Full Show Podcast: 16 March 2025

a week anyway for me of talking about it. I was at the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveys training day yesterday, so kind of as part of their continued professional development. Members are invited to come along to a day's workshop with a number of different speakers, and actually it was my job to sort of mce the event

and host a couple of discussions. In fact, a discussion with someone who's been a fairly regular contributor over the ten years of the show, Matthew Cutler Welsh and the Green Building Council, Joe lythe head of the Passive House Board chair for the Passive House Institute. And a guy that I've seen around but haven't had a chance to talk to before, Tommy Honey, who's actually the Chief executive of the New Zealand Construction Industry Council. And that was

just the morning. I've been talking about building all day yesterday as well, but looking forward to talking with you about building and construction and about your projects whether it's well.

Sometimes it goes well and other times it doesn't. So if it's going well, that's great, we can talk about that, we can talk about improving and refining your project, and if it's not going particularly well or we can certainly talk about that Today on the show as well, We're going to have a bit of a catch up with Mike Colts later on the show, and then of course at eight thirty, as always we're into the garden with red Kline pass So if there's any gardening and antipological questions,

Rudd will be joining us from eight thirty. But apart from that, the floor is yours. Basically, this is your opportunity to talk about I mean, look, the platform is pretty wide, right, we're talking building and housing and construction, so it's everything from foundations, through structures, through to roofs, through to exteriors, through the boundaries, through to regulations, requirements, the restraints that are there. In fact, it was kind

of well, it was out. There was a bit of a question yesterday around what the government is going to do when they decide on what types of buildings might be able to be built without necessarily requiring a building consent. So for a long long time, under Schedule one of the Act, you could build ten square meters with certain other requirements without necessarily needing a building consent. That got

pushed out thirty square meters. Now there is talk about doing granny flats, and that's it's pretty that it feels like that's a it's not a pejorative term, but it's kind of seen as a bit old fashion. But anyway,

the terminology is granny flats. My understanding for the reason for that name is that the intention was that if you owned a piece of land, you had your family home on it, and you wanted to provide some accommodation, some housing for an extended family, maybe granny then that's why you could build a granny flat at the back of the property. It was always sort of related to the people that occupied the main house, hence the term

granny flat. So then I don't know, they're not going to come up with a new name for it, but granni flats. And then the proposal that's out there at the moment is maybe the granny flat could be sixty square meters. Sixty square meter is not an insignificant building to build, possibly without having to get the building consent.

And then in the discussion yesterday, actually Jeff Barrenson, who is head of Building Inspections for UXSN Council, which must be one hell of a job to be fair, Jeff was addressing the group as well at the Building Surveys conference and talking about the possibility that maybe those granny flats will extend to ninety one hundred maybe even one hundred and twenty square meters without necessarily requiring a consent. That changes the landscape quite considerably. So it's an interesting space.

There's a lot of discussion around. We talked about remote building inspections. I think the Minister Chris Penk who has also been on the show before, came out quite a while ago, now, not long after they took office, to go, hey, look, we want this to be the default position. There's a significant amount of pushback in the industry to the idea of remote inspections. And again, one of the speakers yesterday

the conference is involved with apartments in Australia. They beamed into the conference saying, hey, look, you know, the sperience hasn't been great here with the certifiers for some of the apartment complexes. The quality that work's not great, and you know, be cautious about what you wish for. It's been It was a good conference actually, And then I was in christ Julier in the week. I'll talk about that a little bit later on. And I've got a bit of news about some project that I did a

little while ago that you can watch. I know Pete's TV's going I eight hundred eighty ten eighty. There's lots to talk about this morning. Get on the line, get an early. I eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number nine two ninety two for the texts and Pete at newstalksb dot co dot nz is the email. A very good morning, lovely to have you with us this morning, and just quietly a little bit excited about being able

to watch some Formula one this afternoon as well. Right, Albert, good morning to you.

are using engineered timber. Now, engineered timber is kind of a broad phrase for you know, I think in our head, if we talk about a timber building, we imagine four or two studs framed up mid floor, et cetera. This is engineered timber where the components, the columns, the beams, and the floor plates are coming to site. They've been fabricated in a factory, the ones that I saw sitting on the back of the truck. And actually good of you to call, because I'll put up some photographs later

on this morning on my Facebook page. So you know, the columns would be shivers three hundred and fifty by three hundred and fifty milimeters square, right. Then the beams would be maybe four hundred by three hundred and then the floor, the actual complete floor, so spanning maybe a distance of four or five or six meters, would be two hundred and fifty milimeters thick. Now, they are all individual components, they've got all you know, they're bolted together

with specifically designed brackets. It's pine, it's good old fashioned pinus radiator. It's it's obviously been processed and engineered to a very very high level. It's very high spec. But obviously in christ Church, where they've still got concerns around

seismic activity, timber is great there. It's really fast. And in fact, there was a couple of guys from Hawkins and from Fletcher Living who were at the sight Safe conference and they were talking about they were struck by how quickly that building was going up.

it's really really good. And the fact that it's using a natural resource, the fact that it does in a fantastic job in terms of carbon and sequestering carbon and all of those sorts of things. Yeah, and we grow lots of it. Why aren't we using it?

