Full Show Podcast: 27 July 2025

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Resident Builder podcast with Peter wolf
Camp from News Talks at B. Whether you're petting the ceiling,
fixing the fence, or wondering how to fix that hole
in the wall, give Peter wolf Camp a call on
eighty The Resident Builder on News Talks at B.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
A house sizzor even when it's dug, even when the
grass is overgrown in the yard, even when a dog
is too old to barn.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
And when you're sitting at the table trying to have
to starve.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
Scissor home even when we.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Are ben.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Even when you're therellone.

Speaker 4 (01:10):
Houses a home, even.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
When there's goes, even when you go around from the
ones you love your most.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Scream does broken paints a peel in front of.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Locals visperle when they're going and leaving neighbor house, even
when will then, even when you're in there alone.

Speaker 5 (01:51):
Well, a very good morning, and welcome along to the
rest the Builder. On Sunday here at news Talk Zidby,
we are here to talk all things building and construction.
And when I say all things, the range is actually
pretty wide. So this is the good old practical stuff.
Something's broken, something squeaked, something jam something fell off, something's rotting,

(02:13):
something's peeling, something's decaying, something's just anything that's a problem
basically around the house. We can talk about that, and
we can talk about the I guess, not necessarily the
practical stuff, but the design, the planning, the preparation, the
selection of materials, the figuring out which system, which combination

(02:34):
of elements is going to work best for you. And
then there's the personal stuff choosing contractors, managing contractors once
you've chosen them, and potentially dealing with disputes and so
on afterwards, and you know that's often what happens. I
would it would be really interesting. We did an interview, gosh,
a couple of years ago now with kind of like

(02:56):
the chief adjudicator at the disputes tribunal. It would be
interesting to get some statistics from them as to how
many you know what percentage of claims to the if
it's tribunal basically center around construction and property, you know,
as it with regard to a neighbor for fencing, is
it a contractor who's done a job potentially and done

(03:19):
it poorly and you're seeking some redress from a contractor
I've actually got I'm going to just note that down
that might be quite an interesting thing to have a
look at. So sometimes it doesn't go well, and other
times it goes. It goes exceptionally well and we get
to celebrate that perfect combination of the right products, the
right people, the right design, and a tremendous outcome. So

(03:42):
maybe we can talk about that on the show this
morning as well. Either way, it is completely up to you.
What is in front of you, What do you want
to talk about, What is your primary concern when it
comes to all things building and construction. We can talk
about that. The number is eight hundred and eighty ten eighty.
There is also an option to text in which is
nine two nine two is zbzb from your mobile phone.

(04:04):
And if you would like to send me an email
you know more than welcome. It's Pete at newstalksb dot
co dot Nz. So p e t E at Newstalk
sedb dot co dot Nz. The lines are open. The
number to call eight hundred eighty ten eighty. And just
talking about sort of I should right at the end
of my preamble, there's something about celebration. It was my

(04:25):
great pleasure on many ways to be invited to MC
and to offer up a bit of an after dinner
before dinner speech at the Auckland and Northland Regional Awards
for the Architectural Designers of New Zealand so ad n Z.
They have competitions each year for houses under one hundred

(04:47):
and fifty square meters, between one hundred and fifty and
three hundred for interiors, for color, and for some commercial
stuff as well. So does entries come in a panel
of judges view all of these. They travel right around
the country, so there's different awards culminating in a national
award and October. So I was invited to come along

(05:09):
to the event on Friday, which was absolutely stunning and
some of the house is fantastic, and then to see
and actually it was quite nice to know a couple
of the designers who won awards or were given awards,
granted awards and commendations.

Speaker 6 (05:24):
Was great.

Speaker 5 (05:25):
So that was I'm sure at some stage their designs
will be up online as well. But it was a
lovely evening to celebrate some very very fine architectural design.
Oh eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number
to call if you've got a question call us now.
A little bit later on One of the other things
I wanted to do is shine a bit of a
light to recognize and celebrate an organization that started ten

(05:46):
years ago called the Super Home Movement. Dan Saunders, who
is a trustee of the Super Home Movement and a builder,
He's got his own building company down in christ Church.
I spoke with him during the week and thought, right,
we'll get you on. I want to celebrate the fact
that this super Home movement has been around for ten
years do tremendous work. I've mentioned them a number of times.

(06:08):
If you're interested in building a house that is better
than just code minimum, where do you go for advice?
There's a couple of places, and certainly the Super Home
Movement and their online content, some of their video stuff,
and certainly the Super Home Guide or the Healthy Home
Guide is absolutely fantastic. So if you if you want

(06:28):
something that is better than code minimum, that's kind of
one of those places that you can go to. Oh
eight hundred eighty ten eighty the number to call Lovely
to be with you on this Sunday morning, last Sunday
of July August, Criky August is just around the corner.
And for those of you in well, I think most
of the country had not bad weather, certainly Auckland. It's
been a purler of a week, clear skies, cold, yes,

(06:53):
but plenty of opportunity to get some things done, which
is exactly what I've done this week, which has been great.
And apologies to my neighbors. I'm going to be working
today as well. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty the
number to call hullo, Ellen, goody, Allen? Oh now what's
going on here? It's gone blue on my side? Ah okay,

(07:15):
I tell you what. Just hold on there, mate, and
we'll come back to you in just a second. So
I popped them back on hold. We'll take a break
and come back to you in a moment.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
Squeaky door or squeaky floor.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
Get the right advice from Peter Wolfcare, the resident builder
on News Talks dead.

Speaker 5 (07:30):
Br News Talk CB. We've got the technical stuff sorted out,
which is basically me not doing the right thing, which
is typical. Eight hundred eighty ten eighty. Then they were
to call Ellen, good morning to.

Speaker 7 (07:40):
You very well.

Speaker 5 (07:43):
Thanks.

Speaker 8 (07:44):
How can I help us?

Speaker 7 (07:46):
Good an issue with it? Or friend's got an issue
with a lot of conversation forming on the underneath side
of the roof underlay, and of course it's causing issues
in the in the ceiling space, water dropping off any suggestions,
it's obviously this time you were throats and so I'm
mid carebary, so getting a run a.

Speaker 5 (08:07):
Frost, Yeah, probably inadequate insulation, so it's moving the dew
point right, and the dew point kind of occurs where
hot and cold meat. So obviously it's cold outside and
the cold is settling or the cold is around the roof.
Is it a concrete tall roof or a long run

(08:30):
metal metal, long run metal with some roofing underlay and
then an open sort of trust roof space. If you
can have a look inside there with some insulation, you'll
have heat. Whatever heat you can generate with inside the
house will be rising. It'll go through the ceiling, through
the plasterboard, it'll hit the insulation. In this instance, it's

(08:50):
probably going through the insulation, or enough of it's going
through to then meat the well. I mean realist, I
mean typically you'd expect to see condensation underneath the iron,
in which case that's why the building, the roofing underlay
is there, right, So the condensation that would occur because
that's going to be a colder surface than the paper

(09:12):
or the fabric of the roofing underlay. It should then
congregate on the underside of the iron, drop down onto
the roofing underlay, trickle along, drop down into the spouting.
That's what's supposed to happen. The other thing, you want
more ventilation in the roof space. That might help.

Speaker 7 (09:32):
There's been vents put on feet to dre and compat this.
He's also wondering whether a more modern reasonable roof and
the lower.

Speaker 5 (09:45):
Underlay would help.

Speaker 6 (09:46):
Yes.

Speaker 5 (09:46):
Probably if it's you know, the old black paper type thing, yes,
it probably doesn't work. But then the challenge is how
do you install that right, because ideally we want it
to be continuous, which means taking the iron off and
adding the roofing underlay. And look that's a really big ask.

Speaker 7 (10:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would be.

Speaker 5 (10:06):
Looking at the quality of the insulation that's there and
things like, you know, like if lots of heat is
getting into that roof space. You know, if they've got
older incandescent down lights which you can't insulate around, and
also the actual shape of them, the form of them
is such that you've got the incandescent bulb which generates

(10:27):
a lot of heat, which draws heat to it, and
then it's got vents all around the top, so you're
actually letting quite a lot of heat into the space
above your insulation right, so your insulation layer is there
in the ceiling to keep heat in the warm spaces
down below. And if you've got old conventional candescent bulbs

(10:48):
and down lights, you're just letting a massive amount of
heat through there, creating little funnels. So that might also
be part of the problem. Where it's quite useful sometimes
is to I'm pretty sure christ Church has one actually,
so christ Church Council, many councils around the country have
what they call an eco Design advisor, and it's a

(11:11):
free service to the best of my knowledge, or at
least reasonably cheap, and they will offer up insights. They
might be able to come and do a site visit
and actually look at what's the lighting, what's the insulation,
what's the ventilation like, and offer up a solution. So
an eco design advisor might be helpful. If you want
to get someone else who's familiar with this, you could

(11:33):
go to the Green Star to the Home Star program. Rather,
this is the new Zealand Green Building Council and get
a Home Star assessor to come out and have a
look at it and then they'll determine what it is
that's causing the problem. A couple of options there.

Speaker 8 (11:50):
Yep, awesome, Okay, no trouble at all.

Speaker 5 (11:52):
Nice to talk to you the best, Ella, Thank you,
Bobby and Tony. A very good morning to you.

Speaker 9 (11:59):
Very good morning to you, Tooting. It's a tragic article
on the Herald on Saturday about it seems to be
the biggest leaking group of properties that's ever been built
in the Zealand space.

Speaker 6 (12:13):
Yeah, the question I have it's.

Speaker 9 (12:16):
A bit twofold, but when how does it get to
the stage we have got to accord, sorry, appoint a
statutory manager because the Body Corp hasn't been able to
achieve what is required to fix this particular set of properties.
And when people are looking at purchasing properties, are they

(12:37):
in some ways best to looking for say brick and
tile and trying to avoid it sort of like Stucho
and these sort of constructions. Because it seems to be
that it's sort a continuing problem and it doesn't seem
to be resolved. I mean there's been other cases of
recently where there's been agents up for deception of property

(12:59):
in Royal Oake. I mean, it's a never ending story.
So I've just been interested in your comments as well
how it gets to this stage, especially with that group
that I'm referring to in some lakes.

