Full Show Podcast: 31 August 2025

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Resident Builder podcast with Peter Wolfcamp
from US talks by helping you get those DIY projects
done right. The Resident Builder with Peter wolf Camp Call
eight hundred eighteen eighteen Youth talksib.

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

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Yard, and even when the dog is too old to borrow,
and when you're sitting at the table trying not to
start ouse.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
Scissor hole, even when we are band even when you're therellone.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
House sizzle hole, even when those ghost when you got
around from the ones you love your most.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Scream does broken paints appeel in.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Front the word.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Locals vesper when they're gone and leaving neighbor house even
when wilbra ben, even when you're in there alone.

Speaker 5 (01:58):
Well, a very very good morning and welcome along to
the Resident Builder on Sunday. You're with me Paid wolf Camp,
the Resident Builder, and this is an opportunity to kind
of chew the fat to gas away about something that
we're both interested in, which is building and building is maintenance.
Building is additions. Building is new buildings, obviously buildings materials.

(02:18):
Building is contractors. Building is rules, and building is tools
as well, And can I say I think I've calmed
down a little bit from earlier this week where I
saw an advertisement for a new tool that well, a
variation on an old tool, an ancient tool, possibly one

(02:39):
of the oldest tools most of us would have in
our toolbox, with a trumpeted announcement from the people that
developed this particular adaptation, extension, innovation of this ancient and
revered tool, which I was apoplectic with rage. Anyway, I'll

(02:59):
tell you a bit about that later on right now,
before I ran an rave on my own little hobby horse.
It's your opportunity to talk all things building and construction.
If you've got a question that's about the materials, about
the contractors, about the process, which bit do I have
to do before I do the next bit, or you know, pricing,

(03:22):
and there's just so much to talk about. There always is,
so I'm not going to constrain it. Good news is
I do have an update on an intriguing conversation we
had with a gentleman last week around condensation. This was
the theory that when you go into a bathroom, you
don't turn the fan on straight away. You turn on
the heater. I guess if you've got one, and then

(03:45):
you have your shower, and then once you finished with
your shower in a warm room, then you turn on
the extraction. And there was part of that that kind
of went, yeah, I kind of get it, but I'm
not sure. Anyway, I said that I talked to an expert,
and I did so. I had a long conversation with
stormharpened from Simmis. She is a ventilation expert, and I
don't use that title lightly given that she's got an

(04:07):
engineering degree and I think maybe a master's and knows
a hell of a lot about this particular topic. So
there is an update on that. I'll bring that to
you as well a little bit later on on the show. Today,
we obviously have a red climb passed from eight point
thirty this morning. We also I'm going to actually a
guy that I know and have known for a couple
of years now, Conrad Lapont, who works with general manager

(04:29):
actually for Habitat for Humanity, is going to join me
in the studio. We spoke with Gosh I think it
was almost like four or five years ago the last
time we had to catch up with him a little
bit about the work that habitat's doing a little bit
of congratulation. One of their developments or one of their
projects has recently won an award, and I want to

(04:49):
know a little bit more about that, and also some
of the innovation that they're starting to adopt in their
building and their building methodology that I think is informative
for all of us. So that's the show at the stage.
But the most important part of the show is you.
So if you have a question of a building nature,
you can call eight hundred and eighty T and eighty.

(05:10):
You can text nine to nine two if you'd wish,
that's zib z be from your mobile phone, and if
you'd like to send me an email, it's Pete at
newstalksib dot co dot inz so Pete p E t
E at newstalksyb dot co dot in sid looking forward
to chatting with you this morning. Let's start with in
good morning to you.

Speaker 6 (05:31):
Good morning, Pete morning. I don't know if you can
solve this problem. I've quit on the ease on my porch.
I've got a light like a bunker light. I've had
it there for years. Yes, a year or so ago
it started filling up with water slide and the only

(05:51):
way I found out when the bulb doesn't work right. Yes,
well yesterday I didn't. I thought it was a bulb gone,
but it was full of water. Now, Oh, I can't
really put it in the in the porch. I can't
get in the roof. Can I to check the where
water may be getting in because it gets so tight

(06:15):
And unless it's on the roof and this is in
the corner of the house where you have a valley
on the roof where two roofs join, and it's on
the porch in it uh, it's there was a bunker light.
You know, it's fully sealed. It's been there about. This
house is very old. It's about uh you know, built

(06:37):
in the sixties. But it's well maintained. And I don't
know why it's And where's the water going if that's
fitting up in the porch, it's where the front door is.
It's filling up there. But how does it? How do
I fix it? Less on the roof the roof.

Speaker 5 (06:56):
Just give given its location. When it rains and it's
it's going to rain today for example in Auckland, you
know if it if it if it rains, does the
light get wet just from the rain. So you know,
if it was halfway down the house on the weatherboards,
you'd go, Okay, when it rains, it's going to get wet.
But is it tucked up underneath sort of theft or

(07:17):
the porch itself.

Speaker 6 (07:19):
It's tucked on the underneath the porch on.

Speaker 5 (07:23):
The ceiling part of that, yes, okay, yeah, Well then
I think the logical conclusion is that there is a
leak from the roof or from that valley, and if
it's adjacent the valley, that's quite it's very possible, which
means it's the water is tracking along through whatever the
lining is, which if it's an older sixties is it

(07:44):
a fiber cement lining or is.

Speaker 6 (07:46):
It I would imagine you know, the seeding will be at.

Speaker 5 (07:56):
What I would Well, obviously it's electrical electricity and water
not a great accommodation. So i'd probably look at at
putting a little bit of solo tape over the switch
in the hallway to make sure you don't turn it
on and cause some sort of potential for electrocution. You
could get an electrician to remove the light and then

(08:18):
from there have a look around to see if there's
any evidence of water getting into that area. So if
the surrounding area is wet, or you can see some
mold growth or some of the supporting timber above it
is damp, then you know you've got a leak, in
which case then it's plumber roofer to come and sort

(08:38):
out that roof leak. Certainly, I probably wouldn't. I certainly
wouldn't encourage you to turn the light on anymore if
it is full of water.

Speaker 6 (08:48):
Like you say, I've taken it completely off. In fact,
I take it down. I've broken the glass now cover I.

Speaker 5 (08:57):
Need anyone anyway. I mean, look in some cases with
exterior lights, if they're not well sealed, or someone has
forgotten put the gasket in, or they're not a great
quality light, that sort of thing, you might just get
moisture that gets in there. But I think in this instance,
I suspect it's a roof leak. Take it down, see

(09:17):
whether or not. What would be interesting is if you
take it. Have you taken it down and removed it
from the cable, so there's just a bit of cable
hanging out of the.

Speaker 6 (09:26):
No, there's no, I've only just the it's a glass
cover over it and I've taken that, as I say,
I've broken and it's it's there now. It's just got
the even took of the bowl about and it's right.
It's just it shows the fitting.

Speaker 5 (09:46):
That's all.

Speaker 6 (09:46):
There's okay at all.

Speaker 5 (09:49):
Yeah, I know I was going to say, you know
that even the fitting should have like a water proof
seal around it as well, but then that's designed really
to stop Yeah, you shouldn't rely on that to stop
the water getting in because the water shouldn't be there.
Water shouldn't be floating around on the safe. I think
it's going to be a roof leak and then it's

(10:13):
plumber or roof has come and identify that.

Speaker 6 (10:16):
Yeah, I gathered that. I just just thought I could
get thinking about it. It's too now and the eaves
you can't get it.

Speaker 5 (10:26):
It's a challenge. Yeah, and oh no, how old is
the roof roughly.

Speaker 6 (10:33):
Oh sixty years but I've just had it repainted and
new guttering and some sheets replaced on the roof as well.
But as I mean, it's the it's right. That porch
is right next to a valley where the two roofs join,
so the water be coming down heavy there and we've

(10:56):
got the chimney not nearby, and I just wondered any
excess water because it's weird. Where's the water going in?

Speaker 7 (11:03):
That?

Speaker 6 (11:04):
Is it going towards the chimney and getting out there?
That worries as well. If water is getting in, where's
it going? You know?

Speaker 5 (11:13):
Yes, absolutely, And I guess the other concern Ian is
if you've had work done recently, like to replace a
couple of sheets and that sort of thing, have they
actually caused a leak rather than you know, fixed the leak.
So you've always got to be a little bit cautious
around if you've had work done and then you've got
an unintended consequence. But I think a good quality roof
for to come and sort that out is the way forward.

(11:35):
All the very best, take care to you, all the best,
Thank you very much, take care your news talks. You'd
be if you've got a question of a building nature
or in this case sort of like a maintenance. I'm
not going to pretend that I'm going to do your
electricals for you. That is best left to the professionals.
But something like this where there's obviously water and then

(11:57):
there's that unintended consequence too, So someone. Oh gosh, we
had in another story this week of a contractor who
has been in the habit of sort of, you know,
taking deposits, doing shoddy work, never coming back in some
cases taking deposits and never doing any work at all,
in some cases turning up starting the job. And then

(12:19):
you know, it's a fairly well known modus operandi. Let's
say where someone goes right, I'm going to start the job.
I get a hefty deposit, which I think I'm always
a little bit cautious about a hefty deposit, followed by
sort of an immediate progress payment. Right, I've been here
for a couple of days. Now you need to pay

(12:40):
me another thirty percent of the value of the job,
and then often never to be seen again. So there
was a couple of those stories in the paper. And
if in this instance a rufer has turned up, maybe
they've they've moved a couple of sheets and they might
have actually caused a leak rather than actually solved. One
oh eight, one hundred eighty ten eighty is the number
to call. We'll we'll take your calls. Remember today on
the show. It'll be calls right through it. Eight o'clock

(13:02):
in an interview after eight o'clock. Actually a couple of
interviews coming up the next few weeks. I might as
well tell you about Mike Thornton, who has been on
the show a couple of times, a lawyer specializing in
construction law and litigation. I guess around remedial claims to
talk about this proposed change by the government to move

(13:23):
from proportional liability for people involved in building consenting and
inspections and so one particularly counsels through to a proportional liability.
So instead of join and several which we have at
the moment, there is a desire for the government to
move the industry to proportional liability. What does that mean?

(13:45):
How might it work? Someone who's on the coal face,
Mike Thornton, will be with us next Sunday, and then,
as it happens, the person who's presented that ideas to
the nation on behalf of the government, the Minister for Housing,
oh sorry, Minister for Building and Construction, the Honorable Chris
Pink will be in the studio. That's in two weeks time,
so really looking forward to that. Six twenty Here at

(14:07):
News Talks, there'd be lines are open, give me a call.
Eight hundred eighty ten eighty met.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
It twice, God was But maybe call Pete first for
your ALFCAF the resident builder news talks.

