You're listening to the Resident build Up podcast with Peter wolf Camp from US talks.
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Well, A very good morning and welcome along to the Resident Builder on Sunday. You're with Peak wolf Camp. That's me the Resonant Builder, and we're here to talk about all things building and construction. And that's her fairly broad sort of base on which to build a show, because we can talk about literally building, the mechanics of it, the actual physical activity involved in it, what you need, the material you need, the trades people you might need
to do it. We can also talk about I guess that sort of structural framework in terms of legislation, so there are rules and guidelines around what you can build where you can build it. A lot of that is actually up for grabs at the moment in the sense that there are moves of foot at a government level to change the types of buildings, the size of buildings that we might be able to build without necessarily requiring
a building consent. We had quite a conversation about that last week on the show, and then during the week obviously little pieces of information and little discussions happen, particularly
around that topic. And I've been part of a couple of those, number of them that were held while Building z which is a sort of trade based building expo that was on what was it Tuesday Wednesday here in Auckland was on and there I went to a couple of seminars which were interesting in themselves, and then had an opportunity to cat up with a whole bunch of people that some I knew, some that I was introduced to, and certainly front of mine for a lot of people
was this new proposed legislation or the draft document, the discussion document that's out at the moment around hey, look what about if we removed the requirement to get a building consent for buildings a granny flat up to sixty square meters, only one of them per property, etc. Etc. Etc. So there's some interesting stuff in that as well. We can talk about that, but we can also talk about the practicalities. What are you what are your projects at the moment, What tasks do you want to try and
get done. I think I mentioned that I had one, well one of a number of jobs on my list as well, which, to be fair, I didn't get round to this week. It's on the list for tomorrow. I'll definitely go and sort out a floorboard that's developed a split in it alongside an addition, so that'll be a little bit of crawling around underneath the floor to do.
I presume I'm going to have to do some solid blocking underneath it, and then I figured out a way of sort of repairing the floorboard without taking it out. To be fair, I'm just going to fill it full of a POxy. But it's kind of my working plan at this stage. See that's part of the process as well. You have to plan the work that you need to do. I popped into the Razine store picked up some of the repair care product that I use quite a lot
in preparation for this little job tomorrow. And because it's floorboards, I'll make sure I put my kneepads in the in the truck before I head off to work tomorrow as well. So if you've got a project on oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call. If you would like to text you, I'm more than welcome to do exactly that. It is nine two nine two. And if you'd like to send me an email, You're welcome to do that as well. It's Pete at newstalksb dot
co dot nz. So Pete at newstalksb dot co dot ENZ. Happy happy Matariki to you as well. A beautiful day in this part of the country anyway, to celebrate Mantadiki on Friday. So a nice long weekend with some really lovely weather is a lovely bonus at this time of year. If you've got a project that you'd like to talk about, Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call. The lines are open. We're going to have a couple of guests, actually one guest coming into the studio later
on in the program. So now's a really good time to call because we're going to, like I say, we're going to have those guests. Bryce McDermott, who I bumped into at build en Z. He was working on the razine stand and we had a brief opportunity for a quick face to face catch up. Given that he's contributed to this show for almost ten years, it was nice to sort of catch up with him in person, a bit of a chat and discuss a few bits and pieces.