Speaker 5 (13:08):
Yeah, in some ways I'm a little bit reluctant to
talk too much about, you know that the individual circumstances there,
but saying that what was reported is already out there, right.
And I read the article yesterday as well. It was
in the Herald front page of the Herald actually, so
just for those people who might not have seen it,
this is what's now thought to be New Zealand's largest

(13:29):
leaky building case, right, and it's a collection of buildings.
It's like seventeen buildings. It's a total of about two
from memory, two hundred and forty apartments within that complex.
It seems like all of them have been built in
such a way that they've generated with the type of issues.
So they basically started leaking seemingly from the reporting within

(13:53):
about three years of construction. And so there has been
a settlement. It seems like Auckland Council have paid out
again according to the report, tens of millions of dollars
in compensation. And so the remedial work got underway. But inevitably,
you know, the body corporate has that collective responsibility for

(14:13):
the exterior of the buildings, so they would have got
together a committee to manage the relationship between the contractors,
the consultants and the owners of the buildings. I guess,
with the greatest respect for modest amounts of work, that's
probably something that people with a reasonable amount of competency

(14:34):
could do. It would seem that the scale of the
project is simply beyond them. And that's with the greatest
respect to the people who perhaps have been managing it
as a body corporate. But you know, it probably requires
specialist it does. It requires a special set of skills
in the words of Liam Neesen in that movie. But

(14:56):
you know it does. And if they've been managing it,
trying to manage it, trying to do the best they
can with the skills and abilities that they have, potentially
they haven't been able to manage that. Well, it's gone
back to the courts and the judges looked at and said, look,
let's get some professionals in there. Hence appointing Deloitte's to

(15:16):
manage the remainder of the remedial work, which you know,
given the scale of it, I don't know. Hindsight's always
twenty twenty, but perhaps when the judgments were made that
could have been a recommendation from the court. It's interesting
actually to see judges make more comments about sort of

(15:38):
building issues. The other case that you mentioned was the
remedia or the building that was sold and I think
it was only Hunger turns out to have had something
like five hundred thousand dollars worth of remedial work required,
and the judge I read the comment this week, the
judge making a comment about the poor quality of the
pre purchase inspection right, and calling perhaps for a requirement

(16:00):
to have some sort of qualification, or a requirement to
have a qualification in order to offer up an opinion
at a pre purchase level, which you know, I wouldn't
completely disagree with. People might be surprised to know that
in terms of pre you know, house pre purchased inspections, right.

(16:22):
So you're interested in the property. You go through I
don't know, the Yellow Pages. You go online, you find
a guy who goes, hey, I do pre purchase inspections,
they rock up, they give you a report of some description,
you know, do you ask for their qualifications? Maybe maybe not.
Do they offer up their qualifications maybe maybe not. Do
they need to have qualifications in order to offer up

(16:43):
a report? Actually they don't. No, in which case, you know,
is there a hole in There's a hole in the
system that allows people who might have little to know
experience making a reasonable living out of doing pre purchase reports.

Speaker 8 (17:00):
I was totally unacceptable.

Speaker 9 (17:02):
But the question I'm saying is that I really better
just to look at book and told properly that don't
seem they ever seen to leak along?

Speaker 5 (17:08):
No, I don't think so, because well no, because what
we're saying or no, the assumption that you're making is
that basically every building of that topography or that that
sort of building methodology is going to leak. And that's
just not true. Right, So there are plenty of buildings
around that were built with that methodology or similar methodologies,

(17:30):
right that simply don't leak, go through their lives with
little to no issue, and so they're out there, right,
But there are you know, unfortunately, there are plenty where
thresholds are inadequate flashing details haven't been done well. You know,
complex junctions haven't been detailed well, and they will cause problems,

(17:51):
which means, really, I suppose that the short answer to
the question is it's about the quality of the pre
purchase inspection.

Speaker 8 (18:03):
Yep.

Speaker 5 (18:05):
And you know, I think he and the judge in
that townhouse case said, look, you know, like there were
other purchases allegedly who were interested in that property, did
their due diligence, had pre purchase inspections done, and walked
away from the property because it was clear to other
pre purchased inspectors that there were going to be where

(18:27):
the tightness issues with that building. So the person who
unfortunately went ahead and purchased the property was poorly advised.
Is the conclusion that the only conclusion you could draw.
And the person who did the inspection again this is
all in the media, ended up compensating her to the
tune of seventy five thousand dollars.

Speaker 9 (18:50):
So what we're really saying is you can buy those
properties if you check them out.

Speaker 6 (18:55):
But yeah, the.

Speaker 9 (18:57):
Leakiness of the building, is it due to absolute incompetence
on behalf of the people that are building them, or
Is it because they wanted to cut corners and do
a cheat what would you say?

Speaker 5 (19:08):
No, it's not always about the construction. And I've had
firsthand experience of constructing something exactly as per the plans
and it turned out to cause leaks, right, So you know, like,
and this is my own person, it's a long time
ago now, but there was a particular detail that we did,

(19:31):
and I don't know, seven eighteen years later we were
back to do fairly minor remedial work to address that
in a limited couple of areas. But you know, that
was That's my own personal experience of building something exactly
as per the plan and then having issues with weather tightanners.
So it's not it's not always the constructors. Sometimes it

(19:55):
is the constructors. Sometimes I think some of these large
building sites have an adequate supervision, and that's not something
that has stopped happening either. I was talking with a
large sort of joinery installer the other day and they
were talking about their experience of a particular project where

(20:18):
they said, you know, the competency of the people who
were managing the job on the ground was somewhat lacking,
you know, and then you go to others I'm watching
a building that's been renovated across the road from this
office here, right, and you can just tell from the
site it's well organized, well managed, everything's neat and tidy.

(20:38):
You can see the progress, you can see the attention
to detail all of those sorts of things, and you go,
you know, so, really, there's so many more buildings that
get built well than get built poorly. The challenge for
owners or potential owners is to do the correct due
diligence to ensure that you're not going to end up

(20:59):
buying something that's going to be a problem. And that's
not foolproof, but you've got to be select obviously with
the people you're getting to do the.

Speaker 9 (21:08):
Property inspection, because, as you say, as we've found out
some of these people really have got hardly any building
experience at all. They're just setting themselves up to do
work they're really not qualified to do.

Speaker 5 (21:21):
And right now, there is, to the best of my knowledge,
no requirement in law for a person undertaking pre purchased
inspections to have any qualifications in that area.

Speaker 8 (21:34):
Oh that's terrible. Yeah, how does it get to that start?

Speaker 5 (21:38):
Well, yeah, I mean, potentially that's the nature of capitalism,
but I don't know. Look, we're you know, I'd be
more than happy to take some more calls on this
because I think you know again, you know, does that
then come back to the to the consumer? Right, So,
if you're going to contract someone and hand over how
many dollars to them to say, hey, look, please undertake

(22:00):
a pre purchase inspection for me, is it your responsibility
to then do a five minute Google search to see
what sort of level of competency or to simply say, Hi,
I'd like you to do the inspection. Can you tell
me what your qualifications are? Please?

Speaker 9 (22:15):
And the other question would be do you have adequate assurance?
Because if your property report is incorrect dollars to fix it?
Will your company reimburse me for the expenses? I think
that would be an ideal question as well.

Speaker 5 (22:29):
I think that's a very wise question. And again, do you,
as you know in New Zealand right now, and we're
talking about LBPS for example, right, do you require insurance
in order to construct buildings?

Speaker 9 (22:40):
No, you don't, Josh, I'm.

Speaker 5 (22:45):
Sorry to have been the bearer of such bad news
for you this morning.

Speaker 9 (22:52):
Brook and top copy that leaks.

Speaker 5 (22:54):
Ah, yeah, look they can they can. But at the
same time, you know, there are some I guess there's
some really basic things that we can do with buildings,
right that that my is leaking. And again I had
a long time. I was at a pro climber, which
is a company that does building wraps and sort of

(23:15):
in that high performance space. They I got to say
this just quietly, they have the best trade breakfasts almost
of any trade breakfast, and I'm a sucker for a
good trade breakfast. So I was across there on Friday
morning at the pro climber guy's place over only hung
a penroseway. Anyway, the got talking with some people about

(23:38):
houses and leaking and design and so on, and you know,
the beauty of an eve, for example, in terms of
just providing a little bit of shelter to critical areas
like the tops of windows and so on. Yeah, there's
a massive advantage to that. But at the same time,
you get a nineteen sixties brick and tile and between
you and the outside world there's nine and a half

(24:01):
millimeters of plaster board, no insulation, no building wrap, a
cavity and some brick. Right, So you know, is it
going to be warm? No?

Speaker 9 (24:10):
No, no, yeah, anyway, that was fantastic.

Speaker 5 (24:17):
I really appreciate it. So, look, yeah, thanks to this.
Does it come down to buyer beware.

Speaker 9 (24:25):
Up to a certain degree, But I think if you're
playing so unsupposedly a professional to do a job, yes,
and they and they say claim that they're competent to
do that, then they should have some I think they
should have total responsibility of what they're giving you is
incorrect and it causes you to spend a lot of
money that you didn't plan on doing.

Speaker 5 (24:46):
And I wouldn't disagree with you. Okay, call you, get
a nice chat, take your tone up all.

Speaker 6 (24:51):
I think.

Speaker 5 (24:52):
Oh eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number
you do say the same just things at times. And
this time you've used the term capitalist. What's wrong with
Tormot capitalism? It's comments right, none wrong? Well, I don't
think there's anything wrong with commerce and capitalism. And people
want to have their business right. So if you are

(25:12):
in the end not particularly competent at what you do,
but you still offer your services in our system, you're
still entitled to do that, right, that's the nature of business.
But then it becomes the responsibility of the person contracting
you potentially to ask those questions, is this person fit
and able to undertake the work that I want them

(25:34):
to do. I mean, it just can't be that hard
to figure out whether or not the person who's offered
to provide a service to you is actually competent to
do that. It'd be nice if you didn't have to check.
But we real live in the real world. Eight hundred
eighty ten eighty is the number to call six thirty

(25:55):
five here at news Talk Set B, And if you've
got a question of a building nature, you should call
us now eight hundred eighty ten eighty. We'll talk a
little bit about pre purchased inspections in a moment, but
we can talk all things building constructure. And certainly that
story's been in the news. It was front page I
think of the Herald, the printed edition. I read it
yesterday morning online and the story about the only Hunger

(26:16):
townhouse that's been the paper a couple of times, including
I picked up on this this week. The judge making
the comment about the professionalism and the proficiency of the
person undertaking the inspections and correct me if I'm wrong.
But to the best of my knowledge, right now, there
is no requirement for anyone to actually have a qualification

(26:38):
in order to undertake a pre purchased inspection. Can you
tell me if that's a good thing or a bad thing?
Six thirty six at Newstalks.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
B helping you get those DIY projects done right? The
resident builder with Veta Wolfcat call oh eight eight youth
Talk ZEDB News Talks, HEB.