Speaker 5 (14:18):
They'd be lines are open for you right now, spare
lines in fact, eight hundred eighty ten eighty then number
to call. So if you'd like to jump in now
before things get busy, that would be a great idea.
Eight hundred eighty ten eighty. If you would like to
send a text, you're more than welcome. That's nine to
nine two from your mobile phone. A couple of quick
texts that have come in, Hello, my slot head screws

(14:39):
and the bathroom door hinges have rusted. How do I
get them out? The challenge with slot well, the challenge
with all screws, but the challenge with slotted screws is
you kind of get one chance at getting them out,
because if you don't do it well the first time,
and you bur a screw so you know, sort of

(15:02):
wear down the edge of the slot, it just makes
it harder and harder and harder hard to do. So
what I would suggest is, if it's being painted, take
a scraper scrape off the paint from around the perimeter
of the screw head. So that it's not binding to
the paint that's already on the hinges. And also take

(15:22):
either a sharp knife or something like that and scrape
out the paint that builds up in the slot of
the screw, because if you just put the tip of
the screwdriver in there and it's half full of paint, well,
you don't have much purchase, right, So take a little
bit of time to prepare it, to make sure that
you've got all of the paint or whatever's jammed into

(15:44):
the slot of the screw. You get rid of all
of that. Make sure you're using the right sized screwdriver,
so obviously not one that's too large or not one
that's too small, so the right size that it fits
neatly into the slot. Then I typically, if it's going
to be a little bit difficult to move, I put
the screw driver in there and I give it a

(16:05):
wee gen toll tap with a hammer just on there,
and it kind of just shakes them loose a little bit.
So give the screw a bit of a tap with
a hammer and then have a go. If you're not
getting enough leverage on it. Most reasonable quality screwdrivers you'll
find at the end of the shaft of the screwdriver

(16:25):
is actually a would I describe it looks like a bolt. Basically,
it's a hex So you can hold the screwdriver with
one hand. Get a pair of adjustable plies or a spanner,
put that on there, and that will give you a
little bit more leverage on that initial go. Like I say,

(16:48):
the thing with them is if you bur the screw
then you have less and less chance. So clean it
up properly, make sure you don't do the job until
it's clean and you've got rid of all of the
excess paint. You could squir it a little bit of
what if I used, actually recently that seems to work
really well penetrate, which gets in and just kind of

(17:12):
dissolves any rust and freeze things up. So penetrate works
really well, then give it a whack with a hammer
and then go there. What I don't often do is
use a drill bit or a driver bit in an
impact driver, because if you don't get it right on
the first one, it'll just stuff it up. If none

(17:36):
of these things fail and the nail of the screw
stays there and just can't be budged, then I tend
to put a little center punch in the center of it,
and get a drill that's maybe just slightly bigger than
the actual size of the shaft on the screw, and
drill the head off, take the hinge off, and then
with a vice script get a hold of that last

(17:58):
remaining part of the screw and back it out that way.
I know, quite a process. Oh eight eight eighty is
the number to call Tom good morning to you.

Speaker 8 (18:09):
Good morning. So I got a horrible voice, but I
thought i'd put a bit of something into this gutting
the screw out. Yes, you use it. You need an
impact wrench. They're not around a lot, but they're marvelous.

Speaker 5 (18:23):
They are marvelous. You're right.

Speaker 8 (18:24):
Yeah, that's really want for a slotted screw. All the
others too, but.

Speaker 5 (18:30):
And so this is just very gear too. To explain
them to people. So it's often about two hundred mill long,
eight inches long, quite heavy and quite solid, designed to
be struck with a hammer. And then when you strike
it with a hammer, it rotates the tip or the
driver bit just ever so slightly, but.

Speaker 8 (18:52):
With a big force. Yeah right, okay, that's that one
with it. Last week I was slightly incensed about the
gentleman next door was putting his downpipe into his neighbour's place.
Lady that ran, now, yes, because well that's stresspass.

Speaker 5 (19:12):
I think so too. I think so too.

Speaker 8 (19:14):
You've told them. You told the lady to go to
a drain layer, A drain layer which I was once
as well as a builder. Yes, work's underground.

Speaker 5 (19:24):
Yeah plumber, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 8 (19:26):
Plumb I could get. But no, the first thing is
a ready solicitor of somebody.

Speaker 5 (19:30):
Well, the reason I thought go to a trades person
first is get a like an objective of assessment of it. Right,
So there's there's something in writing that goes, this is
what I see, and and I understand the rules enough
to say this isn't as it should be, and therefore
then you could go to the property own it. But
I you know, I'm very tempted almost to set up

(19:52):
a new little award system on the show called the
Cheeky Bugger of the Day or the Week award, where
you know if you and I were doing that right.
So we go, we do some roofing, we put on
some new spouting, and then we figure, well, I just
can't be asked connecting to the right place. So I'm
just going to hook it into the neighbors.

Speaker 8 (20:09):
That's cheap illegal.

Speaker 5 (20:11):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, making the pence. Good of you to
call Tom. You have a great day, all of this,
all of this, and you're right. Tom's right. The impact
driver is not that common anymore. I don't even think
that I've got one. It's trying to think. No, I don't.

(20:32):
I mean, you know, impact driver as in cordless tool. Yes, absolutely,
and they make a massive difference when it comes to
putting in fastness, whether that's a you know, pearl and
screw or a bugle screw or a heck's head or
something like that. The impact driver makes a big difference
over having a standard let's say, cordless drill, battery drill.

(20:54):
Having the impact driver as opposed to just a regular drill,
I think makes a huge difference. And then these impact
drivers and then these impact wrenches as well, which can
also be cordless. So he look, there's always an excuse
to buy new tools, which I did this week. Actually,
I'd seen these guys at a trade show and I

(21:15):
had some business to do in the area and thought, oh,
pop it, and have looked through the showroom again. Not
a not an endorsement or anything like that. But you know,
they had some really nice quality tools, and the thing
that had caught my eye was a Kakuri nail punch,
so k A k r I. It's a Japanese brand

(21:37):
and they make some fabulous woodworking tools, and it's a
nail punch, but it's it has a it almost looks
like a miniature hammer. So you have the length of
the nail punch, which would be about you know, five inches,
so sort of one hundred and forty mil one hundred
and thirty five mil long, but then at the head

(21:58):
it has what looks like a little hammer, so you
have a short nail punch at one end and a
long nail punch on the other. Anyway, I saw it
online and I popped into the store. The other had
to chat with the people there. Bought that was lucky
not to buy something else. To be absolutely fair, there
are plenty of things to spend money on there, and
I haven't had a chance to use it manger, but

(22:18):
it just it feels like such a good quality tool,
and there is a tremendous pleasure in having something that
is of genuine, genuine quality. I think it's my biggest
regret starting out as a young chippy and you tend
to buy kind of what you can afford, but then

(22:40):
you end up replacing it right. So my theory has
always been by the absolute best quality tools that you
can because they will last your lifetime. In the same
way fostering through a toolbox. The other day in the workshop,
found a screwdriver. It might have been a Stanley one
that I know. I bought Shivers when I was still

(23:01):
living at home. It's got to be forty years ago.
Still got it. Not my favorite anymore. I've got better ones,
but it was still pretty good and it's lasted me
forty years. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty will take
a short break. We'll be back with more of your calls.
If you've got a question, feel free to text them
through as well. Nine two nine two six thirty two.
Here at NEWSTALKSB doing.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
Other house sorting the garden, asked Pete for a hand
the resident builder with Peter WOLFCAF call OH eight hundred
eight news talks eNB.

Speaker 5 (23:32):
My mind is wandering, to be fair, because I was
thinking about tools, and I was thinking about some other tools,
and then someone's text through about screwdrivers, and then I
was thinking about my favorite brand of screwdriver and why
I like that one more than another. And then I
was thinking about a conversation I had with some guys
the other day about clamps. If clamps, I mean, if

(23:52):
you go to pretty much, I mean they kind of
have they fallen out of favor. I don't think they have,
certainly not for me, because there's lots of you know,
flash hairy one handed clamps that you can get these days,
and I've got some of those as well, and I've
used a couple this week, and they have a place.
But the good old fashion F clamp one hundred and
thirty five years old, that patent or that not patent,

(24:15):
that design, and Bessie bes s Y, the company that
still makes them, were the ones that invented them one
hundred and thirty five years ago, only found out out
the other day pretty much unchanged since then, good old
fashion F clamp. Someone does like the idea of a
cheeky Boger Award, but has suggested that we have a

(24:38):
dodgy sod Award as well. I quite like that, Jeff,
I quite like that. I'm going to write that down
Dodgy sod sounds like the name of a pub, doesn't it.
Or it could be a type of beer, maybe an
ipa or something like that. Right, A quick one on
the hinges as well. Tap the hinge on the side

(24:58):
and on the other side, so like tap the hinge
near the knuckle, let's say, or if you can near
the the flange part of it, this will break the
screws hold on the hinge and then you take the
screw out ches from Pete. Makes sense, Thank you for that, Pete.

Speaker 9 (25:15):
That's great.

Speaker 5 (25:15):
Margaret's good morning to you. Yep, go for it.

Speaker 10 (25:21):
Yeah, good morning, good morning. A couple of weeks ago,
we were listening and heard a guy talking about a
product that was he used to protect his tools. Yes,
and he also used it on his aluminum windows.

Speaker 5 (25:41):
Yes.

Speaker 10 (25:43):
And we've got a place at Peter and of course
the aliminum windows out there get a lot of beating
from the Sultan.

Speaker 11 (25:53):
See.

Speaker 10 (25:55):
And we're interested in this product, but we couldn't remember.

Speaker 5 (26:00):
The numb the name of it, okay, so the I'm
pretty sure that it was penetrol, so pn trol, penny
trol penetrol. Yep, you can get it at most large
hardware stores. Certainly I did. I went and bought some
after that conversation. So you can imagine after doing a

(26:24):
show like this for a couple of hours on a
Sunday morning, I end up with like a little shopping list.
So it is not uncommon to find me at a
one of the larger hardware stores that's open on a
Sunday at around nine point fifteen after finishing here on
the show, I'm off doing a little bit of shopping.
On the way home. Anyway, I found some penetrol. I
used it on an old vice that I had done

(26:47):
some work on to get it working and cleaned it
up and so on, and I just wanted a protective
coating over the beer metal, and it looked to date
seems to have worked really well. I haven't used it
on aluminium jewnery would. I understand that you can use
it on that, but because I haven't done it, I'd
advise a little bit of care. So if you were
going to use it to apply a protective coating or

(27:10):
something like that, i'd do it in a have a
test somewhere in an area that maybe is not noticeable,
or around the back of the house or something like that,
but I've heard a number of people say that it
is quite effective for that, but I haven't had a
chance to do that myself. And bearing in mind there
are also sort of aftermarket coatings that you can have applied,

(27:31):
but that's not quite the same as a DIY.

Speaker 10 (27:33):
Solution, that's right, and be more expensive, of course.

Speaker 5 (27:37):
Yeah, of course, of course, So it's an option, but
I you know, have a test before you just spray
it all over the place. You can get it as
a brush on or a spray application. I understand.

Speaker 10 (27:51):
Oh that's wonderful.

Speaker 5 (27:52):
Little All the very best you nice to chat, take care.
Quick text from Calvin as well, Pete. I've got a
dechromatic tile roof. It is still the original from the
nineteen seventy six house. It has been re painted five
years ago, but the rust is starting to show a
lot again. How much longer do you think I have
left until I need to replace it? There are no

(28:13):
obvious leaks at the moment. She is from Calvin. I mean,
look it's done well. It's it's coming up to fifty years,
isn't it for your roof? So you know, building code
requirement is that you have a minimum durability of fifteen years.
A manufacturer might be confident in saying it's going to
take about you know, it'll last for twenty five years.

