You're listening to the Resident Builder podcast with Peter Wolfcamp from news Talks at b MEAs or twice god once but maybe called Pete first. Peter wolf Camp the Resident Builder News Talk said, b.
The house is a whole, even when it's dark, even when the grass is overgrown in the yard, and even when.
The dog is too old to bar.
And when you're sitting at the table trying not to stop scissor hole, even when we've a band, even when you're therellone, the house SiZ a hole, even when those ghost even when.
You got around from the ones you love your most scream broken paints, feel in front the word locals whisper when they're gonna leaving the neighbor.
House, even when wiln even when you're there alone.
Well, a very very good morning and are very warm welcome, although it's not particularly warm in most parts of the country today. To you to the news talks of these Resident Builder on Sunday show here at Surprising Lead News Talks, there'd be a very good morning welcome along one ing's
Peate wolf Camp the Resident Builder. And it is eight minutes after six on as I say, rather crisp or in fact in some cases below crisp type temperatures across the country, so some roads closed with snow, some beautiful pictures of the Central South Island snow cap mountains, lots of happy faces for those people involved in the skiing industry and winter sports and for the rest of us.
I guess a timely reminder of the reason that our focus over the last couple of years in terms of building efficiency has very much been on better insulation standards, trying to make sure that at this time of year we don't have every single heater plugged in going full bore and all of that energy just simply being converted to heat and leaking out through poorly insulated walls, ceiling, subfloors, through good old fashioned single glazing and around sort of
poor quality joinery. That's why we do it.
It works in summer as well well, And this has been a subject of a great deal of conversation actually over the last couple of days different groups that I happen to either been with or being chatting with, focusing in on.
Some of those really big issues. So if you've got.
A challenge, I was going to say, problem, let's call it a challenge. If you've got an issue with part of your house, something that's maybe not quite working as well as you'd like it to work. Or in doing one thing, another thing has become noticeable. You you sort of fix one problem and then another problem becomes a little bit more challenging. We can talk about all of these sorts of building issues and challenges as we go
through the morning. We are talking building construction, renovations, alterations, products, selection, changes to legislation, learning and understanding what the current legislation is around what you can do what you can't do.
Towards the end of last week's show, actually we had a reasonably long conversation with a woman who phoned to talk about a property that she had only recently purchased and moved into that was impacted by flooding just a couple of weeks ago, and that sort of started a domino effect going well, actually what flooded was the bedroom. But when I looked into it, the bedroom was kind of like a playroom which had previously been a garage
which had been converted to a more habitable space. And was there a chain that connected the type of work done? So was the building done with a building consent? Did it need a building consent. Typically in those cases i'd say, well, look the change of use triggers a requirement for a building consent from sort of a non habitable space to
a habitable space. Doing a bit of reading around that discovered a really interesting document released by in this case Auckland Council on some guidance around what you might call change of.
A change of.
Use and not actually something that triggers a requirement for a building consent that particular phrase. So the bit more detail on that. Lots of other things do adding insulation to the exterior wall, which would be required if was a habitable space to do that, that might require building wrap around the outside. Taking weatherboards off extensively would trigger
a requirement for a building consent. Adding a new window, for example, into an exterior wall where there isn't one there that would trigger a requirement for a building consent, etc.
Etc.
Etc.
And then once the building consent application goes in, it might trigger requirements, for example, to ensure that there's some sort of water proofing, some sort of membrane to prevent moisture coming into the building through the slab. If you can't prove that there's one there already, so with an interesting, weird discussion. Been to a couple of events over the last couple of weeks, and I'll give you an update
on that also this morning on the program. We raised it last week on the show around a brand's survey that has recently been released and it got a little bit of headlines last week on in media talking about essentially like a satisfaction survey or how often do various trades get called back after the completion of a new build. So a new build is done, owner like yourself, moves into the house, how often who do you have to
call back? And roughly how often? So it turns out that close to fifty percent of the time the painter's being asked to come back to do some work, forty five percent of the time the builder is being asked to come back and do some work. And then lists most of the trades and kind of gives an indication
of whether or not. For example, for electricians and plumbers, they get called back on about I think it's about nineteen twenty five percent of occasions, but they get called back often or more often than other trades for a problem with an item that they've installed.
So it might be. I'm assuming that it's something.
Like a light fitting that doesn't work, or a tap that leaks, something like that. So it's not the workmanship, it happens to be the product that is involved in that. Anyway, there's a lot of detail in this, and so I thought, well, let's talk to the people that actually put the survey together. So Matt from Brands will be on air a little
bit later on this morning. Just going through some of the fine detail on that, I found it really quite insightful, particularly the comment in the sort of summary saying that back in twenty seventeen people were more likely to recommend their builder to another person and had higher scores with how satisfied they were with their builders than they were in the more recent survey. And what does that say about building construction quality and so on. Maybe that fits
with your own experience, or maybe it doesn't. We'll soon find out. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call if you've got a question of a building nature. Maybe you've got a project that's underway, maybe in the heavy rain. And I've got a text this week from someone who I met a little while ago, had a look at their house and that sort of thing. They went, h okay, we got a little leak after
what was quite in Auckland anyway, quite heavy rain. This was the same band of showers storm system that came over and caused some flooding around Topol. You know, it was extraordinarily heavy rain on what was it. It must have been Wednesday night as it swept across Auckland roughly about twenty millimeters in an hour, which is actually quite a decent dump of rain. The interesting thing for me is the following day I had building surveys on site who had to do moisture testing to see whether a
building was leaking. So I figured, actually, that's about the perfect day to get someone in to do some moisture testing to determine whether or not the exterior envelope is weather tight. Is do that after it's rained cats and dogs for the night undred eighty ten eighty, let's get into it. If you've got a building question, you can call eight hundred eighty ten eighty. You can text which is nine two nine two or ZAIDBZB from your mobile phone. I've got the email up and running, so it's Pete
at Newstalk SEDB dot co dot Nz. So p E t E Pete at Newstalok SDB dot co dot nz. The beauty of that, just like the email that I'm reading at the moment from Peter.
Actually, there you go.
Peter emails Peter talking about insulation and he's been able to attach some photographs to that as well for my Actually we'll take a break. I'll go straight to this email because it's not an uncommon situation. But we'll take your calls of course this morning on the show, welcome along. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call.
Doing of the house storting the garden, asked Pete for a hand.
It's a resident builder with Peter Wolfcap call Oh eight hundred eighty NEWSTALGZB.
Right, the old lines are open nineteen months after six eight hundred eighty ten eighty And that's but Shelly. But I'm sure that you can stay tucked up in somewhere warm and give us a call.
So the lines are open.
Oh eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is that number to call morning Peak. Enjoy your show. It's very kind of you to say thank you. And I have a question which might be a little too complex to verbalize on the show. Whilst the plans for the house we purchased a few years back stated that ceiling insulation was to be one hundred millimeter pads of insulation, the ceilings are actually filled with polystyrene chips, as per the attached photos, with bags and bags of it left over and just
suspended in the rafters. The house was built nineteen ninety four ninety five and has been signed off by council. We have older down lights and the chips encroach on the fittings, and also the polystyrone is fused to the electric wiring through the roof space. Spoken to the local fire service and they haven't encountered this before and couldn't comment on the safety of it. Houses two stories, three hundred and twelve square meters with a big roof space.
We need to remove the polystyrene. We wondered if there was some way of piping it out, as removing it by hand would take many hours.
Oh yes it will.
If you have any questions, will require further information. Don't hesitate to call and I will reply to your email.
Peter.
But it's an interesting one. To be fair, when you said that I was fully expecting that the house would be of a much earlier vintage that something constructed in ninety four ninety five, while the blowing insulation was around. Just a little bit surprised that it's still around at that time. Here's my story that correlcts with Peters, and given that we share the same name, that's fair enough.
When we bought our house.
Which was in nineteen ninety six, it's an old villa and it had blown polystyrene shredded insulation, so essentially old polystyrene chipped up into sort of anywhere between I guess ten and twenty five millimeter you know, chips, basically irregular sizes and so on, and that had been obviously blown into the existing roof because as a retrofit solution, it's actually pretty straightforward. You just get up there with a great big hose and you just blow the stuff around.
I wasn't particularly happy with it, and much later on we decided that we would remove that and put in some decent insulation, which we did. So to your point, Peter, if you happen to be listening, we need if we needed to remove the polysty and we wondered if there was some way of piping it out, as removing it by hand would take many hours. I wish I had have figured out a way of piping it out as well, or probably more to the point, had the resources at
that time to employ someone to do it. I didn't, so I ended up with lord knows how many black bags, a pan and shovel, and at one stage actually I used what ended up becoming a sacrifice garden vack, so I would scoop up the bulk of it just with a pan and shovel, and then I would fill the garden bags up. I ended up actually taking a sheet of iron off the roof so that I could get it out easier than trying to get it out.
