You're listening to the Resident build Up podcast with Peter wolf Camp from US talks at B.
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Peter wolf Camp the Resident Builder with light four solar flick the switch to solar today used talk said B.
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Estate, the house of fallen us.
Well, a very good morning, good welcome along to the Resident Builder on Sunday. You're with Peak wolf Camp. That's me the Resident Builder, and we are here to talk about all things building and construction. So if you've got a project that's underway that well, maybe it's not going quite as you would have expected it, or perhaps rather than encounter problems, you're thinking, I'll do a bit more planning beforehand, and to be fair, nobody ever regrets a
good bit of planning before launching into a project. Or perhaps you are you've done something and it hasn't worked out quite as you expected. Maybe it's issues around trying to find the right trades people to help out with the task, selecting materials, which is always a bit of an issue. And then there's always the rules and the regulations that surround building and construction in New Zealand as well. All of these things are on the table today. Maybe
like you, you actually made the kitchen table. We can talk about that. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call. Texts is up and running nine two nine two, and email is up and running as well. Pete at newstalksb dot co dot z. So I trust that you had a good week. Certainly we had. I wonder whether it's time for the meteorologists or the reporting of the media orol just to stop talking about
weather bombs. You know, we'd like to make those a special occasion or an unusual occasion, not just it's raining today, so it's weather bomb. And I was thinking about that because you know a little bit of you know, fourth warning, let's say, allowed me to go round outside and just have a look at drainage, make sure that gully traps weren't overflowing, that the downpipes are still properly connected. I've got a couple of ideal a bit of rainwater harvesting.
I've got a Bailey slim gym tank tucked in behind the shed. I don't really need to irrigate the garden at this time of year, so what I tend to do is, knowing that there's wet weather coming, I released the water from there back into the council system. So I'll drain the tank, which means that when that first bit of rain comes, it's taken up by the tank.
I freshened up the water that's in there. But also that I it allows me then well, I think it's a way of contributing to not having massive amounts of water going into the stormwater system every time it rains, if you can contain some of it that initial deluge. And I was driving, as I pointed out to my son, we were driving yesterday. You know, it hadn't rained for like four or five hours and or probably even more yesterday,
and the curbs were still full of water. So that whole curb discharge where maybe people have got detention tanks on their property, and the way the detention tank works is maybe you've got five thousand leter capacity tucked under the driveway or something like that. On a new build that will fit up, and then there'll be an outlet about a seventeen mil outlet at the bottom, and that will discharge into the stormwater system into the public line for as long as it takes to drain that tank
back down to that level. And so it's not uncommon now to be driving well after the rain has finished and see stormwater discharge coming out, particularly if it's a curb discharge where you can see it obviously for some hours to come after the rainfall. And that's those systems working quite well. So, and but what happens when it doesn't work well? And I'll tell you about a job that I went to have a look at this week.
Every now and then I go to look at a job, partly in the hope that I'm going to be helpful and provide a helpful solution, but also because I'm curious to see what the actual issues are. So what the challenges are. Anyway, this was a basement one. It's a sort of question that we get a fair amount. Hey, I've got water coming into the basement. What can I do about it? So I'll tell you a little bit
about that particular job later on in the hour. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call though. If you've got a project you're underway, you want to talk about planning, you want to talk about preparation, you want to talk about the materials that you're using, the vast number of and the wide range the selection that's possible in terms of, you know, choosing paints, choosing silicons, choosing building products, choosing materials, choosing tradespeople. You may wish
to discuss any of those things. We can talk about it all on the show this morning. So eight hundred eighty ten eighty the number to call text nine to nine two and if you would like to email me, it is Pete at Newstalk SB dot co dot nz. So let's get into it. We've got a busy one morning. Later on in the show, if you've got a question, call us right now. Eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number.
Doing other house assorting the guard and ask Pete for a hand.
The resident builder with Peter Wolfcam and lighte Force Solar get your solar saver pag now call oh eight hundred eighty US talks.
That'd be a couple of texts have come in. First one, people are still going on about song. I don't think
I'm changing it, put it that way. The other one that came in and in preparing for the show, I was talking with Bevin, my producer this morning, and I was saying, look, I've noticed that over the last couple of weeks, I've sort of moved into talking a little bit around I guess the politics and the legislation around building, because it is such a political topic at the moment, and I think cast your mind back for the last couple of years, I don't know that sort of building legislation,
building rules, building regulations has actually had as much coverage in the media as it has over the last couple of months, effectively ever since the coalition government took the reins of power and started to look at how we construct things housing affordability, housing supply, etc.
Etc.
And so I personally it's something that I'm particularly interested in. I think it does have an impact on us, and over the last couple of weeks on the show, I'm just being really honest with you, I've sort of gone, actually, it's something that we should talk about, and a lot of our conversation is headed that way. And then I was driving around thinking this week as I do, thinking, oh, I wonder if I should sort of change tack a little bit and go, let's go back to sort of
the more fix it type issues on the show. And so you know this basement job that I went to have a look at this week where there was literally water percolating out of the slab and heavy rain, with the homeowners going what can we do? And partly where can we get some independent advice? And what can we do about it? And what are the solutions, what are the range of options around it, what's causing it? And then how can we fix it? That's the classic sort
of part of this program. What's the problem, how can we fix it? What are some of the options? And I love talking about that, And so I was saying to just a couple of minutes before coming on here, so I feel that maybe I've headed too far down the political regular tree sort of stuff. I want to swing the topic back towards literally sort of hammer and
nails type stuff. And first text up, well, second one actually, apart from the one about the song Pete, what do you think of Chris Penk's proposal to ease up on the h and insulation mandates for new builds. Gavin from Canterbury, Thank you, Gavin. I'm more than happy to talk about
that as well. In fact, I've printed off a couple of I have been talking about it with other people, let's say, in the sector, people that I know, over the last week or so, and certainly, like I say at the beginning of this, so I saying, I don't think there's been a time in the last couple of years where building has been as political as it is right now, with a new minister being Chris Penk, coming in and saying, you know, I want to know what's going on and I'm happy to make changes, and they've
already started to do that. So last week they announced that they wanted to make remote inspections basically the default position forcls. Now, that's actually a significant change in the way that inspections are run. I know that many many councils around the country already do remote inspections, but I would challenge anyone who said it's the default situation. All of the inspections that I've ever been part of typically
you're waiting for the building inspector to turn up. And so there's been some interesting pushback on that as well, including industry organizations going well, unfortunately, we know that there are shonky builders out there, and if it's only going if inspections are only going to be done by remote access, I literally it's a way of the inspector with some software being able to access the camera on your phone and see and direct you to show them certain items
that they want to inspect. But it means they don't have to be on site, which is arguably more efficient, but I think it also means that they don't get to see everything that's going on. These things do get complicated because inspectors typically aren't there to see everything. They're only there to inspect what it is that is required to be inspected. So anyway we can talk a little bit about that, and then we'll come back to this one.
What do you think of Chris Penk's proposal to ease up on the H one insulation mandates for new bills. I don't think it's a good idea for a number of reasons. I suspect that what has happened is that with a new minister and a new government at play.
Lots of people want to get the air of the minister, and some of those people will be people that are reluctant to change or to embrace change, and they are people that might go, actually, you know what, I think that it's added thirty forty fifty thousand dollars the cost of new bill. Therefore it's unaffordable. Therefore we shouldn't do it.
And that's a fairly convincing argument. Then there are others who have come forward and said, actually, no, we don't think the cost is that great, but the benefit is enormous. And then I caught a little snippet of what the Minister was saying the other day. Well, hang on, it's cold comfort, quite literally to someone who's locked out of
the housing market because houses are unaffordable. If after twenty years they can say, well, look I've had less energy bills because my house is more energy efficient, and therefore that's a good thing in twenty years time. But if I can't afford to buy a house right now, is it a good thing for me right now? So look, it does get enormously complicated. Think I think it's deserving of our discussion and if you want to launch into
it by all means. But if I had to say yeay or nay to it, I'd say I don't think it's a good idea. I think that it is. There are lots of ways to achieve better energy efficiency in our houses. I think the problem with what has happened with the changes to H one one that came into effect in the Building Code in November of last year is that they still left the schedule method there, and that's clunky and it led to people assuming a whole lot of that they had to do a whole lot
of things that they possibly didn't need to do. Sorry if that sounds a bit vague, and I think it it had a really simpler that way. The schedule method is a simplistic way of calculating whether or not a building's going to be energy efficient. I understand why they want to leave the schedule method there because they want to be able to allow people to build a house out of three six o four without getting specific design, etc.
Etc.
But I think maybe we've just moved beyond that. Anyway, we can talk about Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call moisture and slabs is an area that architect specifically provides a solution for. Thank you for that. I'll explain more why that's relevant on this hour.
Right now, your opportunity to have your say more than I more than happy to talk politics and discuss the legislation because it's going to impact on us, all right, if they wind back, If the decision is actually we're going to lower the standards, And there's been some fantastic cartoons this week that I that have popped out talking
about this. If they're going to if the government decides we're actually going to lower the stands, we're going to wind back H one, it's going to have a significant cost and it's also a lost opportunity as far as I'm concerned. So where are you at with it?
Oh?
Eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call Zara? Good morning?
Ah, Hi, Hey, how are you good?
Thank you?
Yeah? H one So Obvitually it's not my job anymore, but.
I wor.
Council.
I think the whole rollback of the H one is insane.
Yep.
They're probably needs to be some points done, probably more architecturally than.
I tell you what we might do is see if we can get you back on a better line, because I'm kind of missing individual bits and if I can't hear you, then I suspect that someone listening to the radio is going to struggle as well, so well, see if we can get Xana back as well. The first part of her conversation is pretty clear. I think it's insane to roll back the H one requirements, and there's a number of groups that have come forward, including I
was doing some reading yesterday. I was looking for some information on the brand's website actually for a presentation that I've got to do, and they had a press release for immediate release on the nineteenth of July. Because that's very current, I'll have a bit of a look at that, and they've come up with five reasons why rolling back H one is not a good ideas. Had a similar press release from the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and they've proposed that the issue is not around the
H one requirements. The issue was around the basically the quality and the education within the sector. So we can talk about that as well. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty the numbers are there, we go hike much better, thank you, much better, much better.
So I was saying my past life, I worked for a district council. H one rollback is like a really bad call. Sounds like this government does anything labor did.