Bryce will be with us. I'm just trying to figure out this next text that came through how I'll come to that in a minute. So Bryce will be with us from seven forty five. Take your painting questions, your specific painting questions during the morning, and I'll present those two him at seven forty five this morning and then after eight o'clock. One thing that I realized during the last couple of weeks is obviously we have a new
sponsor on the show. It's lightfol Solar, and I was thinking, gosh, I wonder if in the last ten years of the show have we ever actually specifically talked about solar as in solar panels and solar power. And to be fair, I don't know that we actually ever have as one of our experts on the show. Anyway, I'm going to remedy that today Marlon from lightful Solar is going to join me here in the studio after eight o'clock and
we'll be talking about what I'd like to do. Is kind of like a basically a solar power one oh one. What are they, how do they work, what's involved in the installation, how long do they last? What sort of power generation can you get off a typical solar array? How do you have to look after them? What's the
advantage of having a battery. You might have a question as well, more than welcome if you want to text through a question for our solo expert, Marlin from Light four Solo, who'll be joining me in the studio at eight o'clock this morning, and then of course at eight point thirty we're into the garden with the rid climb past as usual. So that's my long winded way of saying, if you've got a question, call now. Oh eight hundred
eighty ten eighty is the number to call. Looking forward to chatting with you again this morning about all things building construction. Actually had a couple of people come up to me while I was at Building Z to sort of carry on discussions that they'd heard on the radio. That might not be the opportunity today, but if you've got a question of a building nature, you should call right now. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty you and
New STALKSB. If you've got a question of a building nature, eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call. It is eighteen minutes after six. For those of you who are into the foot like I am, and you might have seen the posts that I put up. Netherlands just talk about give me a heart attack as a fan. Managed to get through to the last sixteen, but criky they made it hard on themselves. And fabulous game this morning. So Switzerland have knocked out Italy defending champions from the game,
and of course Denmark play Germany. I think in about forty minutes time Netherlands play on Tuesday morning. It'll be a nice at four o'clock start for me on Tuesday morning. Oh w eight one hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call. Kate A very good morning.
Good morning Pete, happy not ukey to you and to.
You indeed, indeed, thank you Pete.
I'm replacing some joinery in an existing dwelling, and I have building consent because it's larger than what was there. Actually, it's two dwellings. One of them has HIV and it's quite dry. But the existing dwelling in that has single glaze, nonfirmly broken. It's nineteen seventies, and I have to put in a matching type of joinery, which I won't do. I want double blaze, yep, but I don't need to do thermally broken. And I'm trying to decide about Lowe.
One joinery fabricator has suggested that if I put Lowe in that dwelling, it's going to increase the amount of sort of condensation and moisture on the aluminium because it's not thermally broken, and it will push the moisture towards the joinery, whereas if I just do double blaze and not low E, it's not going to have that effect. I'm quite confused.
It's a fascinating I can sort of understand the logic behind the conclusion that they've reached in presenting you with that summary. Let's say, so that's true. Interesting, I actually did a little I didn't experiment this week like proper science using and showing the difference between single glazing and double glazing. So we had this little booth that had two heat lamps, so identical heat lamps in adjoining booths, right, separated by a petition, and in front of each of
them we could put in different types of glass. And then in front of that. So outside of this little contraption was a radiometer, which is a little glass bubble basically with a fan in it, and when heat hits the blade of the fan, it's reflective and it will generate energy and that will get the blades it's four blades in this little fan to spin like an animometer, right, so like a little wind vane if you've have seen them spinning, and so they would both be still like,
not moving. Then you'd turn on the heat lamps and then you'd see the rate at which each one spun depending on how much heat was coming through the glass.
Right.
And one of the pieces of glass that we had in there, it was some high performance double glazing, which included low E so and E is emissivity, which is the way in which heat transfers through the glass, right, So if you get low emissivity, it reduces the amount
of heat transfer through the glass. And then you add that to double glazing, which just by having two pieces of glass separated by a spacer creates that effect anyway, because obviously heat moving through two pieces of glass goes through the first part, hits the spacer that reduces the emissivity, and then it has to go through another piece of glass. But if you up the speck on that by going low E, you get even less emissivity, i Less heat
transfer through the glass. And in what your joiner is saying is okay, if not a lot else chain and we put low E glass into this one single frame, and we've still got conventional aluminium jowinery, and the distinction being new aluminium jowinery most likely needs to be thermally broken in order to comply with H one standards of
the Building Code because they've increased. But if you're doing only replacing one or two windows, you know, like practically I would say it's a little bit absurd to get you to put in thermally broken jowinery and low E in that one window when you don't have it anywhere else in the house. Now you could do it because you go, well, maybe later on I'll change it, and I don't want to have to change the joinery again
later on. But realistically, changing one piece of joinery in a total building envelope is not going to make a significant change to the overall performance of the building. Those windows will perform better, but the rest will continue to perform as they are. And I suppose what he's saying there is to go Okay, if you put low eglass in there, heat will still want to do what heat does,
which is equalize. So if it's warm inside cold outside, it will want to equalize and it will find a pathway, and that pathway will become your standard non thermally broken aluminium and that's where you'll see condensation. But it feels like a sort of worse and worser type of situation. You know that. Okay, So you get a choice basically, do I want some condensation on my glass or do
I want it on the aluminium? And if you want to sort of share the deficit around, then you will go for standard double glazing plus and your existing unbroken standard aluminium jowinery, and then you'll get a little bit of condensation on both of them. If you went for lower glass, then you'll have more condensation on the aluminium and less on the glass.