Through the various.
Through the access panel, which was difficult to access despite being an access panel. And so took a sheet of iron off, scooped up the material, put it into a black plastic bag rubbish bag, tied a knot in it, biffed it out. I ended up filling basically a horse float full of that product and black plastic bags. And then to try and get the remainder of the bits and the crevices and so on, I used and destroyed a garden vacuum to do that, it was a.
Terrible, dusty, disgusting job.
There are actually companies that will come in with proper apparatus with a big hose attached to a vacuum or a extraction unit mounted on a trailer on the back of the truck and go through and suck it out. So back to Peter's point, I mean it does have an insulation value. It does work as an insulation, and I guess one of the only advantages to it is it does tend to fill all of the spaces and
insulation works much better if it's complete. The problem is if you've got old incandescent down lights, the old traditional ones, it needs to be away from that. And yes, you're right, there is a concern around it adhering to your insulation or to the polystyrene insulation, adhering to the electrical cabling, and you'll find that even when you go through and remove it, you'll find some pieces are actually literally bonded to the sheathing on the electrical cable, which is not ideal.
So yeah, there are teams that will come and do it. I would probably if you can safely and comprehensively remove it have a team come in extract it from the
roof and replace it with good quality insulation. Ideally, given the photographs that you've sent me of the conventional trust roof to come through, do a layer of insulation that sits on top of the ceiling bat and comes up to the height of the bottom cord of the trust, so probably one hundred millimeters, and then ideally do another layer over the top of that at ninety degrees that then goes over the top of all of that timber that is part of the bottom cord of the trusts
and that stops some thermal breaks. And if you can take out those conventional incandescent down lights, replace them with
energy efficient LED lighting. And you'll also find that the LED lighting, depending on which one you get, can either be enclosed or abutted, so you can either a butt the insulation up to the fitting, which means you don't have lots of gaps in your insulation which means it doesn't perform particularly well, or in some cases and you have to check the individual fittings, you can and close the insulation so you can butt up to it, and then another layer of insulation can go over the top,
which is great. So the more comprehensive, the less gaps you have in your insulation, the better it works. And we know that you need to keep a gap around insallation of downlights early ones, so you can get rid of those gaps makes a huge difference to the insulation. Someone helpfully has just called through and said the a company that does this is called fluff Busters. So fluff Busters, fluff Busters, Good on them. I think that's that'd be
a great opportunity. So Peter, I will reply to your email. But there you go, this bit of information for you as well. I eight hundred eighty ten eighty the number to call. Got a couple more texts, but I'd prefer a call I eight hundred eighty ten eighty. Let's talk all things building, construction, legislation, product choices, and you know,
necessary upgrades. You know what was reasonable let's say ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago, forty years ago, fifty years ago, is probably not what we expect from
our buildings today. I had the privilege yesterday of going through a house that is up for sale owned by the same family for a number of years, partly a very beautiful old villa that has remained untouched for seemingly the last I think the last building consent, the last actual building work was done sometime in the nineteen fifties, so a little bit of a time capsule. But then you take that building and you go, what are we going to do with it now? I eight hundred, and
you might be in the same place. What are you going to do now? I eight hundred eighty ten eighty. That's what you can do. You can give me a call twenty seven minutes after.
Six whether your painty was ceiling, fixing weres, or wondering how to fix that hole in the wall. Give Peter wolf Gaffer call on eight eighty, the resident builder on News Dog z B.
And I have to say too, I went along to the Radio Awards, which was lovely to go on Thursday evening, and so listening to that report they're talking about. Actually was delightful to see Heather's award being presented in the fact that she had decided not to go to the awards and continue working, so complete surprise for her to get the saw Sir Paul Holme's Award for Outstanding Broadcasting.
But see Neva Rtteman, who recognized and also Daniel who voiced that had some recognition as well, which is lovely. So to see the I suppose the face behind the voice is always quite a pleasure.
Yeah.
Oh eight D eighty is the number to call Debbie. Good morning to you.
Good good morning, how are you morning?
Delightfully so I think you at to bring it on now.
I've just meved into a new house, and the smaller house a couple of things needed doing, but one I'm looking at putting a deck on more of aly using outside area. Sure, I've paid three four quotes. The square metage of the deck is around about forty square meters, and I'm not they're all going to say.
Queer quila yepe.
What do you recommend is the best one to go for? Because most of them are saying clear And the average price that I'm getting quotes for was about twelve to three thousand.
Okay, that's probably not. I mean often I'm a bit reluctant to sort of comment on pricing because you know, I don't know what the site access is, like, how high the deck is, whether there's some demolition work to do, does the deck require a hand raute?
Is it more than a meta off the ground.
Okay, that's great. I think the best thing is that you've got three prices, right, so it gives you a comparison. Hopefully the prices are reasonably detailed so they explain what they're going to do. Look, Queiler is often the kind of you know, first cab off the rank in terms of it's readily available, we know its reputations, it is hard wearing, et cetera, et cetera. So people go, okay, I can get Queler easily. It's reasonably competitive in terms
of pricing, so let's wack down some Quealer. And certainly I've got nothing against it. I haven't used it for a number of years. The last one that I did I used Vitex, which is a similar It's another hardwood. Obviously it's an important hardwood. So I used vytext decking because I wanted a wider board, and also it was readily available and it doesn't bleed out. The issue was sometimes with Queeler at the very beginning is it will stain right, so it'll leach out. You can deal with that.
It just don't put it on the driveway, don't put it next to a path. Initially, those sorts of things, So there's that. There's also you know, we often tend to discount using softwords like New Zealand pine, but if you get a decent quality New Zealand pine, and there is a bit of variation in terms of the quality of the timber. If you get a good quality New Zealand pine and you look after it, I put a sealer coat on it, you know, pretty much straight away, and so on. It's also I think it looks okay.
You might find if budget is an issue, you could save a little bit of money using some pine, but then you will I would always recommend for hardwoods as well. I would still recommend putting on some sort of sealer, like a penetrating oil stain. After the timber has been exposed for a little while, give it a thorough clean, and then keep some sealer on it that'll protect it long term. Talk to the guys about how they're going to fix the deck down. Typically today we would do
stainless steel screws to fix it down. Just make sure that that's in their pricing as well, because there is a little bit of a difference between I mean, look, I've seen some softwood decks and pine decks being nailed down with gun nails right, and it just looks really shonky. To be fair, it's fast and it's cheaper hopefully, but it doesn't look great. So will they screw it? What
type of screws will they use? Nothing wrong with quila, but you might want to have a look, even if you take yourself down to the local timber merchant and have a look. The difference between queller and maybe a v tex. There's not a lot in terms of New Zealand hardwoods around. I've used eucalyptus, but I'm not sure how common that is to get it anymore. And then there are composites as well. If it's like in a shady area or you're worried about the slip resistance, there are composites.
It tends to push the.
Proce slip resistance.
I mean, look, decks can get slippery, right, but generally I've found because in the end you've got a board and then you've got a gap, right, your slip resistance is an effect that gap between the boards. Is the deck sort of north facing south facing?
Is it quite sheltered?
It gets a person when you're down on it.
Okay, all right, but it'll be sheltered in the afternoon. Yeah, oh, that's actually quite nice. It's a perfect place for it. Look, I think you're doing everything right.
You know.
It's work that doesn't necessarily require a building consent because it's less than a meter off the ground, which is good. If you can use an LBP, that would be good, but technically they don't a licensed building practitioner. So just have a look on the quotes it should be. You know, ideally they have their logo with stating whether or not they're an LBP, or you can look them up online talk to them about you know, do they what size
deposit they need, what guarantees they might have. The other thing, and I saw it the other day, is that even decks that don't require a building consent like yours, still have to be built to the building code. So one of the questions to ask the builder is what size piles are you going to use? And one of the most common common things that we see is using fence posts or one hundred by one hundred square as piles for the deck, and that's not compliant.
They need to be.
More structural piles, so sentin pile or a tanner pile and they're one hundred and twenty five by one hundred and twenty five and it's a classic mistake that you see with people building decks. Yeah, yeah, so there you go. That's that's sticking one I want. But good on you for getting a couple of quotes. And then you know, maybe we were talking about this.
The other choice of that I'm worried about.
Yeah, okay, nothing wrong with the queler, but there are some other options, and to be fair, I wouldn't completely discount using pine and putting a sealer on.
Okay, lovely, thank.
You all the best.
