The Resident Builder podcast: June 9, 2024

This week on the show, ZB's Resident Builder Pete Wolfkamp discusses the latest issues impacting the world of construction- and answers questions!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Resident Builder podcast with Peter Wolfcamp
from News Talk SEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Well, a very good morning and welcome along to the
Resident Builder on Sunday. You're with Pete wolf Camp. That's
me the Residant Builder, and we are talking all things building, construction, maintenance, renovations, alterations, additions,
brand new builds. I spend a little bit of time
via the email this week talking with people about a

(00:36):
couple of interesting things, some practical stuff around maintenance, a
couple of issues around I guess that involved neighbors and
we'll dig into that a little bit more in the program.
So in a little bit of time, I had some
time actually this week to do some reading. Went through
as a builder, as an LBP, we're on the mailing

(00:57):
list for the brand's magazine which comes out, the Build magazine,
which comes out I think every month. And in fact,
the part of the reason that it comes out to
LBPS my self license building practitioners is that there are
a series of articles near the articles have a quiz
and when you go to renew your license, as we
have to do, we have to prove learning every two years,

(01:18):
so you have to renew it every year. You have
to prove learning every two years, which I think this
year I have to do in September sometime. One of
the ways to do that is to read the magazine
and answer quizzes and then you have to submit your
answers online, which is kind of an interesting process to
go through. Anyway, So as I was reading through that,

(01:38):
suddenly I'm pulling out these articles. There was one about
car ports, there was another interesting one about building for
climate change, because of course it's reflective of government policy
at the time. So a lot of our building policy
has shifted and the focus has been on the energy
efficiency and so on in response to government directives. So
it's been an interesting we process. And then yesterday I

(02:00):
came in here to the studio and spend a bit
of time with Tim Beveridge and the delightful nev Ritti Manu.
It was lovely to be able to actually offer my
congratulations to her. You may have heard that the New
Zealand Radio Awards were on Thursday night here in Auckland,
and news Talk zed B did particularly well. Station of

(02:22):
the Year. My Costkings, Marcus Lush and Neva Routty Manu.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Not to mention.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Others as well. Of course we're all part of the recognition,
So it was nice to sit next to award winning
newsreader Neva ritty Manu yesterday on the program, and also
delightful and for those of you who have listened to
ZEDB for a while, and particularly back in the day
when Tim was doing overnights and then over the summer break,

(02:48):
Tim Dower, who I know outside of radio a little bit.
I've done some work with him and done some work
on his house way way way back. It was also
recognized in the awards with a Lifetime Achievement award like
an Outstanding contribution to radio, which I thought was absolutely fantastic.
So great to see his name. And Tim Dawe would

(03:10):
be a name that's familiar to many of you who
have listened to News Talks EDB for a number of years,
so nice to see him recognize for his contribution. I
think he started in radio gosh, might have been sometime
in the late nineteen eighties and has made a significant
contribution over the years. Now we have a couple of
technical issues.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
That are going on.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
There's a gremlin in the machine right now, so it
might take us a little while to get things underway,
but our lines are open and the number two call
is oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty. You can
text to nine two nine two, which is ZBZB off
your mobile phone, and if you'd like to email me,
as a couple of people have done, then it is

(03:51):
Pete at newstalksb dot co dot nz so p e
t E at newstalksb dot co dot enz.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
So trust you've had a good week. Was it short week?
Wasn't it? Monday was day off?

Speaker 2 (04:01):
King's birthday and now we're into it with I guess
a couple of weeks and then Matariki is a friday.
And I'm particularly focused on this because I'm looking through
my son's sort of school calendar, going okay, so you
had that day off, then you got another public holiday,
then you've got the school trip this day.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
It doesn't seem like.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
There's many days in the classroom sunshine. Anyway, that's another
issue for those of us who've got kids at high school.
Eight hundred eighty ten eighty. The lines are open. The
number is as I just mentioned, eight hundred eighty ten eighty,
and we'll come back with your calls in just a moment.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Radio technical issues sorted. Thank you very much. Boss.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call
and if you would like to text nine to nine
two was zbz beef from your mobile phone. Emails up
and running as well, Pete at newstalksb dot co dot nz.
So during the actually without going into too much detail,
because I realized it involves a neighbor. So I got
an email during the week from a person who's going, hey, look,

(05:03):
I've I've had a discussion with my neighbor who mentioned
that they would like to bring on a container as storage,
and you know, sort of aware that it might happen,
et cetera, et cetera. But I've been away for a
little while and I've come home to this and they
sent me a photograph essentially right up alongside the boundary fence,
like touching the boundary fence is a gee. I think

(05:26):
it's a It might even be forty foot but at
least a twenty foot container, so six meters long container
right on the boundary and on a sloping site, inevitably
slightly sloping site. Inevitably that means that one end has
been lifted to keep the container level, so it stands
even higher over the boundary fence. And then once you

(05:48):
open one of the doors on the front of it,
that adds about one point two one point three meters
to it. So you can imagine, you know, the better
part of seven point three meters of steel container smack
bang on the boundary outside your window looking at the view.
So what do you do about that? So apparently, and
this is the investigation from the correspondent, let's say, was

(06:11):
that they approach council, and council said, well, look, you
can have a container on site and it can be
close to the boundary, but it can only stay there
for a month. It would seem that this particular neighbor
has added some doors and is building a deck on it.
It sounds like this thing the intention would be that
it's staying for a while. And so I had a

(06:32):
quick look through some council regulations around the location of
sheds in that and it's something that we've talked about
on this program a number of times around rules around
buildings that don't necessarily require a building consent. And I
guess something like this a container which seems temporary, but
if you've put it on poles and you've added a

(06:53):
deck to it, and you've got a door and you're
running some power to it. You can't then just say, look,
it's only temporary, particularly if it stays there for a year,
even if it is portable. So counsel allow you to
have something like that there for a month. This has
been there for more than a month, and I think
it shouldn't be there. And there's quite clear guidelines if
you look through Schedule one of the Building Act, which

(07:13):
talks about, you know, the types of buildings that you
can could possibly build without necessarily requiring a building consent.
It also goes into quite specific detail around where they
can be relate located in relation to the boundary. Certainly
on the boundary, not at all. Right, So we'll be

(07:35):
interesting to follow that one again for the next little while.
Oh wait, I mean to be blunt. It's pretty inconsiderate,
isn't it.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
That's how I would say it.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Oh eight one hundred and eighty ten eighty the number
to call John A very good morning to you.

Speaker 4 (07:50):
Yeah, hello, Pete, I love listening to your show on
the way to work.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
Good on you're forgetting up on a Sunday and hour
of work.

Speaker 4 (07:58):
Yeah, yeah, I've got an old nineteen twenties house, yes,
and I'd like to put insulation underneath it. I want
to do it myself. It's not a long room. But
what I when I first climbed under it all looked
quite nice because it looked like I had sort of
big beams or whatever you call those things running all

(08:20):
the way up their house. But when I measured them,
they range sort of I'm going from memory now, they
range from about three twenty up to about four point fifty.
They weren't the same width right looking at putting in
some of that polystyrene stuff, and of course that had
to be cutting it, and I know there's different you
can get different types of that with different sizes. It

(08:41):
seemed really deep too. I think it was about one
fifty two hundred deep standard YEP. And so I was
down Bunnings the other day and I was looking at
different types. And you've got like the wooll types, and
there's there's also stuff that's got a like a lighting
on it that you can put up. Before I've left,

(09:03):
I looked at the big sheets of polystyrene because I
want to try to do it as as easy as
I can, because i'll be.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
String it on my own.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
Sure, and i put a big sheet of provided at fits,
and I've got a measure that add up of just
balistarrene and just don't put it in the gap if
it's all level, just put it straight across from a gap.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
That's the okay.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
So that's interesting where you're heading with it. So your
thinking is instead of cutting pieces of insulation and slotting
them in between the joists, that you would take large
panels of insulated material and fix them to the underside
of the joist.

Speaker 6 (09:47):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (09:48):
Just wack them straight up and straight across, provided it's
level and up, and just not come in with a
with a nail.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Probably that's I'm just sort of pondering all of the
steps involved in doing that and and okay, so there's
going to be a couple of challenges. One is that
possibly the joists are not going to be particularly level,
but then again that's not I mean, unless they're massively out,

(10:15):
it's not really going to make a difference. The other
thing is how are you going to fix it? Is
it easy to maneuver a large sheet like that around.
It would be interesting to know whether the effectiveness of
the insulation would be either enhanced or diminished by having
such a large air gap, because effectively you've got that

(10:35):
space of one hundred and fifty mili.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
It would work if.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
You could make it almost air tight, and that would
be a real challenge. So essentially, the way that insulation
works is by trapping air. So what you don't want
with insulation is the ability for air to move through it.
So if you've got gaps and cracks or you can't,
like if you were doing a layer underneath, if you

(11:02):
had any gaps in there, and you could possibly fill
those gaps, let's say with expanding foam. So as you
put one panel up, you do a bead of expanding
foam along the edge of it, and then you jam
your next panel into it. But then when you get
to the perimeter of the house, I suppose you could
butt into the bearer and do a neat bead of

(11:22):
seilant of some description or expanding foam through there. Look,
it's an intriguing notion, and I wouldn't mind actually having
a conversation with some boffins about it during the week.
I think that if you look, it might sound like
it's a cheaper option. I think it will take you
a lot lot longer to do that than it would

(11:45):
if you bought the kits of let's say you're going
to go for expole under floor insulation right that when
they typically they're made for joys that are either at
six hundred centers or full fifty centers right, And then
what you find is that the material is extruded to
have a certain number of ribs on the edge you

(12:06):
need to adjust it. You're just running a knife through
half the thickness of the panel and cutting through the
like the web that holds that piece on. So it's
easy to adjust the smaller ones.

Speaker 4 (12:18):
Yeah, I looked at those and they looked interesting. I
just thought it might be really messy. I wasn't also
sure just whether I think we were rated at one
point four or something, and I'm not sure whether they
were thick enough.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
One point four is about the minimum standard that we require, right,
So look, you will get if you've got no insulation
under there at the moment. You will get a significant
boost in warmth inside the house and preventing heat loss
if you insulate the underfloor. I can guarantee you it'll
make a big difference. If you do it really neatly,
that you fill all of the gaps. And then while

(12:54):
you're under there on your way out, if you could
put a vapor barrier down on the ground, that would
make a significant difference as well.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
When you stay on the ground, so I can lay
it on the.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
On the on the soil.