Oh that's really helpful.
Actually, I mean sorry, that seems like not quite a long. I mean there's a little bit in that, and I can I mean, look, I would like the performance difference. And again I have done some presentations recently we have actually drilled down into the detail, right, so you know
what's the difference between. So, by way of example, if you had a piece of single glazed standard aluminum joinery and you compared that same window to one that was either thermly broken or if you had timber or uPVC as the frame, and then you had high performing low eglass in it, the effectiveness of the high performance joinery versus the standard is almost a factor of ten. It's almost ten times more efficient than what you would have
in So we know that it works. And again, going back to my little experiment, which thankfully we filmed and that'll be available online sometime in the future, you can you can measure what you can't see, which is which was the benefit of doing this little experiment, right, because we go to people, Okay, well, if you upspec your glazing the glass in your windows there is a benefit. And then you go, well, hang on, glass is glass, right, I look through it. How do I know that it's actually working?
Now?
Well, here we can show you. This is what happens in a physical sense when heat transfers through the glass. It's getting that little radiometer to spin way faster than the one next to it.
I'm interested in keeping keeping the heat in. Yeah, a little bit of condensation on the joint on the aluminium doesn't room it, but the glass when it gets commensasion on it is quite annoying. But I am planning probably you know, five years, maybe I might do some retrofit double glazing on the other joinery in the drying. Now, these there's two dwellings involved, so one of them tends to get moisture than the other. The one with the
HIV doesn't seem to get moist at all. And I'm thinking that ought to have the low e because that's just a small window going to a large branch lader now and there's not many windows and the rest of it. So I think it makes sense there because that's going to be the majority.
But in your case, then the benefit of the HIV is that you've got air movement, right, and that helps raise the temperature a little bit. So again, condensation is moisture laden air collecting on a cool surface, right, So if you've got single glaze single glazing like most of us do at home, that inside surface of the glass will cool down because of course the outside temperature. When I drove to work this morning, I looked at the dam on the MASDA and it was nine degrees outside, right,
So it's not cold inside my house. I glanced at the thermometer on the way out. It's probably about eighteen degrees right, So you've got nine degrees outside eighteen degrees inside. The point at which those two temperatures are meeting is the glass, and so the world wants to equalize, and so my glass is going to get cold because it's colder outside than inside. And if I didn't keep the heat up, if the house wasn't relatively dry, then I'd
start to see condensation on those windows. That's where it meet. That's where it's evident. There's always moisture in the air, but when it hits a cold surface, that's where it commensates. And in some cases you know, if you go into some houses that have little or no insulation in the wall, then the wall itself, if you put your eaving you can feel it. Sometimes you put your hand on the wall and you can feel that the wall is cold.
And so in those situations you'll actually get condensation on the on the walls, on the plaster board walls, not just on the glass.
Right, So to summarize, and I'm just trying to I'm trying to make sure I get the get the right information from me here because it's a little Yeah, sure, if I put low e, it's going to reduce condensation on the glass, but it's going to push it to where the moist to where the temperature can equalize, which is the aluminium.
Well, I think that's what the guy is telling you, and I can see a certain logic in that. My sense is if if there's it often comes down to dollars as well. Right, So you know, is it worth investing in the low e glass, which we know is better than standard double glazing, which is then better than good old fashioned single glazing. And if you were thinking of doing more work in the future, I suppose investing in the upgrade is an investment in the future as well.