which is really interesting. So no, it's not mad, it's just this is innovation, right, This is what a a decent sustainable future looks like when you see these timber buildings going up. So yeah, Because I was heading to christ Church anyway, and i'd seen the article, I decided I wanted to go and have a look through. And it's gosh, it would be within sixty or seventy meters maybe one hundred meters of the Takaha Stadium, which i'd only ever seen sort of in its ground stages. That's

really starting to take form. And then I had a little bit of time on Wednesday morning and wandered along to the Cardboard Cathedral, the Anglican Transitional Cathedral, which again i'd seen and read a little bit about, but never had the opportunity to go and have a look at. It and the guys from Metro Glass did the digital print on the effectively stained glass. It's not stained glass,

it's digital print on the front facade of it. So actually, christ Church, I'll make a couple of other comments about christ Church a little bit later on. I know you've had to put up with a hell of a lot in terms of the rebuild and the infrastructure, and there still seems to be you know, lots to do and lots of work going on, and lots of road cones and lots of people ripping up the roads in that. But my sense was it's going to be a great

Oh it's a great city now. But you know, as the rebuild part comes to a close and some of those really big projects get wrapped up and some of the redevelopment of the residential inside the city wraps up, it's it's going to be a great city. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty. The number to call might take a short break. We'll talk to Jim in just a moment. If you've got a comment, call us now, oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty.

because it's not a habitable space. So what should happen is that the petition between the habitable space, may be a bedroom or whatever that's on the adjoining wall, that wall should be insulated, and then that insulation should go up that wall and across the ceiling of your habitable space. And so you end up with this uninsulated area immediately adjacent your insulated habitable space, and it saves the builder, the developer, you know, whatever it's going to cost to

insulate that space. I've always thought that that's really short sighted, right, particularly for an attached garage. So you know, essentially, every time you open the door between the garage and the house, you've got that temperature differential. Often you'll tend to leave that door open more because you're moving in and out of the laundry, those sorts of things, So it just

cools down the whole house. You lose the benefit. I think you lose the benefit of insulation in the house, which is a long winded way of me saying yes, if it's an accessible roof space, which it probably is. Throwing some insulation in their properly, neatly will make a big difference, and I wouldn't hesitate to say that you should do it. And in fact, I'm always a little bit disappointed when builders or developers don't insulate all of

the exterior walls. And I think ideally we should be moving towards insulated garage doors, which are available, to reduce drafts and to make those spaces more like a habitable space.

some brick something like that. So suddenly you know that that the r value in that wall is probably going to be a little bit diminished because you're not getting the benefit of the cladding. So again the insulation on those walls might not be working as well. And also, you know, if it was a garage that you literally just park the car and maybe that's okay, but in the end it's sort of a habitable space because you're

working in there when you're doing the launch. Yes, ye, look, I think if it's accessible and you know, it's a relatively straightforward job, there would be a benefit. And I think the benefit without weigh the cost of a couple of bags of insulation. Oh well, thank you very but I'm really fair. I'm pretty much a big fan of insulation. So there you go.

do it right. You turn the hot tap on, and you wait for all of the cold to purge, and then when finally the hot water comes out of the kitchen sink or kitchen spout, you put the plug in the sink and start filling the sink up with water. But in the meantime, you've lost I don't know, a liter of water or so. And you're doing that a couple of times a day. You know, it is a little bit of a waste of water.

we use for insulating pipes. There's no reason that you couldn't put that around the cold pipes as well, because if that roof baces forty degrees during the summer, which it easily will be, and that's warming up your cold pipes as well, just insulate them with some of those pool littles. Yes, yep, there you go, Peter, there's a couple of jobs.

house wash just to apply it. Let the chemicals do the work in terms of getting rid of any moss and mold and mildew, and then a very gentle wash down. And I wouldn't even try and sand or prep anything. Really, I'd just be applying a coat of paint over the top of the existing and that's absolutely fine. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty the number to call. Another quick text before the break. Remove floor in the living room which has been covered in a clear varnish which

is now peeling and bubbling up in places? Can you please advise how to remove it and is it best and what is best to replace it? From ELF in New Plymouth, ELF, I think that if the varnish is bubbling and so on, it's an issue with the top coat being applied over an existing old coat, right, so

it's effectively it's delaminating between there. Most of the time with timber floors it's a re sand and then you know back to beer timber and then bringing it up with the polyurethanes, whether they're water borne or solvent born polyurethanes. I have done once in a situation where I just need a new coating, but I didn't want to go to the expense on behalf of the client of sanding

the floors. I had the guys come in and do effectively like an acid wash over the surface, just to really cleanse it, and then apply a couple of coats of polyurethane that lasted quite well. But look, it'll just if it's peeling like that. It's all about the preparation and so you'll need to remove that surface. Nine times out of ten. It's a get the floor sanders and cut it right back to beer timber start again. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call,

coming up twenty eight minutes away from seven. Call us now we've got a spare line. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty. Text the grade as well. Nine two nine two and if you'd like to email me, it's Pete at news Talk set Beat talk to Pam straight after.