Lovely talk to you. Take care, Debbie, thank you your news talk said B. We're talking all things building construction and it good morning to you.
Hello.
I'm an Island Bay, Wellington and it's freezing.
Yes I can imagine.
Oh yeah, we've got we had very nice gas panel heaters put on with a backseat running it. But it's so expensive cut it's coming on by itself even at night, and the plumber told me don't turn it right off, and I agree, was on by itself and churns up the gas and you know the bill will gets high. But anyway, I'm not ringing you about that. So what I'm bringing you about is health concerns about the polystyrene
insulation you are talking about. I just wonder what did you what precautions did you take for your lungs while you were brushing up polystyne and your ceiling.
Look it was it was twenty odd years ago. I probably wore a mask. I probably could have done something better than that.
You know, well, I would be we don't often and.
Look over the years, one of the things that I've I've come to appreciate more and more is, you know, the negative health impacts of dust, and that's in general, right, And it was interesting. I was at a certified builder's conference on Friday and one of the speakers was talking about managing risk. And there is a significant risk from dust of all sorts. Right, So yeah, having a decent respirator type mask with a filter that fits well while you're doing that work, Yes, it's a no brainer.
Well about what would it be twelve or fourteen years ago? We had our old We're in a nineteen hundred villa, yep, one story villa, and we had the insulation that had been put down earlier years. Yes, replaced by new insulation by a company, and they sent around these young people and they I don't think they had anything on and I could hear them coughing, and I kept meaning to ring work Safe and reporting it, and I'm sorry to
say I never did so. I don't know what states those young people's lungs are and now, but I would be very, very keen to tell that the building industry please take care of all that sort of stuff. And when you do, like we had a small renovation done at the back, they just left a whole lot of sawdust and wood lying, you know, under the where the floorboards are going. I would get out there they went and clean it up, because that lies there and it
can cause allergies and hols concerns in later years. You know, it just lies they're buying around, attracting mice and rats and getting into people's lungs and causing problems.
I'm really concerned, thankfully, thankfully sorry, and I think thankfully there has been a real focus on that, and it's been sort of work Safe tends to like pick different themes over time, and I know a couple of years ago they had a very strong focus on basically dust control, right.
Which I think is absolutely I think it's.
So interesting the Boulder chap I apprentice.
Yeah, I know, but that's that might be up to their boss to sort of inculcate that into them.
And look, I get what you're saying.
And I have the same issue with going on site and watching you know, young guys often who don't wear hearing protection because they haven't damaged there is, so it doesn't impact on them. And it's only later in life when you're leaning into conversations and you realize that you've got hearing loss as a result of exposure to excessive noise on a building site that you go, gee, I wish I had have worn my ear muffs, you know, ten years ago, and you probably find the same thing
with your lungs as well. Thanks for that and it really appreciate it. But work Safe did have a big focus. It was probably gosh, it's probably going back four or five six years ago now, so looking at you know, can you do extraction from your cutting directly into vacuums or dust bags and that sort of thing.
To be fair.
At one stage I was involved in a discussion where it was suggested that we ban brooms from site because what they wanted to do was vacuum extraction of sort of. You know, when you're having a tidy up on site, don't use a broom, because if you've used a broom on a building site, you tend to get these billowing
clouds of very fine dusk. I mean that's impractical, to be fair, because there's all sorts of stuff that you have to sweep up on a floor, and it's not always suitable to use vacuum extraction for that type of thing. But you can see where they're heading saying that. You know, I've been to a number of sites nowadays where most tools now are set up with extraction right, and the vast difference to the sort of the air quality and
just the general working environment. If, for example, hooked up to the back of the drop saw is a vac that you know, maybe it comes on automatically when you pull the trigger. That's not uncommon these days, or perhaps certainly when you're sanding, certainly if you're cutting any sort of five or cement sheet something like that, the right tool with extraction makes a massive difference and has it become a bit of an issue for me. It has in the sense that I really don't like feeling like
I'm coughing and spluttering when I'm in the workshop. So same thing my dropsaw is attached, has two sorts of extraction. One it's bolted down against the wall, so any dust that doesn't get extracted from where I've got the vacuum cleaner attached to the port drops to the back of the table, and I've got another extraction point there that runs to a dust extractor. I've got a little portable
vacuum cleaner. Actually, there was a really good investment, little eighteen portable little Robie one actually dust extractor that I can carry around with me. So if I'm doing some sanding, I just plug that straight into the back of the sander and it goes straight into the It's a bagless one, so you just tip it out later on into a black plastic bag and into the rubbish. You do feel a lot better, your tools work better if you're doing extraction,
so there's an upside to that as well. Anyway, there ends of the lecture on dust. Oh eight hundred and eighty ten eighty years. The number to call coming up quarter to seven. Back with Danny after the break Squeaky.
Door or squeaky floor.
Get the right advice from Peter Wolfcare, the resident builder on newstalksb.
Which is falling on for some of the conversation about decking. Interesting couple of people of text. And we've had a pine deck for twenty years north facing, still in perfect condition morning peaked for my seventy years of experienced good quality thirty two mili ten pine decking uncoded last way longer than quilla. It might be replaced. You might have to replace the quiller after twenty years. Thanks from Dave from two to KAKA. Thank you Dave, much appreciated. What
was the other texts that come through? Can you please say why fence post is no good for deck pole? Fence posts are no good for deck piles simply because that's not what's in the building code. So they might work, but it's not in the building code. So the building Code quite clearly states that any sort of pile supporting a structure needs to be I think of a minimum of one hundred and twenty five one hundred and twenty five, so what we'd commonly call a Sentin pile or a Tanner pile.
There might be other.
Brands out there as well, but they are heavier and.
That's just what the rules are. So this is this thing where.
Construction that doesn't necessarily need a building consent still needs to be done to the building code. And the Building Code's quite clear about what type of timber you can use for deck piles. But look so many that I see. In fact, when I saw the other day, brand new deck, same thing, one hundred, one hundred posts, and it's like if it was being inspected, it would fail. And it's noncompliant because it doesn't comply the building code. Oh, eight
hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call. Actually, this is an interesting one too. Hey, Pete, we did a deck last Christmas. We used a company called Stop Digging. Simon and his crew use screw piles and I must say it was fast and it was an awesome job. We're so super happy with the deck.
Interesting.
I bumped into the guys from Stop Digging who do the screw piles, on Friday at the New Zealand Certified Builders Conference, and I've met them on a number of occasions. I'll probably see them again this weekend.
At field Days.
Yeah.
Great alternative to be fair, So rather than the conventional approach, which I've done hundreds of times. You get there, you dig a hole, you get a post, You've put concrete around it, You wait for the concrete to go off, you trim the post, you get these guys in. They come through, they put a screw pile in, they set it to exactly the right height, and then you just simply fix your timber bearers directly to the top of that. So no digging, nothing to take away, nothing to bring in,
just these guys. So yep, I agree with you there. Thanks for you call text Rob a very good morning to you.
Morning fete.
Hey.
Recently I moved on to a life sentence block, right, and I'm wanting to build a hard stand area for storing your like trailers, farm implements, and other bits and pieces. Now I've probably down about two point fifty got rid of the top soil, some down to the clay. What's the recipe for making a hard standary? What do I put on top of that?
Okay?
I think the best thing you can do is if you've got it down to like, take the top soil off so it's looking reasonably compacted right or reasonably firm. Is make sure you do geotextile cloth, so some I think one of the brands is like Bittom cloth. You'll see it often on roadworks, interestingly enough, but it's it's often specified underneath compacted hardfell And the beauty of it is is what it allows is the water to percolate through, right, but it stops the soil over time coming up and
or it stops the metal being punched into the clay. Right, So good quality, heavy duty geer textile cloth down and then you could run your compact your fill over the top, maybe with something that's a little bit chunkier at the bottom, so sort of around fifty mil and then if you you'd get a layer or two of that on maybe one hundred mili compacted if you can, and then dress that off with maybe something a little bit finer. But the gear textile cloth is what makes all the difference.
That'll stop it turning into mush in about two years time.
Yeah, cause I got a delivery on what they call a run off ped metal, which is quite a ton. But you get some massive bowls half a meter in diameter.
You know, half a meter in diameter is way too big. You keep those for the little rock wall that you'll do around the perimeter of it. The other thing is when you're when you've that down to clay, is there a little bit of.
Fall on it?
Yeah?
Okay, all right, So ideally at the bottom of that, maybe do some overcoil and take any water that collecks in there and run that further off down the property.