Speaker 5 (26:56):
Pete says the text at how did the seventeen buildings
get signed off? Anyway? Don't counsel visit the sites throughout
the building process? It seems too late once the buildings
are complete, Diane, it would appear reading between the lines
in the article that I read on the Herald anyway,
is that council did inspect, obviously didn't pick it up,
and hence they have had to offer compensation, which goes

(27:22):
onto another issue around joint and several liability and whether
or not we should move the current regulations to proportional liability,
because in this instance here I suspect that possibly the builder,
possibly the designer, possibly the constructors, possibly the consultants that
were involved in it are no longer operating, in which

(27:44):
case you can't get redressed from them, in which case
all of the liability falls on what is often referred
to as the last man standing, or in this instance, council,
and so counsel end up becoming responsible for all of
it rather than just their part of it, which is
a pretty big issue at the moment in terms of

(28:04):
I guess the politics around building law the moment. Oh
eight one hundred and eighty ten eighty the number to
call Tracy, good morning to you.

Speaker 10 (28:11):
Yeah, good morning.

Speaker 11 (28:15):
Here's a horror three. I believe it was a horror
story in regards to.

Speaker 10 (28:21):
Pre purchase and inspections.

Speaker 11 (28:23):
And the scary thing is they're about to do it again.
Housing New Zealand when they sold off properties back in
twenty six sixteen, they sent around two men to inspect
the properties to do a kiss condition report on them.
The houses we were in with the original leaky homes

(28:44):
built in nineteen eighty seven, right, so they had stucco,
The houses were so low to the ground that water
would come through, there was inappropriate drainage, all these things.
You could see. You could see their problems. It's hing by.
I just kept having to deal with these problems, not

(29:04):
me personally, but to get in six. So then I
asked for a copy.

Speaker 12 (29:07):
Of this report.

Speaker 10 (29:09):
Right, So I'm looking at the.

Speaker 11 (29:10):
Report and I'm going hold on a minute, that's not
my house. That's not the condition of my house. So
down the track I started collecting things, doing uryas and
what have you. I found out this company, they wrote
the computer program for it. They also hired these men

(29:35):
who blatantly lied about the condition of these houses. These
houses didn't get sold, but the other half of the
village did. That was the worst can well is bad condition? Now,
when the government hired this company, they said that they

(29:56):
weren't allowed to endanger any tenants right in the complex
or in any houses they blatantly did. Now they're about
to go out, and who are key when they sell
off these houses? How long is that to use a
company like that that blatantly will lie for the government.

Speaker 5 (30:19):
We've got to be a little bit careful about making
allegations that we can't verify. And I have no reason
to doubt your comments and the investigation that you've done,
but I suspect it is also incredibly complex. So and
the other thing, Tracy, is the properties that you're discussing
or talking about, are they were they owned by Housing

(30:41):
New Zealand in the past.

Speaker 10 (30:43):
Yep.

Speaker 11 (30:43):
Although they are saying that they didn't build them.

Speaker 5 (30:46):
That they that's okay, Well they probably didn't because they
don't actually build houses. They get that.

Speaker 11 (30:52):
They said that they brought them in two thousands, right,
and I am saying why would they say that? Do
you know why? Because they hid them when the leaky
buildings came out and went back to the council, they
did a survey on the completes itself. Nothing changed in
the confident.

Speaker 5 (31:11):
I'm just curious as well, Tracy, when you say the
properties are being sold, are they being sold to private owners? Potentially?

Speaker 11 (31:20):
No, No, they're being sold. They've been sold to who
is it APL? What's a PL?

Speaker 5 (31:30):
Whos a PL APL?

Speaker 11 (31:31):
Or well then they're not they're a provider. They do
have that they.

Speaker 5 (31:37):
Okay, So the ownership of those properties might be shifted
to like a community housing provider. Yeah, yeah, but then
the community housing providers needs to do their own due
diligence and they need to All properties nowadays need to
be compliant with healthy Homes regulations, whether they're privately owned
or owned by large organizations. If they're rented out, they

(31:59):
need to comply. And it would sound like these ones.
I just wonder whether the checks and balances are there
now that we don't actually hopefully we won't have these
problems going forward. Appreciate your comments. So I think we're
on slightly the nice. Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty
is the number to call. This is an interesting text. Hey, Pete,

(32:22):
we've leased out in nineteen sixties motel comments. The tenants
have gone through and put in a bench top, portable stove,
two elements, and an oven. Do I need to put
in ventilation? They've also plugged it in beside the sink.
The question is, if you've leased out a nineteen sixties
motel complex to individual people, have you done it using

(32:46):
a residential tenancy agreement? In which case it needs to
comply with the healthy home standards of the Residential Tenancy's
Amendment Act? And I suspect that they wouldn't, in which
case you can't be leasing that building out as of
the first of July, would be the short answer to that.

(33:07):
Here's an interesting text as well. If you have lending
on a build project, the bank is required that the
contract works insurance is held. Yes, that's true. So all
I'm saying is that not every contractor has insurance. Obviously,
if you're doing a build and you've got finance over
that from your bank as a mortgage holder, then they

(33:28):
as part of their due diligence, they'll look at the
contract and go, we want to ensure that the builders ensured,
in which case you've got to go to the contractor
and say, where's the insurance, and that way you make
sure that the insurance is there and in place. What
I'm saying is that someone undertaking building work coming to
I don't know you build a new fence for you,

(33:49):
for example, may not necessarily hold any insurances, nor are they,
to the best of my knowledge, legally required to do so.
There are ways to check obviously, and you can ask
for it, but it's not a legal requirement, and maybe
that should change as well. We'll take another short break.
It is six forty six here at Newstalks c B.
If you've got a building question, give us a quick call.

(34:10):
Someone's text through as well. Just briefly read the roof moisture.
What about installing an HIV or at DVS won't make
any difference in that instance there. It'll help in other areas,
but it won't address that particular problem, but appreciate the
text radio take short break. Will be back with Roger
in a moment.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
Met it twice, God was, But maybe call Pete first
for your WALCAF the Resident Builder News Talks be your.

Speaker 5 (34:33):
News talks, HEB. We're talking all things building construction and
if you've got a question, give us a call. Eight
hundred and eighty ten eighty is that number to call Roger.
Good morning morning.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
How are you Roger?

Speaker 5 (34:45):
Roger, I'm very well in yourself.

Speaker 10 (34:47):
Okay, did you get my em yes?

Speaker 5 (34:50):
Thank you. So this is going back to an issue
that you raised last week on the show where by
way of extraction, someone has installed a fan in the
ceiling and then you know, in terms of healthy Homes compliance,
interestingly enough, that does comply with the regulations, but the

(35:13):
property in which it was installed is not a rental property.
You're not a tenant, and the landlord hasn't installed it.
This is your own property, isn't it that we're talking about, right?
And so the request was and thanks for the email.
So just to be clear that the fan that was
installed in the ceiling was not there before it was.

(35:35):
You wanted to get some extraction above the cook top
and the solution from the electrician in this instance was
to install a ceiling fan. Yes, right, And during that
initial conversation, was there any discussion about, hey, look it
would be more effective to install a rangehood, a conventional

(35:56):
range hood.

Speaker 10 (35:58):
No, who was just over the range to the Senate.
It goes through the war to the outside the fan.

Speaker 5 (36:11):
Yeah. But I'm always intrigued in these instances, you know,
do I suppose the quality of the advice from in
this instance, the electrician in the first place is like,
surely most electricians would understand that a range hood is
going to be more effective than an extractor fan, and that,

(36:33):
you know, by way of sort of professional advice, you
would say, okay, yeah, we can install a range hood.
There are these issues around, you know, trying to get
it in place or get the ducting out or do whatever.
And the cost is going to be this and at
the cost of putting range hood and is going to
be more than putting a ceiling fan in. But it's

(36:54):
going to be the best thing. So this is what
we're going to do, and this is what the price is.
I'm just surprised that that conversation didn't happen much earlier.

Speaker 10 (37:04):
I said, my wife is there less to them go
and the shipt on seeing me advertising material every month.
But got sick of it, so I raised them back
and got hold of him, and he was the owner

(37:24):
of it, and he's still the owner of this. They
changed the name of the company.

Speaker 5 (37:29):
Sure, I'll tell you what I'm just wondering. And I
had a long conversation with people about this during the
course of the week in terms of you know, the
value of trade associations, Right, so is the company that
you have had do that work and who you're obviously
having a dispute with at the moment. If the electricians

(37:51):
are they a member of the Master Electricians Association.

Speaker 10 (37:55):
Oh, yes, they must be. They're a big company, a
big commercial work and everything.

Speaker 5 (38:00):
Okay, I wonder whether you know, because your next step
is kind of along with dispute s tribune or route, right,
But I actually wonder whether going to the Master Electricians
Association and talking because inevitably they have some sort of
disputes process or professional standards you might get It might

(38:21):
be a quicker pathway, right, So that that was now
thinking about it, that's where I would go next, and
just go directly to the if they are remember, go
directly there, yes, to get some response, or maybe they'll
step in and just say, hey, look, we'll we'll send
someone to fix it. I don't know what they're going

(38:42):
to do, but it'll be quicker than going through the
dispute tribunal. I like the dispute tribunal. I think they
do great work, but you know it might take a
little while. So Roger, I would suggest that that's your
best way forward.

Speaker 10 (38:56):
Yes, all right, Will that cover the new regulations, because
you see I have to reach to do this now,
to reach this after reach over boiling pots and the.

Speaker 4 (39:11):
Yeah, I.

Speaker 5 (39:13):
Think there are regulations. In fact, our next callers are sparky,
I think, so I might ask them, but I think look,
I would suggest you go to the master electricians if
they are, remember, and get them to send someone out
to have a look at it. That would be the
way I go.

Speaker 10 (39:29):
I do that.

Speaker 5 (39:30):
Let us know how you get on, Roger. I hope
it all works out in the end. Eight hundred and
eighty ten eighty The number to call Steve, good morning.

Speaker 12 (39:37):
Good morning, your two points you know you have You've
probably got a case there with what's going on, because
with the fan thing with people depending on Obviously I
can't see what I can't see, sure, but yeah, I
do fear for these people. But in most cases, yes,

(39:58):
they're going to be vented outside obviously. Yeah, and in
time I've seen horrible installations, and yeah, the high away
from the actual service of the range.

Speaker 5 (40:09):
Less less effective, and that's that's just physicals.

Speaker 12 (40:13):
Going back one, excuse me going back one that thing
about all these people jumping on the bag and wagon
doing these inspections and that. So we're being in being
in the actational. We are responsible. We sign a coc right,
we are responsible, not not when you know, if you
sell your business or move on. We are responsible with

(40:37):
that document until that building or house or whatever has
been detibitioned, so if they can prove liability. So in
my I cannot see what the building and builders costs
this country millions of dollars for no reason. We should

(40:57):
regulate and legislate these builders. If that proud of their work,
they won't mind. We've got this of men and see
that is absolutely crippling out country.

Speaker 5 (41:12):
It's it's a discussion worthy of a lot more time,
which we don't have right now. But I mean it's
really interesting for you as a professional in the industry
to take that stance. We'll talk more about it after.