all of that. But if you've got a concrete patio there in it's sound, you can easily just build off there to end up with either a level or almost level timber coming up to is it a ranch slider or a set of French doors? Okay, so sliding door then, and it's a covered patio, so you're not too worried about the timber getting slippery if you did want to go timber. The other thing is that composite decking materials,

and there's a range of those available. One of the ones that I've used in the past, and I did it's quite a few years ago now. I did one job where I needed to build an extension to a deck and then an accessible ramp right at a place that had lots of people that needed accessibility provisions, and I used a composite decking called Outdure. Yeah, so Outdure Actually I used it again another project at the school

a couple of years ago. So one of the things about that is they are able to calculate the slip resistance coefficient, right, so you know that the surface of the material will always give you a certain slip resistance. You can use timber, whether that's a soft wood like pine or a hardwood. You can use grip tread timber, so you've got that grooved surface up if you want that slip resistance.

is fixed straight down onto the top of it. And the advantage to that is that you end up with you know, you can use aluminium, which means that you get longer spans and not as much depth, which if you've only got on a hundred eighty millimeters to work with, that's an advantage and typically they'll come You can use adjustable pads jacks that you can sit onto the patio. So I think once you start talking with your contractors, ask them about the whether to use a composite and

whether or not to use an aluminium deck. It is more pricey, but it will make for a faster job and there are some benefits in terms of working with that height. At that height, you could also just fix down. You'd want to ensure. The only thing to look for in terms of fixing timber down is you don't want to fix large plates of timber down onto the patio and stop the water being able to track away. So I presume the patio's got fall on it now, so

the water drains away. Whatever you do for your fixings, you want to make sure that that water continues to drain away.

want to end up with the cupping issue again. So people are sugges to go into an engineered flooring, which stops that apparently true, and I can't get an engineered flooring with the mat I finished. So that was two different types timbers on the system. And obviously I can't see when I put the mat idea on it that doesn't breathe because by the time it goes down with a blue based and Secret Nail sort of corrects its

own little beach space down there. So I was really unsure if you have had any thoughts on that there, you can stop the cup and the orb whether it's just something that you have to live with in regard if you want to use an older style flooring on a mod Yeah.

So no matter what you did, you were always going if you wanted to keep the carry flooring, you were always going to have a step up, which I didn't want. So it was kind of a no brainer for me. I just laid I did actually use an engineered floor or a laminate floor, and went over the top of the old carry and straight over the top of the concrete slab extension, and that allowed me to tie the whole thing in together. In your situation, you've got original Mattie,

You've got Matti that was part of the extension. How big an area is the extension to the extension going to be? Oh couple a couple of hundred square meters? Crikey? All right? And how big is the air the existing part?

the top of plywood is substrate again? Or will it go over joists?

I've still ended up with existing Cararie flooring. Then you could see because I've just patched rather than taking the boards out, i just patched where our bathroom used to be at the end of the hallway, and there was holes through for pipes for the bath and that sort of thing. I've patched those and left them obvious. Then I've got a transition into my new extent or not so new extension, twenty five year old extension now, and

that just tells the story of the house. But there is a consistency because I've used old Carrie at the back and I've got my existing Carri at the front, So I get where you're coming from. There, and the fact that you've got a transition just tells a story about the house, which is lovely.

a build? Oh eight hundred and eighty. Now talking about building and projects some time ago, and I'm sure I've mentioned this occasionally, not too much, but every now and then about a project that I did. Well, we did my wife and I did a couple of years ago, and it was a little cottage. We bought it, we've

renovated it. I put in kind of a lot of the ideas that I've been thinking about over the last ten or fifteen years ago, over the last ten or fifteen years, so, you know, things around insulation, things around dampproofing, things around better joiner all you know, better glazing, extraction, heating, all of that, and while I was doing the project, we did actually video some of it that's set around in the drawer for a while. Those videos are now going to go up live over the next couple of

weeks on my YouTube channel. So if you go to the social media you'll find me there that'll take a link through to the YouTube, or if you just go to YouTube and have a look for Peter Wolfcamp, Resident Builder, the videos will come up. There's the I've Been Thinking series, which is already up, and then there'll be what I'm calling my hosts project host being the Dutch word for

house hosts. Project videos will start this week, so if you want to see what I've been up to, you can check those out online, check them out on YouTube. It is eleven minutes away from seven o'clock. We are going to take short break. Then we're going to talk to Pete. Not talking to myself, just talking to Pete after the break measure God was.

go for? So I'm going to make an assumption that the car port roof is probably relatively low pitch, and then they tend to get walked on. And just for that reason, point four is absolutely fine in terms of

roofing iron right, it complies et cetera, et cetera. I tend to go forero point five to five just because someone is likely to get up there and walk around, and they may not where to walk properly, and if they inadvertently stand in the wrong place, the point five to five will give them a little bit more.

end of it, which is actually that was in part of the We had a quantity survey speak yesterday at the conference as well or at the workshop around tendering and procurement and pricing and so on, and this is

not an uncommon practice for contractors. They'll submit, you know, if it's a competitive situation where a number of people are pricing work, then they'll submit what seems like a lower cost, and then suddenly there'll be extras, and then you're constantly in the situation if you're the client of having to deal with extras, whereas someone else might price more comprehensively include some whole a lot of things that are foreseeable, and then you know their price is the price,

rather than someone who prices deliberately leaving things out and the hope that they can make it up on extras, which I think is just a little bit dodgy. Isn't it. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call five minutes away from seven pete.

