Full Show Podcast: 11 May 2025

my producer, is way further away. And the reason that I've moved over here is that I have a guest coming into the studio this morning from around seven thirty for a good chunk of time because we've got a

lot to talk about. And so my guest in the studio after seven thirty is going to be the Minister for Building and Construction, Chris Pink, who some time ago when we chatted, we talked about the possibility of doing an in person interview over a slightly longer period of time that would also allow you to send in questions, whether that's by text or probably some calls as well, and he very gratefully said that he would or I was grateful, and so Chris Pink, the Minister for Building

and Construction, will join me in the studio from around seven thirty onwards. Before then, of course, right now, and when I say right now, I mean like right right now, because the lines are open. You can call and we can talk all things building and construction. It's eight hundred and eighty ten eighty. It's nine to nine two for the text that zedbzb from your mobile phone. Remember there is a small fee for that. And if you'd like to send me an email, it's Pete at Newstalk zedb

dot co dot NZ. So I trust you had a good week For those in the sort of upper part of the North Island, Auckland in particular, on Friday, we were reminded again seemingly of the need to build in terms of climate resistance or resilience. Rather, I wasn't in Auckland on Friday. I happen to be actually in Wellington on Friday, but I saw some video images and certainly I talked to the family and at the skies opened up,

a bucketed down. There was not extensive flooding, but there was certainly localized flooding and considerable disruption, it seems, and it feels like we all know this now that these sorts of weather events are more and more common. There used to be a definition or there still is, around a one and one hundred year flood event. And I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before. You know, I've probably been

experienced maybe five or six of those. And while I am getting older, and I'm older this week than I was last week, you know, these sorts of events are happening over and over and over again, and we're going to have to deal with it in terms of where we put our houses, how we build them, how we do infrastructure and so on. So happy to talk about that. I would also like to think, as a result of my one of my trips during the course of the week, that I bring a bit of a new insight into

a couple of things. I had the opportunity on Friday to go and visit Brands, the Building Research Association of New Zealand. They are based in a fairly large sort of compound north of Wellington in Upper Hut and I had an invitation from their general manager of research to

come and have a look through. That's Chris Litton. They were incredibly generous with their time and I really do sort of publicly want to acknowledge them for their hospitality, for the welcome, for sort of arranging for me to speak to different experts in different fields, to go for a tour of their facilities which are extensive and have been expanded rapidly in order for them to do even better testing on things that are really really important, like

for example, and I was listening to Kerry actually talking with the fens of public relations person about lithium mion batteries. What happens when there's a fire. And there's a brand new fire testing laboratory that's been developed at Brands that will allow testing of entire buildings, like a small building, not just you know, one part of it, but an

entire building. It will allow testing of facades up to three stories and allow testing in various furnaces as to see what happens when fire strikes and the impact of fire spread and fire penetrations, and what type of sealance work. So I you know, I like talking about building stuff. I like talking about the technicalities of building stuff. And in one we went to the structural lab and this is one for all of the tradees who might be listening.

You know, if you've ever done if you've used plaster boarders bracing, you know that there's a pattern right how you're supposed to fix the do the fastness. So typically it's in from the corner fifty mil then fifty fifty to fifty seventy five, seventy five, then one fifty around the perimeter. You've got to make sure that your fixings are at least twelve millimeters in from the perimeter, etc. Etc.

And then depending on what type of bracing it is, it'll have just the fixings with standard plaster board, it'll have the standard plaster board plus a hole down, et cetera, etc. And as it happened when I was there in the lab, they were testing a full sized sheet of plasterboard. I think it was to board. I'm pretty sure that had been nailed off as per a GS one, so the kind of lowest type of bracing without the hold downs.

And so this wall was set up on a rig and they had a ram that was attached to the top of it that they could rack the whole thing back and forth as if it was experiencing seismic movement due to an earthquake, and then watching it essentially move, and I guess they test sometimes to destruction as well.

So I found it fascinating. And again my thanks to the team at Brands for a very very warm, welcome, pretty miserable day and Wellington on Friday, but exceptionally beautiful day on Saturday at the Better Home and Living Show, which is still on today. Right, Oh, give me a call if you've got a question of a building nature. The lines are open. Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty we can talk. I think at this time of year,

maintenance is really really important. Maintenance is always important. But hopefully you've done your maintenance and you're ready for the winter, whether that's the wind, whether that's the rain, whether that's the cold that's coming. Hopefully you've done some stuff to prepare the house and get ready for winter. But if you need some help with that and I can offer

some advice, well that'll be great. Eight hundred eighty ten eighty is that number to call if again, just sort of stepping forward a little bit, so the Minister for Building and Construction, Chris Pink will be in the studio. So if you've got if we're going to take questions,

it's going to be very very specific one. So the reason I wanted to get the Minister in in my presentation in Wellington yesterday around trying to sort of look at and provide some insight into the quite extensive changes that are proposed for the regulations that control what we

can build and where we can build and how we build. So, whether that's remote inspections, whether it's the wind back or the changes to H one, which is the part of the Building Code that deals with energy efficiency and insulation in particular, whether it's self certification for builders that's been in the news a fair amount recently, whether it's the introduction of legislation that might see granny flats up to seventy square meters being able to be built without necessarily

requiring a building consent, toughening rules about LBPS and sort of trying to clamp down on lbp's licensed building practitioners who don't perform particularly well. That's out there as well. There's a whole host of regulatory and legislative changes that are being talked about that relates specifically to building and construction in New Zealand. So we'll take a deep dive into that in the next hour of the show, but right now the lines are open. The opportunity is yours

to talk all things building and construction. If you've got a project that's underway, I know, spend a bit of time in Wellington the Home Show yesterday, chatting with people about the various sort of dilemmas, challenges, problems that they might have in terms of, you know, remediation after a flood, for example, or what choices do I make around the type of joinery that I might be installing. All of these sorts of things. There's just so much to talk about,

so I'll stop, you can start. The lines are open. The number to call eight hundred eighty ten eighty call me out a squeaky.