Speaker 4 (41:22):
The News doing other house extorting the garden.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
Last Pete for Ahead the resident builder with Peter Wolfcap
call eight hundred.

Speaker 4 (41:31):
Eighty ten eighty News talks'd be welcome.

Speaker 5 (41:33):
Back to the show. Eight hundred eighty ten eighty. The
number to call it is six almost seven minutes past
seven here at Newsks. He'd be. If you have a
building question, whether that's the rules, the regulations, the practical stuff,
the systems, the product selection, feel free to give me
a call or a text. That call is eight hundred
eighty ten eighty If you would like to text, it's

(41:54):
nine to nine two. Later on this so hour, we're
going to catch up with Mike Olds. I'm actually quite
of pertinent really given the conversation in the first hour
about certain types of cladding and propensities for leaking and on.
We'll have a bit of a discussion with Mike Olds
from Razine Construction about that. In the next hour of
the show. I wanted to spend a couple of minutes
talking with Dan Saunders, who is a trustee of the

(42:17):
super home movement. If you're interested in building better than
minimum standards. Right, If you're interested in building better than
code minimum, which is obviously all that's legally required, where
do you go for information? And this thankfully plenty of sources.
But the super home movement added as a collective of
people who are interested in promoting better building, higher performance

(42:39):
in our building's better insulation, better ventilation, better detailing. I
was thinking about this the other day that you know,
we've had double glazing pretty much standard in joinery for
the last fifteen twenty years, but we've been putting it
in the wrong place in many cases because we're hanging
it right outside on the cladding because we've got these cavities,
because we worried about our clotting leaking, so we ended

(43:01):
up with our joinery outside on the cladding and our
double glazing out there, leaving an I speak gap all
around the perimeter. So you know, it's details like that
that are part of I guess what the super home
movement's doing. So we're going to chat with Dan Saunder's
with regard to super Home Movement after eight o'clock as well,
and of course we're into the garden with reclined past
at eight thirty. So, just to wrap up the conversation

(43:23):
with Steve, Steve, you're an electrician professional, you've got you know,
electricians as opposed to some other trades, in a sense
self regulating and have been for a long time, aren't they.
So if you issue a coec A certificate of compliance
for some electrical work you've done that's not necessarily inspected

(43:45):
or checked by anyone other than you, does that happens correct?

Speaker 6 (43:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 12 (43:49):
Yeah, But in the old days, we used to have
what they called a pinky, and we used to have
the inspectors come around behind us and.

Speaker 5 (43:58):
Every job or just occasionally, Oh.

Speaker 12 (44:01):
They'd do it occasionally because actually, you know, it was
either a pinky or bluey I think one of the
other things.

Speaker 4 (44:07):
Anyhow, that's still the case, isn't it.

Speaker 5 (44:09):
Because I know a maid of mine who's an electrician
runs a small firm. He we were talking about the
sages ago and he said, you know, every now and
then there's an audit, right, someone comes out and they'll
go through and check you work, check your systems. That
would still be in place, wouldn't it.

Speaker 12 (44:23):
Well, No, that's where you do get an inspect if
you touch the other side of the mains. Your democation
is on the mains, right, But I'm not one hundred
percent sure on that. But just too quickly before I
forget on that kitchen job. Yes, I just looked it up.
It has to be on the cook top. The range

(44:45):
has to be one hundred and fifty mil exhaust capacity
and at least fifty liters per second. Yes, it's got
to you know. But yeah, going back to the regulations,
I mean it works for electricians. It's worked because if
you get someone in the old days, you didn't want
to get a pinky because everyone knew, right, think the drums,

(45:09):
you know. But I cannot believe my that system works
for New Zealand and Australia the same regulations, right, I know,
this varying thing, but we have different regulations in the
building code between different areas and it's just layers and
layers of guaucrausy, you.

Speaker 5 (45:29):
Know, just on the building issues. I mean, there shouldn't
be actually differences. There's only one building code right in
New Zealand. So this whole thing about you know, some
inspectors do it this way. It's like no, they're not
supposed to know. And when you encounter an inspector that
wants to do it their way, you have to go back.

(45:50):
And this was a discussion I had with some guys
the other day. You know, inspector turned up on site,
looked at the fixings and when they need to be
stainless steel, and they'd put galvanized fixings on because it
wasn't going to be exposed, right, so if it was
exposed in the sea spray zone, sure it might need
to be to steal it in this And the inspector said, no,
that's not right. I'm going to fail the inspection. It's

(46:10):
got to be stainless. And they went, no, here's the
building consent. The building consent has been issued. It's specified
as galvanized and galvanized as all that's required. So you know,
I mean, you do have to know your stuff. Just
a last quick question for electricians. For obviously all electricians

(46:31):
are registered, right as part of your registration, do you
have to keep insurance?

Speaker 8 (46:39):
Yes?

Speaker 12 (46:39):
Yes, we are million million, simple as that. Ah, that's
how it works. I mean, and every two two years,
I think it's three years, we have to go to
a refresher course. We have to do our first aid yep.
And it's just mandatory, and I mean, there's no problem
with that. But they're keeping an eye on everything, and

(47:00):
it's moving in the right direction because we I mean,
it's so simple to enforce. It's not rocket science. We
seem to get. I don't know that this country is
very good at creating laws for that reason.

Speaker 5 (47:16):
Is the argument though, Well, one of the arguments that
inevitably is going to be it's going to add cost. Right,
So if we're going to make it mandatory that let's
say all license building practitioners must carry public liability insurance
for example, or some sort of pl you know, it's

(47:37):
it costs, right, and someone's going to pay for it,
and eventually it's going to be the consumer. And at
a time when we're trying to drive down the cost
of housing if possible, adding a layer of cost is
going to be politically unpalatable.

Speaker 12 (47:53):
Yeah, but where does it stop them start?

Speaker 11 (47:55):
If that?

Speaker 12 (47:56):
I mean, I call them stealth taxes. I choose to
be an electrician, yes, and in a way, so I've
got a choice either, and by law, we've got to
follow this procedure. If I don't want to get started
in this right and not comply, well, I still remember
the day they brought all this in, by the way,

(48:16):
I mean years ago that when they got rid of
the inspectors. Then I just said, exactly what you're saying,
this is just creating another layer of costs to them.
But at the end, what would you rather have people
being responsible for what they're doing for life or just
having these cowboys come in. We've seen them come in

(48:38):
and go.

Speaker 6 (48:40):
Okay.

Speaker 12 (48:41):
Then there is an argument there are we going to
be able to find these people? Well, those people love
those people. You're always going to get those types of people.
But most people, there's more good people than bad people,
are going to comply with the regulation because you don't
want to get your name.

Speaker 5 (49:01):
And again, as long as there are checks and balances
in the system, right so within the electra regulations or
electrical regulations in terms of you must have your license,
you must prove competency, you have to continue to get updated,
there are checks and balances in it. I do wonder
whether that's you know, the big Personally, I'm a big

(49:21):
fan of the license building Practitioner scheme, but I'd like
to see it's it's rights and its responsibilities be extended
a little bit like the Arethur plumbers, electricians and so on. Steve,
we've got to move along. Really appreciate your call and
your insights and and I guess that's what a bit
of age and knowledge brings as well. So I really
appreciate that, Steve. Thank you very much. John.

Speaker 4 (49:42):
Good morning, good morning, good morning.

Speaker 12 (49:46):
I just got manure from my house insurance.

Speaker 6 (49:50):
Yep.

Speaker 12 (49:50):
And it's a brick, it's a brick unit and on
on the papers it's got a brick veneer.

Speaker 6 (49:59):
Bricker.

Speaker 5 (50:00):
Okay, it's if you think about, they're very uncommon, like
a genuine brick house and News Zealand is quite uncommon.
And typically that will mean that it's got brick on
the inside face that might be plasted smooth. Then it's
got a little bit of a cavity. Then it's got
an other layer of bricks, and so the bricks are
a structural element. Think about if you watch programs about

(50:23):
UK building, most of their buildings or a large number
of their buildings are brick and it's a double layer
of brick. Most New Zealand brick houses are actually timber
framed with a brick veneer. So probably ninety of New
Zealand brick houses are timber frame with a veneer. A

(50:43):
simple way to check if you go up to the
walls in your house and give them a good tap
if it sounds a bit hollow, or if you can
see that it's got plaster board on it, or if
you open up a light switch and have a look,
there'll be timber framing in behind there. It's most likely
timber framed with brick venia.

Speaker 8 (51:02):
Yes, you've got a timber frame, but they're solid bricks.

Speaker 5 (51:06):
So I know, but it's not. I wouldn't describe that
as a brick house. I would describe that as having
a brick veneer because the bricks are not like the
bricks are not supporting the roof. For example, you could
take the bricks off and the roof would stay there.
So it's a brick forming. Yeah, it's it's the structure
is in the framing. I hope that helps take care

(51:29):
all the very best you can, ah Pet. Last week
you spoke about a bathroom extractor fan that monitors the
moisture in the air and can stay and will work
all through. What they are is it's the one that
I picked up is from Cimix, so s I m
X they do or they're introducing a range of fans.

(51:54):
I'm not sure what the distribution's like, but if you
go directly to Cimmics, I'm sure they'll sort you out.
So s I m X and what it is is
it's an extraction fan, but it has a humidity sensor
it the fan. And this is kind of hopefully where
we're all heading right. So in bathrooms, for example, you'll
have an extractor fan that runs at a low rate

(52:17):
all of the time, so continues to draw air through
that space to encourage circulation, which is a good thing.
And then it when it notices humidity, Ie you've turned
on the shower, there's lots of moist air floating around.
Warm moist air, it will ramp up to a higher
rate and then act to extract all of that. And

(52:37):
then as the humidity drops in the room, as the
room dries out effectively, it will drop down its rate
and continue on there. So there may well be other
manufacturers doing them, but the ones that I know and
the one that I installed is a Simmix one. So
SIMX oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number
to call. A couple of weeks ago, we were talking

(52:57):
about bathrooms and the number or the number of doors
required between a kitchen and a toilet. Basically, so the
code requires is just one. So bathroom's near the kitchens?
Can you tell me the legality of that? Our house
has one door between the kitchen. It's only like five
to six feet away or in the new language one
point eight meters roughly. Yeah, one door is required between

(53:22):
a toilet and a kitchen. I had this thing from
years ago that maybe it needed to be two, but
it is just one. Check that myself today it is
seven eighteen here News Talk, said B and Dean, Good
morning to you.

Speaker 6 (53:35):
Good morning.

Speaker 13 (53:36):
I probably an unusual question. I Steve just mentioned insurance, Yes,
which is a good thing. But what if so what
if I have a scenario where I do a build,
the trades person does the job, and then maybe a
couple of years later so moves away. Mister Australia, what

(53:58):
have you? Is the insurance component still valid for the
trades person work, so you know, if there's something wrong,
can I n go to the insurance company and say, hey, guys, look,
you know Johnny's not here anymore. However, this was covered
by you guys. How do I settle a claim.