(28:34):
So the fact that you're at fifty says that it
has done. It has performed over and above expectation. I mean,
if it's not leaking and it happens to be rusty,
it's not the end of the world. But I think
that certainly in the next five years you would probably
say I need to replace the roof, but it's done.
You well, Oh eight hundred and eighty, ten eighty is

(28:55):
that number to call? Take a short break. We'll have
a chat with Mary after the break.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Whether you're painting the ceiling, fixing with fens, or wondering
how to fix that hole in the wall. Give Peter
wolf Caper call on, oh, eight hundred eighty, the resident
builder on youth dogs.

Speaker 5 (29:11):
Oh just sorry, it's not going to be merry, It's
going to be great. We'll do that first, and then
I've got an interesting text from Owen about this whole
getting rid of stubborn screws.

Speaker 9 (29:21):
Great.

Speaker 12 (29:21):
Good morning to you, Yes, good morning, Peter. Hey, just
yes you likewise, just following up on a caller that
you had last week. You sounded like a bit of
a professor. He was talking about steam in the bathroom
and how to eliminate it by running a heater.

Speaker 13 (29:37):
Well, guess what.

Speaker 12 (29:38):
So I've got a reasonable sized bathroom, a double sync
and a and a fully tiled shower with a extractor fan,
and normally I open the windows and I get quite
a bit of steaming, and the extractor fan does it's
best to get the steam out, and then I run
the heater. Well, I reversed the scenario. Closed all the windows, Yes,

(29:59):
ran the fan heater. Unbelievable ninety five to ninety reduction
in steam.

Speaker 5 (30:07):
Fantastic. This is also so door.

Speaker 12 (30:11):
Closed, yes, windows closed, Yes, tractor fan running, fan heater
on the wall running. The only steam that I now
get is just actually in the shower proper, and it's
ninety percent reduced. You said you were going to go
and talk to which I did.

Speaker 9 (30:29):
Which I did.

Speaker 5 (30:30):
So I had a long conversation with Storm while I
was painting in the workshop the other day. Explain the
scenario exactly as you've described it, right, So the theory
from the caller, I'll find out.

Speaker 12 (30:48):
His theory was, if you heat the air, the steam
can't put Jim just after.

Speaker 5 (30:51):
The seven o'clock news, So Jim rings and he goes.
What you do is you don't turn the fan on
straight away, you turn the heater on, You raise the
temperature in the room. You have your shower with just
the heater on, and then when you finish the shower,
you turn the extractor on. Right, That was the theory.
So the science behind it is around essentially where condensation collects, right,

(31:14):
And you will have more condensation when you have a
cold surface and warm moist air. So the warm moist
air will congeal or stick to a cold surface. So
if you raise the surface temperature of the interior of
the bathroom, you will see less steam because it won't
condensate onto the wall surface. That's the science behind it.

(31:38):
And Storm was quite good in the sense that of
just saying, look, if it have a go and if
it works, then that's great.

Speaker 11 (31:44):
Right.

Speaker 5 (31:45):
That's not saying that extractors are not important, because I
would imagine in your instance, this can be your next experiment.
Let's say you went in, closed the window, closed the door,
turn the heater on, had a shower, but didn't turn
the extractor on at all. Whether you would find that
you would have condensation in the bar. So the extractor

(32:07):
is still doing something. But look, it's one of those things.
If it works, that's great, and there is seemingly a
bit of science behind it. But let's not get into
the situation where we think that just by heating the
room that's taking control of the moist air that collects
in the bathroom. I think you do still need extraction.

(32:29):
Where you put the extractor is also kind of important
in terms of encouraging the warm air, warm moist air
that you've created in the shower to get to the extractor.
So if you're where the air comes into the room
goes directly to the extractor and doesn't collect up that
moisture from the shower, that will be less effective than

(32:51):
if the pathway between air coming in and ear going
out intersects with the moisture from the shower, that will
be better. That was another part of the theory.

Speaker 12 (33:04):
Yeah, so I tried methodologies, right, And just to be clear,
I was running the extractor van which is in the shower. Yes,
no steam. It's just unbelievable. And I've used that heater
for years, but only after I get out of the shower,
I now reverse the procedure.

Speaker 11 (33:25):
It's such a miracle because that was the.

Speaker 5 (33:28):
Other question I had for Gym last week, is you
know that that assumes that the air temperature outside of
the bathroom, let's say, is actually considerably cooler. So you know, if,
for example, your house doesn't get up to sixteen eighteen
degrees and it happens to be really cold, then yes,

(33:49):
when you turn the extractor on and you're drawing air in,
it will draw coldier in. But if it's not coldier outside,
so your house is maybe well insulated and well heated,
and it's eighteen degrees or nineteen degrees outside in the
hallway adjacent to the bathroom, then the impact will be
less because it's not actually colder that's coming in. I'm

(34:11):
curious when you said you close the window and close
the door, do you still have a sufficient gap under
the door to allow air to enter the room, because
if you're extracting it, it's got to be able to
come in, otherwise you're creating a vacuum.

Speaker 6 (34:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (34:26):
So we're talking about a really modern house. It's a
GJ house of ten years old, brick, fully insulated. The
shower is on an outside wall, so normally, and it's
got three windows, so it's got a tiny little window
in the shower itself, it's got a window adjacent to that,
and then another window in the toilet, and so I've

(34:49):
had all of those windows shut, yes, and with the
door shut, there would only be just the smallest gap
because outside the bathroom, which is tiled, it's carpet, so
the very little air can come from under the door. So, yeah,
where is the air coming from that I'm extracting, It's.

Speaker 5 (35:08):
Coming from underneath the door. And if that's restricting the
amount of air. So if the amount of air that's
going out from the extractor, and that should be calculated
on the actual device itself, it'll tell you what the
flow rate is, right, if that is more than the
amount of air that can come into the room, then
the fan will be less effective. So I had to

(35:30):
replace the bathroom fan at my own house, right, so
in the main bathroom, and I noticed that if the
door is open and the fan is on, when I
close the door, I can hear the fan basically straining
to or it just there's a change in sound, right,
So it makes a difference whether the door is open
or closed, and there is a gap underneath the door,

(35:53):
but I'm very tempted to make that gap a little
bit bigger because I think that will make the fan
more effective.

Speaker 6 (36:00):
Yep.

Speaker 12 (36:01):
So in regards to that, it's just a goldier hibble
heated fan that's almost at ceiling height and it's absolutely transformational.
So I just sort of passed that on.

Speaker 5 (36:13):
I really appreciate that this is this is citizen science,
as would say, this is you and I having to
go at thermodynamics. A brilliant, brilliant Thanks Gret, all the best,
take care. Just a note too, because this has been
a sort of long running public service announcement. There is
a brand of wall heaters called Serene so S E

(36:35):
R E n E Serene heaters which have been known
to cause fires. Right, there's been any number of warnings
to people to say, if you've got one, remove it,
and I noticed that they must have been very popular
for a while. So if you have or you see
a Serene wall heater, it's like a little fan heater,

(36:59):
don't use it. Remove it.

Speaker 6 (37:01):
They are.

Speaker 5 (37:03):
It's no other way of putting it. They're just dangerous, right,
So move it. Mary, Hello to you, Hi, it's.

Speaker 14 (37:11):
Interesting listening to your wall heater fan situation.

Speaker 5 (37:15):
Serious.

Speaker 14 (37:16):
My electrician turned out out of the blue one day
and he said, come to check your war heater. Sure
it's not that brand, good good, And so he was
quite happy with that. But with your heat thing, I
always heat the bathroom first. I've got an old nineteen
sixties house with no installations in the walls. Keep the

(37:38):
heater and the fan on while you're in the shower,
and as soon as you have come out of the shower,
leave the fan on, open the window and come to
Any moisture evaporates very quickly. I've never never had a
problem all the years of the news in that method.

Speaker 5 (37:59):
And the other thing of some conversation in the vein
of public series announcements. You know, if you're if you're
thinking about buying a house, or you're doing pre purchase inspections,
or you've moved into a rental property, make sure that
the fan is actually ducted to the outside, because so
often I've been in places where yeah, there's a ceiling

(38:20):
fan and an extractor fan in the bathroom. Then you
go up into the roof space and find that there
might be a little bit adducting, or there might be
no ducting at all, and it's just blasting warm air
into the roof space, which is not a great idea.
So it should be ducted to the outside.

Speaker 14 (38:34):
That one thing the outside.

Speaker 5 (38:37):
Mine's a ceiling, yeah, and ducks to the outside. What
I bought the other day, just talking about the old
citizen science thing. I saw them online smoke matches, right.
So it's a match that when you light it produces
not much heat or no heat, but lots and lots
of smoke. The theory being that you can test whether
or not fans extractors are working well. So you turn

(39:01):
the fan on, strike the smoke match, and then you
should be able to see the smoke exit outside. Yeah, yeah,
which is quite cool. Sparky about that the other day,
he was quite impressed.

Speaker 14 (39:15):
Oh yeah, they had that for quite some time in
the UK.

Speaker 5 (39:19):
Right, Yeah, you've got to test these things. I did
some We did a project and it was we had
a services engineer who did the design for the extraction
and ventilation and so on, and so at the end
of the job they had to say they had to
come and do an inspection and issue a producer statement
on that. And one of the things they had to
do was test you know, if you say, I'm putting

(39:40):
in this size fan and it's moving this amount of
air over this distance. Once it had been installed and
deducting had been installed, they came along with a like
a little animometer something that tests wind speed and you
turn the fan on. They went to the outside and
measured it at the outlet to see whether or not
it was working as it was designed to work, which

(40:00):
I thought was particularly thorough and quite useful as well.
There you go, much pressure added Mary. You have a
great day. Thank you very much for your call now
before the break break I mean new Sport weather Pete.
I spent a considered a sizable chunk of my engineering
apprenticeship removing broken screws and bolts. All of the advice

(40:22):
you and your next call gave was spot on. I
would also add I keep a broken drill bit that
I've ground down to what's best described as a small,
ever so slightly blunt chisel on the right side of
the screw slot. I dig the tip in and tap
it with a hammer to encourage anti clockwise rotation. I
get your theory, and if you were to grind like

(40:47):
a bit of a flat spot on either side of
the shaft of that and that you could get a
grip onto that would work quite well. I'm picking up
what you're putting down there. Thank you, Owen. I appreciate that. Right. Yeah,
we got a new sport top of the and then
we're back with more of your calls after the seven

(41:09):
am News.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
Squeaky door or squeaky floor, get the right advice from
Peter WOLFCAF, the resident builder on News TALKSB you.

Speaker 5 (41:36):
And new STALKSB. In the next hour, Conrad Lapont from
Habitat for Humanities can join me in the studio so
we can have a bit of a chat about the
work that they do, a recent award and some of
the innovation that they're building that they're bringing to the
construction space as well. So looking forward to that conversation.
Remember Cline passed from eight point thirty as well, but
right now it is your opportunity to talk all things

(42:00):
building in construction. So the lines are open. The number
is eight hundred and eighty ten eighty. Another quick text
came through as well, Hey Pete, what's your thoughts on
the last quarter for US tradees it's starting to pick
up really good again for myself and for a few others.
Trade staff says that the summer will be better than last.
Your thoughts cheers from Brad. Always super cautious around being

(42:26):
optimistic given that. I think what's been particularly difficult with
this recession, not quite depression in terms of the sector,
has been how long it's gone on for you know,
there was that whole survive to twenty five. Then it's
very much a case of you've had to get through
twenty five and you can kind of see the end

(42:47):
of that. Will things pick up? Yeah, I've heard lots
or a lot more stories. There's a big story in
the paper, one of the papers last week about maybe
not the new build. I think what's constraining new build
in terms of the development side of things is that
there's still a lot of unsold development stock, particularly in
Auckland where you know townhouses that were constructed in that boom.