out from the top. And in one situation where that was quite ounced and it was a big retaining wall, I actually went along and made flashings. Didn't look particularly pretty but I made flashings that went over the top just to keep the water away from the top of that. So that's one thing to look at. But generally, if there's a split in the post, particularly if it's around I would never concern. We're back after the news.

a fascinating insight. Bruce Ross I think his name was, the presenter, was you know in this field, particularly from a leadership and business point of view, what the impact of AI is. And I think there's some real possibilities for it in the construction sector. And I've often wondered

whether it's just an a site. We'll talk to me in just second that you know, one of the things we talk about is building consents taking a long time to be processed, and then the next step of that conversation is often pointing the finger at the processing, which is the building consent authorities and local councils who process

the building consents as if they're holding things up. And in some cases that might be true, but I suspect as well that one of the reasons that some building consents take a while to go through processing is that the building consent itself is of poor quality to be blunt, you know, they've missed out items, they haven't shown code, they haven't shown building code or building standards correctly, they've

missed out things. They've got poor details, they haven't just a bad set of plans, right, and we've all seen them, right, So you kind of wonder whether those all plans being submitted for building consent. Let's say for residential work, that you get AI to read the building code, figure out what's supposed to be in the consent, scan the consent, if there are items that should be there that aren't there,

it'll know potentially within minutes. Creates a list of these things are not included, and it goes straight back to the person who' submitted the consent, going you don't have these details in here. I would have thought that that's a pretty straightforward use of AI in terms of construct There'll be other uses. There'll be a myriad of other uses. So it's a fascinating insight into I guess what the world's going to look like in a couple of years

time in terms of the use of AI. You may want to comment on that it was a good conference. Actually it's the beauty. I mean, I'm not well. I'm actually now an honorary member of the New Zealand Institute

of Building Surveys. But going along to these conferences yesterday listening to people talking about remote inspections, talking with Jeff Barrenson, who's the basically head of building Inspections for AUKN Council, talking about the inspection process and what might be changing, talking about people from the Green Building Council, Passive House Institute, and actually Storm Harper Harpham, who has been on this program talking about ventilation, did a fantastic presentation as well.

So I quite enjoy that whole professional development thing rdio eight one hundred and eighty ten eighty is that number two concern? M Someone has has counted my comment prior to the news about the timber pete. I would have a concern of splitting of tantalized posts, especially in frosty cold areas, such as when the water ingress freezes and splits a post even more, reducing its strength. Timbers not like in all honesty, I'd love to see a photograph

of timber posts freezing and splitting. I know it happens in Stone in very cold circumstances, in very limited circumstances, but I understand your concern. I think it's a good theoretical concern. In practical terms, I can't see it happening. I'm more than happy to be corrected on that, but I can't see it. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call. May A very good morning and thanks for waiting.

lub window. I presume that the standard on the Healthy Home standard.

excessive drafts. So for example, if the louver is the really old fashioned ones with and it doesn't close particularly well, someone might give an opinion that that is an unreasonable draft. But you know, I would probably push back on that unless it's in really poor quality and it doesn't seal. Accepting the fact that louvers don't seal particularly well, and older ones often when you close them there's a gap

between the individual pieces of glass. Obviously, you know, having a louver closing means that you've got lots of lots of gaps. You know, you might have six or seven gaps in the louver. But in terms of healthy homes, if someone has said to you, if you're happen to be the landlord or the owner of the property, that it doesn't comply, I would probably push back and say, it's not an unre reasonable gap unless it's in very poor quality.

get their houses to healthy home standards. It's you know, it's got to be a pretty poor building for it not to comply. Flip side of that is, I also don't have a great deal of time for people who are doing healthy homes assessments who are making unreasonable assessments of property. And I had a discussion with someone one time who they had a healthy Homes assessment of a property that had double hung sash windows, and the assessor said, you need to take all of those windows out and

replace them because they're not Healthy homes compliant. Now that's that's almost criminal in my mind, right, those sorts of assessments, because as long as they're in reasonable condition, that they've actually got the fastener that closes the two sashes together, that they're not terribly twisted with big gaps underneath it, I think that the windows should comply with the requirements.

see extraction in the laundry. I think that's a real advantage if you can get some extraction in the laundry because people do leave the dryer on, they leave the washing machine on again and the presentation yesta about ventilation, you know, doing the washing inside the house is about three liters of water that that is released into the atmosphere, right, so that water has got to go somewhere, or that

moisture content in the atmosphere needs to go somewhere. Ideally we're extracting it and pushing it out of the building.

the property is in reasonable condition. And I don't think the three shoulder is terribly high. I don't know whether I necessarily want the government to make it more stringent, let's say, But like I said, my experience has been it's not a terribly high bar to reach. Oh you may wish to comment on that, oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty quick couple of texts before the break morning, Pete. I've lived in Canada for many years, never had a

problem with moisture expanding posts. The winter over here often gets down to minus thirty degrees. Cheers from Carey, Thank you for that look. I understand the principle about what the text is saying that if you get water and a post and it freezes, water expands when it freezes, and that could extend the post. Timber doesn't tend to freeze in the same way that something like stone does,

so that's really interesting one. We got talking about water actually before in terms of you know, common practice most of us. I would imagine if we turn the shower on, we don't leap in straight away, right. We tend to turn the shower on, wait for it to warm up,