Speaker 5 (54:19):
I mean, look all, I mean you would want to
get specific advice on specific policies, obviously, So that's my disclaimer.
One of the things that I've sort of been in
conversation with a few people about is this idea of
sort of run on insurance because you know, the same
could have happened. Let's say as an LBP, Right, So

(54:40):
if I do work and I issue a record of works,
I'm responsible for that work for ten years. Now, Let's
say I do a job and I'm sixty four and
I plan on retiring at sixty five. How do I
ensure that I should there be a claim when I'm seventy, right,
and I've sold on my tools, I've packed up, I'm
fishing all day. You know how am I going to
be responsible for that? So some contractor type insurances have

(55:04):
like a run on clause. So, but I would imagine
you'd need to continue to make a contribution in terms
of the premiums for a period of time, but it
will cover you for the length of time that you're
legally responsible for it. You would need to look at
each individual policy. I would imagine that some policies are

(55:25):
for the project and they don't have that run on insurance.
Other policies offered up by tradespeople might have that provision,
but I wouldn't assume that every single one does, so
you'd have to look at each on a case by
case basis. I think great isn't really an answer, but

(55:45):
the ego, you know, we know that insurance is complicated, right,
and so liability insurance and run on policies that must
be pretty complicated as well.

Speaker 13 (56:00):
Yeah, I just had a situation with a car which
right which I didn't X to get the insurance claim done.
For some times is busy forgot, you know, and it
wasn't and it wasn't critical. But then you know, the
comment the insurance company made to me at the time
was well, as long as it was covered at that
particular time under that policy, yes, then you can still

(56:24):
make the claim. However, I'm still contributing, of course, but
I just wondered because it was it was one of
those things that you know suddenly from a from an
electrical perspective, you know the job hasn't been done correctly
or or any number of reasons, you know, but you
don't actually discover it until sometime down the track.

Speaker 5 (56:42):
So I guess. And the other question that you'd add
to that, or the other issue would be, let's say
the company you know ceases trading, right, does that mean
that that's the end of the responsibility to that.

Speaker 13 (56:57):
Yeah? Or or in fact, you know, my coverage is
as a consumer, as the as the client. You know,
do I still am? I still covered? As probably the
important thing because sometimes these things aren't discovered like leaky
homes for some time. So you know, if you if
there was that ability to have the recourse later on,

(57:18):
then then it'll work for the consumer. But you're right,
insurance companies unless you keep paying them, they.

Speaker 5 (57:24):
They tend to and that's the nature of business. Look,
you're not wrong. Hey, good to talk with you, Dean.
Enjoy your day, take take care, all the best. We'll
talk to John after the break.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
Whether you're paid in the ceiling, fixing the fens, or
wondering how to fix that hole in the wall.

Speaker 4 (57:41):
Give Feeder Wolf Gabber call on eighty the resident builder
on news Talks, it'd be you.

Speaker 5 (57:47):
And News Talks. It'd be quick. A couple of texts
as well. Just a little bit of a clarification on
the conversation we had with Steve who's an electrician. He
did make the comment about sort of being responsible for
the duration of the building, which not quite completely true
or not current anyway, So Tony is text through Hey Pete,
I too am electrician the previous spark. He said that

(58:09):
the compliance certificate lasts until the building is decommissioned. This
is not true. They are valid for seven years or
until someone else does some work. So bearing in mind
that any electrical work that's done, the electrician should issue
a COOC, a certificate of compliance at the end of that.
So if you've had a PowerPoint installed or done anything

(58:32):
any changes to the wiring, that sort of thing, they
must issue a COOC and it remains on let's says,
I guess on their records, but it also gives you
something that you can add to your property file as well.
Another quick one on the electricians and accountability. The reason
accountability works for electrical workers is that there are specific

(58:53):
electrical tests that can prove whether the work meets requirements
EEC cases where a fatality can result from inadequate testing,
whereas construction work can hide defects that do not manifest
for many years, and so homeowners lives might be ruined
and the perpetrators have banked the profits and are long gone.

(59:13):
I cite multiple apartment blocks around the country's evidence. Regards
from Owen very well, put, you're right, I mean this
is I guess the beauty of the electrical work is
that you do the work and then you can objectively
test it and find fault with it. You can build

(59:34):
a building and potentially not see faults for many years.
So yeah, I hear exactly what you're say. Oh, eight
hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call Steve
the Sparky. What are you doing, mate? Steve the Sparky
text Pete regarding liability insurance for electricians. Unfortunately, it is

(59:55):
not a compulsory in New Zealand, though it's highly recommended
for self employed electricians and a requirement for most of
our commercial clients. Spot auditing is and always has been
in place for electricians. They can often ask for ten
compliance certificates at once, and then they'll presume they're goun chess.
And I was asked to supplay ten and one street once.
Regards from Steve the Sparky, world famous in Hawk's Bay.

(01:00:17):
I have no reason to doubt that thank you very much.
If you want to offer up another opinion about so
liability insurance, what about professional indemnity insurance for electricians? Is
that compulsory if you're a registered electrician? I'd like to know. John,
good morning to you.

Speaker 14 (01:00:36):
Yeah, good morning. I'm bringing in from Winton. When I
did my time in the sixties down here, we built
two churches and school designed by an architect in Dunedin, yep.
And when we were building the school, we said to him,
this school's going to leap right and we said to him,

(01:01:01):
what's the you know, why can't do you see what
we see? Comment was, I am the architect. You will
build them to my design. Now, that's what we had
to do. But then I went to Well and I
did a New Zealand certificate in building feet and we

(01:01:25):
had an English architect teaching us weather tightness in construction
and it was an English box, you know. And at
the time I thought, all of it feels, what the hello,
We've wasted our time doing this stuff. But going back

(01:01:45):
in the UK, it was all about flashings. Lead and
silicon wasn't around then. And if you really start to
look at the leaky home problems, the architects and the designers,
in my opinion, should have been the first stop. And
then if you have a look at silicon or the sealants,

(01:02:10):
and if building's got that in it, it's almost invariably
eventually going to sleep.

Speaker 6 (01:02:17):
Pea.

Speaker 5 (01:02:19):
I certainly look. My attitude particularly to sealants, right and silicon,
is that it should be there not as the primary
layer of defense, but as an additional layer of defense. So,
for example, if you've got a well detailed metal flashing
and you add a layer of silicon, let's say, underneath
the lap, it's going to be better than if it

(01:02:40):
didn't have one. But you should still be reliant on
the detailing of the flashing for weather type's yea, not
the sealant itself, you know. So you know, if you've
got a complex junction, let's say, between two different types
of cladding, there might be a requirement to have a
bead of sealant on the outside surface of that, but
ideally you'd have a backflashing that if water penetrates between

(01:03:03):
the gap between the two types of cladding, it hits
that flatish and is directed outside of the building. So
sealing has a place, but it shouldn't be everything.

Speaker 14 (01:03:14):
Based on your experience then, because I think that a
lot of builders have been hard done by because they
were building to the plans and the species by architects
or draftsmen, designers right and all through the leaps building.
It appears that all those guys, by the way, got free,

(01:03:36):
and yet they were their original.

Speaker 8 (01:03:38):
Causes of it.

Speaker 5 (01:03:39):
I don't know whether they would have got away scott
free in the sense that I'm sure that there are
various designers, consultants and so on who have had to
pay out for their contribution to a building that's ended
up failing, ie leaking. But you know, again, because of
the nature of business structures and so on, there's probably

(01:04:01):
a lot that haven't paid out, had have simply folded
their companies and avoided libel see that way. So you know,
the issue going forward is how do we shift the
risk onto the people who are actually responsible for the work.
And this is a big discussion at the moment around
it's no longer proposed we're going to most likely see

(01:04:24):
seventy square meter simple standalone dwellings being built without necessarily
requiring a building consent. So if you take counsel out
of the equation, as a homeowner or as a consumer,
how do you where do you get the surety that
that building's not going to cause me a problem in
the future. In the past, you could sort of go, well, look,

(01:04:46):
because I've got a building consent, council are telling me
the building's okay. If there's a problem, I can go
back to council later on in life. If counsel are
not in there, and you're a consumer, the end user,
how do you make sure that if there's a problem
with it in eight years time, for example, that you're
going to have someone to go back to. And ultimately,
I guess that's all going to be driven by insurance.

Speaker 14 (01:05:07):
Yeah, could you get prepped an expert on sealance on
your show one day, because all right, I'm seventy six,
so I'm well gone from building. Yeah, but most people
don't understand what different sealents are for etcetera. Except you
see them laid out of the buildings fly.

Speaker 5 (01:05:27):
Yeah. It's a very good point.

Speaker 14 (01:05:30):
And that's where one of the starts of the problem start,
because if you've got the proper ceilant, you can literally
water proof anything.

Speaker 5 (01:05:41):
I have just the right person in mind, to be fair,
I might have to give Steve a call. If he's listening,
he'll know who he is. I appreciate that. I'll see
what I can do. It might be quite a good
topic actually, because there is there's a baffling array of seilants.
I was in a one of the large hardware stores
the other day. Was I looking for seilants?

Speaker 6 (01:06:03):
No?

Speaker 5 (01:06:04):
I don't think I was, but anyway, I wandered along
that particular And you're right. There's all sorts of different seilants.
There are some that you can paint, there are some
that you can't. There are some that are UV stabilized.
There are others that are flexible. There are others that
are flexible and adhesive. There are ones for interiors and exteriors.
There are clear, there's translucent, these different colored ones, et cetera. Yeah,

(01:06:25):
it is a little bit baffling. So yeah, you do
need to make sure you use the right one um
in the right application makes a huge difference. Oh eight,
one hundred and eighty ten eighty is that number to call?
Hello Margaret?

Speaker 4 (01:06:41):
Hi, Margaret.

Speaker 15 (01:06:44):
Good more than you, Peter, you do great work, especially
on radio. Thanks and in the.

Speaker 16 (01:06:51):
Telly as well.

Speaker 15 (01:06:53):
Sorry, I was just doing multitasking and trying to clear
my throat a bit from the yoga last night.

Speaker 5 (01:07:00):
How can I help?

Speaker 15 (01:07:01):
So we just well we I'd love just europe on
what you would do and compare what.

Speaker 16 (01:07:09):
We've done so far.

Speaker 12 (01:07:11):
So we have a.

Speaker 15 (01:07:13):
Architecturally built home with all the crazy trimmings that we
didn't really need a want. So so we did build
a swimming pool and a deck the queever, and they
both meant the last fifty years. But no way, Jose,

(01:07:34):
I would never.