Speaker 4 (13:09):
There rather than stabbing it on the Jewish.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
You know, the vapor barrier goes on the ground. So
if you're in a nineteen twenties house, chances are you've
got like vertigal boards around the outside, so you've got
a reasonable amount of air flow. In fact, if the
air flow is about twenty five percent of the surface area,
then the effectiveness of the vapor barrier is not as
great because you're not trapping air in there or moisture

(13:32):
underneath that because you've got the air flow. But look,
in general it makes a significant difference. So combine the
two things together that will will make a big difference.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
And then you know, I mean.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
If you don't want to do polystyrn, then of course
you've got that. You've got wall options. You've got autech
green stuff which is pretty easy to install, comes in
a long roll, and because it's flexible, you can you
know if you've got one that's let's say four to
twenty wide, and another one that's four hundred wide and
another one that's three seventy, you could use the same

(14:04):
material because it will just bend in to that space.

Speaker 4 (14:09):
Yeah, which one did you call that?

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Oh, there's there's a number of underfloor insulation products. So
you've probably found the expole, which is the polystyrene. I'm
not sure which brand of wool insulation you might have
found there, the one with the paper on it. Now,
what that's there for? Going back to my earlier comment
about insulation works by trapping air, so that one that

(14:34):
has like a blanket attached to it or a lining
to it stops air entering the insulated space, right, So
it's what they call a wind wash. It pushes the
air away or stops the air entering it. So there's
some advantage to having that as well. And then there's
the one hundred percent polyester ones, which is the or

(14:56):
tex one. So there's a couple of options out there.
You're in for quite a job, but it will be
worth it, and I commend you for doing it.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
Oh, talk with you all of us. Take care there,
bye way.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, there's a bit in the old underfloor insulation I have.
I'm just trying to think about that whether or not
there would actually be a performance boost, let's say, to
the insulation if you did a continuous layer of polystyrene underneath,
it's effectively if you've seen some stuff at the moment,
there's a lot of discussion around warm roofs, right, So

(15:31):
again it's this whole thing about ensuring that we've got
continuous insulation around the perimeter of our building. So by
cutting insulation putting it in between joists or rafters, we're
creating these thermal bridges, which is where the timber is.
So a couple of pieces that I've read recently have suggested,
let's say with roofs, that we do a continuous layer

(15:52):
of insulation right over the roof, and often that's a
polystyrene type of product or an EPs product over the
top of that, and then you fix your roofing material
down over the top. So if you took that theory
and you did it to the underfloor, and you may
it really neat and you ensured that air didn't get
into the gap between the underside of the flooring and

(16:12):
where your insulating layer is, and so you had this
pocket of about one hundred and fifty militer of still
trapped air with your insulating layer below it would that
be more effective than having pieces of insulation up against
the flooring. I might do some reading on that. That's
very interesting. Oh eight one hundred eighty ten eighty is
the number to call if you've got a question or

(16:33):
a comment of a building nature or come back with
this text after the break Hey, Pete, what do you
think about the new RBNZ So the new Reserve Bank
of New Zealand income rules will slow down new home building?

Speaker 3 (16:47):
From Josh.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
I will have a think on that during the break
back in a moment. Just another great text and I
will come to that in just a moment. Let's do
this quickly, Pete, do you think that the new Reserve
Bank of New Zealand income rules will slow down new
home building? From Josh? So the new rules in a
nutshell to the best of my ability. And I am

(17:11):
no economist, although I did have a nice chat with
an economist at the Radio Awards the other night, which
was good fun. Is essentially that as a home a
person wanting to buy your own property, you can borrow
six times the income, and I presume that what that
means is household income. So if you're a person on
your own, it's times your income is where you're lending

(17:33):
tops out. And if your household, then I presume that
it's your combined household income and then times six. If
you're an investor, it's income times seven. Here, I guess
what it will do is it will limit the crazy
large mortgages that some people families have ended up having.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
I think, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Look more to the point, new home building has not
quite ground to a state still, but it's the numbers
are pretty low right now. I mean, the developers are
out of the market because the market demand has dropped,
possibly because of lending rules, most likely simply because interest

(18:20):
rates are as high as they are and people are
having some time to adjust to that. Again, you talk
about interest rates with people, and you know, I know
my brothers who are a bit older than me. You know,
when they bought their first houses, they were paying nineteen
percent interest. I know when we had a mortgage, you know,
twenty odd years ago, we were paying nine percent or
I mean, and I had mates who were paying twelve percent.

(18:40):
So yes, seven percent or six and a half percent
feels like a lot when we had mortgages at two
point nine to five and three. But it's not historically
terribly high numbers. But I think until demand comes back
into the market, we won't see much more new home building, unfortunately,

(19:00):
and then we will go into the typical cycle of
suddenly the market will recover, rice will rise, and it'll
be and you know, we've figured out that we'll hang
on if one hundred and something thousand people arrive in
the country, they've got somewhere to live, and suddenly we've
got a housing shortage, and so we go back onto
that treadmill of boom and bust and other quick text too.

(19:23):
Hey Pete, if warm air rises, how does it go
down through the floor? Probably poor terminology in my part. Yes,
you write warm air rises, and as it does, it
draws cold air in to replace that. So it's a
convection that happens within a room. And what the underfloor
insulation does is provide a barrier to that cold air

(19:46):
coming into the house. So yes, it does rise, it
doesn't go down through the floor, although heat will escape
out through the building all over the place. And we
know that from enormous amounts of research that have been
done around heat loss from out through our building envelope,
and it's somewhere around fifteen to twenty percent can go

(20:06):
down through the floor. Typically it's about anywhere up to
forty five percent up through the ceilings, a certain amount
through the glazing, a certain amount through the walls, et cetera.
So trapping and stopping that air from leaking out and
taking the heat with it is important in terms of
draft proofing, but then providing an insulating level that means
that as you're right, as heat rises, that more cold

(20:28):
air isn't drawn in from blow hence underfloor insulation. Good
morning to you, Craig.

Speaker 7 (20:34):
Good morning. How's it going today?

Speaker 3 (20:35):
Hey good? Thanks made yourself.

Speaker 7 (20:37):
I can't complain too much, really got to Yeah, Well,
people get sick of you complain too much and they
don't call you back.

Speaker 8 (20:45):
Question.

Speaker 7 (20:45):
I've got to the crude. Mine's got a house down
and take a rah. It's an oldest stylehouse with a
basement underneath made out from what we can work out
some in the blocks. Yes, at below ground level yep.
But then on the back of the basement there's a
little tunnel that comes out of it made out of
it looks like eighteen hundred high drainage of sewage quotes right,
And then that goes about eighteen meters through it into

(21:07):
the back section and then it goes into another thing
made out of cinder blocks, which would we've missed it
as twenty meters by nine meters in size under the
ground like an old Yeah, we believe it's probably like
an old at one stage the old people live. They
may have been used as a bomb shelter back in
the oldery because there's an older house.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
I don't know that there was ever a great danger
of people in Tokaro are being bombed by anybody I know.

Speaker 7 (21:35):
But they grit Temothy back in those days. They may have. Wow,
it's got a big concrete pipe that comes up for
a ventilation down the back there, and it's got a
lot of like those little old stuff things you see
in buildings with the women just blows the thing around
a four year into that. But he's got a hip

(21:55):
pump down in the basement area. And we're wondering whether
whether there's be an idea to actually get one of those,
you know, like the fan units you have and like
the bathroom. She goes up to the ceiling through that
flexible thing outside, putting one of those in the basement
you are, and having like solid TVC pipe running down
their little tunnel piece to the back part to blow
warm mirror into the other area to try and keep

(22:16):
the moisture out a little bit.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
So the other area.

Speaker 7 (22:21):
Wow, So yeah, he bought the house. He bought the
house and moved away some old metal cabinets in the
corner there's a tunnel, and he goes.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
Wow, that's really really fascinating. It'd be interesting to ask
around the neighborhood if anyone I suppose it's going back
a little bit too far, you know, because I.

Speaker 7 (22:39):
Mean that's that's a nineteen forties I think was here.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
Has a lot of material to excavate out. I mean
it's a lot of effort to do that.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
He would.

Speaker 7 (22:50):
Yeah, I was going to say, all the other houses
in the area are on sloping sections and those one.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
Flat, so you kind of know where that soil came from.

Speaker 7 (22:58):
The house is like, what was that one flat for it?
And they didn't realize about it. They move in the
cabinet out of the way and go, oh wow, Well
men cav literally.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
Okay, and the moisture that would inevitably be in that
sort of tunnel that cavern at the back doesn't sort
of impact on the underfloor of the existing house.

Speaker 7 (23:20):
No, No, it goes out through the back wall. Yeah,
but we've done it. But digging around the back lawn
and it seems like the whole thing is covered with
like the tunnel part gravel on the outside of it,
on the outside tween they're in the dirt. I mean
you did when you go through that. There's quite a
thick like a preboc membrane around it as well, so
it looks like it's kind of spent a bit of

(23:41):
time on it. So there's no there's no moisture that
comes in through the walls. I was worry you probably
get water leaking through the walls, but there's no like
salt built up on the on the eastel brooks itself,
so it doesn't seem to getting any more moisture coming through, right.
It tends to be a little bit cold.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
But yeah, how how it was absolutely fascinating. Well yeah,
I mean, look, putting in, yes, putting in vtilation will
help control moisture, right, so you know, damp ear is
moisture laden and a little bit of ventilation will help that.
And I suppose a little bit of heat if they wanted.

(24:18):
What do they use the space for? Like a I
mean it would be a very nice wine cellar.

Speaker 7 (24:24):
Nothing at the moment he's looking at possibly turning it
into a games room, and wow, it's like, well twenty
meters by talking at the paper now, yeah, it's twenty
meters wide by about nine nine and a half meters
deep and the ceiling wow, no concert pads at the
top is two point four So it's pretty not too

(24:45):
much feeling, but pretty good. But we just when we
having them shift in there and mosic cabinet away and
go what's this for it? And he goes, I don't know,
so you have become of torches. Walk down it's like
this goes maybe it's just a little tunnel something or whatever,
and then it opens up and walked in the big
ear and like, oh crap, wow, and I guess this
city you've got. You technically got like a six bedroom

(25:07):
house now if you put rooms in there, but you
probably can't because.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
There's no that would never be considered a habitable space.
But look as like you say, as a workshop or
a games room or yeah, blimey.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
Anything the zombie apocalypse.