(43:12):
So when building consents went up to fifty thousand a
year and typically we're hovering around the thirty thousand, the
stuff that got consented got built. A lot of that,
like a significant amount of that is still sitting waiting
to sell. And until that's sold I don't think we're
going to see developers back in the market, but renovations,

(43:32):
by all accounts has started to really pick up, and
a lot of that to do, I would imagine, with
falling interest rates, with a sense that maybe now's not
a great time to sell, so I'll tip the money
into you know, getting If I thought about, here's some
things that I don't like about my house, so I'm

(43:53):
going to look for that in another house, it seems
to be well, I'll create that my house. I'll do
the renovation, do the alterations that I maybe might not
have done and in simply sold and purchased in the past.
So yes, I think there is cautious grounds for optimism.
Certainly the other day talking to my electrician, you know,

(44:16):
booked a couple of weeks in advance, Whereas, to be blunt,
last year you could often ring a tradee in the
morning and they'd be there in the afternoon because there
was literally nothing to do that afternoon. Still a long
way to go, and thirteen thousand jobs maybe more disappeared
from the construction sector, so the sector is smaller. And

(44:38):
actually we had Matt from Ebos, Matt Duda from Ebos
on what's six weeks eight weeks ago on the show
talking about that. You know, there is a lot of
capacity in the industry at the moment as well, so
most businesses are smaller and they're not as booked up.
So yeah, maybe a little bit cautious optimism. But while

(45:00):
to go oh eight one hundred eighty ten eighty the
number to call Gary good morning to you good.

Speaker 15 (45:05):
Morning, it's not really in the giddo, that's for sure.

Speaker 5 (45:10):
What's that good morning? I don't worry. It's gonna be
pretty miserable up here in Auckland today as well.

Speaker 15 (45:15):
Yeah, it sounds very similar to Hamilton. Look, earlier this
year you were talking about cleaning the seal between the
basin and all and the show. I remember that.

Speaker 5 (45:24):
Yeah, yep, yep.

Speaker 15 (45:26):
What actually did you use to get it wide? Again?

Speaker 5 (45:32):
Look, if I've got mold, I actually not an endorsement
or anything. It's just what I happen to use. Exit
mold seems to work really well to get most of
the mold out.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
It is.

Speaker 5 (45:44):
It's quite a powerful smell that comes along with it
that maybe most people don't like, but I found it
quite useful. What I what also, sometimes what you get
is you get mold in behind the silicon that's really
really hard to get out. So in some cases, and
actually I did it on was it Wednesday? Something like that.

(46:05):
There's are spray on product called silicon remover which kind
of not quite dissolves the silicon but makes it soft
enough that with a little silicon removal tool, which is
a little plastic tool with a sharp point and a
flat blade as well. It was in an inside a shower.
The silicon had failed and it was looking a bit menky,

(46:27):
and I sprayed a bit of silicon remover on there,
waited a little while for it to take action, and
then raked out the silicon, let it dry for a day,
and then went back and reapplied some silicon the following day.
So that's the other option. If it's really minky, just
rip it out and replace it.

Speaker 15 (46:44):
Now the closure is only three years old, that it
just seemed dirty. I was wonder at you get older
on it?

Speaker 11 (46:51):
What you thought?

Speaker 5 (46:52):
Look, I look, I'm sure you probably can, but you know,
for what it's worth, I found the old exit mold
to be really quite useful on that.

Speaker 15 (47:01):
Okay, we'll see what the result is.

Speaker 5 (47:05):
You take care. So the oh, and it's like it's
just the elbow grease too in the end, isn't it.
And also the other thing is, you know, if you've
got mold, then you've got something that promotes mold growth,
so a certain amount of moisture, a certain amount of warmth,
and essentially lack of extraction or ventilation. You know, certainly

(47:28):
if you've got mold growth like we see sort of
that black mold that grows on interior linings, so plaster
board and that sort of thing, then you've probably either
got a leak or you've got excessive moisture inside the house.
So's it's an imbalance in the universe. It's an imbalance
in the system that's promoting that mold growth. If it look,
if it's at the back of a vanity, for example,

(47:49):
where you've got a silicon bead that abuts the maybe
the tiled spash back or something like that. I've tend
to find that those things have a lifespan a couple
of years, and you'll get a little bit of mold
in there, get it out, replace it and start over. Mark,
good morning to you.

Speaker 11 (48:07):
And good morning.

Speaker 5 (48:09):
How can I help what's up?

Speaker 11 (48:11):
Look, I've got an older villa replaced some of the
baseboards with fiberlife. I'm curious to know what the rule
of summers or with the aluminium events, you know, how
we need to have to put in around the baseboards
to you know, to leet ventilation. Then the under the floor.

Speaker 5 (48:33):
The cheeky answer is more than what you've got right
there is actually take me a little while to find it,
but there is actually a guide in the building Code,
it might even be in three six o four in
terms of how much ventilation is ideal. So if you

(48:54):
think back to you know, nineteen sixties nineteen seventies construction,
where you'd have a solid masonry wall and then those
little concrete grills, there was obviously a formula to determine that.
Then there's a practical thing, which is ideally you want
them opposed to each other. So if you've got you know,
sufficient space, you want to have some grills on both

(49:16):
sides or both ends of the building, or on if
it's a regular size building, on all four sides of
the building. You'd want the ability to have cross flow.
But you know, if you're thinking about because what are
those grills, maybe two fifty by two hundred something like that,

(49:37):
and you might put three or four down the side
of an average length building ten twelve meters, that's not
going to be that's not a lot of airflow, right,
I have to say my personal preference is always to
use slatted timber. So maybe a one fifty board with
a fifteen to twenty mili gap in between. I think

(49:59):
you get a lot more ventilation there. But if you've
got five u smeatsheet and it's a semi enclosed space,
there is a formula, and I would take that formula
and add more because that's a real benefit to having
that airflow.

Speaker 11 (50:14):
Sort of groogs that you that you can buy. Yeah,
I think that maybe sort of two hundred by one
hundred and fifty or even bigger ones. And yeah, I
just I've put the flower lighter because I've got concrete
right against it, so right, Yes, a fiber light, but

(50:35):
I can cut them in and screw them on.

Speaker 5 (50:38):
But I just so you know, if it was me
so forward, yeah, I think it'll be. I'm pretty sure
it's in three six so four. There's a guide to
it's either volume, so you can sort of calculate the
volume of the space underneath, and then it will tell
you roughly how many events you need. But you know, look,
if it was me, I'd be looking at that space

(50:59):
and I'd go, okay, so I've put up this fiber
cement sheet. I'm going to put one of those grills
every one and a half beaters.

Speaker 16 (51:07):
Wow close, it's that.

Speaker 5 (51:10):
Airflow underneath the house is a really good thing, right,
because what tends to happen is under You know, if
you've got a suspended timber floor, you've got moisture in
the ground. So the other thing to do, and this
is part of healthy homes compliance for rental properties, for example,
is you have a vapor barrier that's on the ground
underneath that open space. So if you added some ventilation

(51:35):
and you put a vapor barrier, you're improving the conditions
underneath that space or in that space. No trouble at all.
It's worth doing. And you know you sound like a
fairly help helpful and handy kind of person. So get
some ideally two fifty micron plastic, lay that out on

(51:58):
the on the surface of the ground underneath the house,
tape it around all of the piles, and that will
make a considerable difference to the quality of the air
underneath your house. Thank you very much, Thank you sir,
no trouble, lovely to talk all the very best mark
your news talks. He'd be if you've got a question
or a comment that you'd like to make about all

(52:19):
things building in construction, you can do that a couple
of suggestions via the text machine. Hey Pete, we've got
a product called glass Guard. Does what it says on
the tube. It gets rid of the mold. Loved it,
ordered it online. I think I've seen it advertised glass Guard. Now,
Laura points out, Pete, it's not all serene bre heaters
that are faulty, only certain models. Okay, fair enough, So

(52:43):
just check which model you've got of the serene heaters,
and if it's the one that requires a recall or removal,
please go ahead and do that because that's a genuine issue.
Hey Pete, I'm interested in buying my first home. However,
it has fiber cement tiles cladding that do have asbestos.
It's the nineteen sixties house thoughts, So just a quick

(53:05):
question on that. I presume when you say it does
have asbestos, you've got some evidence for that. I either
you or the vendor has purchased has taken that in,
got some testing, and you've got a test report that says,
yes it has asbestos. Look asbestos as cladding left undisturbed
is of a little risk to anyone. So the concern

(53:29):
is if you wanted, for example, if you plant into
a renovation, change a window size at a door, something
like that, and you have to cut or remove the asbestos,
then you need to do that to the required guidelines.
If you were thinking that you wanted to remove it,
then that's going to be costly. And I guess there
is also the if you go to sell it in

(53:50):
the future, there might be buyer reluctance from the person
that's purchasing it. So, but you know, in and of itself,
is the on the wall with a coat of paint
on it. You're not drilling it, cutting it, screwing it,
standing it, or anything else. Is it of Is it
a health hazard?

Speaker 1 (54:09):
No?

Speaker 5 (54:09):
Basically is the short answer. We're gonna take short break.
We'll be back in a moment.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Helping you get those DIY projects done right. The Resident
Builder with Peter Wolfcat Call eight hundred eight Youth Talks B.

Speaker 5 (54:23):
Your News Talks B. Remind me before I get carried
away with other things to tell you about my my
moment of incandescent rage and upset at a new tool
that I saw promoted online. We'll get to that really soon,
but it's it's kind of busy right now. Oh eight
hundred eighty ten eighty the number.

Speaker 8 (54:41):
Hello, Graham, are just listening.

Speaker 17 (54:45):
To those comments that you're making about the mold of
the silicon. I remember a number of years ago now
being quite severely told off by Tyler right, who was
watching me on the side. I was putting some silicon
around a Handbason, yep, and as you do, you lock your.

Speaker 5 (55:01):
Finger, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, explain that. Why was
he so upset?

Speaker 17 (55:10):
He said, well, that's the best way of putting moisture
behind the silicon to create mold and base.

Speaker 8 (55:15):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (55:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (55:18):
From then, I always use the plastic tool, yes square
that it comes with silicon that's designed for smoothing it out,
not your finger in a piece of spect So for I.

Speaker 5 (55:30):
Had heard the same thing and thought about it and thought, actually,
that makes a lot of sense, because to be fair,
that was my go to as well.

Speaker 6 (55:37):
Right.

Speaker 5 (55:39):
So, and then what I noticed some of the guys
that I work with they were using old ice block sticks,
and so I got into the habit of saying to
everyone at home, just put them in a bag and
I'll keep them. And I've got a whole heap of
them in the box that I keep on my silicon.
And but the other day, while ago, I picked up

(56:00):
a little set of like four little rubber silicon squares
with different radiuses and so on that are flexible and
that you can use for the application of silicon. So
there's there's silicon application tools or whatever they called. They
come a little pack of four little plastic squares and

(56:21):
they're not plastic, they're flexible. And when I did this
job the other day, I looked at which radius I
wanted in there, and I use the appropriate size one.
Put the silicon in. I've got some dilute, just some
water with a little little bit of liquid cleaner in it,
apply the silicon, squird it with that, strike it off.