Speaker 5 (01:07:35):
Have believed the person that said to you that that
timber outside is going to last.

Speaker 15 (01:07:38):
Fifty years, the swimming pool and the deck.

Speaker 5 (01:07:44):
If it's concrete, but timber outside untreated never going to
last fifty years.

Speaker 15 (01:07:50):
Yeah, And dealing with counsels and they're constant changing of
the rules and so on so forth, you know, to
get past you know, the five year check something, the
warrants or whatever. So right now we're at the at
the stage of trying to down some and we did
get the alteration specialists and to check with all the

(01:08:11):
problems we've had with trees and leaking roofs.

Speaker 16 (01:08:17):
And and and so lots. Oh, we had a flood
as well from the bathroom and sideways.

Speaker 15 (01:08:28):
And through and through. So yeah, so it's a bit
scary what the quote will be.

Speaker 5 (01:08:35):
But so this is all remedial work that you need
to do before you sell the property.

Speaker 15 (01:08:43):
Yes, yes, like doing the wolf wolf or whatever. And
the size of the tennis court lawn, the size of
the lawn is also got the potential for subdividing. But
we just don't have the energy really or inclination to
deal with more counsel.

Speaker 5 (01:09:02):
So how is the house? I'm just intrigued. When when
was that ho?

Speaker 15 (01:09:09):
It's at least thirty years old. So we moved in
when our son was a toddler. He was looking out
the window watching the digging of the for the pool.
So yeah, he's not thirty years so it's it's I
think it was maybe a couple of years built prior
to him, so at least.

Speaker 5 (01:09:30):
Thirty years And when So the house when it was
built would have had a building consent. Was that building
consent signed?

Speaker 16 (01:09:38):
Definitely?

Speaker 5 (01:09:40):
And do you have a CCC attached to that building consent?

Speaker 15 (01:09:46):
Uh? Yes, of course. But as you said, were the
trees before even building the pool? They said, oh, just
chop all the trees out before you built the pool on,
and of course we didn't because we thought, you know,
it'd be nice to have a few palm trees around.

Speaker 4 (01:10:06):
The pool or the.

Speaker 6 (01:10:12):
Margaret.

Speaker 5 (01:10:12):
If your choice is to keep the trees and the
trees are a problem, that's that's nothing to do with
the builders or anything like that. That's that's again it
was interesting, sorry, it was interesting yesterday or that they
were having a discussion about homeowners hopefully becoming more educated
in terms of how to actually operate the machine that

(01:10:35):
you're living in. There is a description of houses as
being a machine for living, right, So typically they don't
come with an instruction manual, but they kind of should,
and that would be things around you know, ventilation, extraction, maintenance.
Possibly the worst phrase that was ever invented is a
no maintenance house.

Speaker 8 (01:10:57):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:10:58):
That's it's just an impossibility. Everything requires maintenance, and everything
requires a certain level of competency to operate it. We
seem to have forgotten that somewhere along the line. Thanks
very much for you call Margaret Oh eight hundred and
eighty ten eighty would take a short break back.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
In mo squeaky door or squeaky floor, get the right
advice from Peter WOLFCAF the resident builder on NEWSTALKSB.

Speaker 5 (01:11:24):
Recognizing the fact I'm not an electrician. Right, we seem
to have had a lot of electrical calls. But someone
has just texted through and said, can I get a
retrospective coc so a certificate a compliance, which is I
should buy a registered electrician for electrical work? Can I
get a respective one? I bought a house recently that
has work done, but no COOC was provided. Look what

(01:11:46):
I would suggest there, and this is a general comment,
and I've suggested in the past that if you have
purchased a house, right and if it's relatively recent, maybe
you know and it's got a coc with it and
you can find that it's on the property record, that's great.
But if you were purchasing a slightly older house, I
actually think there is it would be tremendous value to

(01:12:09):
have an electrician come and test the house. So I
call it megging. That's a machine that they use. I
don't really know how it works. I just know that
what they're able to do is potentially identify faults with
the electrical system. Right, And even the other day I
was actually with the electrician that I regularly use and

(01:12:30):
he looked at the board and he went, that could
do with some updating. It's actually not a terribly old board,
but it was done in this particular house about shivers
twenty seven twenty eight years ago roughly, And while it's
got circuit breakers on it, it doesn't have the required
number of RCDs that you would need today to comply

(01:12:52):
with the code. So while it's it's okay and it's safe,
it's not as good as it could be. So that
sort of advice. So I don't you know, if I
was buying a house, let's say it's twenty years old,
twenty five years old, I think that getting electrical inspector
to come and do testing through the house would give
you a lot of surety. And look at the story

(01:13:13):
at the moment about the number of house fires, like
there has been a dramatic peak in the number of
house fires just in the last couple of weeks as
the weather's got really cold. And I saw Pete Gallagher
from the Fire Service, Fire and Emergency ENDZ yesterday on
the news talking about sort of unconventional ways that people
are resorting to to heating their houses, things like turning

(01:13:36):
the oven on and leaving the door open. He says,
even you know people are dragging barbecues inside their house
to turn them on in order to heat the house.
The other thing, just in terms of electrical is overheating
or distribution not distribution boards. You know, the electrical switchboards.
You can go down the road. You can buy them
for six bucks at a discount store. You plug it

(01:13:58):
in and then you've got four outlets, and then you
plug something into each one of those. You're going to
overload that right. So heaters, for example, should never be
plugged into a powerboard. They should only be plugged in
directly into a wall socket. So you know you're going
to overload things and it's going to cause fires. So yeah,
I think for me, my advice would be if you

(01:14:20):
bought a house, or you're buying a house, or you're
in a house and you've been there for a long time,
you don't really know how good the electrics are, get
it tested. Seems like a sensible idea to me. Seven
forty five Mike Olds after the.

Speaker 1 (01:14:31):
Break, helping you get those DIY projects done right. The
resident builder with peta wolf Cat Call, Youth Talks.

Speaker 5 (01:14:41):
And my pleasure to welcome back to the program regularly.
Contributor and expert Mike Olds from Razine Construction Systems and
good to see you on Friday night at the Architectural Designers' Awards.

Speaker 6 (01:14:55):
Always good a catch up with the eight ENSZ team YEP,
and celebrate what they're up.

Speaker 5 (01:15:00):
To and some obviously some fantastic designs. If they've got
through to the finals, then they're well to the regional
finals anyway, they're obviously pretty good, so the interesting to
see what the national finals look like. And then you
and I it's always good to have a bit of
a catch up. And then we started talking about, you know,
in particularly the renders, right, so you know that that

(01:15:20):
option now with some of the stuff provided by Razine
Construction to you know, if you imagine having sort of
that continuity, that that design element where you go, I
want to bring inside or outside to inside or link
the two together, that's now achievable with some of the
renders that are on offer.

Speaker 8 (01:15:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:15:38):
Absolutely, And I think there was a couple of projects
that came up recently were taken the basebo. We actually
bought our specific products purely because a lot of our
clients that loved our artism. Plass to finish as the
interior work, but being natural materials and clay or line,
we couldn't actually take them outside. So we bought out
a developed a product in contact with rock Co called Serrano,

(01:15:59):
which brought that natural look of sort of burnished polished plaster.
It seems to be quite the tree on tree at present.
You can take it from inside, but also then go
and take it right around the whole exterior of your property.
So some of those developments just from some of the
stuff we do internally then then pulls to the exterior.

(01:16:20):
But one of the key things I suppose made as
well as you're looking at your rendered surface, you end
up with a solid core base to work from in
the future, and your clients are your clients are talking
a lot of the callers earlier, we're talking about general
maintenance and what they can do and things like that.
So the duty is anything in terms of extental clouding,

(01:16:41):
in terms of plasters, it's easily maintained, and it's easily
you can change the color. You can add additions if
you if you don't like a particular section of work
or wall you want to modification. You can add preplastic moldings.
You can add lovers, you can do all sorts of
things to actually not drastically change or reclaud a project,

(01:17:05):
but it has a versatility in terms of what you
can do to the exterior without without introducing massive cost
over the life of the building. So it's yeah, they're
incredibly incredibly versatile as a product and.

Speaker 5 (01:17:18):
Solution inadaptable, isn't it.

Speaker 6 (01:17:21):
Yeah, that's truely. I mean we talk about the meeting
at a d m Z on the Awards nine talking
with a couple of people there about how we live
in homes today. You look at we're a very young society,
so we don't have generational homes, where as you go
to other countries in the world and they are very

(01:17:42):
much generational. You know, the family will live in that
particular residence for many, many years, And there was one
residence at the award's night where he had actually considered
that quite significantly that it was for his family today,
that the children coming into the family and then his
grandparents moving in the in the coming years. So you're

(01:18:05):
starting to see it a little bit more common rather
than the average seven year turnover of a property or
ten year turnover property. So it's really important when people
are making their selections in terms of their clouding systems
and finishes, they take that into account because not only
societal changes, but you've got climatic changes. So people can

(01:18:26):
make decisions if they're living in colder areas to use
a more insulative exterior cladding to minimize their future heating
costs and calling costs. But also if you're living close
to a busy road, you could look at a lightweight
concrete to knock down the noise of every day sort

(01:18:47):
of travel to be past your home. And we do
that and a number of properties are nationals.

Speaker 5 (01:18:52):
The other thing that has been kind of a hot
topic today and or we've got on to is that
whole maintenance. And I wonder whether whoever throughout the phrase,
oh this is a no maintenance home, you know, they've
got a lot to answer for the reality is that
everything requires maintenance. So in terms of the Razine construction systems,
there is typically a maintenance schedule that's attached to that.

(01:19:16):
So here's your product, we're really proud of it. This
is what you need to do to keep it looking
really good. And that's that's so important, doesn't it.

Speaker 6 (01:19:24):
It's incredibly important and it's and it doesn't take It
doesn't take much. Generally, we have a we have a
maintenance program where it's sort of like your service record
for your vehicle, and you can actually sit there and
you can go, right, what am I going to do
in summer? What am I going to do in autun
What am we going to do in one terair? Et cetera,
et cetera, And the and the maintenance guide is very
much aligned to the seasons. So but most of the

(01:19:44):
time it's a it's a soft pressure wash. If you
keep your windows clean as well, that generally stops all
the grime building up into the internal corners of the
jam and cell junctions and running down leaving black marks. Yes,
so there's lots of just it doesn't take much. You know,
people are go and clean their car every other week
and then, but they tend to forget about the clanning.

(01:20:06):
But that actually still needs to be cared for. And
if you do it regularly, you're not going to have
as many potential concerns as hard a work. Coming towards
the end of life of paintings eighteen years, it'll be
it'll be an easier pathway to actually general maintenance. And
I know, looking at looking at mine that I completed

(01:20:29):
more some twelve years ago. Now, I'll be I sort
of leave it as a bit of a case and
I look at it and I go, there's no way
I need to paint this now, and that's like twelve
years wow. And I should, I know I should. But
if it's maintained and it's looked after, then you definitely,
you definitely extend the lifetime of the cutting systems.