They want to roll it back. But like if you think about it from a when they're talking about a monetary perspective, right, you have to come up with like one hundred and sixty one hundred and seventy almost two hundred k to get into a property anyhow, you're looking at twenty maybe thirty thousand dollars at the max for your for your H one, for your extra insulation costs.
The reality is when you put that against percentage wise, against what you have to come up with for a deposit on a house, it's just it doesn't add up, you know, Like if you look at it in terms of percentage wise, it's what an extra seven kke, you know, So it doesn't make any sense when we're getting better quality insulation. What it is is we've got yep education in the sector, people not understanding the standards.
And how it should work.
The additional part of it is that we have architects who are not designing to the quality to not designing correctly. So they're still designing. There's datiful homes, which is great, but they're actually not thinking about how they do it. You know, like massive, massive windows on the north side. Well, yeah, it's going to bake your house. You have to have and you've got to have houses that breed, you know, you've got to have gaps that breathe at. Ventilation, yeah,
active ventilation, remote inspections. So I worked for a district council if we didn't remote inspections are great where and we needed but as the norm, some of the cowboys out there that my building inspectors used to come back and just tell up stories and they'd be like, oh, yeah, so we turned out for the job blah blah blah blah blah, and it was like really, so that's what
you want to go back to. It just sounds to me like there's been a lot of advocation through through to the ministers because of where the money has come from for our campaign, and I think it's not looking at the overall perspective, which is they have and well being of New Zealanders as a whole. I now work in the health sector and I work out one of the busiest eats in New Zealand. And believe me, these
H one standards need to be in there. You know, we have people coming in sacks who are dying in their home substandards and we need to change that and we need to think about what benefits our people.
And look back ten fifteen years ago when there was kind of much wider subsidies available for retrofitting insulation, right, and it was almost like before the warm Up New Zealand scheme and so on, and it was it was not means tested. And the reason I know that is because we were able to qualify for a subsidy probably fifteen twenty years ago. And I remember doing some reading at the time where you know, every dollar spent on insulating and making houses warmer had a seven dollar saving
in the health sector. And that's you know, you would probably agree with that given your perspective now, right, So having better quality homes is without a doubt a good thing. And I'm pleased you picked up on the poor design. And I'm again I'm often loath to criticize other people in the sector, but I look, I went to a site the other day that was being trumpeted, I'm not going to say too much about it because I really
like the people that are doing this particular project. And I went there to look at what they wanted to display as an exemplar of better building practice, right. And I turned up and I was chatting away to someone. I was looking at the windows, and I'm going, why have you put the windows where they are in terms of the relationship between the double glazing and the insulated
wall framing, right? And I'm like, hang on, how how is it that I'm standing here in front of this building where this probably been ten or fifteen designers and architects who have looked at this and been part of the development of this plan, and it's still basically, in
a word, wrong. So yeah, And I think that's the point that was made actually in a press release that I saw from the New Zealand Building Surveys, where they're saying, actually, you know, the H one changes are actually not that onerous, although see I have some criticism of them as well, because when they announced that new ceial insulation across the country was going to be our six point six that's madness, right, that's madness.
One.
Thanks to be in the South Island.
And again, so as you know, and he puts that out right, they go, we're going to make it all our six point six, just dumb like, completely unnecessary for large parts of the country. And in fact, I remember having a discussion five or six years ago with someone who went, look, I've just added some insulation to my property. And then I've done some reading and I've realized that anything above R five is actually not making much difference at all to the performance of the building, and in
fact it might have some unintended consequences. And so you know, they go, okay, because they wanted to keep the schedule method, they went, let's make it our six point six, and let's make it everywhere in the country. And so suddenly you've got trust manufacturers and framing detailers going, well, hang on, if we need to get three hundred and something millimeters of insulation, we're going to come up with these funky heel trusses, and we can't do six to two rafters anymore.
Bloody bloody blah. They've shot themselves in their foot, to be exactly, and.
That's our additional costs. That's where costs start to blow out.
So it's like people aren't thinking about they're designing.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, think about your design, think about as a as a unity group. I mean, get around the table, and don't get specialists around the table. You know, the people who actually worked, A couple of key people all over the country who actually do the job, not the bossers, the actual builders.
Yeah, but you see, I think that that might have happened in the sense that I think that you know, you can imagine being a new minister in a new government, you would be bombarded by people who want to lobby for their position. That's politics, right, and that's absolutely fine, in the same way that you'll get bombarded by people that go Green Building Council stood up the other day and went, we think it's a really bad idea to
wind back h one. A bunch of people that work in high performance homes like super home Movement, they said it's a really bad idea. Brands have just come out and they've said it's a really bad idea. But you can also imagine that within the sector there will be you know, developers and builders who are going, look, we can't seem to get it right. We think it's adding in the figure is forty thousand dollars. Let's say to a new build. Therefore, we want it rolled back because
we think it's making houses unaffordable. And that's a fairly strong argument, right If you're in charge of trying to deliver ten of thousands of houses and you want to make them more affordable. If someone says to you, you can say forty grand by just winding back H one, that's kind of tempting. It's probably untrue, but it's kind of tempting. Imagine being in his shoes. In fact, we should find out, and I think I'm going to get him on the show. Zana, thank you very much for
your calls and your conversation this morning, really appreciated. Look, I'm happy to launch into this in terms of talking
about H one and the regulations and housing affordability. Quick just before I go to en So if you have a look on the brand's website if you're interested, they've got a press release up there that says brands reinforces support for the better Kiwi homes through higher efficiency standards in their introduction states last year, the new energy efficient standards under H one under Clause H one of the New Zealand Building Code were introduced that require better than
performance than new homes, including more insulation. These changes aim to improve the health and comfort and to help country reduce the country's carbon emissions. These steps towards aligning with international best practice and the expectations of consumers. Goes on for a bit and then it says in summary, these are the reasons that we think it should be maintained as an H one. One The standards are based on scientific evidence. Two insulation does not cause overheating. Three poor
design is the problem. Four avoiding the costs of reversing the changes because there'll be significant costs and going backwards. And five aligning the building sector with national climate goals. So there's more information in there. We'll have a look at it a little bit later on if you've got a thought. Eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call texts as well. Morning. Huge investment has gone into suppliers getting the products to reach the new H
one compliance standards. I work for one of the largest aluminium extrusion suppliers for windows and doors, and we've had a tremendous investment in R and D to offer our thermal extrusions and completely and continually improve them chairs from I'll leave your aim out of it for now, Shilo, but I one hundred percent agree with exactly what you're
saying there. A lot of people have prepared for this, and winding it back is going to be enormously disruptive, and I'm not sure it's going to give you the benefit that you're after. Oh eight one hundred and eighty ten eighty will take your calls. Ian, Good morning to you.
Good morning, Pete.
How are you?
Yeah, very well, thanks, that's a story.
Pete's got a question. We've got an old house built nineteen eighty four, particle floor flooring, tile roof, and on some of the interior petitions, the walls are pressing the down through the particle flooring. Correct. Yes, of Servius, there's no floor joist underneath it. The question is is that a straightforward repair for a licensed practitioner or is it more a specialized job for someone who does house leveling or something like that. What's your thoughts on that one.
Probably not a job for someone who does house leveling in the sense that it's a little I was going to say it's a little bit more technical than that. It is in the sense that what's essentially what's happening is and it would have been either it was an oversight at the time of construction or it just wasn't
required at the time of construction. So typically if you're not putting a load bearing wall on top of a series of joys below or across them, so that it's the weight of the bottom plate is distributed over a number of joys that are running at ninety degrees to your bottom plate right, So if you're running parallel to your joists, you're either looking to get your framing directly on top of it within a certain distance, but you would never ideally have it sitting mid span so that
all that it's being held up with is the particle board. And if you do, then you wouldnog between the two parallel joists on either side of the bottom plate at let's say four hundred centers or six hundred centers right to support the weight of that bottom plate. And I suspect that if you are able to get underneath the floor and look up, you'll find that there is an
absence of nogs. The next question becomes, Okay, if I wanted to put nogs in there, how do I push the bottom plate up and get rid of that deflection and the flooring which might so can you get underneath the floor at that point?
Ken?
This but tricky. We may have a cut of section the floor out right.
To get in there. Yeah, So what I suppose if I was approaching it, I'd probably look at getting if I could get underneath there, you'd cut your noogs and if the noog won't go up, you'd actually have a small bottle jack underneath it and jack the dog up into position so that if the knog is cut to the same size as the joists on either side, when the bottom of the knog is flushed with the joists, then you know that you will have leveled out the floor above it's hard to see both sides of the
floor at once, and then fix it off. And if you're worried about it, you know, collapsing or lowering down later on, you could put some multi grips or some CP forties or you know, some extra bracing on either side of it as well to ensure that it doesn't move. But that's probably going to be the solution. And I'd almost guarantee that when you get underneath the floor you can see where the bottom plate is deflecting the flooring. It'll be because there's no nogging underneath it.
Yeah, I think i'd suspect that's the case. We've had another section of the house to SA's some sort of thing. Yeah, But was that something that was back in the day was a non requirement or was it just a bit of oh, look, slickness on the building.
It might be, you know, because when you're laying out your choice, right, you know you're off. Maybe you didn't to that. Maybe they didn't look carefully at the plans right, and they weren't thinking about where their load bearing walls above, and so they might have just gone, let's just set them all out at six hundred centers and then they throw the flooring down, and then they stand the frames up on top and they realize that actually it's in the middle of the floor. Oh well it'll be okay.
Well it's not okay forty odd years later.
No, So is it an idea or a good idea, good practice to actually cut that section of floor out and lay a new flat piece. And if you get going to go rather thank you jack up underneath put the nogs in. Should you try and take that section of floor out and put a new piece in there.
So you get quite a lot of work to try and get that flooring out because obviously it's trapped underneath the bottom plate of the wall that's there. Look, if the particle border is in poor condition, which it'll be a bit dozy by now, but unless it's had a fair amount of water on it, it will still be okay. I think I'd probably just take the approach of going, let's just get under the nogget and push the bottom plate up that way.
And there is that's wrong with putting an extra pile and there.
Oh not at all the floor as well. Yeah. So again, if you go to the building code or yeah, to three six o four, you'll find, for example, that there's a minimum distance away from a parallel joist that you can put a bottom plate. You know, so you might be able to be fifty millimeters from the edge of the floor joist. And you know, but if your floor joiser at six hundred centers, for example, and you put it in the middle, well then what's happened is inevitable.
Yeah, yeah, that's good.