(56:42):
Job done, beautiful, No fingers involved. Makes a big differ,
Sure does. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 17 (56:49):
And the other thing I've noticed too, started using it.
But now is the nozzles for your silicon gun. Yes,
by them halfway along they twist. Oh yeah, they come
in a ninety degree angle. You can twist halfway. The
nozzle might be watched long or yes, about forty miles down.

(57:12):
You can push it at whatever angle you want. You
can come right around the ninety degree.

Speaker 5 (57:16):
Oh, that's.

Speaker 17 (57:18):
You can get into the corners. And the time space
is a lot easier than having the whole six guns
to get out.

Speaker 5 (57:26):
And also when you are applying silicon, do you push
or drag?

Speaker 17 (57:33):
I like to drag.

Speaker 5 (57:35):
Oh really, apparently the go is doing it the other way,
so that you you apply the ceilant and you're pushing
it into the into the corner or the or the gap,
and then rather than allowing it, it sort of drives
it into the gap. And also that if you get
the nozzle size right, you kind of semi strike it

(57:56):
off at the same time. Good enough to do that
many good to talk to you all the best.

Speaker 9 (58:06):
I'll tell you what.

Speaker 5 (58:06):
The other little trick that I saw one of my
plumbers use is having an old phone book. So inevitably
and when you put silicon in, you've always got the
excess right and then so you strike it off with
your popsicle stick or with your flash hairy little tool
like I bought the other day. But either way, then
you've got a watch of silicon. What do you do
with that? If you like me, you just seem to
wipe it on your shirt. But that's not a very

(58:27):
professional thing to do. So these guys would have like
an old phone book, they'd tear a page out and
they'd use that to clean up their tool, their application.
Then they just have all of that silicon on a
bit of paper, wrap that up, throw that in the
rubbish pin. I thought that's quite clever. I thought that
was quite clever. Lots of clever people are out there

(58:48):
doing clever stuff. Graham, You're obviously clever man. How can
I help?

Speaker 6 (58:53):
A couple of weeks ago, you talked about a product
for non slip tiles.

Speaker 18 (58:59):
I just want to name of the name of the
company police.

Speaker 5 (59:03):
I don't know if I was talking about a product
for non slip tiles as such. Certainly there is a
thing called a slip resistance coefficient, right, which is actually
should be on the data sheet for tiles. So some
tiles are very smooth and shouldn't be used in wet areas,
or shouldn't be used on the floor. Other tiles have

(59:27):
this slip resistance coefficient element to them, and therefore you
can use them so you don't have to add anything
to them. I think I've got a recollection too that
maybe someone was talking about a product that you could
apply over the top that helped to seal the tile
and also had some slip resistance. I haven't used that.

(59:48):
I tend to just choose the right tile for the
right application and make sure that it's not going to
be slippery. That's kind of where all the best, no
trouble at all, You take care, thank you. Surely you
know how old I blocks for sticking rob Oh yeah,

(01:00:08):
actually I'm with you on that one. Sorry, this is great, Oh,
this is fantastic. So we were talking about the application.
You know, you apply to lock and then you've got
to strike it off, right, And what you shouldn't do
is use your finger, which I've done for years. You
kind of wet your finger and strike it off, and

(01:00:28):
I mean, it's incredibly adaptable and all the rest of it,
but it's not ideal. So then I got onto the
ice block sticks that were you know, had dried out
properly and all the rest of it. And so Olon's
come through and said, oh, they're also ideal. For mixing
up like erroldite or any two pot of POxy that's
actually very clever. Yeah that's great, or I like that

(01:00:52):
because I do quite a bit of that sort of stuff.
And then this is the best part of the text.
Sales reps, business cards are the ideal palette to mix
things up on. Ah, the other day, I must have
had too much. So on my hand, I can't even
believe I'm saying this. I made up for myself because

(01:01:15):
typically in the workshop, if i'm mixing up you know,
a POxy fill or a POxy resin or a two
pot of POxy glue or something like that. I've just
got a little off cut of timber and I mix
it up on there because inevitably, once you've finished with it,
there's a little bit left over and yeah, you know,
that's it for that bit of timber. So what I

(01:01:36):
made the other day is I got a little piece
of plywood and I'm instead of having to hold the
end and getting the epoxy on your fingers, which is
inevitable on a small piece of timber, I made what
looks like a little paddle, so it's got a handle
that I can hold, and then I can mix up
my epoxy at the end of that. And I've used

(01:01:56):
it untold times since I made it a little while ago.
It's actually been quite a useful little tool. So it's
just like a little paddle with the square end on it,
and I kind of rounded the handle part offs. That's
a bit more comfortable to you. So I can mix
up the epoxy or the filler on the end of that,
hold it away from where the product is so I

(01:02:16):
don't get it on my fingers, and then I'm off
to them a bit some pieces. I can't believe I've
said that on air, but anyway, it was very, very useful.
I think someone else wants to know the name of
the silicon removal softness spray please. It's by Sudal, I
think Sudal, sou Dl Sudl or Gorilla Grip so and

(01:02:42):
it's a little spray. There's a couple of other ones around.
I've used. This one works really well. There you go,
whah after removing the silicon, wipe the space with kerosene
and let it dry. The mold won't grow back from
Sue haven't tried that. Interested about that. We'll talk about

(01:03:03):
mixing concrete to the break, No, we'll talk to Noel first.
Great things, Oh morning, Pete.

Speaker 6 (01:03:11):
Morning to listen to your every morning.

Speaker 19 (01:03:14):
I listened to it even morning and awesome. But this
morning when asked you, uh about two weeks ago. Yeah,
I'm just smell up in the there's a bit of
a smell and uh, the wife's raised some poison outside. Yeah,
I think it's up a little bugger. But he's going
up on the roof. And now I've got to get

(01:03:38):
up the woman now, you know, she said instance coming.
She's spraying like now I'm signing the smell it's getting warmer,
like my okay, I got to get up there. Now
I can't. I can't. I can't walk around with that.
Now that's above the front door. I've got I've got.

Speaker 5 (01:04:02):
Oh, I see, you've got, yes, the.

Speaker 19 (01:04:06):
Panel or panels. Now there's the only way into the
top of the lounge. You can't get into the manhole,
you know, you can't get into those. There's the only
way in the rock around. She wants to jump into
the eaves to the outside. I'm like, no, I can't
get you. The too high and above the doors, like
I was straight above the like right about the ceiling

(01:04:27):
like right, take this panel look there, bos but although
and ask the Christeners Bete, what what can I replace
those panels with? Can I replace them with wooden peny?

Speaker 14 (01:04:38):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (01:04:39):
You can? So the most important question is have you
already removed those asbistus panels? Okay?

Speaker 16 (01:04:46):
All right?

Speaker 5 (01:04:48):
Are you going to do that yourself? Are you going
to get someone in to do it?

Speaker 19 (01:04:54):
Is only clouting nase holding them?

Speaker 9 (01:04:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:04:56):
But which is fine And I'm almost his to say this,
but legally you are actually out to remove teen square
meters you south, but you have to do it in
accordance with the guidelines.

Speaker 19 (01:05:10):
Right, So you know, did anyone goideline is take it off?

Speaker 13 (01:05:14):
No?

Speaker 5 (01:05:14):
No, no, no, no, no, no, seriously, it's you know,
there is a genuine risk to your health and the
health of other people if you.

Speaker 19 (01:05:25):
I'm playing with some poison.

Speaker 5 (01:05:26):
Yeah, okay, so then yeah, I know, But how are
you going to be careful?

Speaker 17 (01:05:31):
Right?

Speaker 5 (01:05:31):
So what's what's your methodology?

Speaker 19 (01:05:35):
Well, clouds are getting as close as I can to
get that dead head. They can pull the cloud out.
I can't. Well, I left you like going with like
a like maybe I was thinking of going with a
wholesalt go around that cloud will a wholesal.

Speaker 5 (01:05:50):
Just a bit bigger than yeah, and then what happens
to the dusty you create the noel? I think you
know there is a serious risk to health, right, So
I would suggest that you don't do this work yourself.
I would suggest that you get someone in to do it,

(01:06:11):
or if you're insistent on doing it, that you go
and educate yourself about how to do it properly. Right,
And I'm almost reluctant to even give that advice, So
you know, I think it's one of those situations where
you can inadvertently risk your own health or risk the

(01:06:32):
health of people that are around if you don't do
that properly. And there are some pretty straightforward guidelines, so
things like using a whole salt, for example, to create
an opening probably not part of the guidelines. So time
to sort of do a bit of reading on that,
get some advice, and do it properly. And then the
other thing is where you're going to dispose of it,
because you can't just load it onto the trailer and

(01:06:55):
take it down to your local you know, landfill or
something like that. It's got to go to a proper
disposal site as well. Otherwise it becomes somebody else's problem
years later. Right, oh, eight hundred and eighty, ten eighty,
the number to four.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
We'll be back after the break Comma twice God was
but maybe called Pete first, Peti walfcaf the resident builder.

Speaker 5 (01:07:16):
News talks they'd be you, and news talks they'd be
we're let me see seven thirty eight here at Newstalks,
they'd be Remember in the next hour, actually a guest
coming into the studio, Conrad Lpont from Habitat for Humanity.
We're going to talk about actually a recent project of
There's that won an award which is tremendous, a little
bit about dense intensification, because that's a bit of a

(01:07:38):
hot topic at the moment. In fact, we could have
talked about that on the show today. There was an
interesting public meeting from the good people over in Kingsland
Way and Auckland It, I suppose upset at the prospect
that maybe someone's going to build a fifteen story apartment
block right next to their old house. So there is
there is, you know, some obvious concern around that happening.

(01:07:59):
And now just also just before we talked to Mel,
someone stepped through and said, did Noel, realize you're meaning
a danger from the asbestos or was he thinking you
meant danger from the poisoned animal. I'm going to take
you at your word.

Speaker 10 (01:08:12):
Now.

Speaker 5 (01:08:12):
I'm pretty sure that he hopefully now understands the risks
involved in asbestos removal or working with asbestos or ACM materials.
So there are some very clear guidelines and ideally i'd
say you get it done by a professional. But legally
you are actually as a homeowner, allowed to do a

(01:08:34):
limited amount of work, but that doesn't exempt you from
your responsibility to do it in accordance with best practice guidelines.
And if you don't know what those guidelines are, then
you simply shouldn't do the work, in my opinion, Radio
seventy forty on the Dot, Mal, good morning, from morning,
How are you very well? How can I help?

Speaker 16 (01:08:57):
Okay?

Speaker 13 (01:08:57):
So last night went round to check a friend who
was after a friend's cat. Couldn't find cat who her mowing.
This is like a large garage with a drawlling on
the side of a brand new beld figured out the
cat was in between the steel steel beam and the

(01:09:17):
jib and the wood framing. Couldn't get her out any
other way. So I had to remove the panels off
the side of the house outside of the house. Yep,
it's quite. There was that bad.

Speaker 7 (01:09:33):
She was completely stuck.

Speaker 13 (01:09:35):
And then I had to hit the jib with a
hammer to be able to make a hole which.

Speaker 7 (01:09:41):
I then climbed through.