Speaker 7 (25:22):
Yeah, one thing I thought about doing was maybe cutting
hole in the corner of the roof on one side
of it and put it in maybe external access, just
in case, you know, for a you can get out
through there as well. We would be a little bit
safe safe could probably do.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
I mean, there's got to be some fairly significant engineering
in that roof as well, because an unsupported or their
posts through the middle of it.

Speaker 7 (25:43):
There's big message rjs that run from one end of
the building long ways right from one end to the other,
and I like the sho rsts is probably about I
think from what we can remember. What I can remember
about six and a half million flicks steels, so the
guys and it's all like bolted through with the I

(26:04):
think the guy must have been an engineer or something
because it's overcoll for what it is.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
You got to remember that like mung Akino and that
were often there was all of that work that was
done on the hydro center right on the tunneling when
they created the hydro dams and the hydro system back
in the nineteen sixties.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
Because we used to visit.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
A family friend in mung A Kino back then, and
he was a bricklayer and he'd been involved in that
whole area. That was a huge part of the industry
at that time. And you just wonder whether someone who
kind of you know, worked all day doing tunneling for
the hydro system comes home and carries on.

Speaker 7 (26:41):
Yeah, it brought a few supplies, that's right, and quickly.

Speaker 9 (26:45):
I think it's just going.

Speaker 7 (26:47):
To mention quickly was the guy putting the insulation across
the joys and all that. The only problem I can
see down the track is if you have a problem
with plumbing electrical, you're going.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
To can't see it. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (26:57):
Yeah, you need to cut the whole thing out to
try and find where the pipe runs and then trying
to seal that back. And again it's just would be easier.
I would thought they have the insights between the jaw
and you can just pop them out and then put
it back.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
And if you're require Yeah, and I tend to agree
with I think that it sounds like a great I'm sorry,
I'm just laughing because I've just got to text them
from someone going that's a breaking bad drug factory.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
There was a comic around into hydroponics.

Speaker 7 (27:27):
Yeah, okay, I've got to go down here in a
couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
Anyway, you take a photo or something like that, I
see it to you, that would be awesome, that would
be awesome.

Speaker 7 (27:37):
We'll see if we can sort of timber put a
couple of hanging pockwards from the rail house and then
and then you go through the tunnel and bottom parts.

Speaker 5 (27:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (27:52):
I don't know what the guy was thinking, what he
was on, but as you say, preparing for this or whatever,
but yeah, we made probably a good wife.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Hey, fantastic call. Really appreciate it and
all they touch.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
Take care.

Speaker 9 (28:07):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
Look.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
One of the best things about the show for me personally,
and I know I should include you, but I'm just
speaking selfishly for a moment is that every now and
then you have a conversation that you would never ever
ever have expected to have, And that would be pretty
high on my list of.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
I didn't see that coming because even you stay in
the car, I'm driving around with the sun and he goes, so,
what's on the show tomorrow? And I said, well, I
don't know. I mean, I know what I what guessed
We have in the next hour, and I know that
Rood's going to be on, but apart from that, I
have no idea what we're going to be talking about.
And he said, so, what have you prepared? And I go, well,
you know, I read stuff all week and I'm engaged,
and that's sort of thing that I don't. I do

(28:47):
prepare for the show, but I don't prepare in terms
of Hey, today we're going to be talking about X,
Y or Z. And to be fair, I would never
have expected that we would be talking about an underground
bunker and a secret passageway at the back of a basement.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
Ink.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
That's fabulous, and yes, thank you for all the text
messages about what you could do with that space. We'll
take short break. We'll be back with Steve in just
a moment. I'm still smiling, to be fair about that
last conversation. I mean, what a remarkable discovery. So essentially,
in the basement you pull aside some cabinets, there's a

(29:25):
tunnel literally one point eight meter diameter pipes that leads
down to a twenty by six basement underground and look,
I get the texts about you know, the potential modern
day uses for that space.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
I suspect that, given that.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
It was done back in the day, those non legal
activities are probably unlikely to have been the motivation for
that space. Fascinating though, isn't it. Hey, Steve, good morning
to you.

Speaker 7 (29:56):
Good Steve Pete. Just wanted to talk about the DTIAR.
You're talking about the economic environment, Yeah, sure, and the
effectives having on the building and street. What I'm seeing
is that it's absolutely pretty dire out there and it's
almost collapsing. And I'm predicting New Zealand, the New Zealand

(30:17):
construction industry, I think may lose up to fifteen to
twenty percent of its workers and a lot of those
will probably be new unfortunately, newly minted builders who have
probably gone out on their own because they just don't
have the networks for support themselves. And it'll be guys
people who have got into it. And this is another
bug bear in mind. Remember when just Finder and Labor government,

(30:38):
we're just pushing trades training like it's the greatest thing
on earth. It's just going to keep on going. You're
going to make lots of money. That brought in a
lot of people who probably shouldn't have been The building industry.
They didn't really have a natural aptitude or enjoyment for it.
And you know that annoyed me because they treated the
building industry like it was just a dumping ground. And

(30:58):
why should it be any different to say the law industry, Right,
you're not going to say that everyone can go under law.
You need a natural have to choose the things, don't you.
And the building industry was treated like a bit of
a dumping ground for people, and they don't realize that
building industry is a bloody half place and unless you

(31:18):
actually like it out there in the grind.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Right, And I guess you know you and I and
with growth respect, we're probably about the same age, and
so we've probably been through these downturns, right, and we
kind of know that we enjoy the good times while
they're out there, but ideally you're squirreling away a bit
of cash or you're reducing debt because you know that

(31:45):
it doesn't last, right, and enjoy it while it's there.
And I guess I have been for the last couple
of years, but worried, you know, looking around when it
was boom times and there's lots of new vehicles and
there's lots of new jet skis, and there's guys buying
boats and all the rest of it. And I'm going,
you know what, there's going to come a time when

(32:05):
you might need that cash just to keep your business going.

Speaker 7 (32:08):
So it is the first thing to say that exactly
the same thought made all those young guys gone out
buying these new ranges and all that. And it's like
because they thought the party would never end, and look
at the last ten years and said, you know, we
kicked off after the GFC. It was like that, wasn't it.
I started, God, are not is this going to keep

(32:29):
going for forty fifty years? I never went out on
a spending spree. No, you want to try and reduce
your mortgage, you get, But do you know what the
problem is that we get this talk about Okay, you know,
get yourself a bit of a get it head of
yourself right reduced there and all that kind of thing.
But you might even get yourself a decent sort of

(32:52):
personal reserve, right bit of money in the bank, have
your mortgage down, but if you've got living expenses, if
you don't have work within three months, even when you
have no debt, you can go down very quickly, even
in those circum stance is just due to the costel living,
having to support your family with just the day to
day belts. Now, these guys who are on one point by,

(33:13):
you know, these couples have got themselves and like over
a million dollars and they're now gone from three to
four percent up to seven point five percent with no
you know reprieve. They're suffering now. And people, look, I'm
self employed, right the zimon stros can be a builder,
got restudying and got into architecture. So yeah, I started

(33:35):
that the same time as you, and I started my
apprenticeship just after share market crash in eighty seven. And
this feels like then, not even if it feels worse
on GESC. And I'm getting multiple people calling me now
which I've never had, looking for work, and I'm not
even I don't hire a building here that I'm an
architectal And maybe I'm just.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
In that sense, I'm not too dissimilar to you where
I've I've had a couple of takes and a few
phone calls over the last couple of months from I
suppose people that I've worked with over the years who
have never been short of work. Who are suddenly going, hey,
you know I've got even if they've got no work,
Suddenly they don't have one job rolling on to another.
And you know, every day you're sitting at home, you're

(34:19):
going backwards, right. And I think the other thing that's
turned around pretty quick is eighteen months ago you just
if someone rang and said I want you to do
a job, you just go, here's my rates, and if
you pay it, I'll start. And so people weren't pricing,
and I suppose in that sense, to be fair, there
was a little bit of complacency that crept in. Right, Hey,

(34:41):
I don't have to price for work. I don't have
to try and stay on top of my cost that much.
People will pay me whatever I feel like. And that's
gone suddenly. So it's fairly competitive. And for those that
haven't worked really hard at building up their network, you
know their clients because I think again, most of us
that have been around for a while, we've ended up

(35:02):
with those clients that might come to us when things
are quiet. I've put off doing a job because I
was waiting for the right time, and now might be
that right time, and the other I'm going to have
to move on. But The other comment that I would
make too talking to a number of people is this
is arguably exactly the time that the government should be
pumping the building sector in terms of stuff that they

(35:26):
need to get done. And I'm involved in schools and
that decision to abandon a whole lot of school building
and extension programs. I understand why they did it, because
I think nobody had a real idea of what the
costs were. But if you need to build, and you
need to build public stuff, housing, schools, hospitals, do it

(35:47):
right now because right now is the opportunity that you
can control your costs a little bit better, there's much
more availability. Now is the time to do it, because
inevitably we'll come out of this, right I think.

Speaker 7 (36:02):
Again, Yeah, environment, and I tell you it's not different.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
That's the slightly worrying thing is that, you know the
number of people that I've talked to.

Speaker 7 (36:12):
Just quick, quick, quickly, when people were talking about the
high interest rates my seventies when they were like seventies,
but they actually got their mortgages at that time and
then interest rates started coming down, So yeah, there were
times they were already stress tested at that high interest rate.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
Yep.

Speaker 7 (36:27):
These young We've got a whole lot of people who
are stress tested at three percent now and it all
gone up to seven percent.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
No, I think that anyone who got loans at three
percent and to be fair onm in that boat, you know,
I know that the bank behind the scenes were testing
it at seven seven and a half percent.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
But we're close to that now.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
So yeah, I look, it's not pretty out there, and
it's I was really hoping that we would see some
green shoots around September, October, November. Now I'm thinking, really,
you've got to hang until the beginning well into next year,
maybe quarter two of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 7 (37:05):
Yeah, right, And the government's kind of have to bring
in people, mate, They're going to have to open up
that floodgates actually stay the country.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
I think, Well, I don't know whether I mean arguably
that that's like a full stimulus to the economy.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
I just wonder whether No.