If you were quite clear that you were never going to do anything else to the rest of the house, then I would say put the double glazing in, because you'll get the benefit from that, but it may not overall be worth spending the money to upgrade to low E And that's just being reasonable and practical. You know there is a benefit to doing it, but you've got to look at the overall project as well and be realistic about what you're going to achieve by doing it.
And again, the reason that doing one part of an overall thermal envelope is for exactly that reason. What we're trying to create is a thermal envelope, right, So we want to ensure that we're trapping heat inside our houses and keeping cold out enveloping the space that we inhabit. Yeah, yeah, because what are your walls like?
So one of them has insulation in because it was built in two thousand and six, and that has four other windows, but one of the windows is in question, and then it's going to have a large ranch slider and then there are or there's another ranch slider which is not double blaze, so that has a lot of existing joinery, and it has a heat pump and it's insulated. The other dwelling does not have insulation. It's nineteen seventies. It has a heat pump. But this is pretty much
the only piece of joinery in the room. There are two adjacent rooms with very small windows, and I'm thinking that one should have the low e because it's the major piece of joinery and to upgrade the others isn't going to be much in the future.
Yeah, So it becomes a percentage. It becomes a percentage game, right, And that's why you know, as we get more and more of our houses have more and more joinery in it, right, we want the use and we want that connection to outside, so we team we have Traditionally, if you think about older buildings, they don't have as much space taken up
by joinery whereas we do today. So again, if you're you might say, look, twenty five percent of my wall is glazing, in which case it makes sense to make that glazing as thermally efficient as possible because it's so much of a wall. So I'm circling back, and I think you were heading there as well. If it's if in your case, the ranch slider is a big part of that exterior surface, then it would pay to make that as efficient as possible, which is the low e.
Yeah, what I felt was not efficient was to go with theirmally broken because even if I upgrade later on the rest of the joinery, it's never going to be somally broken. The retrofited, double glazed correct. And the cost difference there thermally broken was massive. Is that much for the low e? It isn't. I want to make the decision.
Okay, it sounds like you're on track, or hopefully we've discussed you know, this is where these are permutations, right, This is a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But the great thing about I found for our discussion is that you're you're obviously aware that you've got all of these different components that when combined,
give you better performance. But you know, we can't focus on sort of a one fixed solution like typically if if we're after warm, dry comfortable, we've got to be looking at all of these elements that combine in our houses to create warm, dry comfortable, and it's it's never just one thing.
No I am aware of that couldn't been listening to.
You for a long time.
Very kind of you.
To say, you make a lot of sense.
Have a great day, you too, very much. Pleasure all the best bother that your news talks, he'd be, yes, it does. I suppose this is one of the things that I actually really really love about buildings is that they are, in a sense incredibly simple. Buildings for us as human beings are shelter, right, a basic human requirement for us to be able to thrive, let's say, is
to have shelter. And then from the basic requirement for shelter through to actually being really really healthy and good for us, warm, dry, comfortable, then we start to get add layer upon layer upon layer of detail, and detail is complexity, and then the combination of all of those elements is where it does get really really complicated, which is good. That's what science is about. And yeah, it was a great little experiment that we did actually this week.
Because it is tremendously difficult to You can look at diagrams, you can think about it, you can theorize about what happens when I've got heat on one side of glass and I want to know how much is getting through and how can I tell and so you put a radiometer in front of it, and the physical evidence of the heat moving through the glass. It was good fun. Eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call
I better take a break. It is six thirty four at NEWSTALKSB your news Talk's EDB and eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call quick text before you go to the calls. Is there a requirement to have an extraction fan or a range hood in a kitchen when renovating an old property under the Building Code? Thanks short answer is, interestingly enough, no, So the Building
Code requires ventilation in a kitchen area, but not necessarily extraction. So, for example, if you have an opening window that's reasonably close to where you're cooking takes place, then that satisfies the requirements of the Building Code as it currently stands. Interestingly enough, the if that property is used, however, as
a residential tenancy. The residential tenancy the Amendment Act Healthy Home standards mean that you must have extraction in a kitchen and it doesn't necessarily have to be a range hood, which is a little bit perverse as well. So you could theoretically achieve compliance with the healthy home standards by adding an extractor to a kitchen area like you would in a bathroom, It doesn't necessarily, as I understand, it have to be arrange hood saying all of that range
hoods are good and I think kind of essential. So if there's an opportunity to put an arrange hood, you won't regret it. So even if you're not required to do it, they are a really good idea. Plenty of evidence, plenty of data about their usefulness in terms of controlling internal moisture. So if you're like I was cooking last night, I had a pot on the stove bubbling away ready
for the pasta to go into. That's a lot of steam and the extra that we have is able to direct that outside, So efficient extraction from kitchens makes a significant difference in terms of controlling internal moisture in my house, saying that maybe my fan my extractor needs a bit of a clean because later and we had a couple of people over last night and someone started writing their name on the window in the living room because there
was a little bit of condensation. So maybe I didn't turn the extractor on early enough, or more likely I need to clean out the filters. Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call.