be fair, it's a fairly wide topic. So if there's anything that is going on that you're unsure about, I listened with some interest. Funnily enough, on my sort of list of topics to discuss or to take a bit of a deep dive into, was lithium ion batteries and looking after them safely and on the Obviously, during the course of the week, Kerry reached out to FENS, which is far in an emergency in New Zealand, to talk

to one of their experts about it. So I was listening to that interview in the little segment at the end of Jim's show that has highlights from Kerry's show and so on, so that that's been covered off, but I was the reason I wanted to raise it is that I guess for most of us who are either tradespeople or if you are doing an extensive amount of DIYF you're doing a fair amount of work at home, chances are you've got a number of cordless tools. Now,

obviously if they're cordless, they're running on a battery. A significant number of those batteries would be lithium iron batteries with kind of most power tool brands now have moved to lithumi and iron batteries, and I was trying to do a bit of a calculation in my head the other day when I was thinking about this about like how many batteries I would actually have in terms of just for tools, and I think I got to close to twenty odd. I would say it possibly is a

bit more than that. Some of those will be in the back of the ute with the kit that I keep in the back of the ute for when I'm working offsite. Then I've got a setup in the workshop as well, a couple of different brands of power tools. I've got you know, drills and drivers and skill saws and blowers and torches and routers and inflators and what else. There's quite an extensive range of bits and pieces with

sort of the heavier batteries in them. Then there's you know, some of the nail guns have a slightly smaller, more compact battery. Then I've still got some old ten vault stuff that hasn't a small battery as well. I use that quite a bit this week as I was trying

to sand up ballasters and things like that. And every now and then you hear stories about with your mind batteries bursting into flame, often while something else is going, you know, like a battery in good condition, stored on a flat surface, away from a heat source and so on, seems to be fairly low risk of sort of spontaneous combustion.

But I must after reading a couple of stories this is like a year year and a half ago, about a battery that just seemed to spontaneously combust I kind of went through and looked at where I stored batteries when they're not in use, looked at where I located charges for when I am charging the battery, and changed a few practices so the batteries aren't jumbled up like in a drawer or in a pile. They're all set out next to each other. I've moved them slightly so

they're in a slightly cooler part of the workshop. And I've certainly got into the habit of not leaving the battery on the charger for much longer than it needs to fully charge it. So even with lithium ion batteries, and even you know, like the charges that come with most professional cordless tools nowadays have a feature in them where they charge almost to completely charged, and then once they've reached that, they go on to a trickle charge.

They don't just keep charging at the same rate that they used to, which I'm sure is a safety device and prevents perhaps batteries sitting on a charger overnight, you know, ten or twelve hours and overheating at that time. I'm pretty sure that that's the case. But either way, I've tried to sort of not schedule. That sounds a bit pretentious, but I've tried to sort of if I am charging batteries while I'm in the workshop, i'll charge them while

I'm in the workshop. I've moved away from charging them, let's say overnight. If I finish at the end of the day and the battery's flat, generally i've got a spare, so I'll leave that one alone, and I'll put it on the charger the following day, and I turn the charges off overnight as well, so don't leave them on even without a battery in them. And I've noticed too that I've tried to move away from, Hopefully this is helpful to you. I've tried to move away from having

like taking the battery. When I've run the battery down, it's no longer turning the drill or the circular saw or the receip saw or the blower or the whatever tool that I'm using. Don't put it on the charger straight away. I leave it for a little while, let it kind of cool down, and then I put it

on the charger. So and also, look, if you've dropped your battery and there's a chip out of the corner, or you notice that it gets really hot when you're using it, then definitely, definitely, definitely basically get rid of it, but in the right way. I followed a I was heading up for a meeting a couple of weeks ago, and I noticed there was a rubbish truck general sort of council collections parked up in a little reserve with a lot of smoke coming out of the back of it.

I think there were a couple of fire engines there kind of observing at the stage. But obviously the driver had noticed that there was smoke coming out of the back of the truck, had pulled off to a safe area, and then as I went past there later on, that obviously tipped the truck up and tripped up the back, dropped everything on the ground, and that allowed the fire service to find the source of the fire and put it out. But you know, that was away from other people,

it was away from other buildings and so on. But these sorts of fires because people basically are lazy, right, will inconsiderate probably a combination of the two. And if they're lithium ion batteries of all shapes and sizes into general refuse where potentially they can be crushed and damage and start fires. So I think we do need to be just got to be better at how we dispose of them. And I have to say what I didn't realize listening to Kerries the repeat of Kerri's interview with

Fens is that vapes. Not that I vape, and I know very few people who do, but the vapes have liftium ion batteries in them, even the disposable ones, and I would say ninety nine percent of those will go on the rubbishmen. People are probably not taking those to an approved recycler for this safe disposal of those. Right here, we should talk about that. Oh eight, one hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call and Chris, good morning to you. It's Chris very well.

we're talking thousands of articles now right online. So I would just go to search for Brands and Build Magazine and you'll find an index of all of their articles. And look, I actually use their information a lot, and I use it quite a lot for presentations because they've got really good summaries of you know, the effectiveness of glazing or the benefits of ventilation and so on. So, yes, there is a lot of public information. It's basically what

they do. They're an educator. There are a lab and an educator.

double glazing is way more effective. In fact, if you get the right combination of double glazing and joinery, you can get almost ten times like it's nine point two or something like that, almost ten times the thermal performance out of a shift from single glaze to double glazed, which you know is a considerable saving. Right. We're not talking a small increment or saving in terms of energy efficiency, right, it is way more energy efficient. So your existing joinery.