Yeah, much pressure. Enjoy all right, take care of all the best, boy, and having spent a little bit of time unerneath the floor putting in nogs. It's i'll tell you what, it's quite a good job to do with somebody else, because in the instance, the job that I did last week or the week before, I thought, right, I want to make sure that this nog's nice and tight in there. But of course I was, you know,
a million and a half too tight. So crawl back out, cut it, crawl back in fixing the nog, et cetera, et cetera. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call. Yeah, we're getting lots of texts on the whole insulation thing. Well, we'll take a deep dive into this. You tell us where you want to go on the show eight hundred eighty ten eighty. I will take a break. We'll come back and talk to Paul in just a moment.
Whether you're painting the ceiling, fixing the fence, or wondering how to fix that hole in the wall. Give Peter Wolf Cabin call on Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty the resident builder with light four solar flick the switch to solar today news talks.
That'd be plenty of texts and a welcome you text on this particular issue, changing h one, rolling it back, sticking to what's already been. I was going to say, agreed to. There's no real agreement. It's like this is the new rules and get on with it. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call. Paul, Good morning you.
Good morning morning. I'm working on a shed that we're lining. Yes to use it as an alternative use with the right council approvals and whatnot. But what concerns me is the concrete floor. And I reclect back it was about Valentine's Day, not that I'm into that sort of.
Carry on, but.
About a year ago there was a big flooding and the vartity and whatnot, and we're in the caramandle and I recall.
This particular shed.
There was a lot of moisture that came up, I believe, through the concrete. And an old maid of mine, he's not a builder, but he's been involved in a lot of building projects. He said, pour a couple of cup of water over the concrete and see what happens to the water. And I found him back and said, disappeared into the concrete, and well, when they put the concrete down, mate, there's no moisture barrier.
There's it's just it's just porous.
And the only thing you can do is put a flooring compound down. You obviously can't concrete on top of concrete and expected to fix the problem.
It's going to.
Cause more problems. What what what are your suggestions? You know, I do have some semics floor or you know, floor leveling compound there that says that it's good. And I've read up a lot on the internet and what there's all sorts of compounds available that say that it's as good as putting a membrane. Not that there's a membrane able to be put on a concrete floor, or.
There are there are membranes that you can apply over the top concrete floors as seilers. So okay, So there, let's assume the slab is down, there is no vapor barrier, and you'll get moisture coming up through the slab, and you want to make it habitable space, and so you want to be able to control that internal moisture. That makes sense. So are you intending to lay flooring over the top of what you're putting down or do you want the concrete to be exposed.
In the wet areas, the idea was to put tiling down, okay, all right, and in the non wet areas the insulator thermally insulated under the sure carbet on top to keep it warm.
Okay. So the main thing is that you're going to cover it, and so you could apply a coating that won't then be seen later on truck like, I wouldn't use floor leveling compound to try and create a waterproof barrier because it won't work right, So, okay, you could use that later on, but I wouldn't use it as
your primary one. So there are crystalline solutions, things like Cemex crystal Proof, for example, which is an application that you can you mix it up, apply it and it penetrates into the pores of the slab, searching for moisture and will continue to activate. Now there's a couple of issues with that. Can't paint it later on, you may not be able to tile over it, so you'd have to get some technical advice on that. There are other
ceiling sealers that you can apply. So for example, where we've had a concrete slab that hasn't dried out enough, but we've wanted to lay a timber floor over the top of it, and we wanted to make sure that the timber floor is not going to be impacted by the moisture in the slab. Then you can apply a vapor barrier there, which is again a brush on application that you can then adhere you're flooring to. So that's
a solution for you. And then there are a couple of you know, professional companies that will come out and do the job for you as well, who apply waterproof solutions that will keep moisture in the slab, and again, do a little bit of research around which one you want and the compatibility. If you had the space, you could actually pour another slab over the top, it would need to be at least seventy eighty millimeters thick for it not to crack on its own, so that may
not be a great solution. I think often people have got like a two point four start in the thought of pouring another one hundred slab over the top. Yes, it's not that great, So there are some solutions out there. I think you're on the right track in terms of doing the research, but you know, yeah, there are solutions for you, so Crystaline solutions, vapor barriers or a proprietary one. So get a company in like Armtek or someone like that to come and do it. Good luck with all
of that. It is ten minutes away from seveny to take another short break. We'll be back with Don in just a moment.
Squeaky door or squeaky floor.
Get the right advice from Peter Wolfcare the resident builder with light force solar, save on solar and earn airpoints dollars used.
Talks B your News Talks B and Don A very good morning to you.
Good morning Pee, take pleasure to talk to you as well to you Peter. I think that I think that you can rely on the National government. You said you'd welcome but to talk on the politics, so let's get into it. I think you can rely on the National government to be a bit disruptive, disruptive of patch protection that tends to accumulate when you've got a long time in left wing governments. There's some brilliant outcomes from some
of the changes the Minister has already signaled. We've been looking at a build over on the West coast in a remote area, and one of the things we've been exploring is importing some windows from China, which of course the new regulations have opened up the door to be able to do that, and just looking at the windows, in my understanding is they have Pete and I'm not an expert in the space, and the gentleman that's doing this particular part of the exercise definitely is an expert,
and he wouldn't be doing anything that isn't actually co because he's pretty good at checking those regulations. That's part of his point of difference in what he does. Sure, And we looked at the different quotes from locally in China and had a look at the fact there's twenty to thirty percent difference in those in the pricing.
So it's a bit of a.
Swings and roundabouts. I think Pete that the insulation might be costing a little bit more in one space, but the opportunity to change up building materials and level out those costs again in the other space, So I don't think the sky is falling.
I recalled back.
To sort of thirty years ago when we started or forty years ago when we started looking at their regulation in New Zealand, and a lot of screaming about how the sky was going to fall. Well, we're forty years on and the sky certainly hasn't fallen. But that doesn't mean you don't need to be cautious.
Except what about leaky buildings?
Yeah, now I was going to see that.
Next you had a leaky building. The sky's falling quite literally.
Yeah, that's absolutely right, And that came about. That came about a lot because we changed up the way that we designed buildings. And then we got some people who are quite good at what they were doing, but we got a lot of me too, people joining the bandwagon as well. It didn't know what they were doing. And then designers just simply didn't design flashings and all of those other bits to an appropriate standard. So we had to lift up those standards.
I've got one minute before the news, go for it. Sure your most salient point R.
Two, R two point six and walls and R four point for R four in ceilings is more than enough where I live in Canterbury. But I agree that a brush a broad stroke across the whole country to go to R seven and R four is a bridge too far in the north, and possibly not far enough in the Deep South. So I think overall we're in good hands. But my last point would be on councils and inspections.
I think that fee for service guys. I think that if the councils can offer up that you can have if you want to buy it, on site, inspectors to do your checking so you've got security of knowing you've had someone have a look, right, then I think councils need to get busy and make those services available even if they're not required, because I know I'd want to buy.
That as a value. Add interesting point, Yeah, absolutely, interesting point, fascinate. Thank you Don much appreciated, great ideas. Take care. Look, the occasional shakeup is not a bad thing as long as we get good outcomes. We're going to talk to Paul and to Bruce after the news. If you'd like to join us, call us now eight hundred and eighty ten eighty here News Talk said.
Helping you get those DIY projects done right the resident builder with Peter wolfcap and light your solar get your solar saber pack Now News Talks.
That'd be taking your calls this morning on all things building construction, DIY renovations, alterations new builds and compliance and regulation.
So we've I mentioned at the beginning of the program that it's hard to recall a time in recent memory, and given I've been doing this show for ten years where building has not been such a political issue in the sense that obviously with a coalition government that's come into power, they're looking at regulation, they're looking at housing affordability, they're looking at housing supply, and they're going, it's not really working. We kind of all know that it's not
really working. So what can we do? What levers can we pull to change it? And out of that has come a whole bunch of changes to regulation, So changing or proposing that let's say, granny flats up to sixty square meters could be built without necesscessarily requiring a building consent or a resource consent, and then there's a whole lot of it's like a drop down menu. Next to it is a whole lot of if if, and then you can come out with it. That's just I've just
remembered something that I was going to do. I love the occasional completely unscientific text pole, So this was something I was thinking about during the course of the week, and I'll come to the calls in moment, but I'd like to do this with you this morning on the show through till about eight fifteen. So the text the moot is could you build? Could do you have the space? Could you build a sixty square meter granny flat on
your property? So think about where you live right now and text me yes or no. Could you put a sixty square meter granny flat on your property that would be compliant with the regulations. So, for example, it needs to be the height of the building away from a boundary or from an adjacent building. That's probably the biggest one, right, and it has to go in the rear yard and you can only put one of them in. Could you
do it at your house? The reason for my question is, while it's been floated as an answer to housing affordability and housing supply, I suspect that the number of properties where it could actually go is tiny. So will its impact be great?
No?
I don't think it will be because there's just not that many properties around where you could do it, certainly not an urban center. So again text me right now nine two ninety two if you wanted to, could you put a sixty square meter granny flat on your property and it be compliant. So we'll run that text during the course of the program. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call, and we'll try
and keep a tally of that as well. That's going to be the hard but so far, yes, no, yes, no, yes, interesting, No, I'm on a seven hundred and twelve square meter section. Fair enough, Okay, that's going to run alongside the rest of the program. Paul, good morning, welcome, Yeah.
Good morning, Peter. Hey, my questions not regarding the granny flats, but no, no, I'm just running that as a sideline.
Basically, I've got a side hustle going. That's what it is.
Now, that's all right, But I do have a question regarding that, just after listening to your comments. So not needing a resource consent, how do we get on with plumbing? If I guess if you're using a license building practitioner, he can build without the resource consent, and I'm assuming if the plumber is licensed, he can probably plumb without a resource consent as well. So I'm picking that would be the process that would occur if you were building such a small.
Dwelling to be fair. That's I don't know that they're terribly clear on that. The idea would be because and it's not about resource consent, it's about building consent for those types of things. So let's say you did build a granny flat in the backyard, and obviously you'd want to connect the toilet up to the wastewater supply, and typically that work needs a building consent because plumbing is
underneath the building consent. However, plumbers and drain layers are effectively their license right, which allows them to self certify
to some degree. So as long as the work was done by a licensed drain layer to the requirements, that should be okay, right, and that person should be able to issue you with a record of works or a producer statement saying I've done the work, here's the as built, and the work complies with the building code in terms of the connections and how it all links together and
venting and so on and so forth. I guess what's difficult is council then don't have a way of controlling how many new connections will go into their existing storm water or wastewater systems which may already be stretched.