If you dug a trench from the let's say it all falls sort of to one corner right at that point there, I'd be inclined maybe along one edge to put some drainage material and like black snake or something like that, just so that the water that percolates through the metal through the stones will find its way through that to some drainage and be drained away rather than the whole thing, especially if you've excavated let's say three sides.
You know, if it holds water, it'll it'll get soft and then it gets soft.
Yeah, turn over one hundred and fifty meters of an overcoil so far.
Oh, fantastic, Okay, And where that actually goes somewhere, because often you see it just buried in the ground.
It goes out to a paddock that's lower just overflows.
Awesome, But again, the gear textile cloth is what makes all the difference. And if you look at you know, like if we're often if we're doing setting up for a site, right, you know, you're you rip off the top soil on the driveway and then they'll back the
truck and tip the metal straight onto the clay. And you know, you drive up and down for a couple of months while you're building the house, and what you find is that most of that metal just gets pushed down into the clay and then the mud starts to come up and then you've got you know, mud tracking out onto the road, all that sort of thing. Invest in the gear textile cloth in your instance, put the metal on top. It'll that's massive difference. That's that's the
second ingredient. Very much pleasure, all the best, Thank you, take care.
Then.
Oh eight hundred eighty is the number to call. Hello June.
Oh hello, Paint. I'm just yeah, I'm pretty cold. Just bringing up about minor residential units.
Yep.
And we're part of an accessory building and I thought they had to be a standalone but it was actually a sleepout. It's not our probably it's a neighbor's property and we're in a private naan, so I'm concerned about this becoming an airbnb.
Right.
He had a couple of years ago built an eighty three accessory building garage, and he built the roof space like another story. It is only five point four to five, so it's below that five point five and he said it was awful storage On their left side, he toilet, shower, sink, he called a yoga room or whatever. And as soon as it got built here it became a sleepout. But now he's turned it into a minor residential unit. By he's got a mizzanine he calls it Mizzanine story. But
it's the same floor as the garage. Openly, he's got windows, big windows over in that other corner, can you.
And so the main thing about all of this is that as soon as it has sanitary fittings in it, and certainly as soon as it becomes occupied, that work should have had a building consent. So that's the most straightforward. Next question is did that work get a building consent?
Oh?
Yes, yes, it's all been Yes, yet it's all been done properly. I mean it's being new, you know. But the thing is Pete Ken because you've got to have an area thirty five square meters minimum for a minor residential unit. So you've got a ladder up into this floor to sleep that goes sort of over into the garage roof space, and he's partitioned off some of it. Does that become that level? Does that become part of the thirty five square meters because it would be too small without it.
Yeah, I'm suspicious of whether or not that work was consented because typically if it's even if it's secondary access to a space, a ladder doesn't comply with the building coat, right, So but I thought I wonder I would actually check.
Oh, he's had people, he's had to counsel there. Because of my intimidation, I've said, oh no, that's parting me off of that paper.
Right.
Look, if it does have a building consent, then there's not actually a lot that you can do about it if it's being consented. I suspect that part of it, or he might have got a building consent for the first work, but then the second work didn't back after the break.
Whether you're pety was stealing, fixing with fens or wondering how to fix that hole in the wall. Give Peter wolf Cap call on eighty the resident builder on youth Talks.
That'd be your news talks.
There'd be Peter wolf Camp with you this morning. Eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call building questions of any variety. We're talking decking, we're talking residential, minor, minor dwellings. That was during just prior to the news again,
just you know. I think what happens sometimes with projects is that some of the work gets a building consent, and then there's might call project creep where it grows and grows and grows, and while the council might have issued consent for part of the work or all of the work, but then subsequent changes that should have required
a building consent don't always get one either. And certainly from her comments about a mezzanine floor that's habitable and accessible with a ladder, I mean that wouldn't get building consent to be fair. To be fair, getting sign off on a house that had a bunk bed was quite challenging on one occasion. So the idea of you being able to move up and down to a sleeping space on something that didn't look like a set of stairs
would be unlikely. Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call, coming up eight minutes after seven eight hundred eighty ten eighty. Now he's a quick one.
Yeah. Sorry. This text came in a little bit.
Earlier right where talking here we go brick from their home. We'd like to insulate the external walls. There is no building paper, so we're wondering whether a retrofit building paper and pads of insulation or a blowing in insulation. They mentioned a company would be a better solution. Our concerns are around needing a gap between the insulation and the cladding e ei the brick, as well as preventing moisture
around the framing. The blowing insulation means losing the air gap, but they promote it as water repellent but breathable, and it would allow moisture to evaporate out. What would your recommendation be for retrofitting insulation in this case? I mean, I've always had a concern around the idea of retrofitting or blowing or injected insulation systems into between timber framing
plasterboard lining on the inside. Timber framing often no building paper on the outside of that and then a gap of about forty millimeters and then it's the back of the brickwork, and then the brick is exposed to the elements on the other face. So typically that works to stay weather type by allowing any moisture that might get through the brickwork to drain down the back of the brick surface and out through the weatpoles at the bottom.
So then you go, okay, well, if.
I fill that up, then that drainage path and that drying path are blocked off. There does seem to have been some significant development in the technology, let's say, around the type of material that's introduced to that space. So if you are doing an injected system, some of the systems are it's not water repellent, it's hydrophobic, so water
retreats from it rather than being absorbed into it. The other thing, and discussions that I've had at any number of home shows over the last couple of probably two or three years, has been that many of the firms that do this will also do a seiler coat over the brickwork, so reducing the amount of moisture that might
migrate through the brickwork into that cavity. Space, so waterproof seiler on the outside of the brick stops some of that movement, and then the risk of moisture being trapped by the insulation inside there and causing lots of other problems seems to be deleted or reduced. Any of these systems should have either code mark or brand's appraisal, and that work regardless of who does it and all the
rest of it. Putting insulation in an exterior existing exterior wall requires a building consent or an exemption from the building consent, but that's got to be signed off by council.
So if any company that you're engaged with, they need to provide you with a compliance pathway basically saying yep, either here's our way of getting a building consent, or here's something from council informing you as the home owner that you don't need a building concent So I think if you cover those things off, you can go ahead and make choices from there, taking plasterboard off, getting building paper into each of those little cavities between studs and knogs,
and putting in a pad. Insulation of whatever variety will also require a building consent, by the way, Oh eight hundred and eighty ten eighty the number to call Sally. Good morning to you.
Ah, yes, good morning, Pete. There's an ad coming over the radio constantly, don't paint your roof, seal it. Well, they don't say the sealer is. And I wondered if you could recommend anyone that just to look at my roof. Whe I don't want to spend money on if it's not necessary.
Yeah, look, there is I understand advertising to some degree, and I understand that's a very popular phrase at the moment. There is nothing wrong with painting your roof, right. There's lots of things right about painting your roof. So let's say you've got an older metal roof and it requires you want to continue to protect it. Protecting it with a coat of paint is a very good thing to do.
Even if you've got let's say an older color steel roof that started to fade and you want it to look better, painting that with the right paint, with the right applicator is a good thing to do. So there is nothing wrong with painting your roof. Nine tiles okay, and again, concrete tiles typically you can repaint them quite successfully, or if they're a concrete tile that's sort of natural looking. You can have it sealed with a spray seiler on top of it, which is not necessarily a colored coating.
It might be a clear coating, and that is also very good to do. So what your roof is a concrete tile roof, is it colored or is it has the color already worn off?
Still got some color in it?
Yeah?
A lot.
Yeah.
Look, the last job that I did, or one of the last jobs that we did this on, was a sort of nineteen sixties brick and tile house. The roof was in its original state. Obviously it had lost a bit of color over the time. We got a team in to thoroughly clean it, make any necessary repairs, you know, like to hips and ridges where maybe some of the mortar had cracked, and then they simply applied roof paint over the entire surface, and gosh, I think I did
that job maybe ten years ago. Still looks really good today. So painting is definitely an option. Mine is nineteen seventy five, similar vintage, then similar vintage, So yeah, there's lots of options for painting. There's a place for roof selant. In the same way that I did a repair on a small flat roof the other day a month ago, using an application of a product called Injuris right, which is
a silicon based waterproof and compound. What I need to do is extend the life of that roof and give it some coating to ensure that the leak that I had earlier in the year won't come back. I've applied that in Juris over the surface, which is kind of like maybe three four square meters. That'll work perfectly well
in that situation. So I think it's getting sort of, you know, some unbiased advice from someone trusted, So it might be maybe a family member or another carpenter in the area or something like that, someone that maybe someone can recommend to come and have a look at it and go, Like I think in your situation, you would have a team come in, they'd clean the roof, they do any minor repairs required, and then do a paint coating over the top. And that'd be a really good solution for you.
And can you recommend anybody? That's the point?