Hey, Donna, Hi, I wonder if you could help me.
I wanted to know if you know of a really good sense in concept in Auckland.
Ah.
Look, I don't in the sense that I you know, I know lots of trades people and that sort of thing, but I in terms of actual Ah yeah, look, I tell you what the best way of doing it is in your area. Undoubtedly there's been some fences that have been built recently so as to try and and go maybe knock on the door. And I've done this when we saw a color, to be fair, when we saw a color that we really liked right on a house and just went up, knocked on the door and went,
love that color. Do you mind sharing with us what it is? And in the same way that if someone's recently had a fence done, and ideally the contract should leave their name on it if they're proud of their work. The other option is if you go to your local hardware store, particularly if it's a smaller one, go down to the trade desk there. In some cases people will
leave their cards. So one of the trade places that I go to on the wall, there'll be a pile of business cards, right, and then you can always talk to the people who are there and go, hey, look who would you recommend? So I think having a look around the area see if someone's done some work that
you like. Actually, I was talking with friend this week and they had someone come and do some fencing at their place ahead of a new build, and whoever it was had decided pretty much to leave their tape measure at home. So when they looked at the finished product, the posts were all at different centers. So some posts were like two meters apart and then another one was up to two point seven meters apart, and then oh so yeah, don't get that fencing contractor no.
I have another quick question. Sure you know the Healthy Home standard, Yes, installation does it just have to be in the ceiling or does it have to be under floor as well?
The requirement is for it to be in the ceiling and in the underfloor if they are accessible, so it's quite clear. So if for example, it's unsafe or impractical or impossible to get underneath the floor, which is the case in some houses, then there's no requirement to do it. I think if you were to do what let's say the house is one hundred square meters, so thousand square foot, it would be probably a couple of grand to do the underfloor and about the same to do the ceiling.
What is out there at the moment, which I'm surprised is still around, is there are some quite good subsidies at the moment. So again, if you just doing an Internet search for insulation subsidy or insulation upgrade or something like that, undoubtedly you'll strike on this. And I know again I was at a function the other day talking with a few people and they'd had their house insulated and had been able to use the subsidy and it was really cheap basically, so not a bad time to
do it. There's still subsidies out there for retrafftingulation, no trouble at all.
Thank you.
Actually, that's giving me an idea. Thank you very much, Donna, much appreciated. Take care. And I just going back to the question about finding a contractor, I reckon that's not a bad way of doing it. One is, obviously to find work that's been done recently that looks like it's been done professionally. The other way of doing it is
to go to hardware stores or a timber merchant. Maybe go down the back if it's a large, big barn type store, go down to the trade store, find someone who looks like they've worked there for a little while, and go, look, I'm looking for a contractor who could come and give me a quote for that. And they'll know who's good basically, they'll know whose work is tidy, they'll know who's work sufficient. They'll know who pays their bills on time, which is always a good sign, and
that might be the best person to get. But yeah, my friend's had a bit of a shock when they looked at the fence and realized that whoever done the work had just kind of randomly set out the post. Maybe there was something in the way or a tree stump or something like that. But you'd be a little bit peeved. I suspect, Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty.
The lines are open for you. As I mentioned, we've got Bryce McDermott, our painting expert from Razine, joining us in about an hour's time after eight o'clock, which I know is still a wee way away. We're going to be talking. Take a deep dive into solar, which we've never done to my recollection on the show. So solar panels, how do they work? What's the upside, what's the potential downside, what's the durability, what's the performance?