Speaker 10 (01:20:50):
You know.

Speaker 6 (01:20:51):
I don't think it's but I don't think it's possible,
just to think that mother nature and a washer rain
is what we consider it clean these days externally. But yeah,
if it's maintained well and people don't forget it, it's
not a hard, hard job. It's harder if you leave
it and don't do any thing about it.

Speaker 5 (01:21:08):
The sort of vague hope that it will be okay.
Typically isn't a great strategy when looking after our houses.

Speaker 6 (01:21:14):
No, definitely not. And I cancur with your I concur
with your earlier quarter as well. Ceiling is not a
primary flashing mechanism, all right, It's there. A lot of
ceilings these days are primarily particularly externally esthetic. They are
there to create a clean line over a flashing or
under a flashing, So just a detailing line, particularly around

(01:21:36):
windows and things like that. We still have a primary
flashing suite around all of the windows and openings that
go through the clipping lines. Yeah, very important.

Speaker 5 (01:21:45):
That is absolutely critical, and I was going to spring
that on you, but I'm pleased that you've answered it. Anyway, Hey,
if people want to find out more, check it out
online because there's some some just some fantastic inspiration on
the website as well as lots of really good technical detail. Mike,
enjoy your day, and folks you want to check it out,
have a look online. It's Razine Construction, dot co, dot z.

(01:22:06):
Like I say, there's lots of inspiration in terms of
the beautiful renders that they're able to achieve, but lots
of technical detail there as well. Right, we're going to
take a couple of calls after the break. We're also
talking to the good people at the super Home Movement
and rid Climb past at seven eight thirty.

Speaker 1 (01:22:22):
This morning, Meta twice God was but maybe call Pete first,
pet WOLFGAF the Resident Builder News Talk, sa'd be.

Speaker 5 (01:22:33):
Ridio. Welcome back to the program. Oh eight hundred and eighty.
Ten eighty is the numbered to call. We'll take a
couple of calls for you text, and then we're gonna
have a chat with Dan Saulders. This is from the
super Home movement. Well, i'll get Dan to explain what
it is and where it came from. But ten years,
tremendous growth and it's a look, it's just a great organization.

(01:22:53):
So if you're looking for advice on where to build better,
there's a couple of sources, and I'd recommend super Homes
as one of those. Radio seven minutes after and remember
Red Climb passed at eight thirty as well.

Speaker 4 (01:23:07):
Quack tech.

Speaker 5 (01:23:07):
Someone's talking about the retrospective COC a lot of electricians saying, hey,
that's not a bad idea, and look, to be fair,
I think it is actually a really good idea to do.
Oh this is the one here. We got good advice
on the COC. Also make sure that whoever does the
testing conducts an earth loop impedance test. Older homes would

(01:23:28):
never have had this very important test done, or in
some cases, you know, the earth wire goes in and
then it kind of gets a bit battered. And it's
to be fair, it's not. I would imagine that most
electricians would have been to houses where the earthwire is
no longer connected in any meaningful way to the rod
that goes into the ground. And it's really really important.

(01:23:48):
Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty the number to call John.
Good morning, Yeah, good morning, Pete, Hey John.

Speaker 8 (01:23:56):
Listen. About ten years ago we decided to give our
kitchen a Thursday, not replacing chemmetry, but replacing the draw in,
door fronts, paint, all those other sorts of things. Now,
l's ten years ago. After about two or three years,
some of the edges on the drawers started to lift,

(01:24:17):
so the joiner came back and we sprayed those and
included them down again. But in more recent months, last
two or three months, the skin for one of a
better expression, is starting to lift on those draws. And
yet a doors doors have a pattern on them, just
a square recess, and in the corner of those recesses particularly,
that's starting to lift. So I guess my question, and

(01:24:37):
certainly have gone back to the joiner, But is this
you would expect these to last a lot longer than
ten years. And secondly, have you ever experienced anything like
this before? And If so, is it a complete replacement
of all those fronts, or is there a process you
can use where that skin can come up and a
new one go on.

Speaker 5 (01:24:58):
I would think it would be incredibly unlikely that you'd
find a system whereby you could, so just to be
clear what it is, as one of that vacuum sealed
skin effectively for one of a better term that's put over
a substrate, typically the substraate CMDF, and then it's applied
over the top right, so it gives you and look,

(01:25:19):
I have found in the past that they've actually been
tremendously durable, but they do also have a lifespan, and
you know, you can have that option of spray painting units.
But then if you knock it or scratch it, that's
you can have it resprayed.

Speaker 4 (01:25:36):
I guess.

Speaker 5 (01:25:38):
So I don't think that you can repair that as
such in any meaningful way. I suspect that it would
be a case of going back and having another door
to match or draw front to match the existing one.
And whether or not that's economic to do, that's up
to you in terms of like warranty and so on.

(01:25:59):
Ten years is probably about as long as anyone would
want to warranty. It would like to think that they'd
last longer than that, if I'm really honest. I've got
a similar system on in my kitchen. It's just on
just under eighteen years old. And yeah, I'm starting to
notice the same thing. You know, there's the lip that

(01:26:21):
you hit with the pen when you put the pans away.
That started to sort of fray a little bit. I
haven't actually had any lifting on the panels themselves. It's
typically around the edges.

Speaker 8 (01:26:33):
So these were completely rebuilt. So the doors were new doors,
obviously manufactured externally from the joiner. My understanding is that
that company that manufactured those got into difficulties, particularly around
the material that they were using. Yeah, subsequently went into receivership,

(01:26:54):
and then we're on sold and for a while the
new owners did apparently acknowledge some of the claims, so
understand that there were a lot of claims associated with
the material that was used as the skin on them. So,
I mean, I guess it's it's something that we're going
to talk to our joining about it. But I was
just curious to know whether you felt that they should

(01:27:17):
last a bit longer. And obviously it was properly put
on a year. It should last a little bit longer
than ten years. I mean, we're not We're only there's
only two of us. I'm not the kids that are
knocking bots and bands.

Speaker 5 (01:27:30):
Or bashed around. Yeah, look, I think you're on the
right track. Go back to the joiners. See if you can,
you know, negotiate something, even if it's a you know,
a discount off the replacement or something like that. But
I think that's about as good as it's going to get.

Speaker 8 (01:27:48):
Okay, all right, all right.

Speaker 5 (01:27:50):
John, take care of all this. And and Brian, a
quick word from you.

Speaker 8 (01:27:56):
Yeah, just yeah, I've been here. I've been researching your
sceians for a while and after doing some maintenance on
a large building. And yeah, key is to read, read
the instructions, read the data sheet, see what the application is, make.

Speaker 6 (01:28:08):
Sure you do it right.

Speaker 8 (01:28:09):
But a quick question for you is sure the major
issue where Heaven is with a old buttant old gutter,
you know, internal butte old gutter in an industrial greehouse.
I've got up there with a few things and tried them,
the latest being well, it was a butte old button
old patch with a primer first, which seemed to do
quite well, but I've also gone over that with with

(01:28:31):
some koy seam tape and some ky liquid rubber. Now,
the downside is that some of the places that I'm
repairing are actually in a submergence. You know, they actually
is you know, if you get a good rain, the
rain will just sit there for days on end. So
if you've got any suggestions in regards to repairing old

(01:28:54):
but internal gathering, I'd like to.

Speaker 5 (01:28:57):
Look like I don't think butte noll to the best
of my knowledge, and I was involved in a sort
of remedial work years ago where essentially, if it's holding water,
that's it's not the right product to hold water right.
So if you've got a situation where it's tanking right
and holding water for a period of time, then that

(01:29:17):
that's a bit of a problem. You're not inclined to
sort of rip the whole thing out and start again.
Ideally you want to avoid that data. Yeah, okay, ye
have a look online. This is a product that was
introduced to me a little while ago. I've used it
to sort of extend the life of a flat roof.
It's called in juris so e n d u r I.

Speaker 8 (01:29:40):
S E n d u R I s y and
juris there.

Speaker 5 (01:29:46):
I think with the right type of primer or the
right application, you can apply it over the top of
utinyl and that will give you an additional layer of protection.
So might be worth investigating.

Speaker 8 (01:29:59):
Okay, and juris there? And order Okay, I'll look about.

Speaker 5 (01:30:03):
But yeah, it'll be about the preparation to a make
sure that it's cleaned, and you know it's It's always
the preparation, isn't it.

Speaker 6 (01:30:11):
Yeah, yep, yeah, And reading the instructions.

Speaker 8 (01:30:14):
Yeah, because the button old pitch I put down, I've
only put down over over the existing scene of the
butte and O one only did it sort of ten
twenty months on each side. And when you read the
instruction that says you got to go at least two
inches on each side.

Speaker 5 (01:30:26):
Oh mate, you got to read the instructions.

Speaker 8 (01:30:28):
Yeah, well then you go rooky mistake right. I'm leaving
as they go.

Speaker 5 (01:30:31):
And that's nothing wrong with that. I appreciate the call.
You take care all the best, bother.

Speaker 4 (01:30:41):
Doing other house sorting the garden.

Speaker 1 (01:30:43):
Lasked Feete for ahead the resident builder with peta Wolfcare
Call eighty eight News Talk.

Speaker 5 (01:30:50):
Your News Talks b this morning. I wanted to take
a moment to catch up with someone from the super
home movement. So I got introduced to this idea. A
number of years ago, I had the opportunity to travel
down to christ Church and I went and had a
look at a house that was on its way to
the coming the first homestar ten house, so ten home
star rating. It was built by guy. The architect was

(01:31:14):
Bob Burnett, and then I noticed that he his name
was sort of attached the super home movement. And then
a couple of years ago, around the COVID time out
came the super Home Guide, a Healthy Homes Guide, kind
of an introduction to the principles behind building better than
just the minimum building code. So it looked at insulation,

(01:31:36):
looked at ventilation, it looked at detailing of where we
should have our windows to line it up and so on.
And I've been, to be blunt, I've been inspired by
what they do and the information that's there. And the
great news is they're celebrating ten years. So Dan Saunders,
tell us about your involvement, Dan, welcome to the show.
Tell us about your involvement with a super home movement.

(01:31:58):
What attracted you to it because you're a chippy.

Speaker 8 (01:32:00):
Like me, right, Yes, it's right, moring Peter, how are
you going?

Speaker 6 (01:32:03):
Were?