Speaker 13 (01:09:43):
The hole big enough for me that went to the
wardrobe to get into the house because we couldn't get
into the house because there was no key. And then
I had to make a small hole in another bit
of jib to get the cat out, to get the
cat out, siling off the cat out. Wow, yeah, yeah,

(01:10:04):
it was quite you know, it was quite the ordeal.

Speaker 7 (01:10:10):
Oh yeah, going my Saturday night.

Speaker 13 (01:10:13):
So now I've managed to put the panels on the
back of the house because obviously it rained, it was
going to rain, so put those sheet panels back, screwed
them back in. But now I've got this big hole
where the jib was where I climbed through.

Speaker 7 (01:10:27):
Yeah, so what before she sits home and doesn't know
that I've done it?

Speaker 13 (01:10:33):
What do I do?

Speaker 7 (01:10:35):
Don't this call a builder? Or is there can I
cut it and go to Bunnings and or play somewhere?

Speaker 12 (01:10:43):
It was quite funny.

Speaker 5 (01:10:44):
Well yeah, well yes, it would have been funny last night.
It's probably not going to end well, can I can
I just ask you? You talk about sort of removing
a panel from the outside and then screwing it back in.
What type of planting allows you to do that?

Speaker 7 (01:11:02):
Like, you know, like this roofing, like steel roofing.

Speaker 5 (01:11:05):
Oh is it corriger Diane on the exterior?

Speaker 7 (01:11:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I'm not much
of a builder, so yeah, so I just got a
drill with a.

Speaker 5 (01:11:16):
Wow. But then I presume that behind that was a cavity,
and then behind that was some building paper. So did
you have to cut through the building paper as well?

Speaker 7 (01:11:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 13 (01:11:26):
Yeah, so yeah, like there was a building paper, then
the cladding, so I cut that. Then I made a
hole big enough for me to like with a hammer
to like fit through, so I wouldn't been able to
get through there, which ended up in the wardrobe, which
was great. So I got into the wardrobe. Yeah, and
then there was obviously the panel that was up against
the wood framing that she was stuck in. So she

(01:11:48):
had found a hole and then fallen down probably like
three meters.

Speaker 12 (01:11:52):
Oh yeah, far out.

Speaker 5 (01:11:54):
Okay, so how do I fix it? Okay, look to
be fair. I would because it's it's involves exterior cladding. Right,
then we're talking weather tightness, the fact that the well,
there's the insulation as well, there's you know, cutting through

(01:12:15):
the building wrap. You know, you want to make sure
that that's put back properly, that the clouding is put
back properly. Then if you're going to do the plasterboard
on the inside, it sounds like you've had to cut
a halfway decent size hole in there. Yes, you can
go cut it to the studs, put it in, but
then you've got to do the stopping. Then you've going
to do the standing, Then you've got to do the primer.

(01:12:36):
Then you've got to do the top coat.

Speaker 15 (01:12:37):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:12:38):
I wonder whether given that you were acting for the
homeowner or for someone there to rescue their cat, you
kind of just put your hand up and say, look,
this is what's happened. And then I would go to
the insurer and say, look, in this instance, I've had
to do all this work and get an insurance claim
for it, and then the insurer can get a professional

(01:13:01):
to repair all of this rather than have a go yourself.

Speaker 13 (01:13:05):
Yeah, there was no way that the that would have
been able to get out any other way. Yeah, so
she'd fallen down that you know, those steel beams, and
it was like she was locked in there. Okay, insurance,
that's what.

Speaker 5 (01:13:17):
I because I'm also thinking about protecting you know, that
build for the next twenty years, right.

Speaker 8 (01:13:23):
So true.

Speaker 5 (01:13:24):
You know, if if inadvertently you've left a pathway for
water to get in or something like that, then that's
going to have some serious knock on effects. So rather
than try and come up with a quick solution, now,
a good solution would be to get the insurers involved
and have them do the remediation. Now, maybe you feel
that you want to control the homeowner is going to

(01:13:46):
pay for it, So that's what I would do. Wel
have made the rescue possibly one of one of the
most amazing stories I've ever heard on the show.

Speaker 13 (01:13:57):
I have to say, oh, well, you know how it goes.

Speaker 5 (01:14:03):
Absolutely okay, I'd be sure that guest CML. Wow. Now
I come to work on a Sunday morning and I'm
driving in and I'm thinking, what sorts of things might
we talk about on the show today, What sorts of
scenarios might we encounter rescuing a cat from a cavity?

(01:14:23):
Inside a building by removing some cladding and smacking a
hole in the jib board and getting the cat out
is probably not something that I would have thought we
would ever talk about on the show, but I'm pleased
we have. I'm going to take a break. We'll be
back with Jeff soon.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
Doing other house sorting the garden asked Pete for a hand.
It's a resident builder with Peter Wolfcap Call OH eight
News Talk ZVY.

Speaker 5 (01:14:45):
Joining us today is Hayden Simpson from Simpson Residential, based
on the glorious West coast of the South Island, a
really strong focus on new builds, renovations, portable. Hayden brings
a wealth of hands on experience to the table. Today
we're gonna have a bit of a chat about working
with Jayframe and why it's become a go to choice
for his construction Talkit morning to you, Hayden, Pete.

Speaker 6 (01:15:08):
How are you?

Speaker 9 (01:15:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:15:09):
Pretty good? Actually, hey, now you've worked with a range
of framing materials over the years, so what stood out
to you when you first started using Jframe.

Speaker 13 (01:15:19):
We were really.

Speaker 18 (01:15:19):
Surprised how straight it was straight out of the pack.
So yeah, it was amazing compared to standard and the
price was pretty appealing. You know, it wasn't really pricey
for what we were getting because.

Speaker 5 (01:15:34):
Sometimes people think, oh, it's going to be way more
pricier than standardstick framing.

Speaker 6 (01:15:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (01:15:38):
No, we're really surprised. It was pretty competitive.

Speaker 5 (01:15:42):
And in terms of you know, a time on site
when you're using the jframe for the framing and it's
helped streamline the build or maybe even solve the tricky challenge.

Speaker 8 (01:15:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 18 (01:15:52):
You know, we built our frames sometimes not always pre
nailed sure, and we saved a huge amount of time
just by pulling out the lengths out of the pack
and you didn't have to eyeball on to see what
was straight for top plates and get all your bows
up or anything. You just pretty much grabbed your stick
septimber and nailed them straight in.

Speaker 5 (01:16:13):
You just start from the top of the pack and
work your way to the bottom and then grab every peace. Yeah,
I know exactly what you mean. Hey, from builders perspective,
how has jfrown It's influenced, let's say, influence the way
that your team works, Like any noticeable gains and speed,
cost consistency.

Speaker 18 (01:16:28):
Yes, especially when it comes to straightening frames. You know,
you stood them and you get your braces on. Don't
get me wrong, you still got to put your temporary
braces on. We went battling top plates that were looking
like bananas and that sort of thing, so that really
sped things up.

Speaker 3 (01:16:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:16:45):
Hey, and for you guys down on the west coast,
you've got some exciting projects underway. What's the current build
going and how is jframe playing a role in that?

Speaker 18 (01:16:55):
Yeah, we've got quite a big job going. It's just
under five hundred square meters and our frames have been
in the weather a little bit longer.

Speaker 16 (01:17:03):
Yes, just because of the size of the build.

Speaker 18 (01:17:07):
And that we noticed jaframe handles the weather a lot better,
doesn't walk and twist.

Speaker 19 (01:17:13):
And that sort of thing.

Speaker 16 (01:17:14):
We also have some quite high studs and that.

Speaker 18 (01:17:17):
Job, and it seems to be a real advantage when
you're doing higher studs with jframe less straightening absolutely.

Speaker 9 (01:17:24):
Hey.

Speaker 5 (01:17:24):
And you're also going to look at using a bit
of trieboard. Where are you going to use that?

Speaker 18 (01:17:29):
Yeah, there's an attic area for the grandkids really to
play and that sort of thing. So it was needed
something that was going to handle the not Yes, and
in the environment of the attic it was a dark
roof between trusses. It was concerned class board finished if
something could crack down the line. So we're going to

(01:17:50):
we show triboard to the clients and they were king.
So yeah, we're going to give that a nudge. And
I'm pretty excited to see how that's going to turn out.

Speaker 5 (01:17:56):
I've used it in that setting myself and I'm sure
you won't be disappointed. Hey, thanks very much for your time.
If you're interested in checking out Hayden's work, have a
look at the website, which is Simpson Residential dot com.
And if you want to find out more about j
n L, so about the J frame or the triboard
or the triboard t g n V, check out j

(01:18:17):
n L dot co dot m Z all the gination
z B. Right, let's get back into it. We've got
a couple of minutes before we go to the break.
After the break, of course, Conrad Lupond from habitat here,
So Jeff, very quick question from you, sir.

Speaker 16 (01:18:35):
Quick president. We own a rental with skillion ceiling over
the living area and our roof is ethic. We need
to re root. Two questions. What is the best material
for the roots strong enough to get to not get
desit when maturely sweeps walk over. And should we reinsulate

(01:18:55):
above the skillion? Yes, so I imagined it was quite
old back to whatever yep, just above the skillion we
need to worry about.

Speaker 5 (01:19:05):
Yeah, fantastic, Look, fantastic opportunity because you know that it's
a hard space to get back into, and so reroofing
is the perfect opportunity to do something in that for
the insulation in there. Look, if you know standard CORRIGERDN,
and I tend to for my own preference. There's no
real reason to do it, but it's a preference as

(01:19:27):
I always go FORER point five five gauge. If you're
going for a standard corrugate profile, there is one profile
called true oak, which is a little bit more like
the old original corrugate. So it's a higher profile with
so a higher ridge, lower trough sort of thing. Because yeah,

(01:19:48):
it's called true oak. So look, it is CORRIGI dying,
but it's more like the old CORRUGAI DRON and I
found it to be stiffer because of the way that
the cor the corrugations are profiled, right, they're taller, which
makes some stiffer. So if you go point five to
five if you went corrugate and you went true oak,

(01:20:08):
and chances are with the dechromastic, when you take that
dechromastic off, you'll have to remove all of the old batterns.
So you know, typically maximum span between the peerlins is
nine hundred. You might find that actually you end up
putting one extra row of pearlins in so they're at
you know, seven sixty for example, so that if somebody

(01:20:29):
has to walk on the roof, they can step easily
from pearlin row to perlin row. So an extra row
of perlins. I've even seen it done where guys will
do they'll do their perlins at four fifty centers but
only fix off at nine hundred centers, which is all
you need for the iron. But what it does do
is give you more strength. But you know, you look

(01:20:50):
to be fair new perlins, true oak profile point five
to five gauge, you'll be fine.

Speaker 8 (01:20:56):
Cool.

Speaker 16 (01:20:57):
Okay, that's great, thank very much.

Speaker 5 (01:20:59):
Excellent and installation one hundred percent. You can do that
if you wanted to get super funky, have a look
at where you or vapor controllers, so where you're building
paper goes and the option of maybe adding some ventilation
into there if you really want to knock yourself out,
go and have a read of some of the brand's

(01:21:19):
guidelines for insulating skillion roofs around moisture control. And that's
really really important. Thank you, Jeff, all the very best
you and good luck with that, Pete. Somebody should say
that jaframe is an LVL prole as an lemonade of
near lumber, hence it's straightness and strength. Henry, You're absolutely right.