and then we hop in. And of course that water is effectively wasted in the same way that if you need hot water from your kitchen sink and you don't have instant hot water there, you turn the tap on on hot generally there's a bit of cold water in the line that needs to purge before the hot water comes out. You know, times five million of us, times two million households, etc. That's a lot of water that

effectively gets wasted. Because it's not warm. So a couple of people have texted her and said, look, if I run the tap, I catch it in a container. It goes into the washing machine, no waste. I know other people that will make a habit of maybe having the pot nearby and topping up the pot, and then when it comes time to cook the dinner, you've already got some water in the pot to boil the potatoes, or

do the pasta or something like that. Leave the jug empty, use the cold water in the hotline to fill the jug each time, so you're not There's a whole lot of new things like that. I think that's great. Um, oh, this is a good eat too on a new build. How can you determine how many coats of paint have been applied to Linear weatherboards? And they've been very specific about this. So Linear is a fiber cement weatherboard system from James Hardy's from John or like that's like a

little iceberg floating along. Right, there's a little question on the top that goes how many coats of paint underneath that. There's a whole issue. There's a whole lot of issues around quality of workmanship. Manufacturers warranties, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that the only way to if you really really got a concern is you would need to take a sample of it and send it away for analysis. Right, So some of the paint manufacturers might be able to

do that for you. I'm guessing. I'm assuming that your question really relates to the fact that, like I've seen it, and I've seen it with other pre painted boards. So my own preference for these types of products pre painted exterior cladding is they come with a factory primer on them. Some come with a factory primer and a first coat.

Most come just with a factory primer. I think that primer degrades a little bit, so my inclination would always be to install the product sand the surface, rear coat, recoat with a new primer coat, and then do minimum to top coats on it. I am sure that there would be builders and developers and painters out there who will install a product like that that's got a factory coat on it and then just give it one top coat and say that that's finished. And I suspect John,

that's what your question is about. I think what you'd do is you'd go back to you'd ask the developer, can you provide me a statement from the painter to say that the weather boards have been finished in accordance with the manufacturer's specifications and for your reference, I attach a copy of the specifications and best practice guidelines from the manufacturer. Have you done this? And then they can

either tell you the truth or they can lie. And if you want to know more, I think you could get a representative from the paint firm to come and assess it for you. And there may well be some testing as well. And then another quick text Pete, I heard that a brand new house failed a Healthy Home inspection. Yes,

that's quite possible. And the reason being is that, in a glaring oversight to the New Zealand Building Code, there is no requirement in the New Zealand Building Code to provide heating all right, So there is nothing in the building Code that says you have to put heating into a house. Healthy Home Standards has a requirement for a fixed form of heating in the living area that will ensure that the building attains it's either eighteen or twenty degrees in winter and you have to prove that right.

So if you've done a healthy Homes assessment, you can use a tool that's online. You can describe the walls, you can describe the type of insulation, you can describe the type of joinery. You can describe the type of glazing. You can describe the floor and the ceiling. Space, you work out and do a calculation of the living space. The living space also includes any space is attached to it that don't have a door that you can close.

So if there's an open staircase and an upstairs landing, that space needs to be included in the calculation for the living space. If it's an open plan kitchen, dining area, all of that space needs to be included. Then it gives you a calculation for the volume. Then it tells you how much heating that will require. And then you can look through and see does that heat pump have sufficient heating capacity for that space? And it'll be a yes or no, brand new house, no heating in it,

it'll fail Healthy homes. There you go, oh, eight hundred eighty, ten eighty the number to call. It's coming up twenty four minutes after seven.

waterproofing with the tiled bathroom. Now my understanding that tyler and plumber would have to give producer statements for CODA.

and commissioning and supervising and paying the subcontractors. So if friend number one got plumber in plumber did the job and got paid by number one, then they are going

to be involved in this as well. Certainly, if there's a problem with the waterproofing, given that waterproofing has got a minimum fifteen year requirement, then the person who wrote out the producers statement for the warrant for the waterproofing, they will definitely be involved in this if it happens to be a plumbing leak fitting that hasn't been properly crimped or something like that, and that's causing the leak.

Then it'll be the plumber that's responsible. But I think in the first incidence, you would probably go to the person who was the builder, friend number one, and go, I've got an issue with the house. And then they will start chasing these other people. And in the event that the other people have gone, you could still pursue them potentially. And this is this is where joint several liabilities a problem you then drag in council because council issued a ce CC right, and then counsel will try

and sue these other people. It is quite messy. Get on to it straight away, right, you know, like it's not going to get better. Water leaks never get better. So Friend number two, who now owns the house and has the issue, needs to get on on the blower

pretty quickly. Make people really, you know, go and do us a little bit of research around your responsibilities under the Building Act and also responsibilities under the various bits of consumer guarantees, requirements and laws, and people need to respond and get onto this really quickly.

gradual damage so they might engage. I mean what you raise an interesting point around should we as an industry in terms of construction and house building, should we be looking at compulsory insurance as a way of ensuring that the burden for poor workmanship doesn't always end up at the council's foot, right, you know, in their lap, which

it does at the moment. But I think there are clear responsibilities for lbp's construction plumbers and people who give out certificates for waterproofing that their work needs to comply. I guess what inevitably will happen is everyone will say it's somebody else's problem. So it might be worthwhile for friend number two, who's now got the problem with the leak, to get someone to do an assessment to determine what the cause of the leak is that might make it quicker,

or you could just go back to them. I would always start with the main contractor and go this job that you supervised has got a problem. I want you to sort it out.

