Speaker 9 (43:47):
Yep.

Speaker 10 (43:48):
But what we want, what we wanted to find out
from you, it is sort of a bit of a
loss sort of understanding about what sort of the correct
thing to put into the bathrooms nowadays. But from my
point of view anyway, but all the trade is and
sort of they all come up with different solutions. What
I want to know is, is it do we lose
those extracted fans now? I mean no, no, no, no,

(44:10):
no no no, no, no no no.

Speaker 5 (44:13):
I'm a huge fan of extraction. Right, So what I
like about and I've done it on a couple of projects.
You know, if the budget allows for it underfloor heating,
and I think the main benefit of that is that
just keeps the temperature in the room at a slightly
higher rate. And given that in a bathroom, you know

(44:34):
you've got obviously moisture that's generated when you're having a shower.
You've got like wet towels. You know, you finished drying
yourself off, you hang the towel up. It's it's holding
moisture in the space. And the way the best way
to think about it actually, and this was something again
that Storm was discussing and I picked up on. If
you think about a wet towel, right, you take a
towel out of the washing machine and it's been washed

(44:57):
and it's soaking wet, and feel the weight of it.
The weight is water, yeah, and then you dry it
and it's when it's dry, it's lighter.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
Now.

Speaker 5 (45:08):
The difference is the moisture. So if you've got that
inside and it's dried inside, that weight has gone into
the atmosphere. That moisture has literally moved from being trapped
inside the towel to being in that environment.

Speaker 6 (45:23):
Yep.

Speaker 5 (45:24):
And that's the concern. That's why we're encouraging people not
to actually dry laundry inside the house because that moisture
it escapes from the clothing or the fabric, but it
goes into the atmosphere, so then you've got to get
it out. So I do like the idea of some
form of heating. That's why heated tail rails are quite good.
That's why underfloor heating if it's set correctly, is good.

(45:48):
But ultimately I would always still have extraction. And then
the next part of that is making sure that the
extraction is located in the right place. And that's a
combination of where the steam's being created, where the outlet's
going to be, and where the airflow hums into the room.

(46:08):
So what you want is kind of the air that's
coming in let's say most of the time underneath the
door that it's on its way to the extraction, it
picks up the steam from wherever the steam's been created,
typically the shower. So if, for example, we were talking
about this the other day, let's say you've got a
bathroom that's three meters long, showers on one wall, and

(46:28):
the window is three meters away on the exterior wall,
and you put the fan close to where the window
is close to the exterior wall. So if you open
the window, air will be drawn in and will be
drawn to the extractor and it won't be grabbing the
moisture out of the shower which is three meters.

Speaker 6 (46:45):
Away, yep.

Speaker 5 (46:47):
Whereas if you had the door, you had ventilation under
the door and the window closed, then the air that's
being drawn in underneath the door will grab some of
that moisture from above the shower and drag it across
to the extraction point where the vent is. But again,
if you move the vair closer to there, but ensuring

(47:08):
that it's kind of it's there's a direct line of
paths let's say between where the air comes in and
where it's going out and it intersects with where the
moisture is sure, and that's the best layout I think.

Speaker 10 (47:20):
So heat like heat lamps, and so they're not recommending those,
and then they're not not a recommending the heater.

Speaker 5 (47:27):
So oh oh as in a wall heater. Yeah, I mean, look,
I can see. I suppose the thing with the wall
heater is like that's an easy retrofit, right, you know,
there will be an outlet somewhere that you can connect
to and you could add it. My preference would be
underfloor heating if you can do it, just just because

(47:50):
it gives you that ambient temperature and so on. And
then but I would I would always maintain extraction. And
again the thing that I've been introduced to recently is
this constant flow, right, so that because there's always a
certain amount of moisture inside a bathroom, particular inside houses anyway,
is if you had a fan in the bathroom that

(48:11):
ran all of the time at a very low rate,
so just encouraging airflow, which is good, and then it
senses when there's more humidity i e. Steam, and it
ramps up and goes to boost and extracts that, but
it will stay running until it detects that there's not
that much moisture in the room anymore. And again the

(48:32):
problem is often that you know, we're busy, we jump
into the shower, get tryed off, we brush our teeth,
turn off the fan, turn off the lights, and head out,
and there's still quite a lot of moisture left in
that room.

Speaker 8 (48:45):
Yeah, the fan.

Speaker 5 (48:47):
It helps as well.

Speaker 6 (48:48):
Yeah, good stuff, you're there.

Speaker 10 (48:51):
Yeah, yeah, we've got HIV in the rest of the house.
That makes sense. So we just have a best of
a stretch of being directly out rather than through the
sort of up and over blah blah blah.

Speaker 5 (49:00):
That's the other thing too, is you know, you go
and crawl around inside of roof space and someone's got
a you know, a little bit adducting and it goes
up and down and around and it twists around this
bit and that bit and all the rest of it,
and then it's a little bit tricky to get it
out over the top plate into the feat so they
squeeze it down a little bit. You know, all of
these things are going to impede the flow. So short,

(49:24):
direct and as big as possible is the key.

Speaker 10 (49:27):
Again, what about, Pete. Lamps with that extract the fan also,
we'll not worry about it.

Speaker 5 (49:32):
Look, I mean they're really effective in the sense that
when you turn them on you stand underneath it. You
feel like a rotisserie chicken at the at the local takeaway, right,
But in general, I guess I've always thought that that
combination is Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure it works,
but I don't know if I'm a huge fan.

Speaker 10 (49:52):
Let's say, I think we'll just go for an extractor
fan and then the tiles and then the heat of
tear rail. So thanks very much for advice.

Speaker 5 (50:01):
Pleasure. Hey, good luck with the reno's Thanks mate, all
this Yeah, I know, I know, but hey, it'll be beautiful.
I'm sure, all right, buddy, take care of all of this.

Speaker 9 (50:16):
Extraction.

Speaker 5 (50:17):
Good morning, Pete. Read the extraction. I have an apparent
where I can only extract below the floor to exit.
Is there a more powerful extraction to go from? I
think you might need to explain that a little bit better.
If you can only extract down, then you're fighting physics. Basically,
hottier wants to rise, and you want to then suck

(50:40):
hottier down and out. It's going to be difficult. It's
going to be less effective than sort of capturing it
where it's naturally going to go, which is up. So
that is going to be a challenge. Getting some great
questions for Minister Chris Penk who's going to join us shortly,
happy to take more of those, and I promise as

(51:02):
best I possibly can that I won't dominate the hour
that we have with him by asking my questions. I'll
try and hand over to you. So thank you very
much for sending those texts through.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
Right now viewing of the house extorting the garden, asked
feet for a hand the resident builder with Feta wolfcab call.

Speaker 5 (51:18):
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(52:22):
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Speaker 1 (52:25):
It twice, God once, but maybe called Pete first for
you all get the resident builder news Talk said be.