It's aluminium, yes, it's am here, okay. And if it's a nineteen seventies house, it's probably getting towards sort of end of life in terms of the powder coat on the joinery will have diminished, the frames themselves will be moving a little bit, the hard ware will be moving. So then you've got a couple of options in terms of do you opt to stay with aluminium and go for double glazing as well. I suppose you could make the choice and go All I want to do is

the double glazing. What you might find is that most of those sashes are not suitable for retrofit. So whoever does the retrofit will need to make new sashes, and whether or not it's the right choice. Let's say to make a new sash to fit into an old frame, You'll have to do the numbers on that. I'm thinking that if you wanted to, and if you were prepared to invest in it, you'd pull the old frames out with the glazing in them and replace them with new frames.

Then you've got options there in terms of aluminium joinery or uPVC joinery, so you'd want to look at both of those. And then I guess, like the asbestos cladding that you think you've got on the proper, like if you have to cut into it or anything like that, you'd have to be super cautious around that. And I think if you were having to cut into it, you'd

probably go, this is my opportunity to remove it. But then that needs to be done by a licensed practitioner, let's say, not an LBP necessary, but someone who has a license and asbestos removal, and typically part of their process is that they do the work and then it's independently audited by an inspector who comes along make sure that the ground. You know that there's no contamination of

the ground, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So you know, what you're proposing is kind of going to be quite a bit of work.

that they haven't inadvertently contaminated the house. And I have heard a couple of stories where people have undertaken asbestos removal, in some cases without knowing that the material was asbestos will contained asbestos ACM, and then suddenly they've been made aware, They get someone into test and they find that the removal work has in fact contaminated large areas than just the work area. So, okay, look, it's I suppose it sounds like it's gone from what might have been a

quite small job. I've got to sort out my windows too. Now I am going to sort out my windows, which has got the benefit of being able to add double glazing. But now you've got work to do, you know, removing sections of cladding and replacing that with something that's that's more updated.

I was looking at a model the other day. You know, one of the things that unfortunately we've done kind of as a result of having moving from having direct fixed cladding to having cladding on cavities is that we ended up sort of pushing our windows out, and as we've moved to having double glazing, we end up with all of the insulation properties of the double blazing forty to fifty millimeters out from our framing line, which is where all of our insulation is for our wall insulation, and

that gap all the way around the perimeter of the window obviously is almost impossible to insulate. It's very, very difficult to insulate that. So the whole move to going, let's bring our glazing back in line with the building line, so the actual framing and the insulation that goes in it. That's a really like it seems like a simple fix. It's not always a simple fix, but it makes a radical difference to the actual thermal performance of the entire envelope.

So if you imagine the wall, you know, if you've got your windows hanging out from your building line, you've got that gap all the way around. So yeah, you've put the double glazing in, but the overall effectiveness of that wall in terms of its ability to keep you warm, is much diminished. So if you again have a look at the Stark website, there's recess fitting is really easily done on there. You bring the window in and you line up that and then it's easy err to insulate

around the perimeter as well. And I actually saw that on a job, a big retrofit job. So nineteen fifty's house that the owners have committed themselves to energy efficiency, they've taken out all of their old in fact, timber joiner excuse me, single glazed, took that out, replaced it with the new uPVC joinery, set it back in line, well sealed, well insulated around the perimeter. It'll be a radically different house to live in the future.

It was one of the interesting things and sort of I spent a bit of time during the week trying to look through all of the proposed changes, read press releases, and drill down into the detail, because in the end, the devil is always in the detail, right, How is this actually going to work, which part of which legislation works with other pieces of legislation, et cetera, et cetera. So if you're interested in it, and we should be

because it's going to change our built environment. You know, try and be as specific as you can with your text questions. Right, the lines are open eight hundred eighty ten eighty. We want to talk buildings retro fit, we want to talk double glazing, we want to talk the benefits of Actually this was I'll take a break. I

had when I was down at Brands. They had what looked like a fairly typical, not particularly high standard, you know, one hundred and twenty square meter fiber cment board, old aluminium jeweery, you know, the sort of typical house that you'd see in an average subdivision from forty or fifty years ago. And then they were looking at how that performs and what they can do to make it a

better house. And it was full size house was great. Anyway, we'll talk a little bit more about that after the break. If you'd like to join us, The lines are open. The number two call is eight hundred eighty ten eighty.

Obviously in his case it's older aluminium joinery which has served him well and probably being quite durable, but probably reaching end of life. It's got single glazed and it's it's an opportunity to upgrade the date the glazing from single glaze to double glaze, and then how it fits in it's into breckwork, which is a little sort of challenging but sort of not at the same time, and then issues with some old building materials around as well,

which is you know, most likely containing asbestos. So we've talked about asbestos a fair amount, and I just want to emphasize again but in most cases, left inert and on its own, the risk to health is realistically quite low. Where the risk occurs is when people don't realize that it is asbestos and start you know, using a whole saw for example, to cut in a down light or

add a vent for extraction or something like that. Or it starts to de cray and people, you know, start breaking pieces off and the fibers become friable, they become airborne, and then that's where the potential exposure and the long term health damage can occur from there. But you know, inert and on its own, it's actually well, it's low risk. Let's say that's probably the best way to describe it.