Speaker 7 (37:19):
But we need it, mate. It's the only I think
it's the only tangible thing that can bring money into
this country. And it's always saved us. We connect at
ourselves thinking we're our own little engine and we can
do it all ourselves with our own This number why
mentality has proven to be a pelvis you.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
I agree that we probably need you know, I've just
been in Melbourne, right and Melbourne's five million people just
in Melbourne, so I can see you know, you can
see the scale of.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
The economy there.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
So I don't disgree with you about population numbers, whether
or not we by bringing a whole lot of people
suddenly we actually just exacerbate the issues, or whether I
really do firmly believe like right now is the time
for government to be going. Actually, you know what if
we need to do some school building, throw away those
old contracts for sure. But you go to the market
right now and I think you get.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
Really good rates.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Good of you to call, really appreciate the comment and
the insight. Oh eight hundred and eighty ten eighty. We've
got new sport and we're the top of the are.
But before then, Jason, good morning to you, good.

Speaker 6 (38:16):
Morning, good money.

Speaker 10 (38:18):
I'm Jason Allen.

Speaker 11 (38:19):
I'm a driver of God.

Speaker 6 (38:21):
I was with him.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
And then I well, I might be off to mass
later on today. I'm not sure that we want to
talk about that right now. I'll tell you what, Daryl,
if you don't mind, just hold on till after the news,
because otherwise we'll end up crashing into the news and
it'll be a hastily wrapped up conversation. A couple of
text messages, Pete, what's the best product out there to
keep gutters clear of leaves?

Speaker 3 (38:47):
We've got very high gutters.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
It's extremely difficult to reach them from donner. Look, there's
a couple of options out there. There are sort of
the permanent solutions. I a mesh that's fixed down onto
the roofing itself, whether it's concrete tiles or long run
and then fixed down onto the gutter and so material
just shoot right across the top of them. That's out there.

(39:09):
There are a couple of sort of more DIY solutions,
so like the gutter foam for example, or the whiskers
that you can lay in. They require a little bit
of maintenance. The gutafoam one I have used a little bit,
and I kind of like it in the sense that
it provides a flat surface and the leaves don't get
stuck in it. I've got one place that I look
after that has the bristles like a bottlebrush type thing

(39:33):
that sits in there, but leaves will get trapped in it.
So every now and then, in fact, it's on my
list of things to do, pull those all out rints
out the gutters and go back. There are also some
people who do gutter cleaning using a vacuum, like on
a periscope type vacuum, so they'll come and suck that out. So, yeah,
you can do it. So there's a couple of options there.
We'll talk about screw popping and someone previous I had

(39:56):
previously mentioned a product or a mixture that has good
results from removing black mold on timber windows.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
Oxalic acid. Oxalic acid.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
You can make it up into a little pain invited
chemist and apply that and it helps to It's like
a poultice and it draws out that stain. You can
also buy I've noticed at some of the hardware stores,
like a stain remover for timber as well, effectively oxalic acid,
but already in a package ready to use. It might
take a few more calls with regard to some of

(40:26):
those issues around the state of the economy and building,
but yeah, I firmly believe that now would be a
good time for the government to get into the building game.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
Back after the breaks.

Speaker 12 (41:04):
In the whole, stir the heart.

Speaker 13 (41:10):
We took a heart love, but we're all right. Yeah
sure cantra to put love do it?

Speaker 14 (41:23):
Bird?

Speaker 12 (41:24):
We this right is so than's ever gone. Move it
when the bones are.

Speaker 15 (41:30):
Good, rest, don't you're the pink or feel that's goo
shadow that the.

Speaker 12 (41:36):
Boy, because you will have remains.

Speaker 15 (41:42):
When they crack in the foundation, Debano the stone, Well,
visit the bound We stayed the hastn't fall in the
bones and good well.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
A very good morning. Welcome back to the program. It's
Pete Wolf came the Reason Builder here at News Talk
c B for the Reason Builder on Sunday and we're
taking your calls on all things building construction ideas around
insulation this morning. A fantastic story from Craig. Seriously, I've
never ever heard of something like the subterranean structure that

(42:17):
was discovered. It makes place after they bought a house
in the Central North Island. I'm now going to be
slightly secretive about the location just in case it generates
a lot of unwanted interest. So fascinating story. In a basement,
pull aside some cabinet, there's what looks like a tunnel
and it really is leading to another entire subterranean space,

(42:39):
a chamber located in the backyard, vast proportions as well.
Fascinating story. And then we have kind of straight into
I guess stuff that's not strictly related to the nuts
and bolts of building, but the state of the building
sector is of genuine concern, both to people who are
working into it and to the economy in general. We're

(43:00):
about building sector is about fifteen percent of GDP right,
so if it's having a hard time, it's indicative and
reflective of the economy having a hard time. I was
at a pre cut pre nail manufacturer this week picking
up some materials.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
And had a bit of a chat and I said,
how are you going?

Speaker 2 (43:22):
He said, well, it's pretty quiet. We're down close to
fifty percent. Now that's a significant drop in output. And
went on to chat for a little while, and they've
let a couple of people go, and I'm sort of going, well,
I'm guessing that people who you know, if they're on

(43:44):
the floor in the factory and you're letting them go,
you know what sorts of jobs are they're going to
be able to find. It's not easy and throughout the
construction sector. You're hearing this all of the time, so
anyway we might have some further discussion on that. I
actually was at the Radio Awards. Brad Olsen was there,
who's a regular contributor to various parts of zb's show,

(44:07):
and again we were talking about the construction sector and
what sort of green shoots he might see. Yeah, it
might be a while. Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty
is the number to call. We're talking all things building
and Darryl, thanks for waiting.

Speaker 14 (44:19):
Good morning to you, Good morning, Pete, thank you very
much for having me on pleasure. Just yeah, So I've
got an older house that's got no roof space. So
if you stand inside, like say the lounge, dining room,
kitchen area, which is all open plan, you've got a
center being with the rafters coming off that you can
see exposed with a jib up in between the rafters. Yes,

(44:41):
very hot in summer, very cold in winter.

Speaker 8 (44:43):
Yep.

Speaker 14 (44:44):
So I've been looking at insulating. It Is that a
matter of just snapping another layer of jib and framing
underneath the rafters or do I have to look higher
up and look at the roof itself.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
I guess because if you look at a cross section
through there, you're right, you're what you see when you're
standing there looking up is the rafters, and then there'll
be is it actually jib or is it like a
sheathing over the top of the rafters, and then if
you were to look above that, you'd find a perlin. Now,
depending on when the house was built, you might find
that those perlins are a four to two, so ninety

(45:17):
x forty five on edge, So you've got a ninety
mili space with some insulation in there. So the insulation
that they might have been able to put in there
is possibly around R two. New Building Code requirements would
mean that that should be R six point six, so
more than three times the amount that you've gotten there,
or even in the last couple of years, you'd expect

(45:39):
there to be somewhere around R three point six, so
about one hundred and fifty millimeters of insulation, which you
definitely won't have.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
And then.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
On top of that would be your roofing material. So
you've got two options. One is, if you really like
the look of the rafters, the exposed rafters, the depth
of the rafter and the underside of the sarking or
the ceiling. It's there, then it's take the roof off,
increase the depth up there, and add more insulation to that.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
If you could tolerate.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
Let's say, let's do you know roughly what size the
rafters are. Are they one fifty two hundred to fifty Like.

Speaker 14 (46:18):
If I measured them from in the actual house up
to the job, they're looking at about forty with the
layer of job.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
Yep, okay, So you know what you could do is
put seventy five one hundred millimeters of insulation into the
gaps in between the rafters and then fit new plaster
board in there, and that would that would give you
a significant boost because you'd add that number to whatever
insulation you've got above the sheathing layer, and the two

(46:48):
combined would give you a reasonable amount of insulation. And
then what you would end up is with only fifty
millimeters projection of that rafter, so you'd have some of
the look of that cathedral ceiling, but not as much.
So that would be that's relatively straightforward. You could also
take an option and just go, you know what, I'm
going to lose that detail in the ceiling and I'm

(47:09):
going to strap straight underneath the rafters and fill that
entire space with insulation. That would give you a quite
significant amount of insulation. It will feel like the rooms
a bit smaller and that the ceiling has come down,
but it would definitely give you a lot of insulation.

Speaker 14 (47:26):
Would I have to look at any sort of having
two layers of jib plus the framing twice for natural
structure of the building that actually carry all that.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
Yeah, I mean, look, if you've got access to an
engineer or to a drafts person who or an architect
who could do some calculations, I think it's probably worth considering.
In reality, I don't know that adding one layer of
plaster board and some insulation is going to stress the

(47:55):
existing timber there to the point where you know you're
worried about a collapse or something like that. But it's
worth considering, And certainly it's one of the issues about
oh well, if I put a new ceiling on, that's
then I've got two ceilings. And you know, plasterboard still
has a certain weight per square meter and you'd want
to calculate that, and insulation itself is relatively lightweight and
it's evenly distributed, so I think it's unlikely and Again,

(48:17):
if you did opt for, let's say, putting a whole
new ceiling underneath your existing choice, and you did do
some calculation and found that the span the depth of
the member was not sufficient for the span, you could
always add another choice next to it and starting to
become quite a big job. But that would or a
flitch or something like that. But I think most likely

(48:41):
it would be okay, and.

Speaker 14 (48:43):
You wouldn't have to worry about creating a cavity of
no sort of ventilation in that cavity, not.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
In that cavity there. One of the concerns with that
type of style roof is that often we have insufficient
ventilation over the top of the insulation underneath the iron.
So again, if they've taken a ninety x forty five
and put that on edge as the perlin over the

(49:08):
top of the sarking layer, ideally that shouldn't be full
of insulation to the very top, because then you've got
your roofing underlay over there and there should be an
insulation get which means of course that they don't have
ninety mili of insulation up there. It might only be
it might only be fifty mili of insulation.

Speaker 14 (49:27):
I don't have opened some things in this house, and
that it does look poorly built. So I'm not sure
that would be an option. It was built sort of
late sixties, early seventies.

Speaker 3 (49:35):
See, they may not.