Ah?
Yeah, sure, think I tell you what.
Let's I'll just hand you back to Isaiah, my producer, and then I'll give you some numbers. Okay, no trouble at all, all the best of you. Thank you, Sally.
Just stay on the line.
We'll take a break now and then we'll come back and have a long chat with Harry.
Back in the bows.
Squeaky door or it's the squeakie floor.
Get the right advice from Peter Wolfcare, the resident builder on NEWSTALKSB.
Your new TALKSB quick text as well.
Pete.
We've got a second story deck that's not over a habitable space, done five years ago. The deck is weather deck and there's a little bit of an issue where it's lifting and then they've attempted to repair, but it hasn't basically restuck itself. Any suggestions how to restick this or will we have to have the product uplifted and replaced with another product? Regards from l Well the good news l as you go online and you find that the company thankfully is still around and they offer a
fifteen year warranty. So I think your next thing is to remind them of their obligations under the warranty that they've issued. So whatever has to happen, given that it was applied five years ago, should be the responsibility of the company, and I'm sure they'll stick by it. Oh eight one hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call. Hello, Harry, warning, Harry, very well, thank you, sir.
I've got a bit of a problem, Pet. What has happened is in my house. It's a double story house. The seiling entrance is from the walk in wardrobe and the fairness. I have got a central heating fanners in our braves. And the workmen came and checked it and they said that it's the Fairness is reaching the end of its walking lace and there are no spare parts available, so you have to put a new one. So they said to put a new one. The ceiling entry has
to be relocated to where the phenace is. So I would like to find out first of all, will it require a building consent?
Not likely? No, No, I don't believe it will, okay.
And my question another one is the present ceiling, the present ceialing entry one. Can they just seal it from inside so that it can be opened? Because once they're going to come and put a ceiling again here, there will be a lot of mess in my house. So can they just seal that from inside so that it can be opened from the wardrobe.
Is that that vent through your plasterboard surface? So if they take out the vent, will there be a hole in the wall? Sorry sight again people, Well just I'm just trying to get clear on when when you say, like taking the seal out, what's going to be left, Like if they have to change ducting and so on, will you actually have a hole in the wall or in the ceiling?
In the ceiling? Yeah, they said, by right, the builders who build house, they should have put the ceiling entry near where the furnace is.
You know, yes, the ceiling.
So okay, they're gonna put a new one there, but the present one. I don't want to have that lid removed. Leave it as it is, and then from inside from the top of the I'm with you, and they seal it so that you know, nobody can open this one now, because because this one saved the papers anymore.
Yes, I mean, ideally you take out that grill and replace it with plasterboard and patch it and redo the ceiling.
But that's a much bigger job.
What you might need to do is have someone take the grill out fit a panel to the back of it that closes it off. And then put the ceiling grill back in, but of course it won't be leaking air because you've sealed it from behind, so when you look up you'll still see it there, but it's not open to anything. So that I think that's the answer to it, is to take the grill out, patch it and then put it back in and then that will seal it.
Good luck with that.
And I mean the other option is with all of these things, is if that's been the advice of one contractor, might pay to get another contractor and to see whether their advice is similar, maybe, especially in terms of replacement. You know, with the gross respect to whoever you've got what you don't want. Is someone turning up going, oh no, sorry, mate, I can't fix it. I've got to give you a new one, whereas someone else might turn up and go, ah, yeah,
we can still get those parts. We'll just replace it and keep your existing system. Although you know, again it is fair to say these systems.
Will wear out over time.
So if their advice is that it's it's come to the end of its useful life and it needs to be replaced, then that's what happens. It needs to be replaced. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call. Twenty three minutes after seven.
Doug, Good morning, morning, Pete.
Are you game?
Ray things very well?
Thank you very good?
Yeah?
Talk too old about the wooden joinery windows that I was repairing and painting and stuff.
How you're going yeah good, yeah, yeah.
So but we're looking at actually taking one set of windows out just to create a like a you know, like a TV wall or something, because in the living area it's got a lot of windows, an't it. Yes, And these windows actually on the south side, so probably maybe one point two by one point five window area. Can we actually take those out and frame it? And Gibbett and Marler without a consent? Yeah, was that structural?
Well no, I'm inclined to say that. I think that sort of work could be done without a building consent, right, because typically if we work the other way around, the requirement is that if you're putting a new opening into
an existing wall, that will require a building consent. If you're changing let's say, from a window to a door, so cutting out the framing below it, as long as you don't extend the width of the opening, you can do that without necessarily requiring a consent, and I guess going the other way going, I'm taking a window out and I'm going to fill it, and I'm going to essentially extend my existing cladding on the outside, which is what type of cladding on the outside.
Well, I think it is. It's a fiberlight. So we'll have to get it tested, obviously, get it tested.
But chances are you going to remove the exterior cladding to do the patch or are you just going.
To patch where the window was?
I thought maybe because it's not a big wall, probably only maybe four meters long.
Yes, so take the board off, Yeah, take the whole lot.
Off, and then insulate and then reclaid.
Okay, and lock.
To be fair, that's a much It'll give you a much better job than just it's okay to do a patch, But it will always look like a patch because you'll have two vertical rows of soakas on the on the cladding on the outside, right, which is a little bit obvious. And yes, if it's sensible to have that tested and then take the appropriate caution you know, precautionary measures. But again, and even that like essentially a small part of recladding, minor repairs like that can be done without getting a
building consent. What I would suggest you do is keep a record of what you've done. So let's say when you take the window out, photograph the opening showing the lintel there, do the framing. Photograph that if you've taken some cladding off and added some building paper and some insulation before you you know, close it in, basically before you cover anything, photograph it. And then you could write a brief summary of the type of work that you've done,
the materials that you've used. And then if later on someone says, oh, hang on the ust to be a window there, I wonder what they've done, you provide evidence. It's in terms of like I went and had a look at a house the other day and the owners had been really meticulous with keeping records, and so they had a set of plans available. They had, you know, copies of records from all of the subcontractors who'd been there. They had warranty documents. They had basically instruction manuals for
most of the components. So if it had ventilation, if it had a heating system and that sort of thing, all of that was available in a box sitting on the breakfast bar and anyone who was coming to look at the house could look through all of that information. So that's the sort of thing that I would really
encourage people to do. All of us as homeowners, keep all of that information, have it available, in your instance, a visual record with a couple of notes, and then if someone looks at it later on goes what did they do, you can tell them it's great.
And so also quick on what's the law on asbesta? So you're allowed to remove so many square meters yourself?
Yeah, And I'll be a bit cautious around the advice here. Technically my understanding is that as a homeowner, you can remove ten square meters yourself, right, But if you do the work, you still have to do it in accordance with best practice. Right, So you're going to have to become familiar with what the precautions are where you're going
to take it is really important. So please don't be that person, and I know you won't be who sneaks it into the bottom of the trailer, goes to their local transfer center and tips it out and then they discover that someone snuck in and dumped a bit of asbestos in their load. So what you'll typically have to do is, you know, isolate the area, make sure that you're wearing the right ppe.
There's a really.
Straightforward technique that that often the professionals will use where they'll use like a diluted PVA spray and they'll spray the surface of the area before they start work with this PVA. And what that does is if you happen to break aboard taking it off fibers, some of those fibers will then just get stuck onto the PVA right so, and then typically black plastic double bagged into black pastick
and then removed taken safely to an appropriate site. It might be a local contractor who will accept it for a small charge, or you find a specific tip site for it and take it directly there. But it's it's all about stopping the fibers becoming airborne. Yep, okay, all the best makes will be safe. Take care, nice to talk with you, do good on you mate. By way your news talk said b O Weight one hundred eighty ten eighty the number to call recommendations. I'll come back
to that a little bit. I'll read this out only because it's fair to do it. I've listened to your program for several years, and you have consistently come across with a jaundiced view reinjectible insulation on brick homes. Given it has been installed in thousands of homes with consents issued, there is either a bunch of suckers as owners or the system has proven successful. Suggest you smell the roses and start speaking for the product as a proven alternative.
There have been other instances that suggest that you are stuck with that go in an old paradigm. I think that it is right to be cautious. I have seen myself with my own eyes injected systems that have promoted mold growth and decay. Right, So I'm not jaundiced. I'm realistic. But I also accept the fact that systems have changed and improved, and many of the systems have brand's appraisal.
For example, so you can get a building consent for the sort of work and the I suppose the challenges or the issues that can be created by filling in. In this case, the gap that typically allows bricks to ventilate and drain can be addressed. But I always advise caution and due diligence, and if that's jaundice, then it's jaundice. But I am after protecting homeowners as well. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty the number to call Wendy.