Speaker 5 (52:32):
Your news Talk said be and a very good morning
to you.

Speaker 6 (52:34):
B How are you.

Speaker 11 (52:36):
Hello?

Speaker 5 (52:37):
How are you good morning?

Speaker 10 (52:39):
Quick?

Speaker 4 (52:40):
Yees?

Speaker 11 (52:41):
Now question, we brought a house three years ago. Now
we based it off the builders report that was done
and everything well basically everything in fine, but hey, we
opened up a can of wombs. Now the problem we

(53:02):
found for her, yeah, the house and I would put
it down to the aging of the house and the
type of wood that at that time it was uncreated
wood back in the seventies. Now we've had the home imigated. Yes,
so they came in and that costs a bit of

(53:23):
an arm.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
And a leg to do. Now there are some.

Speaker 11 (53:28):
With a board that needs replacing. Now, look, I would
like to know, would pay to replace all the whole
house of the weatherboards or just the ones that need
to be done.

Speaker 6 (53:43):
No.

Speaker 5 (53:43):
Look, I think if you've got some boards that show
serious decay due to bora, replace those, treat the rest
of it. And we're getting into that time of year
when now is a really good time to do it.
But no, I know that bora has an impact, but
it's actually really rare to see buildings, you know, to
a state of collapse due to bora infestation. So if

(54:05):
it's rotten, take it out, treat the rest. But no,
I wouldn't go to starting to think, gosh, I've got
to take all my weatherboards off. Okayed, sort of a
considered approach will work all the very best. You be,
you take care you all right. I think getting some
great texts coming in for the minister. I think we're

(54:29):
easily going to fill the time. I mean, good stuff around.
You know what happens if the builder goes into liquidation,
how might a homeowner get redress if that's the case.
So lots to talk about, will do that in just
a moment, looking forward to that. A quick catch up
as well. A friend of the show in a sense.
Mike Old's greetings sir.

Speaker 8 (54:50):
Your morning, feete. How are you?

Speaker 5 (54:52):
Yeah, very well. So you're back from New Zealand Institute
of Building Surveys conferences today.

Speaker 8 (54:57):
Yeah, lovely day down there in christ and catching up
with some of the leading professionals in the industry.

Speaker 5 (55:04):
Who have had a number of open is about all
of the various changes that are proposed. We can discuss
that on another day, but what we wanted to talk
about this morning is just in terms of recognizing skill
and craft and professionalism within the industry.

Speaker 6 (55:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (55:20):
Absolutely, And one of the key parts of any business
is the right people doing the right job. And when
we look at our so usual manufacturing plaster of materials
and products, we've got that sorted. But then in terms
of the application all the contracts, in terms of extental

(55:40):
plas during albp so a license building professionals, they have
completed trade certificates. We have a proprietary plaster clotting standard,
so they're competent to supply and install the systems in
accordance with the specifications provided by the architect. So we
can we go through a number of processes with those

(56:01):
contractors to ensure that they understand the products systems that
have been specified. But equally, their knowledge and tenure in
terms of applying plaster codings is absolutely superb and people
have the confidence that the systems that they've been they've

(56:22):
had installed on their properties will perform. Really really important
aspect of the supply and installation of plaster cladding is
we're not just plaster. The contracts are now supplying and
installing the substrate over a cavity, all the flashing suites
connecting with other sub trades. It's a very complex solution

(56:47):
and requires competent professionals to undertake and complete those works
to protect people's properties.

Speaker 5 (56:53):
Absolutely, and I think it's a real insight into in
general across the sector. In terms of building, we're starting
to think about lots of things as systems. Right, So
rather than I'm doing this little part, in fact, I'm
putting together a series of independent elements to create a system.
And ideally you want to be doing it from the

(57:14):
beginning to the end, and that's what we're seeing in
terms of what Razine Construction do. Very much, so pete,
very much so absolutely. Hey folks to find out more,
check it out online. It's Razineconstruction dot co dot NZ. Mike,
as always, thanks very much for joining the show this morning.

Speaker 8 (57:29):
You're welcome.

Speaker 5 (57:30):
All the best, Take care and yeah, the New Zealand
Building Surveys ends at IBS conference was on last couple
of days. Normally I would be there but had some
other commitments, including actually hosting a quiz night the other night.
So I think I did. Okay, I'm not the funniest
person in the world, but anyway, we got through it
and we made some money and that's awesome. Rightio, we'll

(57:53):
take a break. We'll be back in a moment eight
hundred and eight nine two ninety two. If you've got
some questions for Chris Penk the Minister, he'll join me shortly.
Looking forward to that, and again I promise you I
won't try answer or ask every single question that I've got.
I'm going to hand it over to you. Text through
your questions nine to nine two back in.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
The mo Whether you're paty with ceiling, fixing with fans,
or wondering how to fix that hole in the wall.
Give Peter wolf gavicle on eight the resident builder on.

Speaker 5 (58:24):
Righty oh, it is my great pleasure to welcome into
the studio Chris Penk, who is of course the Minister
for Building and Construction. Very good morning, welcome Chris. Yeah,
really nice to be here as well, and again thank
you for making yourself available. I know you were out
at the Warriors last night, so maybe not the result

(58:47):
we were hoping for, but we'll leave that alone. So
many things that we can talk about, but let's start
with possibly the most recent announcement around a proposed change
from joint and several liability to proportional liability. The background
seems to be that it's a way to unlock the
consenting system. We want that to be a little bit quicker, potentially,

(59:10):
do we want counsel to be less risk averse? Is
that part of the motivation.

Speaker 9 (59:15):
We want appropriate aversion and awareness. But there's certainly the
thing that council officers have said to me in the
last eighteen months when I've talked about trying to get
things to move a bit more quickly and productively they say, well,
that's fine, Chris, but you've got to understand, we've got
all the risks. We've got up to one hundred percent
of the cost of a defect taking place in an
individual property or heaven forbid, at a system wide level,

(59:37):
you know, West case scenario, lequy buildings. And their point is, well,
we've got all that risk and that burden, so you know,
naturally we have to dot every iron and cross every
t and of course we want them to be careful
to answer a question, but it seems a fair and
proportionate level of responsibility for them, and of course that
means all of us as ratepayers is appropriate. And of
course the quid pro quo is that puts more responsibility

(01:00:00):
on those doing the work, and as long as we
can make sure that we can hold them accountable, and
of course there's a lot of devil in that detail,
which I'm sure we'll get to, then of course that
will be better for all concerned because it would actually
make it less likely that there are effects in the
first place.

Speaker 5 (01:00:13):
Okay, so at the moment counts, you know, we often
talk about this little last man standing, right, the councils
can't disappear everyone else goes, they end up paying out
on a leaky building claim. So what would proportional liability
look like? And is it right? The discussion at the
moment seems to be that council would be limited to
twenty percent. Is that where we're going to land?