Speaker 14 (49:36):
Take one of those cheaper sort of houses.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
Hey, look there may not be any insulation there at all.
And look, you know we're earlier on we were talking
about sort of underfloor insulation and this idea of having
a continuous layer of insulation. If you you know, like
if the roof, this is the other thing to consider.
If the roof is from the original house, it's probably
coming to the end of its life, right, So if

(50:00):
you have an assessment, an overall assessment of the building
condition and you go, actually, I think I'm a couple
of years away from having to replace the roof as
part of regular maintenance, that would be an opportunity. If
you're going to take the roof off, you could then
add more insulation or a different type of insulation, something
that's more effective in terms of like an EPs board

(50:21):
or something like that, like a dense polystyrene board to that,
and then do the reroof. Now, that's uneconomic if you're
pulling off a roof, that's still got some life to it,
but if it's reached the end of its life, then
you could go, well, actually, I'm going to take the
roof off. I'm going to add my insulation there. Then
I don't have to do anything. There's no disruption to

(50:43):
the inside of the house. I'm adding my insulation, and
if it's well detailed, you could end up with a
really continuous layer of insulation, effectively a warm roof, which
would be very very effective. But you've got to take
a whole of building approach to it.

Speaker 14 (50:58):
Yeah, I mean, the roof doesn't look too bad, so
I think probably framing and doing something underneath is probably
the easiest best option.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
Oh yeah, because look, a reroof is going to start
sort of in the thirty thousand dollar bracket and go
up from there, whereas you know, doing something on the underside. Yeah,
I suppose the most cost effective is probably to investigate
an insulation layer that's like a semi rigid one that

(51:24):
has reasonable For example, if you look at Kingspan, right, Kingspan, Yeah,
make a product which is insulation adhered to plasterboard. So
in your situation, you could think about taking whatever little
beating is off around that's around the perimeter of the rafters,

(51:44):
cutting neatly. You know, a plasterboard that's already got insulation
on it, fixing that up directly, reinstating the bee, doing
the stopping, and there you've got insulation, and with that
would be kind of the minimum disruption or the least
disruptive methodology. Okay, it's an option anyway, Yeah, yeah, I
appreciate it. And as it I've spent a bit of

(52:07):
time this week just going through sort of brands articles
that I've had sitting on my desk for a while.
And if you're interested in this area, have a look
at the brand's website. There's a sort of a really
good index of a whole lot of articles around insulation, retrofitting, upgrading,
and so on. So brand's website's really helpful.

Speaker 14 (52:27):
No, that's perfect.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
Look at that, tummuch, enjoy, good luck, Thank you all
the best. I got to say.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
What I like about the conversation that we just had
with Darryl is around considering your options, because there are
always going to be options, right, there's not always just
one way of doing something. Excuse me, right, might have
a short break and then we'll.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
Talk to you. If you'd like to call us.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
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Speaker 3 (54:12):
C supply Z me your news talk z B.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
We need to say the slower obviously these days interesting texts.

Speaker 3 (54:23):
There's a couple of these come through.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
The problem is the pricing to build a house or
getting renovations done has got to a level it's outrageous.
The tradesmen will have to work, but there's too many
will have work, but there's still too many cowboys out there. Look,
it's been an issue in the industry for as long
as I've been building, and for a long time before me,

(54:49):
and probably for a long time after me. And I
guess some of that comes down to the discernment.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
Of the client, you know.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
And I remember years ago talking with someone and she
had a small renovation and she got I think it
was twelve p for the work right, and took the
cheapest price and then wondered why it didn't go well. So,

(55:17):
you know, maybe part of this is also, Yeah, the
cowboys are out there, but they're only getting your money
if you give it to them. Oh wait, one hundred
eighty ten eighties. Then I would call Rheann, good morning
to you, sir, very well, how can I help?

Speaker 5 (55:33):
I just have a question in regards to retaining wall.
Mine was damaged in Auckland floods last year.

Speaker 14 (55:40):
Yep.

Speaker 5 (55:41):
Now my issue is my property border is a small reserve.
Now it was constructed the house mid eighties. I can't
find any record on a property file of retaining wall.
The counsel has come back. They say they can't find
any record of them constructing a retaining wall. And it

(56:02):
appears originally one of us constructed that ground was sort
of fairly even on both sides. My assessement would be
it was more put up, you know, to be sufficient
to do landscaping inside my section and stuff. Now it
was pushed out a meter and a half or fifteen

(56:24):
fifteen meters stretch, and in some places on the reserve
there's a large L shape. Some places it's sort of
when all the concrete has been exposed. How the original
post only looks to be maybe I would say one
point five to one point eight meters, and the geotech
assessment says I now have to put it and a

(56:47):
half meter long file into the soil there. It's is
there anything that where it was originally constructed depends the
liability for it or.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
Look, and it's probably not news that you would want
to hear. But my approach would be if the retaining
war is on your property, So if you if the
boundary is determined right, either by a surveyor coming to
do a boundary survey, or whether there are existing boundary

(57:26):
markers in place, if the wall is on your side
of the boundary, then it's your problem to deal with.
And so because it would have been added for the
benefit of your property, the fact that it happens to
your neighbor happens to be the counsel in terms of
a public reserve kind of really doesn't come into it.

(57:50):
So it would have been in my experience, it would
have been unusual for it to have been added for
the benefit of the council and then become their responsibility.
So I think if you if you know where the
boundary is and the walls on your side, it's going
to become your responsibility. Now you could try. And interestingly enough,

(58:12):
when we had Hamish Firth, a town planner and with
us last week in the studio, there was a similar
question where someone realized that a lot of the water
that flowed onto their property during those flood events last
year came from a council reserve. So does council have
a responsibility to maintain that area to ensure that it

(58:33):
doesn't become a nuisance to you? Possibly they do. With
all of the things that council have got to deal
with in terms of flooding, your chances of getting anything
from them is I think just about zero right now realistically.
And then I guess if you're going to build a
retaining wall on the boundary, that triggers a requirement for

(58:55):
specific design because it's on the boundary, and that would
mean that then you've got to listen to what the
engineer is telling you, and engineers are risk averse. So, yeah,
your piles that used to be a meter and a
half long have now become six meter ones. And I
know the cost involved in doing something like that. You know,

(59:16):
potentially you're going to be spending tens if not maybe
even over one hundred thousand dollars rebuilding a retaining wall
like that.

Speaker 5 (59:25):
Yeah, that's that's why I'm wondering. So that all depends
on where it was originally constructed or is it where
it's sitting now?

Speaker 2 (59:36):
No, I well, let's say it's now further into your
property because it's collapsed. But if the base of the
original retaining wall is clearly within your property, then it
is definitely for your benefit, and I think unfortunate. Well,
it means that you're responsible for it.

Speaker 5 (59:54):
Yeah, No, the other way that the slipper is on
the slip and the and the lots of soilers on
the reserve side pushed out into the into the reserve.

Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
If the wall though, is on your side of the
boundary and it's collapsed and it's gone into the council reserve,
then you're still responsible for it, because again I would
have suspected that the wall was built to then raise
the level of your property to give you a level area,

(01:00:27):
rather than having been built to allow council to have
excavated down or something like that. So typically when we
build a retaining wall, we do it for the purpose
either of the high side or the low side. Right,
So it's either we put one on the wall on
the boundary because we need to excavate down to get
our slab down so we can get a house at

(01:00:49):
a certain height, or we put one on the boundary
because we want to raise the level to create some
level area. And I suspect that that wall has been
built on your property for your benefit and so again
you're going to be responsible for it.

Speaker 5 (01:01:04):
Are they liable stabilized reserve because obviously that would make
certain more last much longer, will make it much cheaper
and less invasive on the scope of work.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
As in a change the contour of the reserve to
sort of buttress your property.

Speaker 5 (01:01:24):
Ah, there's to stabilize the soil because the slip is
four when it happened, it's migrated like the met sort
of a ul slip. Somebody I was told by someone,
because it's not developed land by the council, they're not
liable to keep it in any condition or do any

(01:01:48):
remediation because it's not developed lands.

Speaker 4 (01:01:51):
That correct.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
I think that's probably correct. And I just know that
at the moment, for everything that they've got to deal with,
you're not going to get much out of them, and
you can. You could spend a long time bashing your
head against the wall trying to get something out of
council and you probably won't. So I just think you

(01:02:12):
won't get just yeah. I think ultimately it comes down
to you're going to have to rebuild the wall, and
it's going to cost you, and it's probably going to
cost you a significant amount unfortunately, could you? But can
you claim this on insurance because you know, retaining walls
typically part of your insurance policy.

Speaker 5 (01:02:35):
I I you said, well, obviously they do cost of
repairs or lots of land, whichever is lower. Right, Yeah,
I've got very lower amount, and that's about fifty short
of what the cost of the wall would be.

Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Yeah, but I you know, I think in this instance,
any contribution you can get, either through insurance or equ see,
I'd grab it with both hands and then it's going
to take some of the pain out of your wallet.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:03:06):
Yeah, that's that's what I was hoping, if I can
get some some the council and saying it's a little
bit of that as well. But if you say being
against the.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
Wind, yeah, and if you had advice obviously from either
an engineer or or someone involved in geotque or civil.

Speaker 5 (01:03:27):
Works, uh the sea see geotech. Hey, they did a
statesment on it. They came out with a didn't meet
a long while, yeah, and oil et cetera.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
M be interesting to sort of get your own opinion.
I guess you may have to pay for it. I
presume around you're in auckland somewhere.

Speaker 5 (01:03:52):
Yes, that's great, and as happy as I am in
the whole street or area, it's only out property was affected.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
I'll tell you leave your number because I might get
someone that I know to give you a call. Alright, alright,
leave you number, good luck, all right, all the best
to take care, all right, all the best. Ye bye
by then, and along the same lines a text that's
just come in.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Actually, Pete.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
My question is I have a property which has water
coming down from a neighboring property onto my property, and
it's a torrent at times like a river. Does the
neighbor have to have a drainage system to divert the
water away from my property? Is a legal requirement for
them to have it? Thank you from Dean. Yeah, And
we've discussed this a couple of times on the program.

(01:04:47):
So the issue is, and it's quite fascinating. If it's
undisturbed land, If it's natural land, so maybe a reserve
or we're talking farming areas, rural areas and so on.
There isn't because that's just the natural flow of the land.
But as soon as there's an intervention i e. Somebody
builds something, the requirement is that all of us are

(01:05:09):
as homeowners. If we're homeowners, we are responsible for all
of the stormwater discharge from our property. So, for example,
if you don't have downpipes right, or let's say you've
got downpipes but they're not connected to a stormwater system
and that water floods onto the neighbor when the ground
is saturated, then that's something that a neighbour can come

(01:05:32):
to you and ask you to address, and hopefully council
would enforce it as well. If, for example, you've done
a driveway, and I've seen this with developments recently where
a new driveway to access a number of units has
been put in, but without the appropriate curbing or a
swire not really a swale, but a channel, and then

(01:05:55):
somewhere to collect that water, and the water the driveway
is just tilted and pushed to the neighbor, so every
time it rains, all of that water that's collected on
the driveway sheets into the neighboring property. Those sorts of things.
If that's the nature of your question, Dean, yes, you
should be able to go back to your neighbor, and
then if there's a reluctance from your neighbor to get involved. Certainly,

(01:06:18):
you can go to counsel and ask them to go
and assess the property, determine what the remediation is, and
then get the neighbor to do exactly that.