Like?
Is having a battery a good idea? How do you get them installed? All of these things will go through in detail with Marlon from Lightful Solar, who'll be joining me after eight o'clock this morning. So that's a long winded way of saying, now is a really good time to call. Eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call? Lines are open for you right now. Eight hundred eighty ten eighty is that number to call text on this whole thing around the insallation. So this is insallation.
Let's say for healthy Homes standards morning, I have pumped mattress like insight oh so like a fiber essentially done about twenty years ago in the ceiling for insulation. Do I have to replace this to upgrade to current insulation standards? Sometimes twenty years ago it might be worth just testing it to see what material it is and testing it to make sure that there's nothing hazardous in it. If
it's not hazardous and it's been blown in. What will happen over time is it will settle, and as it settles, it lose it loses its effectiveness, its performance as an insulator. But everything that I've read would suggest that unless you really really want to, there's no actual requirement to remove it, you're better off leaving it there because it will still achieve some are value that you know, maybe when it went in it achieved one point eight or something like that.
Now it's settled a bit, it might achieve one one or something similar. So the best thing to do, if it's not hazardous, it's not toxic in some way, then leave it there and simply lay new insulation over the top of it. So you take the benefit that you've already got of the existing insulation and add more to
it to bring it up to standard. Bearing in mind that the current standard for the Building Code, if you take the what they call a schedule method, so you just go to the table in the building Code and go right, what's my ceiling insulation. It's got to be R six point six. That's the requirement across the country for every single ceiling. Personally, professionally, I think that's absurd and I can't find anyone who knows anything about building science that goes, actually R six point six is a
real advantage even in colder climbs. Anything above R five typically is actually not really adding a great deal more benefit. I don't know where they got the R six point six from. I know that it freaked out the industry. And because basically to get our six point six into a ceiling space, you need to have about three hundred
millimeters of space. And if you think about a traditional truss that comes down with a top cord running over the top plate, you might only have one hundred millimeters of space there, in which case you either have to have these funky heel trusses where suddenly you're pushing up the top cord much higher to try and get your insulation right to the outside, or you do a discount for saying, actually, I don't necessarily need three hundred millimeters
around the perimeter. That can be less, but and then it kind of balances out with more insulation in other places. But basically the schedule method, they should have just ditched this schedule method and said you've either got to do calculation or modeling for your thermal performance of a renovation or a new build, get rid of the schedule method. But that's it's another hobby horse that I like to ride from time to time. Oh, eight hundred eighty ten
eighty is the number to call. If you've got a question of a building nature, you are more than welcome to call. We're talking about insulation, we're talking about finding contractors, and in fact that might be something we'll talk about a little bit with Bryce, our painting expert, Because, to be fair, across the country, contractors, builders, plumbers, electricians, train layers, painters, everyone involved in the building trade is not as busy
as they have been. So if you're in a position where you've got a project and you can fund it right now, now's not a bad time to be going out to the market looking for definitely more competitive prices and even margins basically being squeezed. It's not necessarily a great situation. But if you're a person that wants to get a project done and you looked at doing it a couple of years ago and were put off by kind of where labor rates were, where margins were, how
difficult it was to get a contractor. Seriously, now's not a bad time to be looking for a contractor a couple of quick texts as well. Hey Pete, I've got the existing tiled bathroom. I want to retile it. Obviously it'll need to be waterproofed in the shower the existing one. Does it require a building consent? I would say that if it's an existing tiled bathroom and you're not going to change the shape of it, it's already got a waterproof membrane there, and it's got tiles affixed to the
floor into the walls for example. Obviously, when you pull those tiles off, you're going to damage the existing waterproofing, which means that you'll need to either replace the waterproofing or go over the waterproofing. I actually wonder whether, given that there's already one, let's presume that the work already had a building consent, then you could argue that it's like for like, and that would that's permissible and to
schedule one. So I'd say, if it's an existing tiled shower and it's got waterproofing there and you take the tiles off redo the waterproofing, I don't know that you would necessarily require a building consent essentially for maintenance. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty the number to call. Hey, Sarah, good morning, good morning. Now are you I'm very well? Thank you? How can I help?