But only if you've got the right type of policy. Okay, yeah, let us know how you get on its. Look, it's an awful situation to be on and you've just got to crack into it.

night I went to christ Church on Wednesday. I was speaking at the Site Safe graduation, So for those people who had completed their site safe course, it's a level three qualification. I quite like christ Church. I don't spend

a lot of time there. I had a little bit of time in the morning to go for a bit of a drive around, and quite genuinely, I was struck by the quality of some of the small residential redevelopment happening right inside, you know, like within the avenues in christ Church, and so I spent a little bit of time I was driving around. I went for a bit of a walk through the city beautiful Wednesday morning, and one of the things that I noticed was that I

use a lot of render in christ Church. And I mentioned this to Mike Olds, who's going to join us now when we were chatting the other day, Mike, greetings, welcome to the show.

years ago, what you're what you're looking at now? I mean you saw the stadium going up the multi unit residential developments that are I think there was one there that we posted the other day around an Mr Street on the corner of m R Street, as as one in particular that we put up there on our Facebook was what it actually can ultimately become in terms of they're looking for low maintenance projects, are looking for performance in terms of acoustics because you're living in the inner city,

so you want properties that are at nights and quiet even though you're living in that type of environment, which is which is quite difficult to achieve generally, so you're

double glazing, there's absolutely imperative. The system that we use on that particular project was a lightweight concrete which has our integral panels, which has a very very good acoustic property as you're aware from tendancy walling external walling system, so it read dampens down a lot about the noise from just the general the strip down there obviously, which is party central for christ Church down by the Avon, but then moving just slightly out to sort of Latimers Square,

Cramma Square, all those sorts of areas, and they're really distinct, these projects. They're not the same same and that's one of the really cool things in christ Church is that they're not they don't all look the same, the architecture different, but they're incorporating a lot of features that has been raised recently in media around or in the construction sector alone, around the build up of heat and and things like that into into some of these new apartments are getting constructed.

And one of the one thing that struck me to talk with you the other day was that development, or that both those developments be put up on that Facebook had very small openings. They were deep recesses. They have external shading mechanisms, you know, large windows to sort of the southern southern sections of wall rather.

of soul again into it into a property. But these projects, they've been quite clever about how they've they're going to minimize the amount of heat or film will load inside the buildings, which is yeah, it's it's impressive with what they're doing and hopefully the level of design and builds and quality down and christ jedge in the space will flow to other areas around the country when businesses have conferences and christ conventions center there and they're looking around

as this is doing a benchmark for other urban developments in the country. So it's pretty exciting times down there.

go okay. So part of the reason maybe that they're using a rendered finish there is because underneath that we can do a clouding system like the Integral that's got really good acoustic pilus properties, or maybe we're using something that's actually thermally efficient because it does get cold in

christ Church. And then we have also got something that in ten years time when we need to do the maintenance, is the maintenance is relatively straightforward, and so it's something that's easier to do often gets done, whereas the more complex claddings in some cases that require higher levels of maintenance,

that gets put in the two hard baskets. So there's all of those elements are there in that clouding which you just look at and go, gee, that looks really cool, But there's a lot of thinking behind it, which I think is really exciting for christ Church.

Most of the stuff that we're seeing generally would have have two, so you'd have some sort of either stone, stone or timber or plaster as a dominant component, you know. So so keeping it reasonably clean and easier in terms of like you said, in terms of the maintenance in a few years, the body corporates that are looking after these projects only have to worry about two potential clading maintenance items rather than ten different plantings across the different units.

They've kept them very simple yet yet quite classic and style wise empathetic, which is fantastic, you know. And I think that that's that these are important thoughts when not necessarily justin multi unit developments, but equally on individual properties. You know, be thinking about craky. If if I'm putting seedar up, I'm going to be needing to to soft wash and potentially restain that in five or five years,

you know, to keep it looking good. Whereas if you're looking at something like a plaster surface, your rendered surface, you've got a big flat wall area that's reasonably young complex, and that is that you can maintain easily. And he's equally clean easily as well, you know. So it doesn't matter what you do on a build these days, you will always have maintenance. It's about don't leave it to the last minute. They be proactive with it. And and the long and the long term costs to support that

type of quality of the build. It will endure for a lot longer, I mean, and part of our part of the appraisal process, we sit there with a minimum expected durability of thirty years. I mean, we've got we've been We've been here in New Zealand for in terms of the coding systems, in terms of the render for over thirty five now with some of the original projects standing that test of time beyond that period, which is

which is great to see, you know. But every every every project and every every homeowner is different in terms

of their take on how they look after things. But it's it should be reasonably straightforward process and some of the some of the performances coming out of these external planning systems as incredible and it was pleasing yesterday Pete to be sitting in this is in the suite of Building Surveyor's conference and thinking about how we can look at some of the things that even though the internal environment we have an impact on that. There was some

really good discussions yesterday with that first session. We were around ventilation systems, you know, trying to take some of that that heat out of the building or transfer ear through the building so you have a fresh air flow and it just reduces energy costs. It was incredible. We keep loading them, I think the general take on that discussion. We keep loading up insulation into buildings, but we're not actually managing it. That well, and it seems to be.