Speaker 3 (01:06:27):
So good luck. It's again not.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
Easy to work through this process, but it's yeah, it's doable,
and yes, it is quite clear in legislation that you
have to be able to control your own discharge, your
own stormwater discharge from your property when there's been let's say,
an intervention iea house driveway, et.

Speaker 3 (01:06:45):
Cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to
call if you've got a question of a building nature.
We will take your calls right now. I eight hundred
eighty ten eighty. So a made of mine who's very
experienced with retaining walls and so on, text me during
that conversation with Ran that we just had a moment

(01:07:08):
ago and said, look, I'm quite happy to go out
and have a look.

Speaker 3 (01:07:11):
And he's got vast experience.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
It could be really interesting to see what his thoughts
are on that particular issue.

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
This is an interesting one.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
I happened there was a couple of techs come through,
you know, because we've sort of straight off the path,
let's say, and we're talking about building and the economy
in general and what it's like for contractors out there,
and to be fair, for a number of people, it's
pretty grim. And I think for I guess, and the
conversation we had with Steve earlier on is that for people,

(01:07:45):
you know, younger people that have come into the construction
sector or come into being their own business owner, this
downturn might be the first one that they've experienced. So
if you've got a few gray hairs like I do
and Steve does with the graves of respect, you know,
we've been through this and we kind of know that
you just have to hold on if you possibly can,

(01:08:07):
because inevitably it will get better. We have these highs
and lows, we have these peaks and troughs in the
cycle of the economy and within the building sector undoubtedly,
And I mean I still remember the interview we did
with John Tukey from the aut He's there leading guy
in terms of construction. He's got a real interest, particularly

(01:08:27):
in the sort of the economic side of the construction sector.
And at the end of it, I wrapped it up
by going, so, is there a way of getting out
of this boom and bus cycle? And he just went, no,
this is how the economy works. This is how in
a sense business works. And then we got onto this
conversation around cowboys in the industry and often people undercutting

(01:08:49):
or offering up cheap prices and then trying to get
the work. You know, lots of variations, lots of extras, et.

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
Cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
And so I mentioned the story that I had heard
of someone who had, I think, invited twelve different contractors,
building contractors to price a let's say it was a
small extension alteration job, and then took the lowest price
and the work was terrible and the whole project went

(01:09:20):
off the rails right, and you kind of go, well,
hang on, in that sense, there, it was only going
to have one outcome, wasn't it. If you get twelve people,
it might have been seven, whatever it is. But if
you get multiple quotes and you grab the lowest one
and it's considerably lower and the work is exactly the same,
you know that you're going to be for a problem.
And then someone has texed through based on your friends.

(01:09:43):
It wasn't a friend, it was just someone I knew
or heard of. Actually, that's eleven builders whose time was
wasted doing quotes. They have to recoup that money somewhere else.
It just gets added to the jobs that they do get.
People need to start talking with friends of and engaged
tradespeople and employ those with a good reputation for value
and quality. Get a maximum of three quotes so that

(01:10:05):
you minimize how much your tradesman's time you've wasted, and
be upfront with your expectations. If you want the cheapest builder,
tell them that, and the two thirds of trades will
outright tell you that they're not the cheapest. I say
it up front before I go to site that I'm
not the cheapest, and I actually charge to quote and
take that amount off the job price. If I get it,

(01:10:27):
I do about one quarter of the quotes that I
used to.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
Yeah, how fascinating. See.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
To be fair, I've never charged for quotes, but that's
I mean, at least you're being upfront right in terms
of saying, look, I'm going to charge for the quote
if I don't get the job. I wonder how many
people at that point go okay, Well then I'm not interested.
Take a few more texts on that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:52):
What else was there?

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
I need to This is a random text as well.
I need to replace old corrugated roofing polystyrene which has
basically gone rotten. I don't think it'll be polystyringe. It
might be like the clear light roof so like a
polyethylene type of not polyethylene, yeah, the clear lighte roofing.

(01:11:15):
Can I use a skill saw to cut the new
stuff to fit it? No, don't use a skill saw.
You'll find and I did one just recently, that sort
of clear light sun tough type roofing. You just cut
it with the same roofing shears that you use to
cut regular corrugated iron by hand. I certainly wouldn't touch
it with a power tool in this instance, and I

(01:11:36):
love power tools, but no, don't. Just good old set
of nips will do it. Your news talk CP, We've
got a spear line. The number is eight hundred and
eighty ten eighty. Today we're talking with Daniel Davies from
Davies Homes based in tail Mutu, with a reputation for excellence.

(01:11:57):
Each home is a testament to thoughtful design and superior construction.
Incorporating some innovative materials like J and L's Jframe and Triboard,
Davies Homes create spaces that stand the test of time.
So Daniel from Davies Homes, Hey, let's start off with
the framing. Tell us about jframan, why do you choose that?

Speaker 11 (01:12:18):
The reason why I've used jframe over the last us
see six eight years is a lot to deal with
a stability, straightness and engaging. It's down the yko here.
We're live in quite a damp environment and what happens
if the timber isn't consistent and so forth, It moves,
which causes problems with screw pops and possible cracks and

(01:12:41):
walls and so forth. So that's why I've chose to
use it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
And in terms of switching, let's say from traditional stick
framing to jframe, no issue with counsel.

Speaker 11 (01:12:50):
Oh no, all that was easy years, that's the answer
we like.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
Hey, now let's talk about triboard as well. So lots
of uses. What are you using triboard for.

Speaker 11 (01:13:00):
We're mainly using the TG penalley, which is such a
cool product use because we do a little lot of
pole sheds with our houses when they builth people right,
so it's easy to fit, it doesn't need all the
solid timber behind it, and it gives us pretty epic
finiship end of it too, at a cost effective price.

Speaker 2 (01:13:18):
Yeah, and you've still got that impact resistance, say, because
we're still talking about fifteen mil of triboard.

Speaker 3 (01:13:24):
You know it's it's pretty durable.

Speaker 11 (01:13:27):
Year first, I used it as my own project, and
I've used it on heaps houses since in a shed
that's perfect, and.

Speaker 3 (01:13:34):
I've used it on my projects as well. It is great.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
Hey, Now, what's on the horizon for Davies Homes.

Speaker 11 (01:13:40):
Well, we have only really mainly focused on the Greater
wipe A area and mines all areas. But later on
this year we'll be opening a show home and what
order which is more north we thought it Hilton and
then from there next year we'll be open to sha
Ho North Hamilton as well, because we've been expanding to

(01:14:02):
South of Auckland and so forth under the same brand
and Understaye company.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
Fantastic Hey now and lastly too, and I know people
are often a little bit shy about taking recognition, but
congratulations on the Master Builders Waycuto Regional Awards in twenty
twenty three.

Speaker 3 (01:14:18):
Just tell us about the house that was entered there.

Speaker 11 (01:14:21):
You entered two there, so we ended one a client's
build in Cambridge. There was a mixture of recycled brick
and vertical planting that one head try board on the
boat sheet yep. And then we entered the Shahum we
built as well, which was quite a cool shod swimming
balls and a lot of solid timbers inside the house
with an exposed American oak. So yeah, that's two really

(01:14:41):
studying homes, quite pleasant results and.

Speaker 2 (01:14:44):
I think sounding like they're deserving of the Wakato Regional Awards,
So congratulations on that. Hey, folks, if you want to
know more about the work that Davies Homes do, check
out Davies Homes dot co dot nz. Also, Janel's Facebook
page has some examples of the houses built by Daviess
Home and some of the examples of using that triboard
TGV for interior aligning. So learn more about j frame

(01:15:08):
and tryboard at JNL dot co dot enz and more
about the good people at Davies Homes at Davies Homes
dot co dot nz your news talks, he'd be let's
get into the calls. Actually some great texts coming through
as well, and some fantastic opinion around, you know, like this,
I suppose the state of the building sector and including

(01:15:30):
a couple of fairly blunt quotes going, hey, Pete, I'm
okay to hear that builders are missing out on quotes
about time that prices and margins came down. You make
here to offer up an opinion, Rick A very good
morning to you.

Speaker 16 (01:15:45):
Morning, Creete. You're the man to help me.

Speaker 8 (01:15:47):
I'm sure see how we go hand old school.

Speaker 16 (01:15:50):
I've been trying to find a cast iron, preferably gully
trapp or great for to replace one that's missing my property,
and I hope I'll just track one down or even
like a new one. The plastic ones, I know, good
do we? Where do you get those from?

Speaker 2 (01:16:10):
You're talking about like you can get like a pre
cast horseshoe almost and concrete that's about one hundred miles high,
it's about three hundred mill across, and then there's a
cast iron just the girl that goes, and then there's
the girl that goes on top of those. I would
head to somewhere like Humes m go to the go
to the commercial ones. So go to Humes, go to

(01:16:32):
Mico Plumbing might have them. I probably go to Humors actually.

Speaker 7 (01:16:38):
Been there, done that.

Speaker 16 (01:16:39):
They didn't they didn't have the one.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
No, no, no, I'm sure they maybe they don't do that. Yeah,
that's a good point, to be fair.

Speaker 16 (01:16:53):
Mm hmm. Yeah, I've had to get some paid cast
ironans have been able to get them. Yeah, we we
we uh, well they don't.

Speaker 3 (01:17:03):
Luckily, stay listening.

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
I'm sure someone will text a drain or the civil
works guy.

Speaker 6 (01:17:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):
I would have thought if you go to Humes or
to you know, the larger Mico's, or to the houses.

Speaker 14 (01:17:18):
The next game.

Speaker 16 (01:17:21):
That means used to have them sort of and plays
megas used to his. But some of the ones they make,
of course, are uselessly early, many more plastic. Yeah, but
that's all right, Okay, I'll I'll keep looking.

Speaker 2 (01:17:37):
Yeah, I would have thought Humes, but or any of
the large commercial places.

Speaker 3 (01:17:40):
Hey, good luck with it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:41):
And to be fair, I'm going to do a little
Google search while we're chatting away to people as well.