Speaker 9 (01:00:33):
Yeah, only part of the discussion was around whether you
have a particular percentage cap, and I heard your excellent guest,
mister Mike Thornton speaking last week from a legal perspective
about twenty percent being one starting point that you could use.
My thought is, however, it's actually better to have a
purer kind of conception of proportionate liability where you basically say, well,

(01:00:55):
to the extent that the council should be in the gun, yes,
And of course the reason that they would be involved
at all is they've provided a building consent in the
first instance, to say that the work complies with the
building Code acted inspections to see that it's taking place
in accordance with that consent, and you'll find their code
compliance certificate at the end. So it's right for them
to have some sort of responsibility, but it might vary

(01:01:17):
case by case according to the extent to which they
should be held accountable and therefore the rate payer should pay.
And the circumstance of that overseas at the moment is
determining courts. Now, the minute you set foot near a court,
of course, there's expense and time and uncertainty, so that's
not necessarily great either. But you know, in the things
we can talk about as a way perhaps of getting
around that problem as well if you're interested.

Speaker 5 (01:01:38):
So the other thing then is then determining the proportion.
So how might that work and who might.

Speaker 9 (01:01:44):
Do that work in terms of determining who's yeah, well,
I suppose that a specialist technical level building surveyors might
be one professional occupation that would be well qualified to
provide that advice. In Australia they go to courts, although
they can also, you know, look at other places to

(01:02:05):
go like tribunals. Next. Some of the specific advice that
I got earlier in the year when looking at this
was from a judge in one of the Australian states,
and her point was you need broad enough language in
the way that you draft the legislation to say, well, actually,
however it's determined or whoever it determines it, So it
might be for example, in New Zealand that we need
a specialist tribunal, I mean especially motor vehicle disputes tribunal,

(01:02:26):
and yet for quite a technical subject such as building
and construction, and you're off to the district court, or
if you've got a claim, if you're lucky enough to
have your claim being with less than you know, thirty
or sixty thousand or whatever, it's your shoulders. These days
it's the dispute tribunal. So you know, I think a
lot of times people walk away because they simply don't
have the resources to fight something in a court system

(01:02:48):
per se. So you know, there are ways that we
can determine these things that are not necessarily currently are
now our system at the moment, I think probably is
not particularly fair to those who don't have the resources
to fight these things. And then of course again councils
because they can't walk away, so they end up i
think oftentimes settling with ratepayer money that which they didn't
need to fully be engaged with. You have no choice

(01:03:09):
back to do the deal and move on.

Speaker 5 (01:03:11):
And that's the nature of joint in several liability, isn't
it right?

Speaker 8 (01:03:13):
Yep?

Speaker 5 (01:03:14):
So if this is sort of like a flow chart thing,
isn't it. So you open door A and then you
get to door B, and then door B has C
and D and so on and so forth. So let's
imagine a scenario where some building work is undertaken, there
is a defect, and then the homeowner says, look, it's
going to cost me one hundred grand to fix this,

(01:03:34):
and I need to be able to determine who's responsible.
Counsel might be responsible for twenty percent of it. Then
they've got a builder who they employed, let's say five
years ago as the main contractor. They're the LBP for
the job. How are they going to be able to
get that person to contribute to the cost of the
repairs when possibly they might not have the resources, They

(01:03:55):
may not have the right insurance. Insurance seems to be
the big gap at the moment in terms of realistically
for a contractor to have the resources to be able
to pay out claims for ten years. Even if you're
a relatively small builder, maybe you build two or three
houses a year, your exposure could be significant. You're not

(01:04:17):
going to have the resources yourself to cover that. To
the best of my knowledge, there is one insurer available
in New Zealand at the moment, and they have been
quite public in stating we are very selective about who
we offer insurance to. We've got quite a high threshold,
so they will often employ building surveys to determine whether

(01:04:38):
this contractor is working to a suitable standard that makes
it worthwhile. But we're probably talking several thousand contractors who
operate without insurance are unlikely to qualify for insurance, but
we'll still be doing restricted building work. How do you
cover those people?

Speaker 9 (01:04:54):
For the consumer, well, for the consumer who needs to
be protected against those that are not qualified, registered, experience
or solvent. And of course your points the right one,
which is that we don't want what we call an
en chair when all going through the doors that you've
mentioned my metaphors looking to who might be responsible. It
might be this fellow over here, but he or she

(01:05:16):
is not prepared or willing or able to come to
the party in terms of what they've been determined to
be responsible for. So you then say, well, actually is
someone who could stand behind them and provide that assurance,
And yes, insurance is one of those. And there are
guarantees and other systems and warranties that we exist already
in the private market and which we could look to
make complexory. And I'm certainly very open minded about the

(01:05:38):
possibility of doing that, but I actually think it's worth
considering what the problem definition is. If we've got some
practitioners out there who can't satisfy a private insurer they
can do the work in a diligent fashion that's not
going to result in undue risk to the insurer and
their underwriters, then maybe they shouldn't be doing restricted building work.
I know that might sound like blasphemy to say there

(01:05:59):
should be some whom we don't want to be doing
the work, or at least not accept under supervision, But actually,
maybe if that's the answer to our quality problems that
we do have, and we're all aware that there is
at least a proportion and a percentage small, yes it's
a minority, but yeah, but it's there. Actually your fat
cleans up the landscape in terms of those who shouldn't
be trusted to do the work, then I don't consider

(01:06:20):
that a bad thing.

Speaker 5 (01:06:21):
No, And look, I'm not opposed to that either, And
I think professionals within the sector are going you know,
if we've got people operating who potentially are not as
skilled or not as competent, but they're able to do
this work. Then if people consumers are looking to, hey,
I want to employ a contractor who is eligible for insurance,

(01:06:41):
and I'm not going to employ a contractor who isn't
because the standard of their work is being proven or
shown to be less than optimal.

Speaker 9 (01:06:49):
Yeah, well, that's right, and that's you know, that's we've
talked about that in the case of insurance, but certainly
with the schemes that certified builders and martional builders currently run,
it seems to me it's anecdotal, but you never know
quite exactly how these things play out until you make it,
you know, and the law and acdotally at least, let's
just take us, for the sake of argument, that half

(01:07:11):
of those who don't currently have that kind of protection
for their respective clients might be able to get it
if only they applied for it, and the other half wouldn't.
And I mean, maybe that's the world we need to live,
and where not everyone is capable of getting the assurance
and then they just simply can't do the work themselves
except under supervision. So again, I don't regard that as

(01:07:31):
a terrible outcome if that's the place that sure.

Speaker 5 (01:07:34):
I mean, just looking at the numbers, I think last
time I checked, there's about twelve thousand LBPS in terms
of building LBPS roughly, I think typically NZ Certified Builders
and Master Builders have about three thousand members each. So
we're still talking about half of LBPS are not associated
with either of those two professional bodies, and for whatever reason.