That's going to be the challenge, right, Yeah, no, that makes sense. So yeah, obviously something will have to happen to moderate that sort of thing. But anyway, Peter, what I've ringing about primarily is I've got a I've got a what was an industrial site with a huge block of or level concrete area which I think is exceptionally thick. Yes, I want to put a shed on top of it, but I think for me to pull the concrete up, it's going to be a nightmare. And it's in really good repair.
Yep.
I'm picking without doing any drilling or anything. I'm picking. It's probably about two or three hundred deep. It was an industrial site, so I don't think there'd be any issues if I put a shed on with regards the concrete not being strong enough or you know, it's probably at a foot.
In depth, yeah, all over it.
But how do I prove that to the counsel if I want to put a shad on top And obviously I have no issue putting a new poor over the top of the existence, but I don't.
Think it will come down to specific design. So you'll need to get an engineer to come and maybe they will do some a couple of cord drills through the existing slab to determine its thickness. If you happen to have any photographs of it when it was laid, you know, is there some mession at any documentation about what type of concrete it was, et cetera, et cetera. But it will come down to specific design. So again, someone will
come do some exploratory drilling. I suspect maybe what they'll end up doing is saying, actually, we think that the bearing capacity is you know, enormous more than compacted hardfill. And therefore you could up a slab on the top, come up one hundred and fifty mil, which will give you a threshold that you need for you know, water
and so on. Box that up on top, box that level because chances are the existing driveways not level, and then with mesh and maybe you need to anchor it down with a couple of cares and then build on top. But it'll be specific design from an engineer.
Okay, you know what would that be, like a geotech.
Or a geotech would probably want to be involved, but no, it would be a structural engineer primarily.
Okay, that's cool, I'll give them a try, and hey, thanks very much, all the best for your time.
Okay man, right, all the best, Thank you, take care. Someone's saying I've got the wrong question. The question should be do you have room to build a granny fait of thirty to sixty square meters in your backyard? Now, I'll stick with sixty square meters because that's what the maximum is going to be for simplicity. Surprising number of yeses, but it's things like, Yes, I'm on a ten acre block and I want to retire. My family are coming home after fifteen years overseas, and I could move into
the and they could move into the family home. Perfect solution for me. True, but you're on ten acres. No small section, North Auckland.
No.
Two hundred and thirty square meter house on six hundred square meters already the shape and position of the house gives no room in the backyard. Yes, two thousand square meter section we subdivided from our large five bedroom home due to the husband losing a job through COVID. Thank you very much for that.
No.
Nine hundred square meter section underground sewer down the middle of the section. Distance from the boundaries is the issue so interesting? So we're running a little pole completely totally absolutely unscientific pole the very best kind I find. Could you build a sixty square meter granny flat on your property as per the proposals? Bruce, good morning? How are you doing?
Wanting better answers to your text? No, I can't. Was already four here?
All right?
No, get greedy?
Right?
How can I help? What's up?
Okay?
This is a legal situation. I'm calling on behalf of friends who sold their home August last year. Just prior to selling, in fact, we had to delay the first open home. A common dwelling wall the three units on this property. This particular unit is the third one and the lowest one of the three. Harricky corner you go past it every day, and the common wall leaked. This was leaked July. Yeah, and there was no obvious area where it came through. The reason I'm starting, I don't
quite know where to start on the story. The new owners have actually taken these my friends to the tribunal, and I'm sort of backwards. So then it leaked again three weeks later, after new carpet had been put down, because we just couldn't decide, couldn't pond where the hell the problem we came through the second time, it was obvious and it was the stormwater on the drive side of the house that was repaired and it was a massive it was about one hundred mils gap in the stormwater pipe.
Yeah.
Anyway, so the house was duly sold, all the problems were highlighted, and then we didn't know but the house leaked again. The same wall leaked again New Year's weekend. Yeah, but there wasn't until three months later. So we're talking now talking early well, mid March that my friends got a bill out of the blue for thirteen thousand dollars, no explanation, not yeah, and there was no room for discussion.
They set this fill through the lawyers that did the transaction on the house, and of course they were no ferry to do anything with it, sat on it for three weeks subsequently, the time's gone on, but they didn't so the owners didn't have the contact details for as old owners. Anyway, it's now taken us to the tribunal.
When you say taking us to the tribunal, what tribunal do you refer to.
Well, it's just the normal tribunal, very small yeah, yeah, yeah, claiming that and it's very vague in how they presented any figure between six and twelve thousand dollars. Trying to understand, But my belief is they should have notified the owners or the old owners the time of the incident that there was a problem, and hey, we're going to have we've notified you now. Now there's room for discussions on
the track. But now they've had the thing repaired. Now they're coming in and saying, right, we're going to hit you with this bill. Any views. I've spoken to a number of people. Everyone up and just says, no, that's not right.
Yeah, ultimately, I mean, ultimately you and your friends should seek legal advice. But can I just to summarize it, and I don't want to spend too long on this. So the people that you are friends with, they owned that property and then they sold it and the new owners have discovered a leak and they have then had some work done and they've sent them the bill for the work.
Correct.
Okay, at the time when your friends sold the property, did they were they aware of any issues around leak? Like, genuinely not aware of any issues.
No, there was two leaks and they were repaired and they were repaired professionally. The guy took photos of the repair, so that was and they were not defied of that, and.
That was that was declared at the time of the Salem purchase.
Correct, Okay, and I'm spoken with legal people and they are tearing their areat that's what I thought. I'm running out of.
Yeah.
Look, I'm not going to venture into this. I mean, I shouldn't write because I'm not a lawyer, but I would have thought that from everything that I've read about these sorts of disputes, it often centers on whether or not there is the duty to declare right and to disclose.
So if if, for example, there'd been a persistent leak, your friends had tried to fix it, they kind of hoped that they'd got it fixed, but you never really know until it rains again, and then they didn't declare that at the Salem purchase or at the time of negotiation, and then at leaked you'd understand that the new purchaser would want to go them for some costs. Saying that. My understanding also of remedial work is let's say I'm the client and I don't do a great job. I'm
the builder and I don't do a great job. For a client, and they decide to get someone in to fix it, and then they send me the bill and go, you have to pay for that. I don't have to pay it because they didn't give me the opportunity of fixing it. So I wonder whether the claim might be struck out because they didn't. You can't just send someone a bill for work if you haven't told them you're going to have the work done exactly. That's kind of where I would be, But hey, look I ain't no lawyer,
so I'll take a step back from there. Good luck with that, and good on you for being such a good mate to those people. I might have a cruise by, righty, Oh, we'll take a short break. We'll talk to Paul in just a moment if you'd like to join us. We're talking building, We're talking nuts and bolt stuff, doing an enormously unscientific, unreliable pole. Could you put a sixty square meter my granny flat? Because that's the way that the
legislation is referring to it on your existing property. The person that texts me and goes, how many could I put on eighty eight acres? Or are you just showing off? But I get the point just one, by the way, is the answer to that question? Twenty two minutes after seven back in a month.
Measure twice got once, but maybe colpet first feed a wolf caamp the resident builder with light four solar it flick the switch to solar.
Today used talks that'd be do you.
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News Talk ZB your.
News talk ZB. If you've got a question, eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call. I'm loving the responses to the I quite genuinely, I'm surprised the number of people that have been able to reply yes to my question. My question is could you put a up to sixty square meet let's call it a sixty square met of granny flat on the property that you're in right now? And I think right now more people have said yes than not, which intrigues me. Paul A, very good morning to you.
Good morning bye. My issue is I've got a nineteen seventies eighties townhouse which had some main major renovations done about seven years ago, and included that was a bathroom for out which is upstairs, and the bathroom has got floor to ceiling tiles. Yes, And a few weeks ago I noticed that there was a damp area in the carpet as she walked into the bathroom. Right, so I and we went away from those weeks up dried out a bit, so I had a bit more of an investigation.
And also what I did not is when I lifted the carpet in this area there was a few ants. So anyway, I went and looked in the shower and I found a small hole in the grout where the wall and the floor neat, probably outside of our cloud head. And I also noticed one of demands probably coming from that hole. So, yeah, I've got this leak in the ground. Well, I've only found the one hole. I mean that might be a little bit more, but I'm not sure. What
would you suggest. I don't want to fix it myself because I don't think I'm capable, But how would you approach this?
The bad newsers, the groud's not the problem, right, So groud's not really there to keep water out. The waterproofing compound or the waterproofing system beyond the groud is what should be containing the spread of moisture. So h m hm, given that the work was done seven years ago, did you have the work done?
So?
I had a.
I had a project manager and she the builders were contracted to me.
The major.
Like the electrician, the builder were contracted to me, so I signed an agreement with them.
Okay, did the work require a building consent at the time, or did you get a building consent for the work.
That's that's that I'm not sure about, because I left that up to her. All the stuff I sort of record. I believe that I do recall something about the ceiling being done, you know.
Yeah, the waterproof and yeah, so okay. So I think the long the short of it is there's a failure of the waterproofing and that you've got leaking either in the shower or an in adjacent area. Now, given that the work was done about seven years ago, I would be on the phone to the person who was the project manager. They will probably try and run for the hills.
Then I talk to the builder and I would check whether or not that builder is a licensed building practitioner, and I would remind them of their obligations to basically stand by their work right, and it's sort of an implied warranty is that things should last for at least ten years, and you're within that ten year window. So that's where I would start project manager first, then onto the builder. The builder, if that's who you paid the bill to, I think is still responsible and liable for
the work. They then would need to come out and investigate. If they are still in business with the waterproofer or the tyler, they could then get them on board. But I would start there before you start investigating yourself.
Yeah, so that tyler was independent to be in so that the project managers. Sure, smaller people involved. So but as you're saying, it's actually it's it's the builder. It's not so much the tiler here.
It's it's who you paid, basically is where I would start with. So if if the invoice from the builder included the tyler's work, then I would. I would chase the builder. If you've got a separate invoice directly from the tyler who may or may not have done the waterproofing, then I would. I would do that. So I'd start there and then try that and then give me a call back and let me know if you if you don't have any luck with that, then we'll try some
other avenues. But I would start there, you know, as as lbps and as business owners responsible for our work. Right, and showers shouldn't leak after seven years, you know, should they leak after twenty? Ideally not, but it's probably not unreasonable. But after seven years, I think you need to pursue them, So start there and good luck with it because it's a hell of a journey race. Good morning to you, Hey Pete.