And they were saying that we don't know what the benefit in terms of the resale value of properties that have got this passive house type construction methodology because the people don't sell them, they love them.

the beautiful stuff effectively. So Razineconstruction dot co dot m Z and Mike was at the conference yesterday and there was a panel discussion at the beginning, particularly focused on H one changes and sort of three experts in the field talking about what they think the government is likely to do. Given that the consultation period for changes to H one of the Building Clothes Building Code has now closed and the government have come in saying we're going

to make some changes, et cetera. Are going to have to announce what those changes are going to be. I would be very, very very surprised if they decided to wind back the requirements for H one. In fact, i'd think that's a retrograde step. But they will need to make some changes. Everyone's picking that potentially the schedule method will be the one thing that gets ditched, so it'll be calculation and modeling for most buildings going into the future.

We can talk about that as well. But again, Mike Col's from Razine Construction, and part of that conversation was prompted simply by the fact that I was in Christchurch

on Wednesday. I drove around the inner city. I was looking at some of the sort of medium scale residential developments and was struck one by the fact I think they've done a really good job, Like the buildings are attractive, appealing, but they also performed particularly well, and I noticed that a lot of them are using renders as an exterior cladding. Right HEO, We're going to take short break. Would like

to join us. We've got some time to take your call, so if you've got a question, oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty. I've got a bunch of texts that I need to answer as well. We'll be back straight after the break. Think squeaky door or squeakie floor.

I think the fact that the glazing this is double glazed, and I presume when you say it's cloudy, that's between the two layers of glass, right is I would be finding out who the manufacturer of the DG units, the double glazed units is and going directly back to them, because essentially it's a failure of the seal between the two panels, which is allowing some air and moisture inside, and then if you're seeing cloudiness or it might actually

be condensation inside there, it's a failure of the DJ unit. From my experience, and I do quite a lot of work with metro performance glass. It's rare, but look, it does happen, and if it's twelve months old, i'd simply go back to the person that installed it. You should be able to track that back through invoices and so on. Quite a number of texts about water. This is a good one here in attacking any Sorry Taranaki, not takeing any it's just down the road in Taranaki, we're experiencing

a drought and relying on tank water. So half a bucket of water between the instant gas hot water system and before it starts flowing warm or hot. That water is used to wash hands, water plants, top up the toilet system. Water collected while having a fast shower goes into the system and it's or it's saved for the floor or outside window washing and so on hand washing clothes. I found myself wishing I had an old agitator washing machine for the control I had over the water used well.

I would imagine that a modern one is you know, users probably less water than the old agitator, remember those with the ringer on the top, and there was always that risk as you're trying to push the clothing. We had one when I was a kid at home, agitator washing machine with the ringer on the top. So you'd finished the washing, take the clothes ringing wet out and then pop them through that and man, if you didn't let go in time, your fingers were into the rollers.

applied to the wall, but it has to perform or doesn't have the same requirements as exterior render. Hopefully that makes that a little bit clearer. Right, we've got new sport and we're the top of the hour. Remember Red client passed from eight thirty this morning here at Newstalks B Measure.

in terms of water conservation. I guess water leaks, because we talked a little bit about that water In terms of exterior cladding and ensuring buildings are weather tight. The other thing that I encountered this week was increasingly we're needing to do water tanks for either storage or stormwater management.

put a water tank there. Why not, Well because of fire. Okay, so just let that sit sit with you just for a second. You can't put something full of water in the space between a building and the boundary because they're worried about fire. And that was the general response from the council. So I rang a guy, David, who is at Bailey Water Tanks and said have you heard about this? And then there is and he said, yeah, this came up, but there's been a determination from inby that this is

obviously nonsense. Right, So you can put a water tank there and it can be either a plastic or a metal tank. But it got me one, there's just such an absurdity around a council officer saying you can't put a water tank there because we're worried about fire. But also it got me into sort of the rabbit hole of reading determinations from Inby about building disputes. It's quite fascinating.

So just quickly, if let's say you're involved with a building pro reject and it's got a consent and there is a disagreement around, you know, if your designer has said this is going to work and council have said no, we don't think it's going to work, or an individual inspectors, you can go for a determination. Right If you can't reach an agreement with discussion, you can go back to Inby and get a determination. And all of those determinations

are available to read. So I read the one about the water tanks, and then I started reading determinations on tile showers and a whole lot of other things. I thought it was quite interesting. But the water tank one, jeers, we had a bit of a chuckle. We might we might get some expert opinion on that. But yeah, not putting a water tank in because of fire hard to imagine, isn't it. Right, Let's rip into it Tom Good morning, Good morning.

destination of the habitable space to the exit. So, if I think off from the top of my head, if it's something like seventy six meters, which is the length of a fire hose, then you don't need to have internal sprinklers. If it's more than that you might need to. So look, there's still regulations around fire and there should be right What I was what flabbergasted me, is this

made of mine goes. I said, I wanted to put a plastic tank, which is absolutely fine in that space, and they said you can't do it, and the concern was fire and you just go.

way behind now. I was considering the fact that this fridge here has got only about one in one ince can I using this one in sinsulation polystyrene And you can't feel the temperature on our side except we're hitting and the hot water cylinders. Billy Muddin, it's polystyonne insulator too, and it's perfectly cold on the outside. I'm wondering why you need so many inches They keep saying add inches into when they're talking about six or eight inches in

some buildings. So where are we on that right?