(01:07:56):
But I mean, you're not talking about it becoming compulsory
to join one of those bodies.

Speaker 9 (01:08:01):
Obviously, Well, it might be the case that we say
it's compulsory to have some sort of of comfort being
provided to the homeowner, and you can choose whether it's
private insurance such as Stamford is happens to be the
name of the outfit that is mentioned, or registered master
Builders or Certified Builders which in this scheme of which
is known as HALO. But essentially that's theme, yes, and

(01:08:24):
we might say it's complexity to have one of those
take your pack full disclosure to your client what it
is that you've got in terms of coverage, because of course,
the other point of our insurance is there's you know,
there are gaps that you discover and we need need
to make a claim careful, so again, zevil and detail absolutely,
and our legal friend from last week would know that,
and unfortunately a few of your listeners probably know that

(01:08:44):
all too well. So we need to ensure that there
is coverage. But it might be we can be agnostic
as to what that looks like provided it's there.

Speaker 5 (01:08:51):
As long as it's there.

Speaker 9 (01:08:52):
Yeah, And actually, in just to broaden it out a
little bit more as well, it might be that there
is a deposit scheme put in place. You know, it
seems to me that's a real gap at the moment
in terms of our consumer protection. We might go further
than we've got at the moment in terms of saying, well,
if you're doing the bilding work in the first ten
percent or so is paid down by the client, you
can't simply use them as a bank and start using

(01:09:14):
those funds elsewhere, because of course, when the other project
falls over or things get a bit too hard and
everyone knows it's out and plenty of people have lost
over the years. So unfortunately, it is an interconnected system
and we do need to take into count all the
details interacting with each other, and it's why we're taking
the time to work.

Speaker 5 (01:09:31):
Through that, sure, would there be a point at which
government becomes the underwriter, you know, if you can't find
an insurer that's prepared to enter the market and stay
in the market. This is the other concern is that
you know, we're talking about a ten year defect period, right,
So someone taking out a policy today to their insurer,
that insurer goes, I'm on the hook for the next

(01:09:51):
ten years. Do I want to take that risk? Would
government be the underwriter in some form?

Speaker 9 (01:09:57):
But potentially, and in fact, the government has already under
ass and poor building practices in the past. Again, lucky
buildings aren't along with the councils. And then you think
about poor performance in the case of flooding or earthquakes,
and obviously those are quite specialized scenarios and it's not
just that there'll be poor workmanship. It might also be

(01:10:17):
more often that the techniques don't stack up with the
fact that we've been silly enough to enable building and
flood zone. So you know, Amarly that's a little bit
off to the side, But the taxpayer has under us
a huge amount of poor performance or poor outcomes in
the building space, so it wouldn't be new. But I
think that kind of ad hoc approach where we just say, well,

(01:10:37):
there's a political problem to be solved. Therefore, we're going
to use taxpayer funds gather generally for specific issues. I
think I would be nervous about being able to rely
upon that, because you don't know what the circumstances would
be in the future.

Speaker 7 (01:10:49):
Right now.

Speaker 9 (01:10:50):
There might be, for example, some sort of a levy scheme.
Of course, we have a building leafy we do. Yeah,
and other professions in the event of poor or unethical practice,
have fidelity funds, and so look, it might be possible
to build up a fund where it is aid out
in exceptional circumstances. Again, that's not off the table, but
I think I would say, as a matter of principle

(01:11:12):
and therefore as a starting point, we don't want to
encourage a scenario where rate payers or taxpayers, now we're
talking about taxpayers, yes, subsidizing poor performance or the sector
as a whole, by the way, subsidizing the poor performance
of a few because that's I think why we have
the quality issues that we have in a few cases,
which is dragging down everyone else.

Speaker 5 (01:11:33):
Yep, we're going to take short break. We'll be back
in a moment. Some of your text questions coming up
shortly squeaky door or squeaky floor.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
Get the right advice from Peter Wolfcare, the resident builder
on Newstalk SB with.

Speaker 5 (01:11:47):
Me in the studio this morning. Minister for Building in Construction,
Chris Pink, delighted to have you with us. Let's actually
I just want to focus in on I suppose the
part of the insurance thing in terms of again coming
back to the thing, will you be able to provide

(01:12:08):
it's the underwriting thing that seems to be a bit
of a focus there. If it's not there, then there's
a gap. Is there another way to fill that empty chair?
That that idea that maybe a homeowner innocently will end
up in a position where they're going to take on
or have to pay for repairs that they're not responsible for.

(01:12:28):
So levy is one option, insurance is another.

Speaker 9 (01:12:32):
Any other we talked about the master builders and certified builders. Yeah,
but the other thing is in going back to insurance
as an example of this, we don't really know what's
possible or what the appetite is because at the moment
we don't have a system where you require some kind
of consumer protection. So there's a bit of a chicken
and egg proposition. It might be that you know that

(01:12:53):
one insurance's in the market. And by the way, of course,
as a private entity, government's not in the business of
telling them what they should own, what they must fight,
and I'd never seek to do that. But if we say, oh,
there isn't an appetite in in New Zealand for ensuring
building building defects policies, for example, because I mean, well,
part of the reason might be because you don't need

(01:13:14):
at the moment. Why would arise as a homeowner pay
for an insurance product when I just know jolly well
that the council down the road is going to stump
up in the event that that's fully in the event
that something goes wrong. So you know, by taking a
decision as a government that we will move to proportionate liability.

(01:13:35):
And now saying well, look, let's do the detail, we've
got the opportunity to see what the appetite really is
given the scenario that will prevail, namely that we determined
that there will be consumer protection, so we don't have
an empty chair, and let's see what the appetite for I.

Speaker 5 (01:13:48):
Know a number of people that I've been chatting to
last couple of days, were sort of keen to get
some updates on things like the granny flat or the
simple standalone dwelling. How far down the track you with
that legislation.

Speaker 9 (01:13:59):
Yeah, I mean in parliamentary terms, and the process that
obviously changes the law in this case the Building Acts Yes,
with the Select Committee. So I think it'll be another
few weeks. I was going to say a couple of weeks,
but that's definitely too if I say you're going to
fudge little bit more, maybe three, maybe four, maybe five,
but within a few weeks of reporting back to the Parliament,

(01:14:20):
which will then pass the law in another couple of
weeks from there, and then so it will be between
now and Christmas. Certainly we have that into law, and
I know that's been long awaited, and I know it's
frustrating when people have to wait for these processes to
go through, but unfortunately is in the Building Act that
that which is restricted and that which is exempt, and
so we just need to go through and to drive

(01:14:41):
and do it pretty carefully as well. We want up
for all these things. It's both getting things locked in,
particularly within a parliamentary tomb we don't want to leave
people hanging. We know that we want certainty, but we
also know we've got to get the detail right and
take the time to hear what's needed so that we
don't have, you know, a failure, which would which would
be obviously pretty poor outcome for those involved, but also

(01:15:03):
I think would result in a loss of confidence in
the system, even we go back to the belts and
braces approach that we've got that actually in practice operates
as a straight jecket.