(01:21:42):
I've sort of got used to talking about jframe thinking
that most people know what it is. But you're right.
Jframe is an LVL which adds tremendous strength, straightness, and
to the timber and that is inherently white. It performed
so well in terms of framing, certainly. I've loved it.
Oh and someone's answered the question about the ventilation twenty

(01:22:06):
five hundred millimeters squared per one square meter of floor area,
opening is no more than one point eight meters apart
and no more than seven to fifty from each corner.
Thank you very much. Someone's gone to three six oh
four and found that information. Right, we are back after
news sport and whether Conrad Lapont from Habitat for Humanity
is going to join me here in the studio back.

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
After the news, whether you're painting the ceiling, fixing the fence,
or wondering how to fix that hole in the wall,
do you have feeder wolf Cap call on eighty the
resident builder on NEWSTALKSB write.

Speaker 5 (01:22:46):
Own News Talk CB. Welcome back to the program. My
name's Pete wolf Camp. This is News Talk CB. Obviously
it is six minutes after eight. We've got red Climb
passed at eight o'clock. Conrad's here with me. We're already
chatting away, so we're going to get into that. I
just need to do a bit of quick housekeeping, so
made of mine text me and went, hey, that conversation
before the news about replacing dechromastic with let's say long

(01:23:09):
run having to add perlins and that sort of thing
will probably also trigger a requirement for a building consent.
So thank you very much for letting me know about that. Also,
I've mentioned these serene heaters a number of times. It
takes a couple of seconds to do a quick Google
search to see which ones are the ones that have
been issued with a notice basically to remove them. So

(01:23:31):
the work Safe website's got information about that. It was
one model, but it's been extended to several of these models.
So if you think you've got it there, make sure
you get the right information, find out about it. And
I was going to have my great, big indignant rant
about this new tool, and I've forgotten all about it.
So hold your horses, folks. I'll do that next Sunday

(01:23:54):
on the program. I promise you I will still be
as upset as I was this week about that particular one.
That is all by the bye, because it is my
great pleasure now to welcome to the studio Conrad Laponk
from have a very good morning, and thanks for coming in.

Speaker 9 (01:24:08):
Not at all, thanks good to be here.

Speaker 3 (01:24:10):
Now.

Speaker 5 (01:24:10):
You and I have talked a couple of times over
the years about the work that you do, and I
think that I'm reasonably familiar with it, and I think
that most people are, but inevitably people aren't. So what
is it that Habitat for Humanity does well?

Speaker 20 (01:24:23):
We Ultimately we're a housing charity or a community housing provider,
and we do a range of work around affordable housing.
We build and develop and own and manage a lot
of new housing, and that's all the way from public
housing through to progressive home ownership, So this is ownership
opportunities for people who just need that bit of hand

(01:24:44):
up into home ownership. And we also do a home
repair scheme across the country for existing properties, largely focused
i think, really on people living in place, so people
have a stroke and might need an accessibility access into
their own home. See a lot of that sort of
work through zero interest finance and just helping people just

(01:25:07):
stay in their homes. And obviously we do a huge
amount of international work across the world in over seventy countries,
but our work very much here in New Zealand is
focused on our domestic housing needs.

Speaker 5 (01:25:20):
And of course you also run the curtain bank, you know,
which is a really straightforward solution to you know, we'd
love to be doing flesh stuff with windows and all
the rest of it, but ultimately you do what you
can to solve the problem and explain.

Speaker 20 (01:25:37):
Some people would say it's a small thing, but it
was there too. We were set up really to fit
a gap because under the Healthy Homes Guarantee Act.

Speaker 9 (01:25:44):
We've been banging on about this for years.

Speaker 20 (01:25:47):
To be honest, there's there's no you don't have to
as a landlord fit window coverings and even coverings. So
we set up the curtain bank just to enable people
and this is most people living in rental homes, yes,
who can come to us. They can either purchase the
curtains very low cost or through a lot of programs

(01:26:09):
and referrals we do. We fit curtains for free for people, right.

Speaker 9 (01:26:13):
And it's theirs.

Speaker 20 (01:26:15):
So I think last year we did eleven and a
half thousand curtains here in Auckland.

Speaker 9 (01:26:20):
Wow up in.

Speaker 20 (01:26:22):
So yeah, there's a lot, that's a lot of windows
and yeah it's important just to keep people warm.

Speaker 5 (01:26:28):
Yeah, you know. And then as I'm driving around, I'm
realizing the extent of the scope and scale in reach
of habitat as the restore stores as well.

Speaker 20 (01:26:38):
Yeah yeah, we've got a chain of second hand shops
across the country.

Speaker 13 (01:26:41):
Yep.

Speaker 20 (01:26:41):
And actually after here, I'm just going to open a
new one in coumu oh brilliant. Yeah, so going out
out there as we've been really welcomed by the community there. Yes,
you know again it's it's not just your Rodbridge charity shop.
We've got all sorts of things like building materials and
things like that available for people to pick up very cheaply.
So it's just you know, using that circular economy stuff.

Speaker 9 (01:27:02):
YEP.

Speaker 5 (01:27:03):
To be fair, I've been out to Eastomachy number of
times to either drop stuff off. But while I've been there,
it's like, gosh, I could pick up a box of
tiles for not much money at all. So that's a
tremendously lot of tiles. And you get a lot of
support from the community in terms of donations into the
restore stores.

Speaker 20 (01:27:21):
Oh absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah, we are, we do, and
it's wonderful. I mean there's a lot of other charities
as well that I know people support, and their causes
are equally as important. Sure, we're very fortunate that we
have a lot of people who are giving to us
and letting us sort of their preloved goods just to

(01:27:41):
enable us to do more so we can fit more
curtains and build more homes.

Speaker 8 (01:27:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:27:45):
So there's a couple of different models that you've mentioned
around helping provide housing for people who need assistance. Some
of that is progressive home ownership, and another part of
it is actually providing housing that you then continue to
look after. So the Warren Place that recently got an award,
tell us about the award and where it is why

(01:28:07):
why did they award you guys not surprised.

Speaker 9 (01:28:09):
But we were at the time. Yeah, perfinitely honest. Yeah.

Speaker 20 (01:28:13):
So this is the New Zealand Property councils who every
year have their housing and property awards, and our developmentier
we called it Warren Place after our one of the
first ever members of staff for Habitat who's been with
nearly twenty five years now, a gentleman called Warren Jack.
And this was in fun today. It was twenty three

(01:28:33):
two story homes yep. And this was for public housing.
So Habitat we developed them. We will own them and
we will manage them and people on the public Housing
Register will be able to utilize them. So I think
I think one of the one of the reasons we
won the award is when we when we looked at
the space that we were going to occupy, right, we could,

(01:28:57):
under under planning regulations have put three story homes there, right,
But when we actually looked at the suburb, the suburb
there is a lot of single story housing, but they're
mostly timber clads, apex roof and we really wanted to
fit in.

Speaker 9 (01:29:15):
We didn't want this.

Speaker 20 (01:29:16):
To look first and foremost like public housing, but also
we really wanted it to have that sense settling, in
that sense of space, so we went for terraced housing
fifteen of which of the twenty three have roadside frontage
apex roofs. We had timber cladding on them as well,
so they really fit in and I think that was

(01:29:37):
quite commended by the judging panel. We also have a
shared community hub, so one of the units will also
be used for children's play and parties and things, and
that's next to the children's garden. We have an office
there as well that habitat runs. And we also have
full solar panels across, so every unit has the ability

(01:30:00):
to utilize solar in there as well, so that's very helpful. Yes,
and parking for all as well as well as bike rags.

Speaker 5 (01:30:08):
Wow, okay, So I mean if you're thinking about, you
know what intensification looks like, and you know, I think
these reasonable grounds to criticize some of it when it's
done poorly. To be fear this sounds like it's done well.

Speaker 9 (01:30:24):
Yeah, well we hope, so we think so.

Speaker 20 (01:30:28):
Yeah, And look, it does take a little bit of
sacrifice along the way in terms of yield and you
know what margin you're going to create in the development.
But we certainly felt that probably losing three or four
percent on the margin was really a that was quite
easy to do considering the benefits we were going to get,

(01:30:50):
just for improved design, improve liverability, just that sense of
space and just creating those communal areas where you're not
just constricted to your home and your small garden.

Speaker 9 (01:31:00):
I mean, everyone's got a garden.

Speaker 5 (01:31:01):
Pretty small, yeah, but it's just that those areas.

Speaker 20 (01:31:04):
Where people can just sit and meet and the kids
can play, and you just start to evolve that sense
of community. If you don't have those spaces within a development,
it can be more difficult, for sure.

Speaker 5 (01:31:16):
Yeah, because there is, there is, I suppose, because you
are in this for the long haul, right, you know,
it's it's easy and justified. I think to criticize some
developers because they're maximizing, they're just purely looking at return
right now. I'm going to build it as quickly as
I can. I'm going to knock them up, I'm going

(01:31:37):
to sell them, and I'm out, and I kind of
don't care what happens in that space indeed afterwards. But
this is obviously your approach.

Speaker 9 (01:31:45):
No, it's not.

Speaker 20 (01:31:46):
And look, that's understandable if you're if you're if you're
selling straight to market and every developer's got to make
their margin, and that's it's completely understandable. But for for us,
and I see I think you see it in the
build to rent market now as well, where people are
willing to hold long term. I mean for us, we're
under a twenty five year obligation through government services to
hart the houses as affordable housing. So yeah, you've got

(01:32:10):
to look at well the manageability of those homes, the
longevity of them, and that because you are managing people
in those homes that people feel comfortable and a sense
of pride. Yeah, sure they live, and it's not it's
people manage themselves neighbor to neighbor. Yeah, but I mean
what's happening now with the bill to rent. You're seeing

(01:32:30):
you know, some companies who are doing that, you know,
people like Simplicity, people like Ockham who are now getting
in a little bit more I believe into you know,
and those developments. Yeah, I think most of them are
absolutely fantastic and there is there a step above.

Speaker 5 (01:32:47):
And again I noticed the other day on LinkedIn that
you've celebrated sixteen years with hebitets. So you've been in
the space for a long time. Hebitat's been in New
Zealand for what how long? For over thirty years now
thirty years. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's kind of a
tangent to what we were talking about, but it is
remarkable for us to be talking about to rent. We're
arguably five years ago almost no one was talking about

(01:33:10):
it and there was very little of it around. And
I think that's going to be transformational for our housing market.
I think it's going to be transformational in terms of
long term secure tenure for tenants. I think it's fantastic.

Speaker 9 (01:33:24):
Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 20 (01:33:25):
And when you have responsible developers landlords who are willing
to hold as well, they are going to build really
good quality buildings.

Speaker 5 (01:33:33):
Because they're looking after them at ten, fifteen, twenty years time.

Speaker 9 (01:33:36):
And maybe even and then and longer.

Speaker 5 (01:33:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is a simplicity model, and it
definitely feels a big hole in the market.

Speaker 20 (01:33:43):
We need more rental properties, We need more pustins across
the housing continuum, whether it's public housing, whether it's affordable rental,
whether it's market rental, progressive home ownership, market sale.

Speaker 9 (01:33:55):
We do need more.

Speaker 20 (01:33:56):
I mean, I appreciate that someone would say there's a
bit of a you know, we don't need more homes
because there's lots there but that aren't being sold.