Hello there, Hello Peter.
I'm all for caution too.
He's not reason.
Yeah.
Well, I've listened to your program for years and you did give me some help some years ago. But this is regards to another property. After listening about the sealing of roofs, I think it was suggested that you deal with somebody who is a member of the roofing Association. So I contacted a person, spoke to a person who said they could look at the job. They have their own scaffolding, they have their own trades, people for rotting wood in the windows, and I'm painting people who could
do under the thieves and everything. Well, that turned to custard. I didn't hear back from them, and this is quite a while ago now, and then spoke to somebody else who had my phone number, but not all the information that was discussed was the person, And so I've sort of lost faces to whether they do the job, because they implied if I don't do something very quickly, they may not be in a position to do anything. And
they haven't even seen the job. So I'd like to know are there any body and renovation type companies that could take on the organizing of getting the painting the room thing probably used spouting and things done because I'm not an organ the property is an orkran and I'm just blindsided by not being able to get to get a quote. Can you recommend in my email even or something who I call contact for something honest and trustworthy?
Yeh a further output.
Now, yeah, I'll hand you back to Isaiah, and if you leave a telephone number or best an email, I'm happy to suggest one or two people who might be able to project manage that, because yeah, that's what I need.
A project manager, but a trustworthy one because my luck seems to be I'm not going to get anywhere with you know, and I don't know who to contact. So now I'm calling out for.
Help to you.
We'll see what we can do. You stay on the line with all the best to you than you take care. Someone's just text going just about Harry, who's talking about the ceiling panel? Wasn't it tis call? The caller talking about the central heating system wanting to leave an access panel the manhole in place without having to restore the ceiling,
which I think I got confused as a event. Yeah, if it's an access panel, you need to leave the access panel there, right, You still need to provide access to your roof space, regardless of making some changes to that. So if that was the confusion, Yeah, it needs to stay there. Eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call.
Steve. I see you text, I will disagree with you. We'll leave it at that.
Eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call. It is coming up twenty six minutes away from eight o'clock.
Helping you get those DIY projects done right.
The resident builder with Peter Wolfcat call Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty Youth Talk ZB So.
I spent a bit of time on Friday at the New Zealand Certified Builders Conference and hung out with the guys from Razine Construction. Lots of interest, lots of people talking about Integra and that, but a lot of interest in a new product, Microstone, and Mike tell us a little bit more about this new part of the Razine Construction range called Microstone.
Thanks Pete. An amazing new product in terms of many people would have heard of a micro cement. So micro cement products are very very hard and very durable, and they're very very thin as well. So if you're looking at renovation works or benchtops, this product is mixed. It's a two component, it's a dry powder with a high
performance aylic special technology. We've actually got the tech to the point where we can now include raisine colors into the particular product, so you're not just limited to a light gray for example, as people would probably imagine a micro cement being that. We use a white cement as well, so we can actually get the correct base of doing colorance. So recently we did a project, obviously a project for
yourself there peak to a table. We just did a new big outdoor table and s barbecue area out in Karaka, and we're working on some projects in terms of some flooring coming up in the next couple of weeks. So it's a very very thin product that's crowd applied two coats onto bench tops, walls, floors, and we put some sealers on it to protect it and make it clean, and there's a few different effects that people can achieve
as well. But yeah, it's a fantastic new product available to update or even be included into new projects to give it a more modern, monolithic, continuous sort of look and feel, you know. So, for example, imagine doing a bench top and you could make it out of an integral light way concrete and you can install that and then have it rendered and a selected color. You're not limited to maybe five or six colors. You can match it to your own daycore and it's.
The coloring that changes. It doesn't in the sense that you know, like you say, normally, if we're doing renders, we're looking at something that's a gray, semontitious type appearance. But if you wanted a light green or a light brown or a off white, and that's all of these things was suddenly available.
Yeah, absolutely absolutely so. You have a look at our website just as a post up on Facebook as well, but a wide range of information on our website was in construction dot co dot nz. You keep an eye out on the Instagram page as well because there'll be some projects and stuff coming up on there.
Excellent, much appreciated, Mike, all the best, take care, thank you, and if you want to see sort of the transformation that we did, this was actually a concrete table that I built shivers. When was it two thousand and six, two thousand and seven, So I built it while we're doing a big house that had a lot of concrete, so the little bit left over went into a form work.
I built a sort of outdoor table lugged around the back of my place that sat there for the last eighteen years, basically getting more and more worn and distressed. And then Mike and the guys came a little while ago. I cleaned it and put a seiler coat or an adhesion primer onto it, then two coats of the microstone in a color that I'd selected, which happened to look a lot like concrete, and then a clear seiler over
the top. And the transformation from what was old weather pitted kind of you know, concrete that was that was starting to lose its adhesion to a new surface, which I can't wait for summer to use.
It is quite cool.
There's videos of that up on my Facebook page as well if you want to have a look for it. So microstone really good solution for in that instance, refurbishing existing concrete new concrete.
Floors, walls. Have check it out.
Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call. We're also talking with Matt from Brands about that survey that came out about two weeks ago. It was in the paper last week or an online last week. I know Kerry was talking about it on talkback during the day last week. Quite interesting detail around who gets called back in terms of trades sort of for what reason?
And then a satisfaction survey, how you, as a homeowner of a new building feel about your the trades people, particularly your builder, and are you likely to recommend them? And it seems like that number is going down, so why we'll find out from one of the researchers and authors of the report in the next hour. We'll take a short break. We'll talk to Stephanie in just a moment measured voice.
Yeah, it was, but maybe call Pete first for your Workcab the Resident Builder News Talk said, be.
I just just quickly checked my own Facebook page and yes, the video for the microstone is there. It doesn't hit you long to find it. So if you want to see what a transformation looks like, check out that video with the microstone on my own resident Builder Facebook page.
Right seven forty five. Steph and are you. Good morning to you.
Hello Peter, good morning.
Thank you, thank you. So my question to you is, my parents own a two story townhouse with an attached garage and it's it's stucco stucco walls. Now the house has got a forty five degree pitch and the garage has got a thirty degree pitch. Now they've discovered a leak and the leak is running into the toilet which is in the garage. So my husband and I went around and put on a sea lmpka at I think
to try on the breeder pipe. They have a breeder pipe to see that without Now, unfortunately we've had a lot of rain and the leak has reappeared. So I just wondered, Oh, and the leak, just to tell you, is running. The water is running down inside the stud walls, onto the window sill of the window in the garage toilet, and onto the floor. Just wondered if you had any suggestions.
We were thinking, just what a suggestion we thought when the range stops, maybe running a hose pipe to see where we can see the leak, because unfortunately the roof hasn't got a man hole, so because it's a tiny area you can't get anybody in there.
Yeah, sure to see where you have any the suggestions or.
I think you're certainly on the right track. So when I've tried, you know, if it's not obvious to see, and maybe you need to get a roof or a plumber to come and have a look, and they might identify that there's an issue with a flashing or a junction or something that's come loose. The other challenge sometimes is a you know, water typically runs downhill, but where
it starts might be further than where you expect. But and certainly on a number of occasions, I've done exactly what you're you're thinking about, which is wait for a
dry day, get a hose. Don't I always put like a shower hour fitting on it, you know, so not not a direct stream of water, but something that feels a bit more like rain, natural rain, And then work your way up to the area that it's coming from, so be a bit methodical, and then see if you can create the leak and that will narrow down potentially the area where the water is actually entering the building, and then you can address it from there. It just
confirms what you might be thinking. So yes, that is a good approach, but like I said, one of the issues is sometimes that you know, a leak that will appear in one area will actually start its journey much further away. So it might be the junction between the roof of the garage and the cladding of the two story house. If there's a junction there, does it rain? Does it leak when it rains or does it leak when it rains and there's a strong wind.
Probably both. And we've had a lot of grain here and chroschets over the last couple of days as well. Yeah, we did, sorry to interrupt the ceilant we've got the celant had words because Mum said, oh great, and we've had this torrential right and it started again. So that's just we were sort of doing process of elimination. And I know you're on on a Sunday.
Great question.
Look, have a go at the hose technique right to try and identify where the water is actually coming from. But again it might be that you just hand it over to you know, a roof or a plumber who's experienced and who you can trust, and they'll come and do an assessment of the roof and find that area. It doesn't sound like the roof in general is at the end of its serviceable life. So it's going to be a repair, a targeted repair that should be able to sort it out.
Actually, that's my next question. Would would you think perhaps that could be a claim one?
Sure or not?
Only if there's some sort of damage, right, so let's see the wind blew and something got ripped off the roof. I mean, talk to your insurer by all means.
But typically that's what it is. General wear.