Speaker 5 (01:15:13):
Just in terms of some of the detail around what
this simple standalone dwelling might look like. Part of the
stuff that I've been reading is it's around lightweight materials.
Will you be able to do one on a concrete slab?
Will you be able to use podcast a seventy square
meter building? So you're going to do that in the
backyard as a simple standalone building. A lot of the

(01:15:35):
descriptions around them at the moment are that they must
be lightweight materials. What I haven't been able to see
in any of the discussion is will that mean that
you can put it on a concrete slab or are
we likely to see them only being suspended timber floors
and if so, is that because then if it goes wrong,
you just lift it off and take it away.

Speaker 9 (01:15:54):
Oh I see, yeah, i'd probably be risky to okay,
speak infernatively on that.

Speaker 5 (01:16:01):
That's a right.

Speaker 9 (01:16:02):
We have good people in me who can, yes, probably
help me advice. I might have to come back to
you on second.

Speaker 5 (01:16:06):
So we'll see more detail before the end of the year,
into law by the end of the year, which means, folks,
if you're thinking that you can go out and build one,
now you can't.

Speaker 9 (01:16:15):
Right when you could you could go ahead, And I
know that there are building companies around the place who
are building these things. Yes, sure they can. Literally you
know you can do it through contenter drag. Yeah, well
that's right, if you can do it through the existing means.
But also in a world of offsite manufacturing, there are
people who have been getting ready their plans and in
fact making structures now that they will be able to
yes on notwithstanding my uncertainty on the light maker.

Speaker 5 (01:16:36):
Well they certainly won't see concrete slabs. Yeah, brilliant. Right,
Let's get into a couple of texts. So John texts
through good morning question for the minister. When a builder
or any construction material provider goes into liquidation, can you
still claim on insurance? How will that works?

Speaker 9 (01:16:54):
As as a former lawyer, I can tell you if
the answer to every question is found in the contract.
So the insurance that you would obtain, you know, could
be a number of different types of insurance, would would
tell you what kind of covery you've got in that scenario.
In the case of what we call professional indemnity insurance,
I think it's likely that we will be able to

(01:17:16):
rely further and maybe to the point of being compulsory
that architects and engineers would have that. So it might be,
for example, that if an architect or an LBP design
professional would specify particular products if there was some sort
of failure, then it seems to me reasonable that you
would expect them to have some responsibility. Again, maybe in

(01:17:37):
conjunction with the council at least to some extent, and
others involved as well, maybe the product manufacturer, whether or
importer or distributor and so on. So there's a few
different options there. Again, we're looking to try and nail
that detail, but there are ways that we can make
sure that to the maximum extent possible that people are

(01:17:58):
on the hook. In Having said all that and without
wanting to undermine that point, I think it's also true
that we do need greater innovation in our building products,
and that's not code for anything goes. You know, there
are a lot of good products from overseas at the
moment that are approved under jurisdictions that build at least
as well as we do. For sure be told, you
know in yeah, and at the moment, I don't think

(01:18:23):
we allow our sounds to the full benefit of that
because we have quite slow risk averse, but so just
bureaucratic processes that don't actually add a lot of value
when we're busy checking the same fire retardant and you know,
water resistant qualities of that which has been approved elsewhere,
and with the law of physics not differing between countries,

(01:18:45):
albeit that climactic conditions and seismic conditions do I think
we can be a bit more pragmatic in that space.

Speaker 5 (01:18:51):
Another texts come through. I mean, there's there's actually actually
I want to go back and just drill down into
one part. So you talk there about you know, like
an architect designer specifying a particular product which then might fail.
But if that product was presented to the designer with
you know, all of the documentation to say it's except
and it is acceptable in the building code, and that

(01:19:13):
material gets through the building consent gets consented, and then
the material fails inherently because the material fails, rather than
why would the specifier or designer be liable for the
product failure?

Speaker 9 (01:19:26):
Yeah, I mean this is a problem. We've got it,
okayment right, So, and I'm not being about it. It
is a real world problem. But it's also not a
new problem, and it won't be specific to the new
regime where we're saying again that qualify that credible and
comparable jurisdictions overseas that have signed off SED materials can
be taken note of here. And so, yes, there are

(01:19:48):
issues of fraud occasionally. A few years ago there was
a regime broaden commonly known as BEEPACH Building Products Gosh
Information requirements.

Speaker 5 (01:19:58):
While the building product information yeah, in thet IR not.

Speaker 9 (01:20:01):
Particularly well known, and maybe that there's something that we
need to do to tweak or maybe it's just a
matter of education slash enforcement part of MB But suddenly,
if there are examples of that, I would like those
to be public hangings to make an example to others.
A number of people come up to me and they say, oh, Chris,
you've got to realize that we've got this, you know,
this particular product and you know it was a matter

(01:20:23):
of fraud. And I said, oh, that that sounds terrible
and what was the result when you reported it? And
I said, oh, it's not really the dune thing to
report it, right, okay, so be helpful. So yeah, you know,
to your listeners, please speak up if you've got any
kind of suspicion of that. We want to know. We
want to weed out these examples because otherwise it will
be the wild West, and.

Speaker 5 (01:20:42):
That that is a concern from I guess product suppliers
who are already in the New Zealand market and then
in some cases the New Zealand products or they have
significant contribution to the manufacture of them, and they're saying, okay,
so a similar product comes in, it's got a letter
attached that says it's okay. How do we know that
that letter is authentic or what's the validation process there?

Speaker 9 (01:21:05):
Yeah, well, I mean the answer to that, surely is
it's the same for any any any time that someone
claims in writing or otherwise that are things true, You've
got to have some way of robustly ensuring that that's true. Yeah,
And I mean I can't answer the question of each
particular standard system or you know, letter of authenticity or

(01:21:26):
giving assurances as to certain qualities, but you know, there
are ways that we can look at these things. But
at the moment, as I say that's that's an issue
that sometimes raised with me, it could also be the
case and I'm not saying that it is, but it
could be the case that I could claim for my
New Zealand product that it has certain qualities and that's
not examined either. Then that's a problem too. So that
again we've got you know, we've got brands or a

(01:21:48):
really good organization in terms of having technical expertise, and
I know that you've interacted with a bit before and
seeing their stuff. Councils or b c as building consent
authorities will still have a role in terms of this stuff,
albeit that we're saying that if it's reasonable for them
to think that it's actually authentic, that certain claims have
been made and the international standards organizations or the European

(01:22:09):
standards have been met as long as that's reasonable to
conclude that that is in fact the case. Then we're
not going to ask them to second guess whether the
European standards are equal to higher than news salant. If
we've done that at a centralized level.