Speaker 9 (01:34:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:34:05):
Sure.

Speaker 20 (01:34:05):
The other side of the cour is, no, we need
to We do need to keep building more because those
houses are still people all find them difficult to afford.
So we have We've had a supply issue in this
city in Eakland for decades.

Speaker 5 (01:34:19):
A long time, and the fact that we've had a
slump in the sector, it just means that that's going
to be exacerbated. And since we kick off again and
since population growth comes up, we're going to have the
same challenges. When we were chatting a little while ago,
you mentioned progressive home ownership and there was a recent
example where there were some properties available that Habitat had built.

(01:34:41):
The demand is enormous, isn't it just unpack how progressive
home ownership works within habitat for us.

Speaker 20 (01:34:48):
So within habitat, so there's there's a few different schemes
that happen across the country. When it shed equity, which
actually was also a government product recently as well, that's
now stopped where essentially you would without with a small deposit,
a family could own seventy five percent or therefore of
the home, a government with own twenty five percent or
a different community housing provider would, and.

Speaker 9 (01:35:11):
Yeah, you would.

Speaker 20 (01:35:12):
You would slowly be able to gain pieces of that
additional equity until the home was yours over time, and
so that that's an affordable way. Particularly addressing the issue
of needing a big deposit.

Speaker 9 (01:35:24):
In terms of.

Speaker 20 (01:35:25):
Habitats program, we have what's called a rent to own.
So when the family is selected and they move in,
the value of that home at day one, let's say
that's six hundred thousand dollars, that's what.

Speaker 9 (01:35:39):
They owe habitat.

Speaker 20 (01:35:41):
It goes up in at fifty percent of the regular
interest rate over time that debt. So again that's affordable.
They need no deposit to come in right, and as
they pay their rent, if there's any surplus, like a
landlord might take, well these days maybe three or four
percent if you're lucky, but that gets squirreled away.

Speaker 9 (01:36:01):
We don't take that. That gets put aside.

Speaker 20 (01:36:03):
They're saving their kiwisaver throughout and at a point in
time they will then be able to afford that house
because they're still paying down the debt from day one,
but also what their habitat is only going up by
small increments.

Speaker 9 (01:36:17):
It's not a market price.

Speaker 20 (01:36:19):
So in ten years that home, let's hope it's probably
worth eight to nine hundred thousand for them and their
mortgage payments to settle would be less than their rent.
So it's just an affordable way of getting your own home.

Speaker 5 (01:36:35):
In terms of numbers over the last fifteen twenty years,
how many families would have been able to get into
houses through a scheme like that with habitat.

Speaker 20 (01:36:44):
With habitats, we're looking at around seven hundred and fifty,
so not a huge amount to be honest, but not
as New Zealand Housing Foundation that they have a similar
number to us. And then there's Queenstown Lates community to
us who just work in Queenstown. Yes, but there are
not many of these organizations that do this, and that's
simply because it requires.

Speaker 9 (01:37:02):
A lot of subsidy.

Speaker 5 (01:37:03):
It's quite hard.

Speaker 11 (01:37:06):
To do.

Speaker 20 (01:37:07):
And yeah, because as a charity relying on donations and
the occasional biit of government money here and there, which
it's hard to make affordability stack in home ownership.

Speaker 9 (01:37:18):
But we think it's absolutely important.

Speaker 20 (01:37:22):
The people that we're housing and other organizations are these
are These are families who are working, families who have
never probably for generations, ever owned their own heights across
the board. And so it's transformational in terms of financial
security instead of tenure stability and then being able to
leverage over the years, you know, when that home is yours,

(01:37:43):
to help your family into another home, which some of
us take for granted. It's hard enough, you know, everyone's
a lot of people are still relying on mom and dad.
But when you don't have a mum and dad that
have an asset, well, good luck.

Speaker 5 (01:37:54):
How do you get onto that?

Speaker 20 (01:37:57):
So it's a generation generational and yeah, it's really it's
really important.

Speaker 5 (01:38:03):
I think, yeah, absolutely, we can take short break with
me in the studio, Conrad Lapont from Habitat for Humanity.
We'll be back after the break.

Speaker 1 (01:38:13):
Squeaky door or squeaky floor, get the right advice from
Peter Wolfcare, the resident builder on News TOMSB.

Speaker 5 (01:38:20):
With me in the studio for another five minutes, as
Conrad to Pont from Habitat for Humanity. Look for those
of us who are interested in, let's say, the social
housing space, we've seen what's happened in terms of the
breaks basically being put on ko kind of order with
the hope maybe that private or charitable groups will pick

(01:38:42):
up the slack. Is their scope for that to happen,
And what's it going to take for the groups like
Habitat and any number of other housing trusts that are
out there to fill the gap?

Speaker 20 (01:38:54):
Yeah, I mean currently for organizations like ourselves, who are
really a medium sized player in this in this space,
there is unfortunately limited scope. The government right selected a
few what they term strategic partners, and that's to utilize
funding for around fifteen hundred homes in priority areas in

(01:39:14):
the country. And unfortunately these priority areas are very much constrained.
It's like Auckland, some of the Bay a plenty, Hamilton, Toronga,
so some priority areas and a lot of that also
is focused on this government's policy of trying to end
people in motel and emergency Yeah, so, which.

Speaker 9 (01:39:35):
You know, on the face of it, is something good.

Speaker 20 (01:39:39):
I mean, people vulnerable people living in motels. It shouldn't
shouldn't happen, So that's that's.

Speaker 9 (01:39:47):
The key driver for it.

Speaker 20 (01:39:48):
But they've selected a few organizations with large existing portfolios
in the space to push that forward beyond there. I mean,
certainly for organizations like ourselves, we are we're keeping going.
It's up to us to create eight our own surplus
to try and do more, and I think other organizations

(01:40:11):
are just looking at this slightly differently. Whereas before, we
very much relied on the government to be able to
fund in part some of our work. So for example,
the war and place development that was enabled by in
terms of the cash position that we were required to
do the development, we had about seventy percent debt. We

(01:40:31):
have fifteen percent of habitats money. Yeah, fifteen percent money
from the government, so we didn't have to find it all,
which is wonderful, but we've still got to find that
fifteen percent. Now, if we don't have government money, we'll
have to find the thirty percent. So what we have
to do is work twice as hard and trying to
raise those funds, and that in reality won't be able

(01:40:53):
to just come from our second hand stores or donations,
quests and things like that, because otherwise we just won't
get the scale that we need. You know, we are
not content with just doing ten twenty to twenty five
houses a year.

Speaker 5 (01:41:09):
You want to scale up.

Speaker 20 (01:41:10):
We really want to scale up, so we as an
organization are going to have to enter.

Speaker 9 (01:41:15):
We think the housing market. That's what we know to do.

Speaker 20 (01:41:18):
We know how to build, develop houses, find land, and
so I can see in the future that we might
be building houses for market, and the money that we
make from those houses we will then put into another
development and enable that affordability. And then when the government
comes with finance and funding, then that's just that's gravy

(01:41:41):
on the top of it, and then we can do
double what we did before.

Speaker 9 (01:41:44):
And I think, but I think that's.

Speaker 20 (01:41:46):
Important to take that attitude as well, because we talk
about a hand up, not a handout.

Speaker 9 (01:41:52):
I just want to habit. It's mantras well. I think
for too long, in a way, our.

Speaker 20 (01:41:56):
Hands have been out too much to the government for this,
and our reliance on them has been And while they're
really important, they need to help drive this, to help
drive the organizations that are ready, that have the capacity,
and they have the skills and have.

Speaker 9 (01:42:11):
Been let's face it here for many many years decades.

Speaker 20 (01:42:15):
Who know what we're doing in the space, and we're
building good quality housing and managing those appropriately. So I
think that's what we're just going to have to do
and we're starting to do it now. Some might see
that it's controversial. We are a charity, it's still a
charitable purpose. But if not, what else do we do? Yeah,

(01:42:38):
we have people that rely on us to do it.
Public housing that I think there'll always be money switching
about for that different at different levels under different governments.
But for progressive home ownership, this is something that has
been very sporadically funded over the years and we need

(01:43:00):
to find more concers.

Speaker 5 (01:43:00):
And I think too for people that are interested in
social housing and supported housing. Let's say, you know, I
don't think it's untrue to say that that charities like
yourself and I know others who are in the space
are much more nimble and much more able to manage
the people that are there as well. Frankly do a
bit of job of it.

Speaker 20 (01:43:18):
So yeah, yeah, it's we think so. I mean, look,
it's very difficult for Kying order to manage. They have
a different way of how they bring people pretty people on.
They have to choose people from the top of the
public housing register, which means what you'd be considered those
most in need or those who have been waiting longer

(01:43:38):
the longest. Yeah, habitat we're able to select from the
register into our programs, and it does give us a
degree of flexibility in terms of.

Speaker 9 (01:43:48):
How we build the neighborhood.

Speaker 5 (01:43:50):
Yeah, sure.

Speaker 20 (01:43:53):
And I mean in terms of laws, there's I know,
there's been a lot of controversy that surrounded the government's
new notication about how no blame you know, exiting for
tenants for tenants, and that does put people who have
poor landlords under an awful lot of potential strain for sure, yep.

(01:44:14):
Certainly for us though, if there is if there's one
person within a neighborhood of twenty three homes and we've
had to do it at Warren Place, yep, who is
causing problems for not just the twenty two other families
that live.

Speaker 5 (01:44:27):
There, but the community.

Speaker 20 (01:44:28):
But the community to be able to react it is
really helpful for everybody.

Speaker 5 (01:44:35):
Else since acting in the best interests of everyone.

Speaker 20 (01:44:38):
Absolutely, housing is not just a right, it's a responsibility.
And so that's that's our starting point.

Speaker 5 (01:44:47):
Litter leave it here, Peate. Listening to your interview with Conrad,
this's come through on the text. What a fabulous concept
and it's so easy to donate online. I just have
that's from Lorraine. Oh that's very much. I don't expect that.
That's a really good way to rep up the interview. Hey,
good luck with the opening, so coom you today?

Speaker 9 (01:45:05):
What time you today?

Speaker 5 (01:45:06):
Brand resource store.

Speaker 20 (01:45:07):
All pre tickets are sold world You've given away the tickets.
So many people coming to a New New Ork brilliant
that we just had to limit the numbers of people
coming in on day.

Speaker 9 (01:45:19):
On day one.

Speaker 20 (01:45:20):
But honestly, that is the easiest way to help our organization. Yes,
to donate your pre loved goods, all your time. Yes,
and for every charity right, just say, every charity is
struggling with being able to find volunteers, to retain volunteers
for numerous reasons, but you know they are the engine
of of.

Speaker 9 (01:45:40):
Our charitable work without a doubt.

Speaker 20 (01:45:42):
So if anybody's thinking about wanting to do something, if.

Speaker 5 (01:45:45):
You've got some time, pliantastic Conrad always a pleasure catching up.
Thank you very much for your time in Lorraine, Thank
you very much for yours. It's a fantastic way to
wrap up the section. Right, We're going into the garden
Red Climb past in just a moment.

Speaker 1 (01:45:59):
Helping you get those DIY projects done right. The Resident
Builder with Peta wolf Care Call eight eight eighty Use
Talks EDB for more from the Resident Builder with Peter Wolfcamp.
Listen live to News Talks EDB on Sunday mornings from six,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio

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