We'll talk about the house in just a moment. Quick text from someone who said, hey, look we're in the process of clearing out thirty years of assorted wood from underneath the house. I can relate to that. Where is the best cheapest place to get rid of it? On the north shore? I presume you mean the north shore of Auckland. The tip Now this is their words, not mine. The tip charge is a fortune to dispose of it, and even more to dump it on their woodpile versus

the general waste exclamation mark from Tony. Yes, tip fees are expensive and a lot of that is government increasing the waste levee that applies to everyone that brings waste into the large landfill sites, and I would imagine part of the reason that that waste levee keeps going up is because we want to dissuade people from just sending everything to landfill, so diversion is key. Hence, I assume

your reference to a wood pile versus general waste. I didn't realize that they would charge you wherever you've been to charge more to put it on the woodpile. If you feel like a drive down to Devenport, the Resource Recovery Center in Devonport, or Resource Recovery Devenport, the Community

Recycling center there, we'll certainly take your timber. You'll pay a fee for it going over the waybridge, but if it goes into the timber pile, we certainly I don't believe I could check, but I don't believe that we charge you more for timber than we would for general waste. In fact, if anything, would probably do it the other way around. If it's material that can be recycled and

diverted generally that's at a slightly lower rate. So come on down to Devenport, bring us your timber, particularly if you've sorted it out, which is great because I think we really want to encourage people to do that. You know, if you're going to I suppose going to landfill doesn't make any difference. But what we've got to do is get people not to just think about taking everything to landfill. If you're tidying up around the house, think about what

can be diverted. And then this my own little campaign, and we're going to be promoting this at the center soon. Is you know, when you arrive at the transfer station, if they've got diversion available, and by that I mean somewhere for green waste, somewhere for hard fill, somewhere for metal, somewhere for timber, somewhere for plastics and polystyrenes and all of these things. Pipework, you know, PBC pipework. All of these things now are able to be able to either

be diverted or recycled. So when you arrive, I want to encourage people to go on your trailer or in the back of the vehicle, have those all in the areas that you know collected, right, So put your timber on one side, put your hard full on the other side, put your green waste in a couple of bags, so that when you arrive at the center. You can do the diversion a lot easier, RIGHTO. I'm on the ramp this morning. Oh eight hundred and eighty, ten eighty. We'll talk to DEBI after the break.

We're not quite sure. We think ruth is fine, but the proposal I got, the quote I got from them was a lot cheaper than actually physically getting someone up there to paint it. And they just spray a membrane with a tinted color in it. So it's all painted and protected for ten years, right, And it's a lot getting it painted, Yeah, which.

the iron will continue to deteriorate at a certain rate. Right, So I think, you know, I'd be looking at it going no matter what I do, is the iron eventually going to reach the end of its life, in which case anything that I do is perhaps going to delay that a little bit, but it's not going to extend its life indefinitely. So I think, you know, getting someone on site to look at it physically and give you a sort of an independent assessment would be a really

good idea. My sort of advice around having people do roofing workers that you choose someone who's a member of the Roofing Association of New Zealand. So if you just go and search for Roofing Association of New Zealand. They've got an online obviously, they're online, and then you can search for contractors that are part of the Roofing Association

of New Zealand. And I think, and I've said this as a general comment about all sort of trade bodies, that if people have taken the time to commit themselves to an association, it typically means that they're serious about their work. So I would sort of encourage you to use someone who's a member of the Roofing Association of New Zealand. It would be.

simple decision that I would use a particular product for that. Debbie, I'm going to have to go for the news, sport and weather. We'll be back straight after that to keep taking.

I was trying to think about it last night, thinking it's about like five hundred and fifty shows. I reckon thereabouts. So thank you for your patience while I still stuff things up after trying to do this five hundred and fifty times, and I still crash into the news. I need to work on that anyway. I think in all of that time, while I've done a couple of interviews with various government ministers, first time that any of them have sort of said, ah, I'll come to the studio.

So Chris Pink, we'll be in the studio from around seven thirty this morning and we'll stretch that out. We'll take that right through to jumping in with through climb past at eight thirty, so plenty of time. If you've got some texts that you'd like to fire to the minister, by all means send those through as well, and there might be an opportunity for some phone calls as well. But right now we'll continue to talk about all things

building and construction. I just wanted to just go back to the text before the break as well, around the timber and disposal of timber. It was one of the discussions I had with one of the team at Brands when I was down there on Friday, because they have actually this is quite cool. They've developed, through the Rebrie system, a list of all of the recycling centers so you can search right across the country and go I've got X. You know timber, concrete, hardfill, metal, PBC, pipe, batteries that

I want to dispose of in a responsible manner. And then by location, it will tell you who is available to take that material. So it might be like specialist recyclers that only take I met a guy on Wellington yes today, who does you know battery recycling out of electronic devices? So okay, you've got an old phone or an old laptop, you want to dispose of it responsibly, you can take it to that particular charity that does the recycling. We used to have Abilities group in Auckland.

Undoubtedly they'll come back. Some local transfer stations will accept certain types of material and others. You can find all of that now on a brand new website. So that's pretty cool. Just with regard to getting in the sense disposing of leftover building materials, as in thirty years of timber undneath the house, I don't quite have thirty years of timber, but I'm getting up to twenty nine years

of timber stored underneath my house. I look at that, and every now and then I go and fossic around underneath the house, and I go, do I really need that piece of architrave? That little profile that I had made fifteen years ago. Do I need to hang on to that? Do I really need to keep that piece of sacred carity that I've been hanging on to for thirty years? That all it's doing now is providing a home for borer. So I get exactly where you're coming from.