OUR value. There are other insulation products that a more dense, like the foam based or the polyurethane ones, which will achieve a similar R value, but they don't need as much space, so they might need three or four inches to achieve R let's say three, where another product will need six inches to achieve R three point two. And you know these are just rough figures, so you're right, one inch, yeah, I know, But the R value on the freezer when you look at it won't be that high.

And also because it's a completely sealed unit and it's metal and so on, there'll be a whole lot of other factors involved that the basic principle is right. So if you've got not much space, then you might use a different type of insulation to achieve the R value. I would imagine in your roof as it is at the moment, with a scillion roof with some if it's got aluminium foil as an insulator, you know, it's probably

only achieving be less than R one. Ideally. Well, the code with the schedule method, which hopefully is going to get ditch, would require you to have six point six if you didn't do some calculation or some model.

to go well. The other thing is that I you know, ideally in these situations, if you're replacing a boundary fence, you should really have the boundary determined, ideally by a surveyor, so in the absence of any pegs or markings, then you would get a surveyor in and then typically you try and line the fence up with the boundary, either straddling it or one of your agrees on which side. But the fact that they've chosen to do it inside you, have they asked for a contribution from you?

a new fence. You haven't paid for it. You've got a little bit more space, and yes, it's a bit of work, but that might be I suppose that the thing would be is if you ever go to sell in the future, that you would want to make it absolutely clear to a potential purchaser that while that looks like that's part of my property, it's not. And the boundary might actually boundary fence might be in the wrong place.

But otherwise it's yeah, it's a bit more work for you, but it might actually be a bit of an advantage, or you could see it that way. Good luck, Serena. It is eighteen minutes after eight. We are going to take short break. We'll be back with Graham straight after the.

boundary was classed as a building. The determination from MBY has said, you know, it's clearly not building, and also it's risk in terms of fire is very small. Some people have said, oh, look I've seen a tank that got struck by lightning and sort of exploded. Well, that'll happen in an incredibly rare chance. But in terms of you know, is it going to burn, well, No, it's full of water hopefully until it's dry. Even then it

ain't going to burn very well. Twenty two minutes after eight and A Graham Good morning.

list all of the things that you want them to price. So, for example, will you manage your subcontractors in terms of electrical or plumbing and painting and those sorts of things, or do you want the main contractor to provide pricing for all of those elements. So you'd want to be very clear around the scope of the work, the number

of contractors subcontractors that the main contractor will employ. And then yes, if let's say it's a job of several months, are you asking the main contractor to provide you with a fixed quote for labor or are you happy to

do that on a charge up basis? Right, so a cost plus basis on the basis that you agree to a certain number of hours, right, so you're protecting yourself, and yet it gives some flexibility to the contractor, particularly with renovations right where you know, maybe they'll uncover something that they're not expecting, or perhaps they lift the floor and discover that the joys are in poor condition and

they need to be replaced. Now, if they've done a fixed price contract, they would need to come back to you and say this is a variation. You need to agree to the variation, they need to price it and then the work can continue. Or if it's a charge up basis, then you could say the contractor could say, I think it's going to take three men six months to do the job, and if you're still got guys on site in seven months, you could be saying why is it taking so long? If they happen to finish

in five months, do you get a discount? You know you're not paying for them. But it then raises issues about you know, when do they arrive on site, how long do they have for lunch? When did they leave? Are the same number of guys on site every day? These things tend to get a bit complicated. So the other person who might be able to advise you on this is. Some architects will do supervision of the project.

They often do that for a fee, but at least you'll get a professional sort of opinion as to how long it should take. In some cases the architects will approve the invoices, right, but there will again, I know architects who do this, but typically it's a fee of you know, somewhere between seven and ten percent of the build cost. Yeah, exactly. There is not actually one answer to your question. That's why I'm not being vague. I'm just saying there are so many ways of doing that.

I've got friends who are doing a renovation. At the moment they've contracted builder. The builder is effectively on a charge up basis, but has given them an idea of how long they think it should take. So I guess, you know, if it's and when I had Cruise working, I would do it. I would often do my renovations on exactly that basis. I've worked out a schedule. I think that it's going to take four of us this long to do the job, and you know, hopefully the

person is honest and realistic. They're not saying they'll do it in three months, knowing that it's a four months job, and you end up paying a lot of extra labor. You could manage the subcontractors, but then you become responsible

for any delays. Right if you're managing the plumber, for example, because you know someone who's a plumber and they don't turn up then and the builders ready to line the wall, but the plumber hasn't turned up on time, then the builder is going to come back to you and go, well, my guys are sitting here waiting for someone that you should have organized. They're not here. We're charging you for this time, but we're not doing anything. You know, there's just not a straight answer.

and go yep. All of these things are included. And it was part of the discussion yesterday is you know where what you don't want to see when you're a client, as someone gives you a quote, but there's lots of PC sums in there, or there's lots of you know, provisional sums in there for something that everyone knows what has to be done. Most things should be able to be priced accurately and a QS will be able to tell.