The common phrase from insurers is gradual damage isn't covered, right, So a roof that is seventy years old and leaks, they're not going to cover that.
No, that's all right, Okay, okay, today.
My pleasure.
Thanks, take care then all of this, thank you your news talk said b Remember we've got climb passed as always at eight thirty, which is what forty minutes away, So if you've got any gardening or entomological questions, of course you can you can bail rid up online eight hundred and eighty ten eighty at that time. Right now we're taking your calls talking building Dulie. Good morning to you, Hi.
I was just wanting to know the name of the products you spoke about last week, just Seela Royce.
Yes, now I used to yeah injuris e in d u R I S.
Do you?
I thank you very much.
So where I used it was like a flat roof, so you think of a classic sort of brick and tile unit and often at the back they've got a little jutty outbit with a laundry in it or a back porch, and that had a flat standing scene roof. I've coded it with all sorts of things over the years, just to try and eek out another couple of years. And I went and applied this the other day and it seems to have worked.
So there you go.
Ok, thank you all the very best.
You take care all the best and Graham, a very good morning to you. Good Graham, Hi Bete. How are you very well? Thank you and yourself?
Yeah, good things but cold? Inquiring about double glazing.
Yes, without heat.
You wake up in the morning and your rooms rather cold. Your head double glazing and we've been touring with putting it in. Would you notice a difference.
I think you would. I'll declare an interest for many years now. I think it's coming up to almost ten years I've acted as a brand ambassador for Metro Performance Glass who do retrofit double or they do double glazing, and especially retrofit double glazing, and so over that time, you know, I've spent a lot of time reading and
listening to experts on this. So one of the simplest numbers is if you imagine a single pane of let's say three millimeter glass, right that has an insulation value at around.
Let's call it, I should get.
The numbers, but it will be about point one of an insulation value. A double glazed unit will have about point nine. So it's almost ten times more effective at insulating than a single glazed unit, right. So and then that's like you can look at the data. It's independent. This is just what happens in terms of heat transfer. So heat transfer through a piece of single glazing versus heat transfer through good quality double glazing is dramatically different.
And where it becomes really important is often we talk about the concept of a thermal envelope. Right, So, in order to in winter keep warmth in inside our building, we want to look at where the heat leaks out of the building. So if we've got concrete slab, which has some heat loss but not much. Or if we've got a timber floor, we can insulate the underside of it, we can insulate the roof space, we can insulate the walls. And then often the last week spot in that thermal
envelope is often the single glazing. So if you can retrofit that single glazing with double glazing, you reduce the amount of heat transfer through the glass. It's just really simple science.
Is there any point in Justine starting Orf putting double glazing in the cold side of the house.
I think that's a perfectly acceptable solution, you know, Like again, in a perfect world you'd go, I want to double gloze everything, but in reality, you know, had the bits where you really have got the challenge first. Right, So if you've got south side of the house maybe, or some bedrooms that are particularly cold at night, and again there's a huge body of research around what happens when we as human beings live in cold, damp conditions. Right,
the health impact is significant. So keeping a bedroom at a modest temperature. I'm not talking about sweltering hot or anything like that, but if you know, particularly with young children or maybe older adults, that sort of thing if it gets too cold, you're going to basically get sick, right, So yeah, I think if you went, hey, look these couple of rooms, I need to make sure that I can keep my temperature at a reasonable level and stay
warm over winter. Target the double glazing in there absolutely m m yep.
Well thanks for you.
Yeah, so you can be quite selective as to where you do it. Yeah, yeah, oh thanks very much, my pleasure. Really nice to talk to you and all the best. Graham you take care day, you too, mate, Bob O. Then Jonathan, I think we'll speak with after the news. Steve's comment about the brand's appraisal and products leaky buildings had brands appraise products and systems shouldn't have been allowed.
I don't think you're completely right. I think that many of the changes that happened that occurred that ended up producing and it's a vast collection of combination of elements in order to cause the leaky building crime has came from changes to building code which didn't come from brands. So yeah, I think a slightly more nuanced, nuanced approach hand the roof leak over to someone. Even if you make it leak with a hose, you don't know what you're looking at. Finding the leak is a highly skilled
part ceiling. It's the easy but old plumber leakfinder extraordinary. I hear what you're saying. I did say that in the end you may need to hand that job over to a professional. But at the same time, if it's kind of straightforward and it helps you identify the fact that maybe a fastener has come loose and a flashing is flapping around and you can put a fastener back in there, then have a go. But I agree it can be quite complex. Pete, I'm replacing an outdoor light.
The wires too short and stiff to fit into new light. Can I attach a more flexible extension of why? Look, I think that sort of work should be done by registered our electrician. All right, you know, making a heat shrink or doing some sort of fitting, you know, extension to an existing wire. Hand that over to the professionals. I am all for people doing it for yourself, but I'm also all four people not inadvertently burning their house down,
So I would hand that over. Condensation on window sills, Yeah, you'll get condensation on window sills if you've got conventional aluminium joinery so the heat transfer that used to go out through the glass and goes out through the aluminium. We can talk about that after the News, Sport and Weather at eight o'clock.
Doing on the house, storting the garden.
Asked Pete for a hand the resident builder with Peter Wolfcap call eight hundred.
Eighty eight News Talks Edbar News talks'd be.
We're going to be talking with Matt Curtis, senior economist at Brands about this sort of satisfaction survey that came out recently, because I found this sort of headlines quite interesting. You know, fifty percent of people want to call back their plumber, forty five percent of people call back their builder on new built, you know, what's the defix, what's the scope of it? And according to the survey, why are owners of new builds less likely to recommend the
builder now than they were back in twenty seventeen. So we'll take a deep dive into that with Matt Curtis from Brands. Shortly, Jonathan Helplow.
Ok, I've got built, Yeah, good morning.
I've got a villa and sort of the rear the villa like a washroom, but in the washroom a shower and a toilet, and I was thinking, I'm blocking off the door. It's like a do to the back guard and the blocking off just a you know, it's getting a bit older, a bit motten, and sure it's a bit so. I heard a call before from somebody was going to block a window off in his wall.
I was a bit concerned.
Do I need a consent to actually blow a back door off?
I wouldn't in that situation.
I don't think you need a consent for that.
Right, So you're you're going to take out a door, You're going to patch, you know, your weatherboards or replace the weather the boards just in that small section. I think you can do that work without necessarily having a building consent.
It's low risk, you know.
And I mean it's it's not like, well, let's assume that there are other points of exit exit from the building, so it's not that ye, so in terms of, you know, having to escape in an emergency, you're not reducing that.
It's low risk. Yeah.
I think you can do that sort of thing without fun. You know, obviously, if you wanted to go the other way. Let's say you had a wall and you thought, gee, i'd really like to have a door right there. That sort of thing would require a building consent.
But you're going the other way. You'll be fine. Go for it, mate.
I got to love those old houses all right, all the best.
Actually I was doing.
I was looking through a house the other day and I could from there, I could look across to friends of ours house, and it's an old villa, and we moan and groan about all of the work that you have to do on old house and villas all of the time. And as it happened that the gable end, I could see the gable end from quite an elevated position, lock down and see all the lichen that was growing on the coverboard of the gable end of my mate's house. So I took a photograph of at, texted to him
and went work today. He said, don't worry, I already booked the scaffolding for September. I'm all over it, which is awesome. Right, we're going to take a break then we're going to be talking with Matt Curtis from Brands about the satisfaction survey.
Whether you're painting the ceiling, fixing the Feds, or wondering how to fix that hole in the wall. Give Peter wolf capercall on eighty the resident builder on NEWSTALGSB.
An article that caught my eye a couple of days ago was it appeared in the Herald online that was building sector insight, which trades have to come back and fix things the most on New Zealand homes And then it had a bit of a chart there talking about basically about eighty eight percent of people surveyed said that they needed to get their trades person And it goes into some detail.
So what does that mean? Because at a.
Top level you could kind of look at it and go, we're not doing a great job with our building. So who better to talk to than Matt from Brands who's been part of the research.
Thanks very much for.
Your time, Thanks for inviting me.
Now again I'm looking at this. I'm looking at the chart and it goes and this is callbacks for defect repair after first occupancy and I presume this is New Belts, right, and so fifty percent of cases painters are called back. In terms of you having undertaken the research, what are we talking about here, Like, what's the scope of the type of work that a painter might be called back for?
Yeah, a lot of the stuff that a painter is generally called back for, it's quite minor. Some of it's not even related to the painters work themselves. There might be some chips from subsequent traces have come through, or as part of the moving process, someone might have knocked the wall also come back. When the house is settled a bit, there might be some cracks appearing, typically rusby minor for a painter.