Hey mate, love your work.
Thank you, Bud.
My questions around your credit flat?
Yeah, g flat situation.
So I moved into my place about six years ago. It was an existing shed on it twelve by seven sheep ten sheet on concrete slaven. It was already split in half on the internally, so that had a wall put up at about.
Six meters.
And length of the ship.
If you get me, I'm with you, yep.
And then it's it's like a hobby room out the back that by six meters by seven meters yep.
As I split that.
Again into two bedrooms, plus put another couple of walls up for a bathroom, so you walk through the bathroom and then walk through another door into the flat area. Gotcha, had no plumbing, so I had the plumbers come around, bag the drains and put the drains into the gally traps, took it up to the main and had that all signed off by the council.
How did you get it signed off by the council? Did you get a building consent for all of this work.
Now, it was through the plumber because I was doing a plumbing apprenticeship time, So I had my boss file and file for it through simply or something through to the council. And then they came around and done inspicchen on the drainage or covered it back over and then they signed it off.
How could they sign it off if you didn't have a building consent? Did you only get a consent for adding drainage or waste just a drainage? And they didn't go why is it that you want to put a wastewater connection to a shed? Is that because you're putting a toilet in it? If you're putting a toilet in it, does that then become a habitable space? If it's now a habitable space but it was originally a shed, do you have a change of use? In order to get a change of use you need a building consent.
Now, they never asked any of that. They just I'd just done the drainage too, and it had on the plans the toilet and the gully trap was for the washing machine for the laundry. Anyway, Yeah, that was two years ago.
But I never I never got a thought.
For the internal walls was the ones that I put up because there was already an internal wall and all that back area was already insulated and lined and had electrical and everything, and anyway, that was done back in two thousand, I think it was. But then the internal plumbing was the shower and the catchenette. I haven't had that. I've never got a pre line inspection on that either. But what those new laws are you still getting me to get inspections on all that stuff.
No, but the new law hasn't The new law hasn't come into place yet, so and you won't get a retrospective building consent. And I would say you'd probably struggle to get a certificate of acceptance without providing a lot
of documentation. So it sounds like most of what has happened there is non compliant in terms of you know, having like you do need a building consent if you're going to do change of use at the moment, and you know, if there is a building consent, you should be able to ring counsel and go, can you see me the property file and tell me all of the
building consents that were issued for this property personally? And I'd be delighted if I was wrong here, But I can't see how you would get a building inspected to sign off on work given that there was no building consent sign off. Now maybe there is a limited consent, but I've never heard of them. But again, I'd be more than happy to be wrong.
So.
Yeah, you'd be delighted as well. But look, I think go to council, request the property file and see what's actually on there, because that'll give you an idea of
what's already happened and whether or not it's compliant. But yeah, look, and I think too just going forward to what we're kind of talking about in terms of adding granny flats and that sort of thing, the requirement is that you can do it without necessarily getting a building consent, but it still has to be to the building code, right, so you need to be able to fast prove compliance, which means getting a designer and etc. The challenge with
the work that you've done and what's already there is that you know it was never designed to be a habitable space. So is there a vapor barrier underneath the slab? Is there installation in the walls? Is there building paper on the outis all of those things that make how a home compliant. It would be very difficult in order to prove that now, and the burden of proof is going to be on you if you wanted to go for a Steviet of acceptance. So start with the council
and see how you get on from there. I'll be fascinated to see where that ends up. Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty. We're rocking along this morning. Actually we're going so fast I need to take a break, So we'll be back with Reece number two in just a moment.
Doing upper house sorting the garden.
Ask Pete for a hand the resident builder with Peter Wolfcamp and light Force Solar, Get your solar saver, pag now col Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty News talks.
That'd be just a couple of.
Texts with regard to the issue that we were talking about with Paul and the bathroom that's leaking love. This one from Murray Murray, Pete, can I wring you about that shower? Of course you can, Murray, I think you're asking the wrong questions, mate. I'm a tyler thirty five years experience. I think it might not be as bad as it is. Yep, you're more than welcome direct a similar issue to the person before with the shower. The builder said the ceilant around the base of the shower
will only last five years and then replace it. Doesn't sound correct from what you were saying. Well, if the seilant around the shower is deteriorating, yes, by all means, replace it and it acts as a first line of defense. However, even if water gets past the ceilant, it shouldn't then be tracking out onto the floor or through the bottom plate and be visible in the carpet some distance away from the shower. That's my point. That's where I think
it's probably a failure for the waterproofing system. We'll talk about that if you wish. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call Reece A very good morning to you.
Yeah, good morning, good morning. I've run you four years ago, four years ago.
Please forgive me call.
I know you won't, but I'm building two of these smaller buildings, smaller than what you were talking about.
Yep.
Is it the moment that you put water into it, it becomes a council issue on Kevity Coast.
That's pretty much the rule right now. What they're saying is, hey, maybe in certain circumstances you could put one on the back of a property if there's enough space, and it could be up to sixty square meters, and you may not need a building consent for that, which means you can do the work. It still has to comply with the building code, but you don't have to go through the regamarole of getting a consent.
What about a supportable home that you've got on your place.
Yeah, Unfortunately the law around that is as clear as mud. So there's all sorts of absurdities around the tiny home thing where people are going, look, if it's got wheels on it, therefore it's not a house, it's a caravan and it could be moved off. I was talking to someone the other day who had a tiny home delivered to site and the builder is not going to nail it down to the foundations to the because he said, as soon as I do that, then it's no longer transportable.
And I'm like, what, So it's just going to sit there waiting for the wind to blow it off the piles. That's not very smart either. So there's some absurdity around the existing tiny home stuff, and in this instance here the granny flat legislation will help free that up. And I look, I hope that I'm not giving the impression that somehow I don't support it. I do, actually and
principles support it. I think it could open up a lot of space and allow families to have that opportunity, maybe for older parents or for you know, teenage children or extended family to find housing that's affordable right, and multi generational living, all of those sorts of things could be a really good thing from this. It's just I know that there's a lot of detail to getting a house right, and how do you get the detail right
if you don't have counsel looking over your back. But maybe we should just grow up and get better at building.
I was building a house and the builder walked away because got it all wrong, and the council walked away and left me with no house. That's what I rung you about four years ago. I've been doing my own legal trying to but it's too expensive to afford any lawyers. You said you were going to get backing on some of these law and a construction lawyer because the five hundred and fifty six hundred bucks an hour.
Yeah, pretty much. All the guys that I know would be more than that. So I'm not sure if I go out much.
Yeah.
Yeah, unfortunate, but that's the only reason why I'm losing my case. I have engineers reports, builders reports, I took photos, emails, but it's still going since I rang you four years ago, because I did the right thing by taking the photos and doing everything.
When you started building the dwellings that you've done, did you get a building consent for the work at the time?
Yes, yeah, yeh, it's all paid for. That's what I say. The council even I wasn't built to consent, The builders didn't build to consent, and the council didn't inspect.
How did the council not inspect?
They come up and failed the first inspection, they never inspected anything else and see the builds to carry on.
They got it all wrong.
Now I got an engineer's report, builders reports say it's not even built to the building consent.
Okay, so really this is about suing the builder for building non compliantly.
No, the council let them build. No, no, no dudior care responsibility.
Look, I can see why counsel are not going to engage with you on that. In the end, if let's say the first building inspection failed and maybe you as the client didn't know about it, and your builder carried on working knowing that they had failed the first inspection, then perhaps they just carried on building, didn't get any other inspections. That's got nothing to do with council. That's all down to the builder.
So I was supposed to do when you get a building consent, you get the processes from MB that the guidelines that say the council have to inspect the rio and the state, they had to inspect such and such and such and such.
They do, But council will only come for inspection when they're called to come to sit by the builder.
Yeah, I did.
I called them, you called them, and when they failed.
I took photos and thought was wrong?
Right? But when when when the inspection failed, how did the builder carry on working?
Then that's right. The council will in carry on. If I've got an email saying no, you can carry on, that's sort of satisfactory. You can carry on, but you need to have photos, documents, and you know, do all that and take photos documents, or the building ever did and the council in the come and inspect.
Were the council asked to come back and inspect you.
I asked them to come back inspired it.
Yeah, but did they turn up?
No?
Why not?
That's why. That's why.
That's why I'm going through this.
Why not?
Why didn't I?
That's right?
And then when they finally turned up because I had an engineer's report, it was too late. The builder knew that he was caught, even said to me the emails he's got all wrong and took off right. So and I did nothing to come up and noticed the fix, but too late the builder had gone.
Yeah. I think the hard thing is and I is that it's really the way in which the builder has managed the project, and potentially the way in which you've managed the builder.
Uh.
Now, I asked for the council to come come and check it. This, you know, I could say it was.
When you say you asked for the council to come out and do an inspection, hand on heart. I've never had a situation where if I've booked a building inspection, they haven't turned up, right, So are you saying you booked a building inspection and then the building council or the building control officer didn't turn up.
The council said the requirements were but the builder didn't go to those requirements, and then later on past the piece one or Pierce two or piers four, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, I trust that these things were done.
And so when you came to the final inspection, I'm presuming your final inspection failed.
No.
No, well they didn't finish the building, and the building gets out of it. It didn't take photos, didn't document anything. But because they didn't finish it, he didn't have to.
Look.
That's the excuse of getting.
Out of my I have a massive manner of sympathy for where you're at. But I think chasing counsel for something that is obviously the builder's fault is going to mean you're not going to have any joy with counsel.
You.
You will be banging your head against the brick wall. There.
I've got I've got them in court, but I can't afford a lawyer.
Yeah, and they got much deeper.
Pou look at it. The judge look at it and said, oh yes, yeah, okay, this is here. I can see because when you look at the what the builders did, how.
Much more spent on legal fees so far?
Ah, I'm broke, grimy broke. That's why I was asking if there's any lawyers that maybe could help, because this is ridiculous how they can pass a PS for whatever you call a PS two one on trust when I have photos, documents of everything. I'm a boilermaker, So I took photos. I knew things weren't right, so I took photos and went to the council with them.