Don't make a lot of progress in getting through it. And then the moment where you go underneath the house and you fossic around, you find just that piece of timber that you needed, or more likely you decide that you're going to have a big tidy up, You get rid of that piece of timber, and then a week later you'll need it. In the same way, I tipped out a box of assorted hardware and screws and but some pieces.

so Green Gorilla for example, will do that. Interestingly enough, the Devonport Recycling Center now has a been service as well. So this I mentioned that because this particular person was on the shore and was looking north shore of Auckland right. Nineteen eighties house with original single glazed aluminium jowinery and remove interior frames. Exterior is five US cement board. We're keen to change the color of the aluminium and upgrade to double glazing, but I like to keep the remoove

frames inside. What options do we have? Nineteen eighties single glazed aluminium jewinery. You can retrofit double glazing typically to that.

In some cases they may need to make a new sash, in which case it will be a slightly different color, just allowing for age to the frame that it might sit into, in which case you could go ahead do the upgrade, upgrade the joinery or the sashes in some cases with new beads and maybe a new actual sash, get the double glazing in and then have the whole lot brought together by then recoating all of your existing aluminium frames, and I'd probably go to someone like Nano

Clear for that as well, and that'll sort of bring everything together, I think, which is a real advantage in there. Or your other option is to pull the entire frame out and go from there. Hey, Pete, we built one hundred and forty square meter shed mentions a brand which is about five meters to the apex of the ridge. Four years ago they supplied a synthetic white underlay for the roof. Can't remember the brand. It's now started to disintegrate and rip. Do you know the reason for this?

And have any people listening had the same problem? What I think happens quite a lot, and it sounds odd, and I'm sure there's very good reason for it. So, for example, if you're doing a car port that is open as in it doesn't have any sites, which is by its nature the definition of a car port, typically we don't put a roofing una underneath it because they

tend to deteriorate. And if you've done a large shed with a roofing underlay, it will probably deteriorate as well, and that's why we don't typically tend to do it. In terms of fixing it, well, you can try and patch it from underneath, but it won't be terribly successful realistically. It's kind of like pull the roof off, remove the paper, or get another type of roofing underlay that is okay to be exposed to the elements. Because think about most

instances of putting a roofing underlay onto a building. It's then in an enclosed space, right, it's in your attic. Effectively, it's not exposed to the elements. A shed is, and that's very much the problem with that open line. Talk back on all things building and construction. Mike, A very good morning to you.

the exterior. So in that instance, there, I think you would get Healthy Home certification or compliance if you were to install install simply a through wall extraction in that area. Now, and that's pretty straightforward, right, Obviously you've got to get power to that location. But you know, if you find that you put it in a wall reasonably close to an existing power point, you might be able to divert or get a cable down to there to then power

up the extraction. So a through wall kit in the kitchen area will be enough to satisfy Healthy Home standards.

have one that's close to the cooking area. And then if you've got a particularly long run, so anything over about six meters is not really going to work right, okay, but anything under six meters then you need to account for the type of material that you want that air to go through. So rigiducting rather than flexible. There's going

to be the answer there. It's solvable. What it might mean is that you need to hunt around and find like someone who does extraction as a professional job, right not, just have a go day and they'll be able to determine the flow. And I'll tell you what's really quite interesting is if you are going to get a professional to do the extraction for you, and like I say, there are people who is this is what they do, this is the area of expertise. You can also test it.

So once it's been installed, you know, it'll say it'll have a flow rate of x cubic meters per minute or something like that, which is measurable at the outlet. So you install the system and then you can test it with an animometer, which basically measures wind speed at the outlet. And that's quite interesting to do as well. And I've even done it sort of slightly more ad hoc than that, where I bought some smoke matches the other day, so specifically designed for testing airflow or for

looking for drafts and that sort of thing. So installed some extraction lit the smoke match where the extraction is designed to start sucking from and then see if it comes out my vent at the other side. Oh okay, yeah, so there are ways of testing it. You know, this

stuff is science, right, you know. And so people tend to install extraction and they crush it and they send it through some sort of Gandalf's Quest for Middle Earth or something like that goes up and down and around and back, and they squish it a little bit and then they poke it outside and hope that air actually gets out of the end. That's not how extrac works, right, you know, straight runs, smooth runs, that's what's going to give you a really good result.

would go onto the insulation. In terms of code compl clients the like. If it's a steep concrete tile roof, even today, it doesn't require a membrane underneath it. So concrete roofs over I think it's fifteen degrees don't have a requirement for a vapor barrier or a roofing underlay

at all. Would there be an advantage to putting one on, Yes, there probably is, But in order to do that, you'd need to take the tiles off as well as taking the batons off in order to have a continuous layer of a roofing underlay, and chances are you not going to do that. Is there an advantage to going in and stapling it to the underside of the batons that

support the roof, Yes, you can do it. It's it will give you a benefit, but of course there will still be gaps and so on, and water might it's actually going to be very little water that's underneath those roof tiles. There are more extensive remedial situation remedial of this is that you can do as well in terms of, you know, taking all of that off, maybe sheathing the roof and then putting the concrete tiles back on. We

can discuss that as well. If you want to give me a call, oh eight hundred and eighty teen eighty back after the break with Howard.

underlay that's designed for exposure, let's say. But in terms of the usefulness of it, yes, it does make a significant difference to have roofing underlay under metal roofing. So typically what happens is you will get condensation underneath, you know, whether it's any type of long run that sort of thing, no matter what the profile, and realistically almost no matter

what the pitch is. And so the idea of the roofing underlay is that it collects that condensation that can form on the underside of the iron and it directs it down. So the roofing underlay should extend out over the facierboard, and ideally it should hang out just far enough so that it drops any condensate into the spouting. You know, if it doesn't quite get to the spouting,

at least it's getting outside of the building envelope. So in urine instance, I mean, look, the best practice would be take the roof off, replace the roofing underlay, put the roof back on. And if it's a small garage, and if the roof, you know, if the fixings with screws right, I'd say that would be what I would do, is back the screw out, take the sheet off, put

the building paper on. You could carefully work your way across the roof in sections, running you know, from the ridge line down to the gutter line, that sort of thing. If it's nails, it's a little trickier because you can potentially cause damage to the roofing iron when you take the nails out, but still durable and again a garage, you know, low risk, probably not terribly high, all of those sorts of things. You could probably safely manage all

of the risks there and replace the roofing paper. But yes, it is doing something. I speak in a sense from personal experience. My shed is quite old, nineteen fifties. It's got a very flat roof, it's got corrugated on it. In winter, my workbench is just it looks like it's been raining. Right, So because I no one ever put roofing underlay in there, I've delayed doing it because I keep thinking I'm going to build myself a brand new garage,

but I haven't got round to that. So but yeah, roofing paper makes a big difference.

