The Muster- Veronica Oostveen

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And on a Wednesday, we head too Deary and Z
to catch up with them for a bit of dairy
insight and I am joined a s Afternoon by Veronica Ronica.
How are you this afternoon?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hi? All good, very good.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Cool. So today you wanted to chat a little bit
about actual house checks and as we're into winter fires.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, correct, it is that time of year. It's also
a risky time of year because there's lots of fires
being lit all around Southland to try and keep everyone warm.
It was about four degrees at our place last night,
so yeah, the frost is on. I think, yeah, it's
just getting a bit cold out there. Like you know,
you're gonna heat pumps or fires out there and there's

(00:44):
a real risk I guess the houses. If you have
someone coming on farm or you're going on farm, you're
coming into a situation we have a fire where you
used to maybe have like diesel heating or electric heat pump.
It just probably takes a bit of a conversation with
those people, like double checking, Hey, you used the fire before,
this is how to light it, this is you know,
this is the source, this is how to keep it going,

(01:07):
and this is some of the health and safety around it,
like you know, not hanging the pajamas on the on
the fire guard overnight, and you know, not storing the
bits of cardboard behind the behind the fireplace, little little
hents like that to keep the house safe.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
You don't know what you don't know, do you? And
for some people it may seem pretty self explantory. This
is how you light a fire for someone who's had
an AIRB and B. I can tell you people who
have not lit fires before. They definitely have not lit
fires before, so you might be able to tell them,
but actually go and actually physically demonstrate with them is

(01:43):
the best way to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
One hundred percent. Yeah, definitely. And I think like now there,
June is usually house check months for farms, so you know,
those those that have moved in you might be doing
kind of like a sixty day check in July, or
the ones that have been on fire, you're kind of
doing those June house checks. So now's a good time
to actually get in there and check what the setup

(02:07):
is like where they're actually storing the wood and the
and the fire source, and also show them how to
do it. It's also probably a good time to just
mention how to actually keep the house warm. Like I
know there's this saying of like burt the house if
you know what I mean, So.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Decent mate, Yeah, just like a baby need to burn
the hair during the winter, get some of it, stalia
aut fresh hear in. Pull the curtains open if you're
coming back so that the sun can come in as well.
It all helps with hating the hands.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, exactly. So if you're like, if you're driving around
on farm and you're noticing you know, farmhouses with curtains
still closed around lunchtime, which is totally doable because if
people are leaving early in the morning to go shift crops,
they're not getting back to lunchtime anyways. But just reminding them,
like hey, make sure you open your curtains when you
get home, just so that you get the heat going
in the house. Probably the other thing to check right

(03:00):
now around that fire safety bit is around your fire
alarms in the house. You know, they need to be
within three meters of a bedroom or in every sleeping area,
and you can find more information about that on the
Tendency Services website about kind of you know, the ins
and outs of where those need to be and what
you need to install. The other thing is that you

(03:21):
also want to make sure that you're getting your chimney
swept once a year something good to do, probably more
in the autumn before they get lit, but it's all right.
If you've left it and it's now this time of year,
that's fine too, but it's still good to do it.
Do it anyways, even in the middle of winter. So yeah,
just to keep everything nice and safe, and.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
As it landlord, having supply of dry wood, making sure
that they're burning dry wood fire gads should they be needed,
especially with young children, and actually giving people the tools
in the toolkit to ensure that they can do this,
not just expecting that they're going to be able to
I'm up with themselves. If you can provide them with

(04:02):
the tools, then it's more likely to happen. And you're
protecting your own asset being that house.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, absolutely, And speaking of asset protection, it's nice to
have a conversation with tenants around contents insurance. So speaking
from personal experience, you know, we have actually had a
near miss with the house fire and our own property
and it's just one of those freak accidents. Think because

(04:28):
that happens with fires and houses. You know, it's just
how it is. And yeah, and then after that happened,
we had a conversation with everyone on farm about getting
contents insurance, like renters contents insurance, because they weren't aware
that our insurance that we have of the house doesn't
actually ensure any of their contents. So again it's just

(04:50):
it's not saying that they have to get it to
be a tenant, but it's just just having those conversations
with the people that we have on farm just in
case there is an accident that don't lose everything in
the fire. You know that they have they have insurance
on their things and they can they can get things again.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
And when you go back to those smoke alarms, I
hear that you can get Bluetooth smoke alarms. They link
to your phone as well, but you can when one
goes off, saying the laundry. They're all linked and so
it'll actually send them all off. Could be annoying if
you're someone who burns a toast all the time. However,
it makes sure that if you are sleeping and say

(05:28):
the one in the kitchen went off, you are you
sleeping at It just gives you the extra little bit
of time to be able to get out of the
house or to be able to rectify the situation. So
some real cool technology out there, and the New Zealand
Fire and an Emergency pages also have some great information
for people to look up as well.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, there's EPs of information out there and I think, yeah,
I think if you are putting new stuff in, there
are rules on the Tendency website about what you can
put in, so they need to be like the photographic ones.
And yeah, if you can't upgrade to that system like
you were saying, where they're all connected, that's that's fantastic technology.
And yeah, we don't. We don't. We want to make

(06:09):
sure everyone gets home safe from farm, but also when
they're at their home, we want to make sure they're
safe too. So yeah, that's that's just in the back
of every every employer's mind of course.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, any key events coming up that we need to
know about.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, So we've got a couple of big events over
the winter. So this Friday we've got that Sustainable Darry
gross Field Day at John Pemberton's. We have Calving Smart
coming up that's in late June. We also have people
Expo in the thirtieth of June, and then this isn't
on the website yet but coming is. There'll be some

(06:45):
calving barn field days in eastern and western South London
in the middle of July and that'll be on the
website soon, if not hopefully today or this week. So yeah,
so have a look at the website. If any of
those interests you go into the South of Otagoge you
can see all the information there. Please do register your
farm team for Calvin Smart that's happening across four different

(07:08):
locations in Otago and Southland and that one does need
to be registered for cool so heyl.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
On darian Zi website there and register and it's plenty
to keep you busy over winter. Thanks very much for
catching up with this afternoon for Agust Thanks chir