Speaker 5 (01:22:22):
We're going to go the news will come back with
the Minister after the break.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
Helping you get those DIY projects done right. The resident
fielder with Peta Wolfcare call, Oh, eight hundred eighteen News
Talk ZB.

Speaker 5 (01:22:37):
Your new Talk CB coming up seven minutes or just
six and a half minutes after eight with me in
the studio. The Minister for Building in Construction, Chris Pink
is with me without further adue, we're going to race
right into your text messages. So Pete, with the idea
of liability being shared, is it time to have the
LBP threshold being raised to a minimum level five? Qualification

(01:22:58):
insurance is the way forward, but more responsibility on the LBP.
After all, they're the professionals in practical construction. So would
you look at introducing higher levels to the LBP course
or qualification.

Speaker 9 (01:23:11):
Yeah, I'm really interested in the occupational licensing or know LBP. Obviously,
in the case of what we often think about as builders,
but you know, of course there are qualifications and experience
and practition and boards across the other trades as well.
I'm really interested in that for exactly the reason that
your Texter says, it's an obvious place to ensure we've
got good quality as a starting point. Yes, of course,

(01:23:33):
whether it's insurance or the rate payer through the different
liability settings, that's all ambulance at the bottom of the
cliff stuff as opposed to events at the top. So
good qualified traders who can be relied upon because they've
got a qualification is a good starting point. I'm not
saying that we don't have a good system, but there
have been enough people of who raised to me similar
kind of questions and comments that it seems to me

(01:23:54):
that's the thing we can and should look at. I'm
not going to say though, that within the next eighteen months,
he said, checking the calendar and the current parliamentary tune,
that that's a reform that will be able to get
across the line. But so fast say, between the existing
ways that we can demonstrate competence and experience, and also
existing mechanisms within it, such as the site two license,
I think their opportunity is there for us to make

(01:24:16):
sure we've got a good quality base just.

Speaker 5 (01:24:18):
On the site two license. I think that the LBP,
So if you're an LBP building, then there's only one
license class, right, you're just LBP building. I would like
to see LBP level one, two, and three maybe similar
to the site license, and that you know, for example,
if you're talking remote inspections, that might only be offered
to lbps that are at level two or level three

(01:24:40):
rather than across the board, because you know, arguably we're
not all at the same level, but we've all got
the same title.

Speaker 9 (01:24:48):
Yeah, very good point. I quite agree.

Speaker 5 (01:24:50):
I'll throw that in there. Can you tell us when
the new thermal insulation rules will be in H one?
So the changes to H one, you've signaled that the
schedule method has gone good riddance. I think that's a
great idea. When will we have calculation and modeling only?

Speaker 9 (01:25:03):
Will a twelve months lead in from a couple of
months I think from when we announced that, so doing
the mathots around the ten month mark, But certainly if
you were to look on the mb web site, it
would be clear the point at which you can no
longer do the schedule method and as you say, then
calculation and modeling, which are currently already the case, will
be used in every occasion going forward, which is great.

Speaker 5 (01:25:22):
I think. Can you ask the Minister, yes, I can,
if he thinks that opening up the windows system to
the international market creates the risk of another leaky building crisis.

Speaker 9 (01:25:33):
Opening windows, there's something in that windows is a good thing.

Speaker 5 (01:25:36):
But yeah, I understand, Well how do you prevent it? Basically?

Speaker 9 (01:25:39):
Yeah, I mean the answer is you need a system
where you don't have lower standards than those in New Zealand.
So that's why we are not saying everything from every
country or state that's approved overseas will be able to
be used as a rice in New Zealand. And smarter
people than me with technical now have gone through to
look at what the standards are in other jurisdictions. And

(01:26:00):
you know, my expectation, I hope is we're quite conservative
in that, particularly where they are vulnerable elements of a building.
And I'm not needing to be a technical person to
understand that. Obviously windows are a particular point of vulnerability, yes,
all the obvious reasons, and so we simply we've designed
a system in which we won't have inappropriate standards of

(01:26:25):
such items coming into this country. Now, the obvious caviator
is the thing we're discussing before, which if there's actual
instances of outright fraud in terms of whether something has
passed certain measures overseas, then that's something we need to
be vigilant on again because an existing problem.

Speaker 5 (01:26:39):
Right, Oh, what are the chances this going back to
the seventy square meter granny flat, we're going to get
a tiny home placed on a property that already has
a dwelling. It'll be in use for our retirement. Will
there be like a temporary rule to allow it to
be purchased now and placed on the land, but not
to connect to any service, will be occupied until the
new law kicks in?

Speaker 9 (01:27:01):
Oh yeah, I mean my understanding is a tricky one. Yeah,
it is a tricky one because it's right in that
transition period, which is always one of the tricky elements
of writing legislation. You know, how far do you look back?
But I would say it would be the point at
which you move a structure onto a property with regard
it as effectively as being built there. And by the way,
sorry to be complicated, there's also a resource of management

(01:27:23):
element as well. So when you get into the whole
question of what is a building and whether it needs
to be moveable, you know there's a lot of gnarly
detail on there that I know that Chris Bishop, who's
the realm of stuff with that stuff and knows that
we need to get right as well. Again, we want
to be enabling as much as possible, but also got
to have some sort of reasonable baseline in terms of quality,
but you know, in amenity and other factors too.

Speaker 5 (01:27:47):
Just on the h one as well. I got a
text earlier this morning going, hey, look, we don't have
to worry because we're in Northland and we're exempt from
thermal requirements. That's not true. No one's exist, not.

Speaker 9 (01:27:57):
Quite, no one in some way, shape or form, I
would say. In the case of Northland, I've asked MB
to look at whether there could be a special climate zone. Sure,
because Authland is different from South London and lots of
ways that are clear if you walk around Southland and
shorts and t shirt sometimes you're doing that up North.
So it'll be a nuanced and hopefully you know, appropriate

(01:28:19):
way of recognizing the fact there's are quite different distances
from the equator but it won't be the case that
there's no rules oh one fed, nor.

Speaker 5 (01:28:28):
Will the rights to build a seventy square meter grannie
flat always take precedence over resource management or local zoning rules.

Speaker 9 (01:28:35):
From Phil short answer, yes, and what I mean by
that is that the granny flats policy includes that you
won't need a resource consent or a building consent. And
so the rule that will be promulgated by Chris Bishop
and time to align with the Building Act changes will say,
as of right, here's what you can do in terms

(01:28:56):
of a minor residential unit granny flat, and it will
have some requirements around setback from boundaries in distance, you know,
because we need to think about fire for the major dwelling,
but also other properties. So there will be some rules,
but they'll be uniform across the country. And that's one
of the things that's been missing in the resource space
as well as at a building level in terms of

(01:29:17):
interpretations of the building code.