long list of questions. If you've got any specific questions about a large number of proposals that are out there around regulation, self certification, granny flats, changes to h one, all of these things we can talk about. We're going to take short break. After the break, the Minister Chris Pink will join me in the studio.

doing it really tough in the sector. Sure, but if you start thinking about the impact that this has on people's lives, you know, to have good quality, affordable sustainable homes and the implications for kiwis and families and their ability to live well in a community. It's just really quite a big pressure and responsibility at a straight pleasure too, but you realize how stakes, how high the stakes are when you start thinking about all that in the big picture.

We'll deal with that in the moment. What I'd like to do is just go through I guess a couple of things that have been key innouncements in terms of changes that the ministry that you've proposed. So probably the one that got the most headlines a little while ago is hey, H one might have been too much. So

there's been a lot of consultation. I've been really really impressed at the level of dialogue, like the public discourse and the discussion around you know, the proposal was, or the comment I think that you made was, hey, look, we've been told that we can say fifty thousand dollars off the cost of a new build if we step back from H one. Changes that came in in November of twenty twenty three, there's been some consultation. Where are we at with that particular issue right now?

cost was being added. But nevertheless, hearing as part of that great dialogue that you've mentioned that actually it shouldn't be the case that there's such a large amount of extra cost, I thought, well, we've got to get to the bottom of this, and I think we're pretty close, as in literally within a few weeks, maybe a couple

of months from having an answer to that. And like I say, it's not for me to decide, but it does seem to me that if we can end up with a more nuanced calculation, and actually the methods that are known as calculation and modeling already sit within that that chapter of the code will probably be more appropriate than what's currently there around well, what's known as the

schedule method, where it's very prescriptive. So if I had to make an educated guest, I say, would probably end up with more of the calculation modeling and less of that prescriptive blunt instrument where by people end up adding you know, literally extra layers, including in parts of MW Zealand where that's not needed.

So territorial authorities typically act as a building consent authority, but they are now no longer the only ones, so we're seeing some movement in that space. I think you've been quite strong in terms of saying to councils it's taking too long. Have you had pushback from councils.

Institute news. Yes, and they say to me, oh, well, you've got to be careful, Chris, because actually the reason that it takes a long time is because we've got a lot of onerous requirements on us, including the accreditation they have every couple of years, the joint in several liability, which is to say that you know that the sort of democrat hangs over them if something goes wrong with an individual building or of course heaven forbid at a

system level, you know, and cert reference to leaky holmes here, then you know, then that's on us in our rate pays. And of course they're absolutely right, and it's never been my position that we need to be critical in a way that's unfair when when it is taking too long for people to get consents and there are inconsistencies, that's a matter of saying, well, look there's a problem here. It's not about sort of ascribing blame except to say

that the system needs to be reformed. So when we have that discussion, it's all very you know, we're in violent agreement. Really, I think everyone does need to change. We can probably do things better, and there's a couple of ways we can look at doing that, which happy to get into if you want to on the Sharlot terms to where that liability sits.

super cautious around processing building consents. As someone who might submit a building consent and wants to start building, I want them to do it in twenty days. Right. So one of the things that I think has come out of this is you've asked them to provide data as to how long it takes to process a consent. Again, the response from councils have they seen that as sort of unnecessary interference or welcome?

And you know, often I will say things like, you know, in the public domain or in a small meeting format, that I'd be really keen to know how we can have the resources of the system better applied to those that actually need more scrutiny, you know, that sort of self certification of idea, and councilors will often volunteer to me, Oh, we're doing a version of that already, we've got a trusted partner program, or you know, this is how we

sort of differentiate. So actually, some of them are already

doing the great job. And I think if we can take the lessons from the ones that are genuinely doing really well in all those kinds of ways and apply them across the board, then we'll have the opportunity to learn from best practice, but also you know, remove that in consistency where people are looking to build across the country and getting frustrated because the rules seem to differ, or rather the interpretation of the rules seems to differ

according to which side of a council boundary they happen to be building.

could do it. In the negative, you could certainly have triaging by way of AI where it was identified that there was a shortfall. And actually, anecdotally at least often counselors will say to me or the reason that we reject an application or ask for more information is because some of it's just lacking, not even that they're proposing something that's not in accordance with the building Code, it's just not there. And if that could be done on day one, not day nineteen or twenty of an application

being made, if one will be better off. And of course then the piece that goes alongside that is that we've also need to have, you know, due regard to the consequences for people who do you know, submit poor quality applications, because of course that's not doing any favors to the rest of the sector who are patiently waiting for their own application to be seen, and of course again not fair on council to be used as a

first resort quality assurance. It should be, you know, it should be a final check, you know, with all the care intention having been applied to the question before that time.

game across the board. However, having consulted on that and heard that it would be complicated and are necessarily prescriptive to say these are the ones that you must have as in person physical and other ones can be so where they have a default, and then start thinking about when you enable the presumption to be the other way, which is you know when you do have to have it in person, it did start to feel a bit more complicated, and of course the aim of the game

is to make things easier, not harder. So the idea

is now. And having risten now to all the councils that act as building content authorities, I've said, look, we do expect that you have the facility to provide remote visual inspections, but in the meantime, we don't care how you do it, as long as eighty percent of your inspections are conducted within a three working day timeframe of that request, So being the timeliness not the methodology, and say, well, if we're interested in the end not the means, then

use that tool, but do it as you feel free, as you wish.

year then certainly ahead of the next selection. And then in relation to builders, well, there's already a distinction of course between licensed building practitioners who can do restricted building work and you know anyone who's who's not not being able to at least not without the supervision and ultimately the sign off. So I've got an element of that already.