I'm going to hand you back to even a producer. Leave your number, no, no, no, you're all good. No no, don't, don't, don't run away. Leave your number so I can contact you or leave an email. Yes, if if anyone wants to contact me who might want to help you out, then by all means people can do that. So let's let's see if we can get someone to have a look at it. But I can see this being an incredibly tangled web, and I suspect that you trying to get some redress from counsel is just not going to
happen somehow unfortunately. But and this is where I get angry with shonky builders. Right, you know someone who's probably out of their depth goes ahead? Does poor quality work be interesting to know whether they were ever a licensed building practitioner. They should have been, because back then, four years ago, for the last teen twelve, fourteen years, you can't do restricted work without being a licensed building practitioner. So if they've still got a current license, you could
take them to the disciplinary board. You could try and soothe them. That would be a better avenue than trying to sue council. I suspect oh eight one hundred and eighty ten eighty the number to call needs to take a quick break, then we'll talk to Tony in tell.
Whether you're painting the ceiling, fixing the fence, or wondering how to fix that hole. Give Peter Wolf Cabin call on OH eight hundred eighty ten eighty the resident builder with light four solar flick the switch to solar today news talks.
That'd be someone's text through pet stopped defending councils and gisbond. We've got a leaky apartment building that council signed off way back in two thousand and sevenish when things went right. Fast forward sixteen years and it needs a lot of work. I'm not defending counsel. I'm just in that particular instance there.
You know, seriously, you can't tell me that you ring up and you book a building inspection and the building inspector doesn't turn up, and if they don't, typically they'll ring you or they'll delay it or something like that. But to say that they didn't come and inspect it if you had booked them properly doesn't just doesn't stack up. Doesn't pass the sniff test for me, Tony.
Good morning, Yeah, good morning, Peter.
I've got a concrete block garage which has got.
It.
It's leaking through the concrete block. Wolves is there any way you can seal it from the inside.
And I presume where it's leaking from the outside wall, it's because that's acting as a retaining wall and so moisture is whicking through the wall and into the inside space.
Correct. Yeah, the retaining the neighbor's wall, and it's got a shed on top.
Okay, So yeah, there are products that you can apply to the inside face that work. They migrate through so by all means, have a look online. But for example, something like sea Mix crystal proof, which is a product that can be applied that then penetrates into the masonry, and the crystals that are part of the compound are activated when they encounter moisture and expand and eventually fill up all of the pores that allow the moisture to come through. So thats C E M I X C
E mix. The is the brand, and then the product is called crystal. It's everywhere. You'll be able to find it, no trouble at all. Have a bit of a read about how it works and why it works. The other thing that I point out, just for people listening, is that I've seen cases where people have applied waterproof and compound to the inside wall that's designed to resist water by having water pressing against it.
You know.
I'll explain that after the break because it takes a little bit. And if you'd like to text during the break, hew'd you put a sixty square meter grannie flat on your property as it is the place that you are inhabiting right now, could you do that? I'm loving the completely unscientific pole we're running this morning. Surprising number of yesses. I'm genuinely surprised. We'll come back to that after the news sport and we're the top of the.
Arradact squeaky door or squeaky floor get the right advice from Peter Wolfcare. The resident builder with light four solar save on SOL and earn airpoints dollars us talk said be oh.
It's been a ripper of a morning. Thank you, folks. It's not over yet. By the way, we will have rid climb passed along at about eight thirty. The text messages has been going off because I've asked this really completely unscientific, unresearched, lacking and verification poll that we're running. But it's been quite intriguing. Could you put a sixty square meter sleep out on your existing property? We you are today, look out the window and gok on there.
I'm genuinely surprised at the number of people that could, which perhaps reflects the fact that I spend too much time in the city because I cruise around and I go, I can't see where they're going to go. But judging by this and I right now, I would say more people said yes to that question than said no, which I found really fascinating. Oh, one hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call. Just a very quick comment around because it's it's an issue that we've talked
about quite a number of times. So just before the news, Tony Rang said, Look, I've got an older basement with a concrete wall and it's got soil behind it, so it's acting as a retaining wall. I can't get behind the water the wall to waterproof that, but water is getting through. Can I put something on the inside, Yes,
you can, And there's a number of different products. But this is what I encountered not long ago looking at a job where some people had applied a waterproofing compound to the inside of the wall, but it had failed.
And the reason it had failed is because it was a waterproofing compound that's designed to have water pressing against it, i e. Blocks waterproofing water outside whereas and so it's designed to resist water pressing against it, and it has a waterproofing membrane is then pushed against the substrate against the block work by the water pressure on the outset side. And it's designed that way. If you put it on the inside and water comes through the wall, it will
press the water off. That's how it works. Yeah, that's kind of how it works. Oh, one hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call. Uh Lorraine, thank you very much for waiting.
Yeah, hi, hi Pete. Just a quick question Foost of all recouncils. Oh, you wouldn't believe what to Dollar City Council subcour They are my daughter and someone or bought a house which had a code of complaints. Then they bought it and then when they went to sell out, it didn't have one. And they queried the council what's going on, and they said, they don't know. There's no papers to show this a complaints And so they checked down the person they bought it off, and she said, oh,
we had that trouble too. We just said it for us. So they gave a compliance to the people to cell and then took it off again. Hang on would not they would not back down. So my daughter and a husband hit one hundred grand to tricks to their water leaking.
Health hold on.
So a a code compliance certificate was issued for a property yep, and then it was withdrawn yep.
And the guy that did it still groups at the council. So they approached three or four different lawyers, but they all worked to the council and so they all take out and then they found this one lawyer that said, did not chase. They're not going to follow it because when they did finally sell, they got one hundred grands more than what they ease. Health prices have gone up, but that's really.
Not the point.
And yeah, so the councilors got.
Up Scott's free.
Yeah.
Look to be fair, you know, like people have texted and goes, oh, you should stop defending counsel. I'm not defending counsel. I'm not saying no, no, no, But look, you know what's really intriguing is that a number of people are pushing back. Right, So you know, we tend to have this approach where if council says that it's blue and it's red, then they're right, and people are pushing back. There's a great story and stuff recently about a landowner, a guy who had some industrial property where
there was a retaining wall on the boundary. Council came along, saw that it was dangerous, issued and notice to fix to him, and he went, not my problem, and they went, yes, it is, we're issuing you had noticed to fix. He went inb got a determination and the determination was actually, counsel, you're wrong. You can't issue a notice to fix that person. The response from Hamilton City Council was while we're reviewing
the decision. So you know, we're all fallible, right, So but you know, to have a code of compliance issued and then to have it withdrawn seems to me the sort of thing that you would want to take to mb for example, and get them to investigate it. Because good to remember that councils are a territorial authority and they are issued a license to operate as a building
Cossent Authority a b c A by the government. Now, a couple of years ago christ Church City Council had their warrant to be a b c A was removed by government because for whatever reason. So you know, it's it's not like they are a law unto themselves. They have to act within the law, and I would be incredibly I mean, I've never heard of a situation where a CCC has been issued and then it's been withdrawn. And if it was with drawn, surely that responsibility would
fall with council. That's the sagre to go to.
Nby because it won't costing that way. So I'm going to come that.
My problem.
You've got a cent and I wanted to replace the element and jewelry, but the unboilder said I can't. Well, I have to replace the clothing as well because you have to build a cavity, which I have. And then the other bolder said, no, you can just put new windows done. And then he said you just cut the windows dow he reasons exploded the deal and we go to rechlad and you can do it that way.
Yeah.
Look, I would say this if you're doing like for Lake. I mean that your builders right in the sense that if you were recladding, and you were doing an extensive reclad, then typically in order to comply with the code today, you would need to have your cladding on a cavity system, most likely, in which case the jowinery would either have to have specific flashings or it would need to be removed and put further out to allow the pladding to tuck in behind the extrusion.
But if it is just so, you can do that and then you know later on because the plating's fine. Yeah, but the leming journey is flat.
Yeah, okay, so if the joinery is, and chances are the jowinery will be what we call face fixed, right, So the cladding will be behind the extrusion of the joinery, and then the joinery is pushed against the cladding whatever the cladding happens to be, in which case you could pull out the architraves on the inside, cut through all the fixings, pull the window out from the outside. That's
probably easier than it said, than done. But typically you can remove the joinery, install new jowinery, do it in accordance with the code in terms of aircl and flashings and a wands bar if that's required or something like that. But I don't see that you would necessarily require a building consent for that.
If it's like for like and you don't have to do a cavity, I.
Can't see why you would have to do a cavity. Well, you would if you were changing the cladding. But if you're only changing the joinery and you're not touching the cladding.
Well, the one buller said you can't do the joiners without doing the clading. He said that you can, don't. He doesn't understand. The second builder doesn't understand the first guy.
No.
I just think that I mean it would be interesting, you know, again, with those sorts of situations, you can't. It's it shouldn't just be an opinion, right, It's got to be an opinion based on fact. So if you were wanting to still engage with the first builder, you'd go, hey, hang on, why you know, why is that? Which part of the legislation do you think applies to this? Show me where in the building code or in three six o four or whatever you feel that that's a requirement. I just don't see it.
Yeah, okay, that's good. That's put my mind at rest. Can into one hundred grands?
Well, yeah, you know, so you're wanting to do the right thing and upgrade the joinery, good on you, but that shouldn't necessarily trigger removal of all of the clouding.
You know.
Look, if I was unkind, I might suggest that the builder is looking to expand the job for their own gain. But it seems me, seems to me that it's unnecessary.
Well, you did say that if you've then they have to take all one of those out again to reach mad because then we have to build the cavity. And that's what the second s said too. He said that it was big jail to take.
Taking two Well, probably won't take ten minutes, but yes, you could potentially do it later on. I mean, look, you know, in a perfect world you'd go, hey, why don't we do everything all at once? But that's also then expanding the job from forty grand to one hundred grand, and that might not be a resources you have right now. You may be, you know, for good reason.
So oh it's great.
All right, Well, the very missed you very much. Take care. We'll be back with Jason in just a moment. It is, let me see, sixteen minutes after eight riot climb passed in the garden from eight thirty.
Helping you get those DIY projects done right to the resident builder with Peter Wolf Cap and light Force Solar, get your Solar Saver pack now News talks it'd be colect the switch.