Speaker 5 (01:29:21):
Can you please ask Chris if we can get counsels
to apply the law equally. Some councils are far more
helpful with advice and they'll get to accept things versus
a neighboring council that insists that maybe you get an
independent advice and rejected if it doesn't fit with their interpretation.
I have always been baffled by this notion that we
have one building code, we have one Building Act, and

(01:29:42):
you have two adjoining councils bcas who seem to interpret
it differently. How did we get there?

Speaker 9 (01:29:49):
Yeah, it's such a good question that I'm suspecting it's
what we call in politics a patsy question in rime time,
where it's almost you know. I love that I've been
asked that question because it's raised with me a lot,
and it's one of the things we need to do
to even out those inconsistencies across the country. Your correspondent,
no doubt has experienced this, whether he or she is

(01:30:11):
getting building done or doing the building on either side
of a council boundary. But of course at a system
wide level, that means you don't get the efficiency of
people being able to design a single building and use
that at scale in different parts of the country. And
the answer is, in an ideal world, to be honest,
I think we'd have one building consent authority, albeit with
the problems of a monopoly or a centrally government controlled

(01:30:32):
behemoth that you have at the moment, we're quite the
other way with sixty six different councils for filling that function,
by announcing recently as the government, we've decided to enable
councils to consolidate their functions at a regional level, which
is what they've told me that they want to do,
by the way, and therefore share the resources and get
the efficiencies of manpower, but also accreditation processes it systems

(01:30:55):
make that consistent. I think we'll get a lot less
of those inconsistency, certainly council by council in a given area.
And then if the other potential direction from which helped
all becoming in this regard is that if you say, well,
if you've got some private building content authorities or national
as in across the nation, I think even consenting at

(01:31:15):
the moment does that work. Admittedly just in social housing,
sure something we could consider. Then you could actually say,
well you should get a consistent interpretation because you've got
one body who can do Northland to South End and
everywhere in between.

Speaker 5 (01:31:27):
With the arrival because there's another private building consenting or
BCA company that's come out clever name given it sounds
exactly like the councils. So they're there now. Way back
in the nineties we had all sorts of private certifiers
doing work. As soon as it got tricky, they disappeared.
What's in the legislation to make sure that that doesn't
happen again.

Speaker 9 (01:31:47):
Yeah, that it's already the case that you can have
those private building consent authorities. That's not a thing that
I've introduced. It just so happens that only one of
them has ever managed to get across the threshold to
be accepted by mb for that right.

Speaker 5 (01:32:02):
And as you say, that's the christ Church here.

Speaker 9 (01:32:05):
Yeah, that's right. And what they had to do was
demonstrate that they had adequate means that yes phrases okay,
that they can meet in the event of a failure
for which they are responsible because they've signed off, you know,
provider consents, done the inspections, given a co complaint certificate.
They can stand behind that work to the extent of
meeting any claims so that someone who's who's used them

(01:32:25):
or had their build own and professionals use them, you know,
won't be left empty handed. So that work's been done
to make sure that they can't for example, turn out
their pockets, say we can't be responsible, I've got no money,
and then shift their assets somewhere else, what lawyers call phoenixing.

Speaker 5 (01:32:39):
Yeah, just in terms of proportional liability. You know, we've
focused a little bit on perhaps designers, engineers and the
LBP sort of as the main contractor. But you would
expect then that if restricted building workers being done by waterproofers, plumbers,
drain layers, roofers, et cetera, pladding installers, they would all

(01:33:00):
then need to have to ensure that they would have
insurance as well. So it's it's not just LBP builder
getting insurance. All of those other trades would need to
be insured all the ten year run up.

Speaker 9 (01:33:11):
I would say, insurance needs to cover all the work done.
And I'm sort of deliberately making a fine distinction there
between scenario and what you've said, which is to say,
and again we're looking at the detail because we know
we've got to get this right. It might be that
the head contractor, that the person whom the homeowner is engaging,
is insured for all the work that's done, and then

(01:33:33):
they have some arrangement with their subcontractors. But I don't
think that's the same thing as saying that every sparky
or plumber or whoever it may be, has to have
that insurance themselves. As long as there's coverage there somewhere,
that seems to be the right place to balance the
cost as opposed to the assurance that we need as well.

Speaker 5 (01:33:52):
Another question about the grannie flat, someone's saying, ken a
relocated building I an existing building from another property qualify
as for this minor dwelling or does it need to
be a new dwelling?

Speaker 9 (01:34:06):
Yeah, I mean, there's nothing to stop you moving on
an existing dwelling if you've got the right consents. So
just reminding ourselves that granny flats are specifically that which
doesn't require a consent. If it was constructed in a
way that didn't have a consent in the first place,
then I would say that they're probably full foul of
the rules. Devil on the details to do check the

(01:34:28):
legislation has been passed in its final form, But of
course the purpose is to make sure that everything's done
in accordance with the building code.

Speaker 3 (01:34:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:34:38):
Sure, And if we're not certain of that in terms
of when it was built, then we need to be
certain of it when it's moved, so one way or
the other, I think you'll need to be able to
demonstrate that unless you're building you from the time that
the rules come in, using the right people and being
under seventy square meters and single story, et cetera.

Speaker 5 (01:34:55):
Just on the granny flat, given that there is not
necessarily the requirement to get a building consent for it,
but you still have to build an accordance to the
building code. But if councils not checking it, who might
be checking it.

Speaker 9 (01:35:08):
Yeah, it'll be certified by the person doing the work.
And yes, that's a mind shift for us at the moment,
I suppose, in the sense that we're asking people to
stand behind their own work as far as builders go,
who are licensed building practitioners. But it's also worth remembering
apart from the fact that we want relatively lower structures
to be able to be done much more quickly and affordably,

(01:35:30):
and again it's recall the whole purpose of trying to
get this thing underway. At the moment. Of course, we
have electricians and gasfitter is able to sign off their
own work, and potentially that's pretty dangerous stuff, you know,
live power and all the implications and until recently, and
I say until recently a bit of a liberty because
we're going through the process of changing the law, plumbers

(01:35:51):
and train layers haven't been able to. But again, we're
going to align that stuff business as usual rights and
train layers will be able to sign off their own
work in the same way that electricians and gas fitters can,
and then in turn builders as well, but in a
granny flat context alone.

Speaker 5 (01:36:05):
Okay, we're going to come back after the break talk
about changes to earthquake strengthening, because I know that's something
else that you've been working on, and that's particularly pertinent,
I suppose for heritage areas. You know, you think about
main Street and an old town, there's a lot of
nervousness there and I can see you've got that Oh Crichy,
do we have to talk about that look on your face?
But we will in just a moment with me in
the studio, Chris Pink the Minister.