Okay, carpenters, that's my lot are in there at forty five percent. Again, is this the sort of thing where or in the survey are people talking about, Gosh, the door is sticking a little bit right and so it might need to be eased or adjusted, or the strike of plate adjustice or are we talking about someone moving to the house and then uncovering a significant structural issue. What's the scope of that sort of callback work.
Yeah, again, in general, we're talking about needing to do some minor adjustments to adore generally not doing any invasive type testing to see the structure of the house. So it's unlikely it would be anything significant to do with the structure, but it can be a few things that just picked up that just again, as the house settles. As someone starts to operate that house, these things can come up.
Just going through the list. The next two interesting from my point of view. The plumber and electrician both around the same, so thirty twenty nine percent, but interestingly enough, in terms of product related it's a much higher number. It's the greatest percentage. So twelve percent of plumber callbacks relate to product defects and for electricians it's fifteen percent.
So what does that? What are people reporting?
There?
Is this a plumbing fitting that's failed or isn't working properly, a light, for example, that keeps going out? Is that the sort of thing people are talking about, or.
Even a life's workshap doesn't seem to be operating as expected. Again, relatively minor staff where it's a product. Now that the building has been commissioned, now that that homeowner is starting to actually operate the thing, things just aren't working quite as expected.
Right.
And then as we go a little bit further down the list, I was looking at roofers. Eighteen percent right of respondents said that they needed to get the roof for back, and at first I was thinking that's not great, you know, really, if we're doing roofing. That should be it. It's done and it's sorted. But again, what's the actual type of callbacks that you're getting?
What's the range?
A lot of it can be due due to some face scratches on some of the roofing tiles or the corrigand iron for example, or to see occasionally incorrect screw patterns or the screw's not being put placed correctly. Yes, but it's all relatively varied. E free respondent seems to have a slightly different type of defect or response to that defect, or even a description of what that defect is to them.
Okay, So again it might not be like I was thinking, Gee, is it the sort of thing where a flashing hasn't been correctly installed it's blown off in the first wind.
We will see a couple of incidents of something like a flashing being incorrectly installed or some leaking, very rare that it's something that's that sort of level of seriousness.
Right, Okay, So after the survey is undertaken, so the survey participants are people who have elected to do the survey, they've had a new build, they've got to prove that they've got a building consent, so they've definitely done a new build. And then once the survey's completed, you were saying that you've had an opportunity to sit down, like in a focus group and have a discussion. Is what you're learning from people in that setting a little bit different to what you might get on the survey.
Yes, so we do find that their experience as the represented on the survey form can differ from how they've represented in person. What we sometimes find is that actually those people who have suggested that they've had a bad experience in the survey have had quite a good experience. Competitors who might have thought that their builder actually had
did quite a good job. It's just quite interesting when you have that personal perspective and that one or one or group setting versus what you might get from a survey and just what they're willing to say or how they represent that build and the process.
And in that focus group we were chatting before, and you have an insight where people perhaps that have built before have a better relationship or they have a better interaction with their builder. So is there something about if it's your first time working with tradespeople, maybe your experience
is not as good because you have different expectations. Or is it something that if you're a bit more experienced of working with trades people, you know how to build that relationship and you get a better outcome.
Do you have any insights there?
I think that while we can cut we can see well in the data is that communication is very important to how a build process goes. And that's both ways. So perhaps if you've built before, you understand the level of communication that you need or how to communicate with your trades people on site, you've set clearer expectations, but also you have better expectations of the bill process and things just seem to run that little bit smoother, right.
I guess the thing that I often hear in terms of frustration from a client, from a own home owner engaging with a contractor, is they don't seem to be able to answer my phone call or they don't reply to emails. Is that something that came through in the focus group or in the survey.
No, but we have done some research in this area in the past. But really from that builder point of view of how do you set those expectations right? What are my work hours?
Should I?
Okay?
Is it fear that you expect me to answer emails or phone calls outside of those work hours. And I think what sort of poses a bit of an issue in this space is that often homeowners will go visit the site outside of their work hours, right, and then spotter shows and expect the builder to respond sort of that night, And really that's the time for the builder to get away from the job site and have their
own personal time. So again it's just setting those expectations about when you can be contacted, how's the best form to contact them, and when they can expect a response.
How interesting. Further down in the article online, it talked about homeowner's satisfaction in terms of whether they would rate the overall quality of their home as good, so essentially rating their builder. Going back to twenty seventeen, eighty nine percent rated their builder on the overall quality as good. In twenty twenty three, the most recently surveyed year, this
has dropped to eighty one percent. So and there's been a signals and there's been a similar sort of size drop in terms of new homeowners who were likely to recommend their builder. So, if you're built in twenty seventeen, seventy percent of people would have recommended their builder maybe to a friend who's looking for a chippy. By twenty twenty three, that are dropped to sixty one percent. What are the insights there? What do you think is happening there?
Yes, I think that as the industry has got more busy, it's been harder to keep on top of things, I suppose, so I we'll see defects slipping in trades, having trouble coming back to repair that defect as they've moved on to their next job, so it's hard to find that time and their workday. But also what we see is that from an overall quality point of view, it's not like we've seen a major uptick and those who have rated their builder for so the overall quality right is
getting significantly worse. It's just not quite getting rated as well as it was before.
I'm just wondering whether, if, like the survey, is this the sort of survey that you would undertake every five to six years or so. And I'm curious about whether or not in five years time, given that we're in a time where the industry is not particularly busy, where chances are if you're self employed running your own business you're answering the phone, you're chasing work You're wanting to make a really really good impression whether we might see that number and the next survey go up.
Yeah.
So this is an important time series for us, right. I think we've been running it now since about twenty eleven yep, so we've really seen that uptick through to late twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two when the industry
was really busy yep, So we've seen upswing. What we're really interested in now is how as workloads aise, how do some of these things respond those measures that we'd like to crack so we can see to what extent this is impacted by workloads versus just not more things going on in the industry.
Sure, I want to spring this on you.
If you were to give advice from the insights that you've gained from this type of survey, If you were to give a piece of advice to a homeowner about how to interact with their builder, and to a builder about or a trades person about how to interact with maybe a new client, what would those two pieces of advice be.
One and the same, just communication and setting those what you understand and what you need from each other from the outset. I think being very clear and upfront early on will ensure the best for both parties. If I'm a homeowner and I want to be quite actively involved, making sure that I can set up a regular time with my builder to have a walk through absite, for example, so that the builder can explain things to me as we're going through. That's something that can actually help both
sides control what's going on. The builder is there to answer any questions at the time, Yes, we were aware of that defect, that's something that we're currently fixing, or we've done it this way because of these reasons, being on site with them when they're on site is incredibly helpful for a builder. And then from that builder point of view, here's how you correct me, Here's when you contact me, here's when you can expect that response from me.
That will again it sets clear boundaries and allows you to actually enjoy life outside of your building.
Right right.
Oh, that's a fantastic insight.
Matt.
Thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate it. I think you know, from I suppose someone who's been the industry for a while, it's kind of interesting to see some real data around how people perceive us, and perhaps there's some learnings there for trades people to go. I think your advice is really sound. It's all about communication. I know, it's you know, sometimes the phone rings and
it's the client on the line. You just think, I just don't want to know, But answer the phone, take the call, and if there's a mistake, go and sort it out.
Yeah, I mean, it definitely helps you have that better relationship and helps you actually get that recommendation at the end. Right, we do know that a whole lot of our builders actually really rely on those recommendations. The future work as incredible when we undertake these surveys of the building industry of how you actually obtain your work. Just to share proportion that say, actually, most of my job is secured via word of mouth.
Yes, yeah, yep.
And you build up a good reputation as a trades person by often being responsive. Right, So if something's wrong, go and fix it, and people will you know, most people will accept the fact that. I guess I've always had that phrase that the only people who don't make mistakes are those that make nothing right. So if as trades people were in the business of making something. Then every now and then I'm going to make a mistake
and we're just there. If we're there to fix it, people will really appreciate that.
Yeah.
And in addition, I think what we see through it as data is that defects on site doesn't seem to be something that's sort of a killer for recommendations right right. It doesn't seem to actually impact how likely you are to be recommended. What actually matters is how low you've communicated, how quickly you came back to repair defects after occupancy or when they've been raised. Those are the things that actually matter, Yeah, not whether defects have occurred or not.
Fantastic, some tremendous insights. I really got quite a lot out of reading the report. I've had a look at some of the stuff online on the brand's website. And again, thank you for your time today. I really really appreciate it.
Thank you, Pie Pleasure take care news talks there'd be.
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