Speaker 4 (01:17:46):
Hillary, Hello there, Hello, Hello, I wonder if you can
help me.

Speaker 10 (01:17:52):
I have just completed, or my builder has just completed
a build for me, a small build and we've had
the final inspection, and I am going in now to
the council website to try and obtain CCC.

Speaker 6 (01:18:07):
Yes, So when I go in through.

Speaker 10 (01:18:10):
My IR and I get in there and I've got
my file in, when I put in my consent number,
I cannot get all the information that the builder has
on his my IR about all the inspections and everything
that have been done. Right that normal? I mean, I

(01:18:32):
can probably ring up the council and find out if
I'm actually doing this correctly. But I would have thought
once I put in the consent number that everything relating
to that consent number would be able to drop in
as you go through the website, which it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:18:50):
I know what you're saying, but to be fear, you
don't need that information, and that information that's already on
the council records with regard to the inspections that have
been undertaken is not the information that you need to
provide for your CCC application.

Speaker 10 (01:19:10):
So I've got all the I've got all the certificates
and all the things like that, and they're all.

Speaker 2 (01:19:17):
In PDF form, so they're all you can upload everything. Okay,
if do you have the booklet that the building consent
came with, so there's the plans and then there's the
council and then.

Speaker 3 (01:19:29):
Everything at the back of that will have what's.

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):
Required for your CCC, so record of works from the builder,
a COC from the electrician, a PS three from the plumber,
potentially as built plans, warranty statements for systems, and all
the rest of it. So if you read through the
back of the booklet, that will give you a guideline.

Speaker 3 (01:19:52):
As to what you need.

Speaker 10 (01:19:53):
That's very helpful.

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
To be fair, My approach is because back in the day,
when you used to have a paper application, it gave
you a checklist, right. The online application doesn't. And I
have to say I've found that frustrating, right, And I
would have thought it was much more helpful of counsel
when you went to apply online, which is the only

(01:20:17):
way to apply now, had like a checklist, but they don't,
so they just what it says typically is provide all
relevant information for the CCC application.

Speaker 3 (01:20:27):
Then you go, well, what is that?

Speaker 2 (01:20:28):
What's the relevant information? That's why you go back to
the inspection booklet and you have a look in the
last couple of pages of that. That's where all the
information is. I also typically tend to give them stuff
that they might not have asked for, So any record
of works, any producer statement, any site inspection notes from engineer, geotech, etc.

Speaker 3 (01:20:50):
I'd add that to it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:52):
PS Four from the engineer, if there's specific design, all
of the records of works, all of the coa's COCs, everything.
Put it all in there, and then what will happen
is they'll come back to you with more information.

Speaker 3 (01:21:07):
Well done, good luck.

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
We've got to go for the news, but feel free
to call again if.

Speaker 3 (01:21:11):
You need more fashion.

Speaker 12 (01:21:52):
In the home stretch.

Speaker 6 (01:21:56):
Of the hard time.

Speaker 13 (01:21:58):
It took a heart left, but we're all right, yeah,
sure canra so.

Speaker 12 (01:22:10):
Love Loie b. We do this right his soul than
ever gone.

Speaker 8 (01:22:17):
All that.

Speaker 15 (01:22:17):
When the bars are good, reston you're the pain a field.

Speaker 13 (01:22:22):
That's good, Shadow that boy, because you will have a.

Speaker 12 (01:22:27):
Man's a crack in the foundation.

Speaker 15 (01:22:34):
Debiano Mani Stone well present the Oh the wound we
stayed the hastone.

Speaker 12 (01:22:40):
Fall in the bars are good.

Speaker 2 (01:22:44):
Alrighty, oh, welcome back to the program. It's going to
be busy in the next half hour. Before we jumped
into the garden with it to climb past. Thank you
to all of the Texters that have replied to Rex
question about trying to find he was looking for a
cast iron grate for a concrete gully dish. In cast
iron probably not available anymore. There are aluminium ones out there, Hines.

(01:23:09):
Someone suggested that someone has suggested going taking a drawing
and getting it cast for you. That's going to be
rather expensive. Austin's Foundry and Timaru is now closed down,
but they were one of the largest makers of the
old cast iron lids. Did have some stock for sale.
Chairs Google Austin's Foundry and Timaru. I'm going through timorrow

(01:23:31):
in a couple of months time. I could pick one
up on the way and Hines and someone else where
was it?

Speaker 4 (01:23:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:23:38):
I think it's Hines on Nielson Street. No one hunger
if you want to find one. I thought that'd be
out there, and then someone goes, hey, will Davies Homes.
We had a chat with the team from Davy's Homes
just before the break. Will they be at field Days?
I'm not sure if they will be. Second part of
the quick text was will you be there?

Speaker 8 (01:23:56):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (01:23:56):
I will.

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
Actually I'm going to be at field Days on Thursday
and Friday of this coming week. Really looking forward to
it actually, so you'll find me hanging around with Bailey
Water Tanks. They've got a big stand down there, my
mates at Apex Boots, and also with the team at Royobi,

(01:24:17):
So I will be drifting around certainly. So send me
a message maybe through social media or something, or post
where I am on my Facebook page, so resident builder
on Facebook, you'll find it there. I'll put up a
list of where I am at which time, and I
always really enjoy the chats that I have while i'm
down there. So down there with Bailey's, with Apex Boots

(01:24:38):
and with Ryobi, really really looking forward to it. And
I'm thinking I might be able to swing by Saveboard
as well. These are the people that use like TetraPak
the liquid paper and recycle it into boards. Because I
want to bring some sheets up to put at the
Resource Recovery Center in Devenport, just to show people what

(01:24:59):
happens with recycling, because if you can't put that pack
that packaging into your curb side recycling, but it is
cyclable and Saveboard ended up making it into wall lining
which you can use, so be quite good to show
people what you can do with recycled material, so I
might have to swing by the factory and strap a
couple of sheets of safeboard onto the roof of the

(01:25:21):
BT fifty and then head back to Auckland after that.
So yep, Thursday, Friday field days, it'll be awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:25:27):
Bill, greetings you sir.

Speaker 6 (01:25:29):
Yeah, yes, hello Pete. Yeah, no little problem. We had
a water pipe burst under the house, yes, and that
Actually it's not a double story house, but there's split
level and the water left the chip board alone, which

(01:25:53):
was the top half, and they seeped into the lounge,
which was all carpeted, and I had to rip the
carpet because it's stunk, you know. I had to ditch
the carpet and I'm just wondering what to do with
it now because there's a bare concrete floor on the

(01:26:13):
bottom half and I didn't know what I'm going to
do with it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:19):
The concrete will be fine, you know, water and concrete.
Once the concrete's gone off, that won't have an impact.
There'll be a certain amount of moisture still in the building,
and before you do any repairs, i'd make sure you
dry that out.

Speaker 6 (01:26:32):
So for carpets, a log fire in there yeah, i'd.

Speaker 3 (01:26:36):
Probably go down.

Speaker 2 (01:26:37):
And I mean some of this should be covered by
your insurance, right, so you're insurance.

Speaker 6 (01:26:41):
I think, so our money ranking.

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):
But the land okay, well.

Speaker 2 (01:26:45):
The landlords, it would be in the landlord's interest to
get like a commercial sized dehumidifier and put that in there.
So if you've already pulled the carpet up, get in
there with a dehumidifier, run that for a week or
so before you do any more remedial work, and that'll
just help dry the place out and get that moisture
level down.

Speaker 6 (01:27:04):
Yeah, because I think that half I'd been done quite
a while, and my ex wife she had dogs and
they're probably pedal on the carpet, which really stunk the
thing out, so we had to get rid of it.

Speaker 3 (01:27:18):
Yeah yeah, yeah, m hm.

Speaker 6 (01:27:23):
So I've got left and now as a concrete floor
in a couple of mates.

Speaker 2 (01:27:28):
Yeah, okay, yeah, no, no, look, look, I'll I would
do that. Make sure you get the dehumidifier in there.
Because the carpet dryers, you know the ones that you
can buy, they look like a snail. Yeah, they'll blast
through and get rid of the moisture out of the carpet.
But you've already removed that, but I think it's really
important before you get onto remedial work to make sure
that the moisture content is down again. Awful thing to happen.

Speaker 3 (01:27:50):
Good luck with all of that. Rory greetings to you.

Speaker 9 (01:27:54):
Hello, Oh yeah, I just this time last week you're
talking about the commistic groups.

Speaker 16 (01:28:02):
Yes, excuse me a bit of morse.

Speaker 9 (01:28:05):
In any way, you said something about a membrane over
the whole deachomestic grief. And I'll tell you now and then,
there's no better membrane than good paint and plenty of
it on it. And i'll tell you what. You don't
put it on neat. You put it on water down
twenty percent.

Speaker 7 (01:28:24):
With a room.

Speaker 3 (01:28:27):
Whoa, okay, yeah right.

Speaker 9 (01:28:30):
And it's the only read you want to do it on.
Low picture is not billas like yours. But it's better
than spraying it because when you saturate the chips and everything,
they never come off again, and the bird two foes off.
There's no bird degree or moss around it. And my

(01:28:53):
roofs fifty years old now, and I had to do
it after about twenty years because the grief was put
on by amateurs. And I think there were second hand
tires that looked yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:29:08):
No, look, I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:29:09):
I think having a you know, an extra layer of
anything that protects our roofs is probably not a bad thing.
And I've had texts from people are going, no, you
can't just repaint them.

Speaker 3 (01:29:18):
And all the rest of it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:19):
The membrane that I'm talking about, I haven't had any
personal experience, but I've just noticed a number of sort
of ads and comments around applying like a thick, viscous
type coating over your existing roof as a as a
flexible membrane. So we might be talking you know, half
a millimeter or so of product that's applied, or possibly
even a bit thicker than that, which is more than

(01:29:40):
what you would get out of a layer of paint.
No matter how thick you apply it, you won't get
that sort of build up on it. But look, there's
there's some alternatives out there. I'm interested to hear from
anyone who's had one of these membranes applied over the
top of an existing roof to prolong its life. Oh
eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to
call and Mike, good morning to you.

Speaker 8 (01:30:02):
Oh Hof, you can help me or come it with ideas.
So we've just had a small renovation done, basically putting
in two new bedrooms, and there's a very very strong
chemical smell or odor that's there. So the floors a

(01:30:24):
concret slab bra design, the walls are all jibs, the
ceiling is in a tongue and groove plywood look to it, yep.
And then in one bedroom we've also got that sort
of bed behind the bed, you know, down not half

(01:30:46):
the wall, but running horizontally like.