Speaker 1 (01:36:27):
It is eight twenty meta twice God was, But maybe
call Pete first, feed your wolfcaf the resident builder news
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dog zb righty oh, we've got a couple of minutes
left with the Minister. This is another area I know
that you've been heavily involved in. So the question is
what is likely to happen to the EQ code. So
the earthquake code from the text, our lives have been

(01:37:51):
destroyed by this code and what has been a perfectly
safe building that's been strengthened but now could cost us
an additional six hundred thousand dollars after contributing some significant amount. Ready,
no one can afford this, and most of us are pensions.
That's from Chris. So the earthquake rules trying to get
buildings up to what is it sixty seven percent of
new building code? Is the requirement on a heritage building?

(01:38:14):
Where are we at?

Speaker 9 (01:38:15):
Yeah, I mean the heritage one is a particular element
that complicates matters, but just in general terms, if I'm
going to start with the fact that's got a set
of rules that came in about ten years ago, and
obviously it responded to the tragedy that was the of
course earthquakes. And I think no one would disagree with
the fact that we need robust rules to ensure that
we protect against life safety risk. The reality is, though

(01:38:37):
in the intervening decade, it's become clear that while some
work that has able to be taking place has taken
place the remaining work that the rules currently require even
to get to thirty four percent of this mythical I
shouldn't say mythical. This subjective standard news building standard in
Bess is a percentage is quite difficult to achieve. And

(01:39:01):
it's not just as though we say, well it costs
a lot of money in doing a proportionate analysis of
life safety risk versus dollars, it's actually the case that
the work's not going to get done because banks won't
lend to do the work more than the building's worth
in the first place. So we do need to have
another look at it. I've had another look at it
because we had an independent or rather an expert technical

(01:39:23):
panel look at it chaired independently. That's come back to me.
I'm going to recommend to government very soon what the
rules should be going forward. And what we want to
do is take a proportionate approach where we ask where
in the country is the risk actually highest, right, and
for example it might be that Northland and Auckland it's
relatively low. Yes, yes, everything's relative because you know there
could be an earthquake in Auckland tomorrow, but they could

(01:39:45):
also peers in our mirror and so on. So we've
also got to think from a philosophical point of view
in terms of government, where's our money be spent to
save human lives? And it might be that's in our
transport system and our public health system. So we want
to have a sensible approach to that. And it won't
be very long. Your correspondent will hopefully be pleased to
know that it will be a matter of weeks that

(01:40:06):
we can provide them all clarity. Yes, it will need
a law change, so yes, there will be opportunities for
people to say exactly where they think the lines should
be drawn. Yeah, but I'm very hopeful we can achieve
that between now and next year's election in terms of
passing the primary law, even if we then need to
have regulations with particular detail about what it means to
do a targeted retrofit. For example, it might be, for example,

(01:40:26):
we say, well, actually that is still going to remain
in earthquake prime building, but it's a certain intervention you
can make. Might just be securing a facade, which is
actually the big life safety risk we discovered oftentimes in
christ Church. Yes, as opposed to whole building collapse, which
as you can imagine as a much more cost effective
and quicker way of getting the work.

Speaker 5 (01:40:42):
Done because it has had sort of a depressive influence
in terms of town centers. Right, So you think about
heritage Erry's right across the country, traditional old buildings along
the main street, and the occupants and the owners of
those buildings facing enormous costs and just going well, look,
I can't let it because apparently I'm not allowed to.
I don't have the funds to restore it, and so

(01:41:04):
they're falling into disrepair. Absolutely, yeah, and that's a real concern.

Speaker 9 (01:41:08):
I think it's a really astute point because actually small
town New Zealand and regional New Zealand is actually at
least as affected as the likes of Wellington and derasat
christ Church. And obviously christ Church is a particular case
because they've been through all that already and again we
you know, we've got to be respectful of the life
safety risk and of course looking backwards of course the
human lives that were lost. But I think for small

(01:41:30):
town New Zealand, where whole areas will be hollowed out
with derelict building after another not able to be occupied
as something we've got to take pretty seriously for the
life of regional New Zealand. So do expect some nuance
about the types of buildings. Yes, the geographical areas, but
even in terms of areas we say, well they are
still medium and high. Let's Central or now in North

(01:41:53):
Ireland for example. But nevertheless, it might be that if
we don't have skyscrapers, if they're relatively low, and by
the way, if they've survived the number of earthquakes in
the laste hundred and fifty years, maybe they're actually okay.

Speaker 5 (01:42:05):
Just in the last minute that we've got between now
and Christmas, what else will we see in terms of
changes either you know, to the Building Code, the Building Act.
There's a lot that the government has already proposed. Anything
else on the drawing board between now and Christmas.

Speaker 9 (01:42:20):
But between now and the end of the year, it's
mostly about continuing to progress the things that we've already
talked about on which work remains underway. It's the details
of the liability, it's passing Granny Flat's legislation give into law.
The only other major ticket item is the one we've
just discussed, which is the earthquake prone building. So do expect,
certainly between now and Christmas, maybe even much sooner than that,

(01:42:41):
the change that we'll be able to announce in terms
of that, and after that, it's really just sort of
making sure we get the EDIL right, executing it.

Speaker 5 (01:42:48):
So joined in several liability. That's a slight that'll have
a longer tail, won't it that we won't see significant
legislative change for twelve months or so, or maybe longer.

Speaker 9 (01:42:56):
Well, well within twelve months, will have the law passed?
I hope I can expect that will generate, will create
such a system, the supporting structures, whereby it might be,
for example, eve one needs a certain type of insurance.
I think it's reasonable expect a longer lead time period
short So it might be that we passed the primary law,
and actually, to Mike Thornton's point last week about the

(01:43:18):
legal aspects, it might be that we do the regulations
outside the primary legislation, which means, relatively speaking, it's a
strike of the pen that can happen in the months
following that law change. By the middle last year.

Speaker 5 (01:43:28):
Okay, it's a busy time. It'll undoubtedly get busy. I
know you're a busy man, because you seem to be
at every building event that anyone invites you to, which
I know from the sector's point of view, we really
appreciate thank you for coming in today, really appreciate it.
It's been awesome, so thank you very much.

Speaker 9 (01:43:45):
Thanks very much, enjoyed it, thanks to you Union listeners.

Speaker 5 (01:43:47):
All right, take care, we'll take a short break. We'll
be back with Rudd. We're into the garden in just
a moment, doing other.

Speaker 1 (01:43:54):
House sorning the garden. Asks Pete for a hand. It's
a resident builder with Peter Wolfcamp. Call oh eight hundred
eighty ten eighty News Dogs Envy for more from the
Resident Builder with Peter Wolfcamp. Listen to News Talk set
B on Sunday mornings from six, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.

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