But in terms of self certifying whole buildings or developments even at a time, what we've said there is that we will identify building entities, you know, companies or in the franchise model, by the way, as a bit of a challenge when you start thinking about group home boorders, right,

we can come back to that if you want sure. Overall, the philosophy is that for those that are doing a large scale of work, have got a good track record in terms of quality, you know, lack of complaints in difficult in terms of the week that they've already produced, got good quality assurances systems in place, would have a method by which a customer could say, you know, there's been a defect or a problem and it there'd be

a way to have that resolved. And of course they'd have adequate means which is basically deep enough pockets that if there is a problem that they could come to the party and not leave a shortfall for the poor

homeowner in the same way that councils currently do. Then if all those planets align and subject to ongoing you know, order in quality assurance in terms of their ability to provide that, then we think that's the right place to allow them to get on and build the extra hundreds and or even thousands of homes New Zealand that are currently treated in the same way single level of blanket oversight which we've currently gotten that seems to me not the way to get better productivity.

in terms of a simple building. And as you'll be aware, and your listeners too, if they're regulars on't tuning into your show as they should be, even on a Mother's Day, by the way, then they'll know that zis three six er four, you know, sets out the standards. It's currently

being updated, so watch the space. But you know, if you can imagine starting with that kind of simple timber building and no reason by the way, it couldn't be expanded into other building types and materials as could safely be done, then you know there'd be a starting point. And of course it'll be possible to say, oh, but

what about these other ones. They should also be regarded as safe for self certification, and that may be true, but I'd rather be conservative initially in terms of what's allowed and who's allowed to do self certification, and if it goes well, then think about expanding it. But I think it'll be a major win. Even if it's let's say, three thousand new homes a year, which you know, if that's ten thousand, excuse me, ten percent of the thirty

thousand building consents currently being issued annually. That's not nothing. It's not a silver bullet, but it's not nothing, and it's a good place to start if we were then to be comfortable to expand the program from there.

and Construction. It's coming up ten minutes away from.

basically fail in the future and ruin people's lives. And we've seen that with leaky building it and so on. Just in terms of So we talked a little bit about self certification, who might be involved. Actually, I want to throw in something else which is currently within the license building practitioner scheme. I like the fact that you're

introducing a waterproofing class. I think that's really really going to be important because that was kind of a big hole in this scheme right now that you know who was going to it's restricted building. Yeah quite literally, so it's restricted building work, but sort of I would take responsibility for it as an LBP building or it just felt like there was a gap in the system. So

we're going to plug that gap again, terrible pun. The other thing is that right now, in terms of building licensing, there's just one level of license, right so I'm an LBP building, that's it. Would you consider introducing levels of license for building in the same way that there are levels of license in the site license, so you can be site license one, two, or three, reflecting experience and

the scope of work that you can administer. And I guess where I'm getting with that is that you know, if we're talking about sales certification or remote inspections, that one of the ways to qualify for either of those things is to be an LBP two or three that you could go back and prove your competency, because to be blunt, you know, you could go out and I'd like to think that I'm a better builder than others.

That to be really really honest, then another person who might just have qualified that, someone who's been in the game for a long time, who's got quite a lot of responsibility, is that would that be up for grabs, very much up.

before as well. Sure it sounds to me like it makes a lot of sense, because it's very much that philosophy of you know, having a better skilled and qualified cohort builders and within that recognizing those that we can have, you know, you know, fewer resources applied to And I think if I just take a moment to sort of explain if I may, in my mind, it's not about

having lower standards of checking. It's actually saying, well, if council has only got a certain amount of resource, and realistically they do no such thing as an infinite resource of time or rate pay of funds to work these things out. Then we actually want that applied you know where it's most needed, which is, you know, those who

are less experienced or qualified or frankly competent. And so yeah, I mean I can see a differentiation within the LBP along those lines, but it's not something that I'm well enough advanced to my own thinking to be able to say to you that will happen anytime soon just because we've but not so much.

to be risk averse. So could we see a change perhaps from joint and several liability to proportional liability, so that council, you know, if rather than having a million dollar bill for a defective building, they will have a portion of that and liability will be assigned to others. But then how do you chase those people as well?

building and possibly not being able to get redress. Into the future, will we see a bigger role for insurance in terms of providing the remediation in the future when things go wrong? Yeah, I think what's the tool? What beaver can you pull down?