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Just looking at the I asked a question just after seven o'clock around I'm just curious, you know, I don't think there's been as much discussion in the media about building and building regulations in the last couple of years as there has been over the last six months, let's say. And one of the things that emerged a couple of months weeks ago was the proposal to add sixty square
meter granny flat. And that's not a pejorative, right, that's just a way of describing this particular type of building to residential properties without necessarily requiring building consent. Resource consent still needs to complow the building code still needs to be done by licensed building practitioners or trusted building professionals. I think is the phrase. And I was just curious as to, like, realistically, how many properties would actually be
able to accommodate that. Now, it's the sort of thing that I might be interested in. I can't fit that on the property that I live on. My neighbors probably couldn't, My other neighbors couldn't. The neighbors behind us possibly could. That's an interesting one. So I was kind of looking at going Actually, okay, I understand why you would float the idea, but in reality, how many of these will
actually get built? And will it make an appreciable difference to housing supply in particular and in that sense housing affordability as well. So the question was, could you and the property that you currently occupy add a sixty square meter granny flat to the property that would be compliant so you know, can't be within a certain distance of the boundary, et cetera, et ceter And I would say, right now, it's probably running at about sixty percent yes,
which I wasn't expecting. So it's been useful as an insight. Every now and then I will do these completely unscientific, unveiry fight untested polls because I quite enjoy them to be fair and I do find them quite insightful. Maybe we should do one on H one regulations next week. Let's do that. I'll set that up now. Next week, you vote yes or no. Should the government look at changing H one requirements like literally winding back the legislation?
So the new standards came in to play from November of last year, requiring often more installation et cetera, et cetera into building, So higher requirements on energy efficiency in new builds as reflecting H one of the Building Code. Yes, we'll know to that. We'll do that next week on the show. Oh eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call. Last building question. Then we're into the garden with a red climb pass from Make thirty. Jason, Good morning to you.
Here you go, good things.
What's up?
Just wondering. I've got a garage and it's on a brick garage, just a single garage, and it's right on the boundary of my place and the neighbors, and I want to take it down, and I've mentioned to my neighbor about me or you can't take it down because your side wall is the back hall of my lean to that somebody has built previous years before we were both there. There you get on there.
Fascinating, but there's a number of approaches. One is, does either of those dwellings have a building consent.
For?
Probably not from back in the nineteen thirty towers? Yeah, okay, yeah, I'd imagine the lean to wouldn't.
Which of those two structures is the one that was built first?
Well, it'll be there. I'm your gar again that the garage was. And then people before us had said, well, I'm going to build a shed, can I use Can I just build off your side wall and just build this wee lean to off the side. And I've talked to a builder and he said, oh, we'll just come in and we'll just take the whole bloody thing down and be done with it. And it's not yours, it's not yah, it's all fault.
And to be fair, I know we always want to be good neighbors and all the rest of it, but I would probably take the same approach that I think that the fact that a neighbor has taken the liberty of you know, bolting a ribbon plate and pitching some rafters and putting a roof on it and then going, hey, that's my shed. Well yeah, okay, I'll leave your ship there, but I'm taking my wall away.
And then and then the other to the other thing that I think said if I was to do that, he might be a pain. And you know, if I want to put another garage up, or you know, like does it how close can it go to you know, or will I have to be whatever two meters or a meter off the boundary and all that?
Will he you know, he might certainly.
If you a pain, Like if you went for a building consent and a resource consent for a new building in the same location on the boundary, and the simplest way to get that would be get an affected party to consent to it. And the affected party is the one where you've just pulled down half their building. I think human nature would say that you're unlikely to get his signature or her signature on that document, right, So
there's a bit of there's a bit of psychology. There's a bit of human relations at play here.
But he was trying to get me to get them to the brick and leave that side wall up just so that he could keep his his back.
All of us said, yeah, I mean, look, you could do that if somehow that I mean, is it going to is it going to stay up?
No, it's not.
Do you want that on your structure? I think you know the thing is to go to him and just go Actually, does that building have a consent? Does it comply with the code? If it had a consent, then you probably can't touch it. But I suspect that doesn't have a consent and it's it post dates yours, in which case I think he's just going to have to accept the fact that he's been able to use something that he should see as an incidental bonus rather than a right.
Yeah.
Yeah, would be my approach. But hey, look, you know we also always want to try and be good neighbors. So I understand that it's as simple as just flicking them the burden, pulling down the fence, the carriage. And again, if you're building on the boundary, you definitely need a building consent. You can build one meter away from the boundary. You still need a building consent for that, but it doesn't necessarily need to be fire rated, which makes the
structure a bit simpler in terms of building building. You know, with the extension to what you can build under Schedule one of the Act, typically you have to be the height of the building away from the boundary in order for it to not require a building consent. Then suddenly you'd be you know, that's a lot of wasted space, isn't it. Oh, you could part the boat. There, good excuse to buy a boat. All right, mate, all the best, take you, I see you then bye way, Ah cricky,
let's get into the garden. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty. If you've got any gardening questions or into myological questions, a red climb past will be with us just straight after the break, So call us now, oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty.
Gardening with still shop free accessories this winter at steel shop.
Measured twice, got once, but maybe coll Pete first.
Peter wolf Camp, the resident builder with light four solar flick the switch to solar today.
News talks, it'd be.
Your news talks, it'd be Peg wolf Camp with you and Red climb past a very good morning, sir.
Good morning. Rude is here too, Isn't that a lovely thing to do?
Is running where you are?
It's a gorgeous day, actually it's it was very cold, it's it's quite blue skyish and all that. But seeing we're waiting for some I noticed a caller, but we need some more callers, so befoid, I just want to tell you a story that I thought it was really cool. I've got I had some I have some really good Dutch friends that I've known almost from the day I came into New Zealand. And Dawn, she lives in tarot And in the Taroo region. She told me the story
that I'd totally forgotten about. And she asked me this question about bulbs. How to do bulbs and how to you know, you have to call them down in the to get a nice cold winter over winter dry in the fridge. Okay, that sort of stuff. So I just came from the Netherlands, and I said, well, you put them in the freezer there?
You do you know the fridge there?
Do you know where this is going?
No?
I can imagine, well, well you can imagine.
So the frize. There's a French word that's used in Dutch for the fridge actually, but it's also about where the freezer is. And this this was where the she puts them in the freezer and they they were mushy, and she told me that after about fifty years of living in New Zeald. You know, I never told you this story. That was a really stupid advice.
But could you put them in the fridge, not the freezer.
It's got to be the fridge. It's got to be the fridge in a paper bag to literally give them this overwintering site. But Dawn put them in the freezer because I probably said freezer, thinking oh that's the word.
But it wasn't.
Classic learning English.
Funny that you mentioned that, because my sister was talking about planting bulbs the other day and you know the issue was that it just doesn't get that cold in Auckland and it certainly doesn't get that cold and Wayhiki, so you know where she's got this magnificent garden. She sent a good gardener.
Lovely when it happened.
Yeah, but it was all about timing. We were talking, were seeing mum the other day and it was like, oh, no, I got to wait right till the end because I put them in now they'll just go crazy way too it.
Yeah, I love that. Those are the stories that you think, gosh, those are the old days. Oh, by the way. And Tony her husband was a builder, and he I remember building with him, build in front of my house. This is in the day before there were consent.
Do you know that?
You don't even go there?
I love it. Right now, let's get amongst the calls. Eight hundred and eighty ten eighties that number to call Hello, Alistair?
Gooday?
What can we do for you?
Day here? Not a very good day here? It's raining right hell.
I can't help you with that, I'm afraid, Alice. I've tried that, but it never worked me neither.
You're right. Look, I want to talk to you about strawberries and my strawberries. I've grown strawberries here for years and years and years, and they've usually been terrific. Now, the last season we had terrific plants. There were very healthy plants and bushy and everything, but very few strawberries. And I'm wondering now what to do about that, because I want to put some. I'm just about to dig them.
Up, dig the man I did them or replant them or something.
Replant yeah, yeah, yeah, So I don't know. First of all, the plants are there and they're still very bushy, but they've got lots of runners. Can I use the runners for the new season?
Alistair? I've used runners all my life. Last year, last year was a crappy year in which I had virtually no strawberries at all. I have no I was going to ask you the same question.
Yeah, same.
I don't know what happened last year. Yeah, I don't know, but I'm having another goal.
Yep, yeah, I'm having another goal. Strawberries. Yeah, I can hear.
We're talking over each other. On get on with it.
Yes, we had very few strawberries. There are big, beautiful strawberries, but there are only a very few of them.
Funny that camarosa and all the things that I used to used to have, there's quite a few nice varieties that I can grow here in Canterbury, and they were they were a pain in the bum last year. There was nothing happening. The birds would get the rest, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I do not know what it is. I think what I'm going to do in the next month or so is put a whole lot of new top soil on and and start again if you like, you know, but also keep those keep those runners going,
because that's what your new varieties are. But I'm going to get some new anyway, blow it. I'm going to drinks and get some Yeah, that's all I'm going to Okay, Yeah, you can use those as far as I'm concerned.
Yeah, and maybe make a few new new plants and with them.
Yes, do and also dig the stuff up for a change, get some nice organic material in their compost da DA data, and and see if next year is going to be better this coming season.
Yeah.
So, so I got a big pile of melch here, for example, I dig that in with the compost.
What sort of multi is that?
By the way, it's just old.
Old, old wood that's been ground up and that's setting just setting there.
Are you sure you would use that? I would probably use organic material like compost rather than the than the wood because when the case it takes, it takes quite a bit of nitrogen out of the soil as well. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, And that means that the soil condition is not as fabulous for strawberries, as for instance, a good organic material, sure.
Sure, sure? And and what else would you use to sort of give them a bit of bit of life?
It's very simple. But what I tend to use is a liquid fertilizer from wet and forget. It's called seafood soup or seaweed tea. In this case, I mix them up. No, I don't mixed up. I alternate them one one week I do the seafood soup. The next week I do the seaweed tea.
Okay, that's what I want, Thank you very U.
You know what I do.
I use those both those materials in a watering can, and I do a little bit of it in the ten liters watering can so that it looks like really weak tea, not too strong, like really you know that light brown wiki tea, that stopy stuff. Yeah, yeah, that's what it's. You not too much, eager, easy, Okay.
You have a great ta take care. Oh one hundred and eighty ten, And you've got a couple of spell lines pin a good morning.
Good morning, good morning. I've been mean to ringing last two weekends working on beginning, but we've got some popcorn scale and sick on our orange mix an orange blossom. We can't sin. We get rid of it spready with conger oil several times. But the leafy part of the plant's really healthy, but the wooden part's just covered in it.