Speaker 3 (01:30:49):
A lining for a.

Speaker 8 (01:30:51):
Nice So when I when I was painting it, I thought,
you know, things aren't sealed, et cetera. But now we've
got to carpet down, a bit of lino down, you know,
everything's all painted and to sure at the moment it
kind of there's a fifty thirsty mixture of brand new
carpet smell and this really strong chemical yeah odor that's there.

Speaker 2 (01:31:13):
Any ideas, I know that there's a lot of discussion,
you know, when we're talking about healthy homes and so on,
around the materials that we use in the construction of
our houses. And for example, if you look on a
bucket of raisine paint right, it will say it's a
low voc paint, so volatile organic compounds. And if you

(01:31:38):
think back to paints and products that we used to
use years ago, you know, they smell like you just
open a bottle of whiskey.

Speaker 3 (01:31:45):
Right, There was so much, so many.

Speaker 2 (01:31:48):
So we're typically we're using a lot less chemicals and
a lot less harmful chemicals in either the manufacture of
the products that we use into a house or actually
on site when we're applying them. So even things like
tubes of silicon or adhesive right tend to have less
of these VOCs in them than they had in the past.

(01:32:09):
So in that sense, I'm a little surprised, and I'm
thinking back to, you know, all of the building work
that I've done, let's say in the last ten years,
that at the end of it, as a new build,
it hasn't been that noticeable. Right now, there is evidence
that says that, you know, there's a lot of moisture
in how we build, and so that takes a period
of time to evaporate. And undoubtedly there are chemicals in

(01:32:32):
the products that we use and there will be a
residue which will diminish over time. So with yours, do
you think that the smell or the odor is as
obvious today as when the work finished.

Speaker 8 (01:32:46):
Well, yeah, it's kind of interesting that one. So it
was fully started nearly well that was time ago, about
a year ago, right, oh wow? And yeah, I know,
And fortunately I needed to have a hip operation last year,
so I had the big push to sort of get
most of the painting done by August last year, and

(01:33:09):
I've finished it off now. So and it's one of
those things that once you've had the area open, it's
the small batch, so it's quite often locked up right
when you first go and you go, wow, what's that smell?
And then you know, leave all the doors and windows
open for a quarter of an hour, either you stop
smelling it or it basically years out. But every time

(01:33:31):
we go back in, it's there, locked up for a
few days, it's there year.

Speaker 2 (01:33:35):
I guess that might be the the one factor that changes,
you know, what we're talking about, in the sense that like,
typically if it's a house and it's occupied every day,
the windows get opened every day, so it's not surprising
that the smell has lasted for a lot longer. The
other thing would be is to actually get it tested.
So I know that there's some people involved in building

(01:33:58):
science who will do testing of interior environments, right, So
you can measure for carbon monoxide, you can measure for
humidity and moisture content, and potentially you can measure for
VOCs inside the building as well, and if it had
a particularly elevated reading, it would give you an indication

(01:34:19):
of what types of chemicals they might be, and then
you could sort of think back through the building process
to go, Okay, well, it might be that we used
I don't know a particular type of flooring material, or
I mean I presume that with all of your paint
that you did, it mostly would have been acrylics or
water borne paints.

Speaker 8 (01:34:38):
Even for the clear fear, it was always in paint,
wondering about the the the ply, the tingu and grew
plight because I thought, you know jibs, well, you know
got jibyware. You know, if they'd have been smelling, other
people have noticed it. I've done undercoats, under top coats.

Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
How many thousands of sheets of plasterboard I've seen put
up in the last ten years, you know, And I look,
you just don't get it right. Someone sticks through. Have
you glued down carpet? No, what's your flooring.

Speaker 8 (01:35:15):
The the flooring is a concrete slat okay, and.

Speaker 2 (01:35:20):
Then left exposed. Sorry, And and the concrete is left exposed.

Speaker 3 (01:35:27):
No, no, it's got a cabin on top of it, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:35:29):
And then the carpet is just it's not glued down,
it's with an underlay.

Speaker 14 (01:35:33):
And so on.

Speaker 6 (01:35:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:35:34):
Yeah, they've got the standard you know that mailgemooth.

Speaker 4 (01:35:39):
Yep, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:35:42):
Interesting and I would I would have a search around
and see if you can get And they're out there right.
They're they're sort of building scientists who are involved in,
you know, investigating chemical compounds and indoor environment and you're
talking about indoor air quality and actually have it tested.

(01:36:02):
Someone else has suggested if you might have used a
nylon carpet. Sometimes it has a very strong smell when
it's new.

Speaker 8 (01:36:09):
Yeah, but yeah, you can definitely tell the carpet smell.
So yeah, they're worried about that. They'll go, await, it's
the that other chemical and it's hard to describe. Yes,
you know, when we first started going into the Tracy,
my wife said, the paint. No, no, it's not the paint.
I've been breathing that in all day. It's definitely not
the paint smell. It's very strong chemical odor. Yeah, and

(01:36:33):
it's Yeah, we were thinking that maybe it was coming
from the concrete land. You know, once we had the
carpet down and there was a small bit of lino,
it'd all be gone. But now you can you know,
it's minimized it just because of the new smell of
the carpet. But you can still smell the other you know.

Speaker 2 (01:36:50):
It's not an odor coming from your drainage.

Speaker 8 (01:36:56):
Ask the plumber about that, but he said that would
smell more organic.

Speaker 3 (01:37:01):
Yeah, I understand that.

Speaker 6 (01:37:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:37:06):
Is the only new bit of plumbing in that area
is Yeah, there's a like a washing machine in a
small cupboard. Yeah, and that so it does have them,
you know, the gully trap whatever for.

Speaker 2 (01:37:16):
That, and it should have a terminal vent and those
sorts of things. Look, I think I would go and
find someone to come in and do testing of indoor
air quality, take a scientific even if you want to
contact brands, give brands a call and say, look, I'm

(01:37:39):
looking for someone who does this type of work, and
they'll they'll know researchers who do this all the time.

Speaker 8 (01:37:45):
You wouldn't think it'd be coming from the plywood at all.

Speaker 2 (01:37:47):
I mean we did to imagine about ply Yeah, I mean, look,
there's there's a lot of glue in plywood obviously, right
and depending on which type of plywood, some of them
use more eco friendly glues than others do.

Speaker 3 (01:38:03):
But again.

Speaker 2 (01:38:06):
I see, like I know, for example, treated play because
we use it sometimes as sefite linings. Right now, that
has a very very strong chemical smell for quite a
long time. So potentially if the plywood, is it like
a V groove, a tongue and groove type plywood that
you've used.

Speaker 8 (01:38:26):
Yeah, it looks like it. Yeah, it looks like a
bit of tongue and very flooring.

Speaker 2 (01:38:29):
See a lot of a lot of that is designed
for exterior use, in which case, yes, that will have
a very heavy chemical treatment to it for its for
it to get H three qualification.

Speaker 3 (01:38:42):
And I've used it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:44):
Actually you might be onto something now that I've used
it for bathroom lining for example, where I've wanted to
do like wainscotting tongue and groove around the perimeter of
the bathroom. And I can remember getting it and cutting
it and it being a very strong smell, but it
did diminish over time, and you know, again within.

Speaker 3 (01:39:03):
A week or so.

Speaker 2 (01:39:04):
I would have expected there to be very very little
presence of any sort of residue or odor. So that's
a little bit surprising that it's lasted as long as
it has. But again, if you would have the indoor
air quality tested, it would they would soon be able
to determine whether or not it's coming from the adhesive
that bonds that fly would together.

Speaker 8 (01:39:24):
The builders that did builder has been in there sort
of coming back to work out his justice confused and
he said, no, it was indoor ply.

Speaker 2 (01:39:35):
You know, it wasn't It wasn't treated, so it didn't Yeah, okay,
well yeah, but I must admit there when I was
putting up there several bits that actually had.

Speaker 8 (01:39:45):
You know, very bright orange I think it was orange
or yellow fluoro paint painted on the side of the
to the ply, which I had to send quite a
bit before I painted. Would I remember thinking when I
was prepping, I thought, if it was you know, really,
if it was made for indoor, would it have the
fluoro paint sprayed off?

Speaker 7 (01:40:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:40:05):
I tell you what would be really interesting is to
ask the builder to send through a copy of the
either the delivery slip or the invoice from the supplier
for that product, because again you know he may have
ordered TGNV untreated and then when the order got to
the yard, they went, oh, we don't have any of that,
so we'll send out some treated stuff. So yeah, I'd

(01:40:26):
get the invoice for that material. All right, got a
nice talking with you all, the very best. Take care
by then. Fascinating, fascinating. A couple of quick texts before
you go the break. How can I find out what
the infull housing policy is in my neighborhood. I'm on
the north Shore, so am I. As it happens in Auckland,
if a proposed new build means a lack of light

(01:40:47):
sunshine on existing house, is that a liar could turn
a healthy home into an unhealthy one. I hear what
you're saying, Joe, And we had Hamish Firth a planner
in the studio exactly seven days ago. So it's here
at this time. The best thing to do is to
go to your local council website and to see what
the planning regulations permit. That'll give you an idea. Many

(01:41:10):
many areas are zoned for intensification and redevelopment, and yes
there will be many areas where you can build possibly
out three stories higher meter from the boundary, and that
will undoubtedly cause shading. And this is permitted as our
cities grow. So first instance, I'd go to the council website,

(01:41:32):
take your time, have a look through. You'll find lots
and lots of information there. Now, last one before we
go into the garden. Morning, sir, that's very nice.

Speaker 3 (01:41:41):
It's very nice.

Speaker 2 (01:41:44):
Our elementum joinery is oxidize. What's the best product in
your opinion to bring the joinery back regards from Sean. Look,
I think if you want to do a really good job,
I'd probably get experts in. So have a look at
someone like Nanoclear, for example, who would come through, do
the proper treatment, do the recoloring, apply a treatment over
the top of it to protect it, and get a

(01:42:07):
really good job done. So yeah, I'd check out Nana
clear right. Oh, let's jump into the garden where it
is all a sweetness and light rod climb passed after
the break.

Speaker 1 (01:42:25):
For more from the Resident Builder with Peter Wolfcamp, listen
live to News talks'd B on Sunday mornings from six,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.