Speaker 17 (01:32:04):
But tully here and cross about zero degree fross. So
it's more important to you know, build the way that
we do. But so my involvement in the supero movement
came around its inception in twenty fifteen where Bob Burnett
he got ousted out of his house from the earthquakes
and then went through a period of living in I

(01:32:26):
guess a combination of bad new houses plus a lot
of the older villas, you know, the one hundred year
old villas, which that's where he ended up in before
he moved back into his house. So his kids got
developed asthma through the mold that was developing in these
older houses. So that's where he thought all.

Speaker 8 (01:32:45):
These got there is obviously a better way, and the
super home movement was founded in twenty fifteen with him
and Martin Riley, and then we as a company were
on that.

Speaker 17 (01:32:57):
On that road anyway doing getting very focused on energy,
energy efficient homes. So we came across the super movement
and joined up straight away and been part of the
furniture ever since. So it became a charitable trust last
year and then I became a trustee invited along to trustee,
so that was quite exciting.

Speaker 5 (01:33:16):
So there's a really strong, obviously educational element to what
the super home movement is about in terms of raising
awareness around better building practice, introducing ideas of building science.
Again for you, like you know, I talked to a
lot of carpenters, a lot of chippe's, a lot of
builders all the time. Some are interested, some aren't. What

(01:33:37):
is it about you? Do you think that that drew
you to the super home movement?

Speaker 17 (01:33:41):
Well, I think it's always about constant improvement. For me personally,
I'm always wanting to do things better. The last house
should be or the event the next house you build
to be better than the last. Now that could be in
different techniques or better products. There's always different, different new
systems that are being talked about them. Of course, some
of them have been around for so long as well,

(01:34:02):
like we're about twenty years behind Europe as far as
building systems and holistically designing your house as far as
energy efficiency and things like that for health and well being.
So there's always a constant improvement for us. So it
was it was just it was a no brainer I
mean the building code. There's a saying, a couple of
sayings that we bounced around a lot. The building code

(01:34:24):
is the worst house you're legally allowed to build, so
it's a very very low target. We handed over a
house in Geraldine, which is south of christ Church, sort
of in the foothills of the Alps, and I was
speaking to the clients when they were because they were
leasing a five year old new house up here in
christ Church.

Speaker 6 (01:34:39):
People moving down there.

Speaker 17 (01:34:40):
They basically said that one of the two bedrooms done
the south end of the house, if they're not heated
with a heater, they're uninhabitable, right, So, and that's a
new house built of the current code. So it's just yeah,
I don't know why we're still doing it, but I
guess it comes down to affordability. But there are loads
of ways to be able to have a good quality,

(01:35:02):
healthy home with what and whilst building on a budget
as well.

Speaker 5 (01:35:05):
Yeah, I mean typically, I'm sure that a number of
people listening to this is yeah, that's all well and good,
but it's unaffordable, right, you know, it's too expensive to
build good what's your response to that.

Speaker 17 (01:35:18):
Well, there's I guess people have got to look at
it in a different mindset as well, because you know
a lot of people when they're building a house to
go right, I want to have my starting bench top.
I want to have my fancy taps and my fancy
timber vanities and things like that, whereas our focus is
the thermal envelope, which is the stuff that you can't
change later on. You can change update your kitchen, you

(01:35:38):
can update your taps. Things that you can't change. What
will become problematic once the house is built is obviously
fully insulated foundation, high performance walls, high performance windows. Obviously
you talk before about recessing them into the warm part
of the wall ventilation systems, and that's very very important
because you know, if you remember back in the days
of the old prefab in the schools, you know there

(01:36:01):
were every thirty kids in our classroom. We're in the
middle of winter and all the windows are commensating. It's
because we're breathing and breathing out on the carbon dioxide
and it's just creating condensation. So having a balance of
ventilation system is very very important. So it's a holistic
approach to the house building process. And I think if

(01:36:21):
you just become educated by looking at what we do
at the Super Bowl movement, then you'll find some really
good targets to aim for.

Speaker 5 (01:36:29):
In my observation too, is that I've been impressed, surprised,
but delighted by the way in which the I guess
the principles have been adopted by more and more people.
And I'm thinking about sort of my own journey on this.
So I don't know. Twelve thirteen years ago I did
the Home Star course, you know, to be a Home
Star practitioner, right, and the person presenting the course said, look,

(01:36:52):
we've got this range. You can get up to a
home Star ten house. He said, I don't think that
we'll ever see one, lo and behold. A couple of
years later, I'm down with Bob Burnett and christ Church
looking at his build there and that got a ten
star rated, you know, so we've we've moved from we
don't think it's possible to it is possible to more
and more people understanding what you were saying before, that

(01:37:13):
the building code requirement will get you a sort of
okay house, but it's not going to be great.

Speaker 17 (01:37:19):
So no, no, it's it's it's it's a crazy target
to try and to try and aim for. I mean,
Who've done several talks at you know, certain conferences and
stuff like that, and I always go back to like Dublin,
I think is the same the same latitude off the
equator as the neediness and that is they've got double

(01:37:39):
the code.

Speaker 8 (01:37:40):
That we have.

Speaker 17 (01:37:41):
So it's just there's no there's no reason why that
we should be built aiming aiming solo. There are loads
of ways to be able to do it, and like
you just mentioned before, the Design Guide is a very
informative tool, and we're working on the Renovation Guide as well,
which is at the moment we should be launching at
the end of the year, and that's aimed at obviously
retro fitting right various various ages or eras of houses.

(01:38:04):
You know, we've had villas and we've got you know,
stucko modern contemporary, so the all it's different types of houses,
all built very very similarly, but they have their different quirks.
I suppose you can say to to to make it
a to be able to renovate them properly.

Speaker 5 (01:38:20):
Yeah, And I mean, look there's a desperate need to
do that. We've got a significant amount of our housing
stock that's reasonably old, and much of it doesn't perform
particularly well, and we've got lots of buildings that still
don't have insulation and exterior walls. But if we're going
to do that, we need to do it right. So
getting the right information seems to be key to that
for me.

Speaker 17 (01:38:40):
Yes, yes, I think so. And with you the latest
round of upgrades to H one the building code, we've
had more selling insulation and you know with the better
performing or slightly better performing not quite with the windows. Yeah,
you know, that's that's another you could we could sit
here and talk about that for an for an hour
at least anyway, But it is a good step, but

(01:39:02):
it needs to be, as I said, a holistic approach.
It can't just be put more insulation in the ceilings
and make the you know, the family broken windows mandatory
because where you put them in the wall, how they react,
and each different clouding system affects totally how they work.
So the windows that we use are imported from Europe,

(01:39:22):
the triple glaze PBC and almost three times the our
value of the locally made ones, and we can land
those at quite an affordable price. And so there's things
if you just look outside the box of what's available,
and you should be able to find, you know, good
products and good people that apply those products as well.

Speaker 5 (01:39:42):
So are you finding that you're getting clients who are
coming to you going, actually, what I want is more
than building code, right, I want I want a better house.
And are you seeing a growing awareness, let's say, from
the consumer base, right, so the end user is asking
better questions and wanting a better.

Speaker 17 (01:39:59):
House one hundred percent. I go back to if you recall,
I know, if you came on one of the superhome tours,
but we do those every year. Has sort of stopped
around COVID time, but we have open open days where
we open up houses a high performance home super homes
to the public where they can look and feel and
understand the why of what we do. Back in the
early days in twenty fifteen sixteen, people are very nosy, right,

(01:40:22):
so they come and they go, oh, what's this curtains
or what's this flooring? But they weren't asking the right questions.
But what we find now and the two is that
people are coming, they are educated, they know what they want,
and that's the exciting part about it. We find that,
like as for a building company, I've drawn a line
in the sand as I won't if someone asked me
to build a codeminum house, I either won't do it,

(01:40:43):
or I'll encourage them to say here as to some
things you can do to fit your budget to make
it a better performing home than the building code. So
we find that the education and people are thirsty for knowledge,
so they are getting more inquiries. But I think probably,
you know, still a niche market. The idea of the
super home movement is in my viewers in ten years

(01:41:04):
time that we're not around. We don't have to be here.
It's legislated that that the government is saying, right, oh,
we understand what needs to happen, and this is how
it's legislated. I know you're going to get a lot
of pushback on group housing companies or the people doing
the you know where they're trying to build them affordably,
which I understand. But there's that line in the sand

(01:41:24):
of what's what's your legacy, What's what do you leave
in the next the next generation? And that's one of
the things that are very very important to us.

Speaker 5 (01:41:31):
How do people find out more? Where do they go?

Speaker 17 (01:41:34):
So the website for the super Hoomers is dubbub dub up,
superhome dot co dot in z and there is a
whole group of suppliers, designers, builders that are on there.
It's a very open source, so we you know, you
could say like we're holding on to people will hold
onto their trade secrets, but it's not about that for us.
We want to get as much information out there for

(01:41:56):
everybody to be able to learn. And that's across the
board for like I say, clients, designers, we can't build
all the houses. So if everyone can put their put
their best foot forward and yes and help because that's
what we need.

Speaker 5 (01:42:09):
Share the knowledge and the renovation guide you reckon.

Speaker 17 (01:42:12):
By the end of the year, yeah, I hope we're
just putting some final touches on that so that gives
us a good range of techniques for people how to
depending on. Again, it comes down to budget, so you
can go deep renovations or just even improving your windows.

Speaker 8 (01:42:28):
Things like that.

Speaker 5 (01:42:29):
Fabulous check it out online, folks, it really is. It's inspirational.
Thanks Dan and to all of you who are part
of the movement. Really appreciate it. And I will try
and get down for one of those super home tours
a just a.

Speaker 17 (01:42:41):
Real quick one through. So we were evolving from but
you mentioned about the ten star home yes back in
twenty fifteen. So the next evolution for us now or
for Bob is a development that he's doing where the house,
the last house he was living in before moving back
into his repaired home, there was a one hundred year
old villa which was moved off site and we're building

(01:43:02):
for town separate townhouses where they're not shoehorned in, so
people are going to get good sunlight and good areas
to live. So the front house will be the first
zero carbon super home in New Zealand. So that's the
that's the next evolution.

Speaker 5 (01:43:19):
I guess you can say, sounds like I should book
take it and come on down.

Speaker 17 (01:43:21):
I think you should.

Speaker 4 (01:43:23):
I'll give that and Hea, we lucky.

Speaker 5 (01:43:24):
Look forward to it. Dan, thanks very much. Dan Sawnend
is a builder, a carpenter like me, but also really
passionate about the super home movement. Great to heavy on
the show this morning Radio. Let's jump into the garden.
Redclimb past is here. Let's rip into it.

Speaker 1 (01:43:40):
Whether you're painting the ceiling, fixing the fence, or wondering
how to fix that Hole in the Wall. Give Peter
wolf Caamp a call on eighty The Resident Builder on
Newstalgs EDB. For more from The Resident Builder with Peter Wolfcamp,
listen live to Newstalgs EDB on Sunday Mornings from Sex,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio

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