probably most of your listeners and are vulnerable. So if we think about how we can provide that and insurance with a capital I obviously is one of them. And I've had a conversation with a few of the insurers

and the insurance council. They have the same questions, but frankly as the rest of us do in terms of their level of comfort about whether there are sufficiently high standards among the building practitioners, you know, the tradees and designers even up front that they won't be liable for an avalanche of claims, and of course they're not going to be interested for commercial reasons and getting into that space any more than the rest of us are happy

with that from a government outcome point of view, or for that matter, councils facing that liability that they do currently. And of course the point about council being last person standing and therefore having up to one hundred percent of the cost of a defect is that, yes, as we've discussed the risk averse, but also that's letting off the hook those that have actually done the work in a poor manner. So maybe you know, maybe there's a different

and way we could talk about self certification. And it's probably on me that I haven't necessarily done this well enough so far. But the point is actually placing liability where it belongs on the personal persons just to be a bit lawyery from them and who have actually done the work that's led everyone down. So it's an exercise in sheeting home responsibility. So really a double edge sword

for those who would be self certified. Are you that confident you're going to stand behind your work that if it's cocked up that you're going to be the one

who has to meet that shortfall. So you know, that's why we have a system not only in working backwards from the fact that if there is a problem, we want to have it being able to be resolved without recourse to the right path, but also it makes it less likely in the first place that you have those problems, because at the moment it seems to me there's an element of all care and a responsibility where a designer or a building trades person will submit their work and

if it's not right, don't worry about it because the council will pick it up. No, you have to pay a bit more attention to that if it's all on your head or in your bank balances. Self certify, so insurance are interested, but they are nervous. And if there isn't a private insurance silver bullet in the market, and at the moment it doesn't seem to me that there is, then the other ways of insuring or assuring the quality

will have to sit elsewhere. And yes, we've talked about a few self safeguards to reduce the possibility that there's a problem in the first place, but also if you think about, you know, the possibility of a fidelity fund, whereby you could have particular cases where a person might

engage a building practitioner. Maybe in the instance of fraud, maybe there was a reason that they had not to know that, you know, as a reasonably prudent consumer, having done your due diligence, if they're still left short by some really bad behavior, then maybe there's a case for stumping up at a broader level, you know, and with the building Levy Fund for example, that's currently paid into

at the moment, could potentially be paid into that. And I'm just you know, stating these possibilities as opposed to announcing policy live on air that hasn't yet been signed off by the government. But I want to be creative about how we can provide the assurance without sacrificing the outcomes that we want in terms of timeliness and therefore cost.

But there's also opportunities. Maybe I can you know, not not too glibally, but put that scenario aside for a moment and say there's also a large category of buildings for which that is not going to be the case because the person doing the development or you know, the contracting the builders to do the work, actually will continue to own it. If you think about retirement villages, for example, the model that they operate on with those licenses to occupy.

If there's a problem, they're still the owner. They're still going to be on them to have to sort that out. Likewise, government, you know, huge procure of building works, be it classrooms

in the education portfolio, social housing and so on. Why they're running off to their local council on every single occasion is you know, well, let's just say it's not necessarily the right model given that, you know, if they could be trusted more to get on and do the work and hold accountable via contracts that people are doing the work, then that'll free up with the resources of

the system. Of course for people who you know, just go and knock on the door and want their own private commercial work done in what we always think of the ordinary way of things. I should decaid by the way, I'm sorry, I pause for breath. I promise you. I know you want to get to your text. But in terms of social housing, which I have just referred to, in fact, of course that is a special case where you can see which is the private or rather the public.

But Bespoke Building Content Authority does that with it's linked with KO only at the moment, as opposed to other government works. So you know there is a model there where we could contemplate doing things differently.

twenty three. It's just simply unaffordable. And if you've got something relatively low risk as a structure, and granny flats we are talking low risk by definition and yes TBA in terms of the detail, but we're getting there. We're very very very close by the way till that being in the public domain. And if you think about an extra mitigation in terms of level entry showers that are likely to be a feature of granny flats and therefore

giving rise to that new waterproofing class of licensed building practitioner. Well, if you say, well, if you make all those mitigations, then you're not going to be any worse off than you currently are. Then it's a thing that we should do because a minor residential unit on an existing parth out of land that's already got a major dwelling and therefore with the infrastructure that's happened to, we're going to save a lot of cost. We're going to increase the

housing supply. Of course, getting back to what we need to do, that's the thing we need to achieve.

to in the shore and then the neighboring yards. And I don't think there's anything new under the sun as far as that goes.

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in regards to foundations and engineering for foundations. So typically if you're doing a new build now you need to have the ground surveyed to ensure that it will bear the building on top of it. Is that still going to be a requirement.

and I was able to look that up. It seems to me that that's likely to be. You know, that would be outside the definition of a simple building such that you wouldn't need a consent. So I can imagine a scenario, for example, hypothetically, because the legislation doesn't yet exist publicly, that you know, the building itself, the grainy flat itself wouldn't need the consent, but to install a wood burner, that element alone would need.

So you can't do a block wall, for example, can you do a concrete slab?

of tenants and so on. Actually, the heating source, I think people don't necessarily realize, as opposed to the building itself being really well insulated, such that if you invest in a heater or whatever as a tenant I do, then it's not going to be heating us off.

these issues. Obviously a massive problem in the summer months in townhouses particularly, And if it's as simple as being able to say that you can open or have windows that open to a greater extent than they currently can, which you know, for safety reasons, you can understand why you've got other rules in place as well. But maybe the balance is out of whack, and I think when need to look at it.

will be viewed you know, askance as a result. So okay, so it's an argument against the monopoly, I suppose, albeit that you know, obviously we've got a system where the councilors currently are contracted out effectively to do this work. So there's no easy answer. But certainly that sounds a disappointing example. If it's what it sounds like.

available and it will start passing it. The other big one actually we haven't talked about, and I know it's probably not at the level that probably most of your listeners are interested in, but the other really big rock that we haven't talked about is seismic regulations great prayin buildings, and then you get into the scenario of the interaction between that inheritage datu swhich you know people are very passionate about. So that's another thing that I think we

need to now this side of the election. And I'll say election not because it's a politically part as a matter in fact, I'm desperate do ensure that it's not, and you know, I've had good interactions across the political aisle, but just in terms of getting things done as soon as possible to provide people certainty in all these areas is going to be really important.