Ah, okay, so this is the this is this is in the and uh, this is not an edible plant, of course it's it's it's yeah, I know. So for that reason, what I would choose is a material that's come out a couple of years ago, and it's called grow ventive. So g R O V E n T I ve grow ventive. Okay, that is that's a pretty good material for scale and sex and meadi bugs and a fits and things like that.
It's quite strange. A spread it several times with the conqueror, but it just doesn't seem to And the green of the plant is still quite lash and green and lovely, but the wooden pats just covered on and the popcorn scale don't see that they're doing anything.
Yeah.
No.
The grov grow ventive is a material that is being taken up by the plant and goes through the system upon which those particular scales feed. So they feed on the flowam, the floam which is part of the system inside the leaves and inside the twigs, and that will be then, if you like, poisoned by the grow ventive. So they literally eat a material that that kills them.
And it's it's systemic, as we call it. It goes into the plant and it is a really good material to stop it from being sucked upon by these step sucking creatures. You cannot use grow ventive on edible crops, but you can do it on ornamental crops.
That's great, that's what I want to hear.
It'll work well, yeah, it works fabulously. I've tried it so many times. It's it's it's really really good and really quick too. It goes within a couple of weeks. And if you think that those things are not you go on.
I was gonna say, my wife was at the station and I pull out the whole bloody's hinge.
Side.
No need to, no need to. You can save it. You'll be the hero of the day.
I'm already the hero.
Bye bye, beautiful, beautiful, probably been married fifty years. That right, we will take a short break. Actually, fist up tixt please give advice on what to feed higherbiscus.
Ah, depends on how high it is. It could be a low biscus. Now I'm joking. I at this stage, I wouldn't feed anything yet. As such, the soil, you can put stuff on the soil. I talked to Jack about it yesterday with potash, with the ash from fires. I put that on because I keep that actually in the top layers of the soil, and it doesn't really go away that quickly. Well yeah, within a couple of months, but you know, by the time that the temperatures are going up, that is when a plant starts to take
in the nutrients. So at the moment it's dormant. No point in fertilizing until.
It's a bit warmer, right, which will be when.
Depends on where you are exactly. Yeah, no, yeah, you know what I mean. It's it's it's really say. For me, it would be here late August, early September, I started looking.
Like August, well late augustus next month.
I know.
But you know, don't waste your time and your money by putting stuff in the ground that is not being used by the plants, because they're very ungrateful little more, and so don't take it. You know and you pay for it.
Sorry, fair enough one dutchment or another right forty two. We'll be back after the.
Break doing upper house sorting the garden.
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Rudd.
Is now a good time to be doing some planting.
Yes, if you have a Tunguel house for instance, where I am.
No, I'm thinking about like proper outdoor planting trees.
Yes, it is.
It's excellent. This is to plant. This is why all these organizations that restore New Zealand are basically having their Saturday's gone. We had one in Hallswell Quarry like yesterday, and of course Nigel told me that I wasn't there. He was right because I forgot. Oh gosh, you golly, now those are exactly and there were about seventy or eighty people, I think, and this is really cool stuff because that's what it's. This is what your environment is.
Next time you come in Christ, here's Peter. I'll show you what happened over the last twenty five years in that particular quarry, because that is now becoming a real cool bird paradise. There's lizards, there's all of amazing bugs and things like that. It is really really good and it's all done by the people of Hallswell. If you're like of West Southwest.
How much has changed Because I was down there Shivers six seven years ago actually filming a little piece in the quarry there. We just needed somewhere to sit and have a chat with the people that we were filming, and I remember sort of seeing the emergence of all of this restoration, this ecological restoration and sort of interesting.
See.
And you're absolutely right. If you go around the country these days, I think that there is there are just literally thousands of people out working in their community doing planting at the moment. It is so massive.
It's great and I would like to say thank you New Zealanders because it's done by all of us. So we're banding birds we do bird banding in their quarry, for instance, and we train other people, dock people and comes from people how to do that with nuts and how to put things around their rings, around their legs and all that. And we are now starting to find more and more and more birds there and it is absolutely stunning yet great.
He just I'm curious about you using the ash from the wood burner or from the fire.
So what do you do?
You try and sort of thin it out, do you? Obviously you keep it and let it You're not putting it on warm obviously it's outside. It cools down, is there? Like do you let it kind of semi compost before you apply it or do you just.
You can do that if you've got a compost bend that is still that is still going. Do you remember? It's pretty cool, but you have to really make it thin. Don't put it in a huge layer on the rise because it becomes cement. Yeah.
I do.
I do it on a wendy day.
Yeah, brilliant. And your neighbors get some of the benefit as well as well.
And also and only do it of course on the plants that need that. Use the potege de calium for flowers and fruit. So the flowers and fruiting plants, and that you know, even although they might not use it now, it will be used, as you said, at the end of next month.
There you go, brilliant Tom, A very good morning to you.
Good good morning, Pete. And another's rude. I've got something on your line right now. To my surprise, the last couple of weeks, as I look on my back door in this house which i'm by myself except for my I departed whites for cats, there's about fifty bees stationary on the glass and some on the ledge.
Of your glasshouse. Of your glasshouse.
No, this is my residence, which I built sixty two years ago. Right, okay, back door, it's a four light glass door.
See sure. So where are you ringing from? What part of New Zealtists is the north?
Yeah?
Yes, don on my road?
There you go. Okay, you have to remember that the time is coming that bees are starting to swarm. That is number one. But you're only mentioning let's say sixty or so bees, so it might not be yet a big swarm. It might be a small swarm. But the point is that at the moment my bees or the bees of my neighbor here in christ Church are still flying around. So for some reason, they think it's warm enough on a good day like today looks a good day. Actually, with a bit of sun late, you'll find the bees
are still moving. That's number one. But the second thing is that usually a swarm doesn't happen until late October, early September onwards, if you like, so, maybe this might be an earlier group.
What am I going to do with them?
Well?
Are they on the outside of your house?
No? The inside?
Oh?
Really?
Oh?
I have a big glasp front in which there is a broken piece up the top, and my wife when she was here, would spend ten minutes getting an odd bee out that got lost. But these ones have been here for two weeks. I thought there were fires for start. They if you touch them, they will, they can move. They're alive.
Yeah, okay, right in this case, get yourself. You need to go to your local area, ask your local people that know about these things. Who is a beekeeper in your area, and they may want to get some of those for a new I feel like a new breed they're looking at.
Oh right, okay, do you know what I mean? I do I've got the answer to that prime. I'm okay, but I didn't get rid of the cockroaches by the time you told me to use soap works. They're all through the house.
Well, yeah, that can happen, but you have to remember many cockroaches aren't really not that troublesome. The native ones basically come inside because it's too cold outside, and they will move outside again to clean up all the stuff in your garden. You know, they're recyclists, so that's what they do. But in the winter time they think, oh, this is a nice place that Tom's got. I think I might move in. By the way he built that house over the top of our habitat, we might move in.
Well, when I first came here, I never saw any Well, occasionally there was. When they delivered the Herald, there was a few big ones in the bag of that.
Yeah, the Herald. Well, the Harald spreads cockroaches all over the place. You've known that all your life, haven't you.
No, not me, All our others have talked about not cockroaches.
No, okay, that's sorry to different, same mate, all the best. I'm slightly confused by the snake's tist. Hey, Rod, please advise on how to get bitter flowering from two barrows tubros.
Yeah, tubros.
Put them on the fridge, not in the freezer.
We know that.
But yeah, no in the fridge. Yeah, you could do that. But on the other end, what you can do is you, if they've been there and and the plants are in good condition, use some of that potash sulfate of potash, or if you like, a little layer of the stuff from the garden, from your from your fireplace to put that potash into the root zone. And it is the potash that makes the tube brosis flower.
Right.
That's that follows on nicely from what we talked about before. Not everybody's got a fireplace anymore, of course, So you can now buy a little granules called sulfate off potash, which is the same sort of material and that literally makes the plant increase its flowering and fruit in capacity. If you like, you can use them for all those different things.
Awesome, Thank you very much. That's awesome. Ryl Of, very good morning to you.
Good morning.
I'd just like to ask Rudy question, please go for it. I have seen all hoyas in my sunroom, one of them being forty years old other ones are just collected now. They all flare beautiously. However, because of the sun roam the sun on mia and I do have a shade cloth. But over leaves are going through pale. What can I give them to bring the leaves back to grainy means a.
Little bit of fertilizer, liquid fertilizer when you water them, don't You don't water your hoyas too often. If you've done it forty years, I don't need to tell you how to grow hoyas.
Oh well, the forty year one eighteen belonged to my mother. But I am old enough to have had it for fourty years.
But yeah, but you know you don't over water them, generally speaking. But from now on, what I would do if you, if I were you, and because they're inside, I would give them a bit of liquid fertilizer, Just a little bit of the liquid fertilizer in the watering can that you water your hoyas with, and that will that will sort out the yellowing of your leaves. I'm sure?
Is it?
Because they oh, you know, the old one has fifty players, you know, every time at players and some of them I've just pulls up mistee and several players. It's a really good twice.
It is a good and you know what. I used to have a hoyer in the Netherlands when I was a student that would go right around my room. That hoya would be about one two, three, four times five twenty meters long, tendrols and and yeah, and I literally trained it right around the ceiling of my of my of my room where I was staying, absolutely gorgeous flowering
every year. At the moment, my hoyas are in a slightly too dark condition, and Julie was already saying, we need to do something about that, so we're going to put it in a slightly lighter place.
I would say, yeah, okay, well, thank you very much. Advice.
It's great, Cheryl, You're doing a great job. I love the whoy and there's so many different varieties of them. Have you seen that?
Oh?
I know, I know.
I wish I could get some of the different talented ones, but they quite hard or quite winter.
Yes, I know. My days it was you could get them from anybody. As students in the Netherlands, we changed them, of course, There's not nothing. It was very simple.
Yeah, right, good, thanks very much.
Bye, hey morning, welcome bye bye yl that it's so good.
Enjoy a good day because up here it's just a little bit on the damp side.
I get it that that's why I molded lawn yesterday, because I have not been able to do it since February.
Thank you?
Are you kidding?
No?
Seriously?
Yes?
True?
Wow, finally dry yesterday.
Crikey? All right, you think I'll be doing hours on Thursday if you go there?
Oh hey, can't you be?
It's not next Sunday. Take care all the best, Bye bye, Thank you folks for your company. Love the text mission. I'm actually going to add up all of the answers and try and get an actual answer, and the next week we'll do more polse. Let's do it again next Sunday. Have a great week to take care.
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