Please?
Do you tell me I have tried it scrubbing that my cat has been coming in. My cat's been coming in my window right, and here's to jump the front. Paws fell on the brick wall.
Yeah, the window still which is bricked, and they're dirty footprints on the brick wall.
Is there in special please.
Or so essentially it'll be a little bit of dirt and someone that's that's accumulated there under the poor prints of your cat. I would think that a standard exterior house wash like a and there's there's a bunch of them on the market, and so you just do a pre application of that, so it soak the area with house wash and then wash it off. Maybe not even with a water blaster. You could just agitate with a stiff broom and then rinse off with water and that
would probably do it. There are like often brick layers will use spirit assaults or hydrochloric acid to clean down brickwork when they finish, but that's more about removing the cement. The semonititious material. So I think in your case, where it's just regular build up of grime because that's where the cat comes in and out of the house, then I would say just a regular exterior house. Wash, agitate and rinse. That'll job done, no trouble at all. You
have a good day, all the best. Then in through the window. So obviously you no cat door. I'm thinking we've got a cat at home as well. Put a cat door in in and out. Well no, actually, a cat's decided now that it's much more fun to sit on the window sill and looking through the window and wait for us to come and open the window, rather than wandering another five and a half meters and then through the cat flap. Seems to be his latest party trick.
Morning Peak. I've got a nineteen eighties dwelling with hardy plank cladding. The corner soakas are rusting. They've been nailed down under the plank above, so we can't remove them. What are our options please from Chrissy. What I would do is you remove the rusted area, not too aggressively because you don't want to go through the soka or something like that. You can apply a rust converter which will neutralize the rust and then top it with an
appropriate primer so you can get rust killed. Primers basically do that and then overcoat with your top coat thereafter, good little task to do actually, and I know getting them out is difficult, right he Oh, we're almost seven o'clock. We've got news sport and whether we'll come back with more of your calls straight after the news. You can call us now on eight hundred and eighteen eighty. Your up as a little bit of music, why not.
In the home stretch.
Of the hard time.
We took a hard left, but we're all right. Yeah, las sure cantra so.
Love Gooie bird we do this ride is so has than's ever gone. Move it when the.
Bones are good rested on at You're the pink a Field classical shadow that a boy does you love me? In the Foundation, we water the wild stage, the house to fallen the bars.
Your news talks the b and Pete Wolf camp with you this morning. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call quick text Actually, Pete, how do kitchen fan exhaust get cleaned? You know someone who loves cooking, and obviously if you're cooking particularly certain types of food. There might be lots of oils and fats and that sort of thing. It's it's not really the fan. There's always if you look inside at your extractor, there'll be some drop down filters that will come out and
they can be cleaned. I've typically, when I've got round to doing it, and I probably don't do it often enough, I'll take the filters out. I'll use like a de greaser went and forget and worked well for me, and then I'll soak them for a period of time. Some of them you can put in the dishwasher and use the cycle of the dishwasher to clean them out. I probably would put them in on their own and then put them back in, and it is they are way more effective. It doesn't take much to clean them, and
it's way more effective when you do. Hey. Another quack text as well, pete looking for good Tradeye try visiting the local RSA great place to find out who's the best and how to contact them. Cheers from Phil interesting thought to be fair? Why not?
Hey?
Another quick text Morning, We've got nineteen eighties Lockwood home. On the ceiling in the bathroom, there's a black stain from the moisture. Could this be sanded to remove? And if so, what would be a good coating paint or polyurathane. I tell you what I might hold on to that text, because that sounds like the perfect question for Brice McDermott, our painting expert, who'll be joining us at around seven
forty five this morning, so Bryce will be around. If you've got any specific painting questions, then text them through now and I'll put them to one side and we'll see what Bryce has to say about a question like that. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call. Frank A very good morning to you.
It's good morning, Pete.
Morning Frank.
I have a question for you about painting, and I also have a thing about the lady that wanted to do a bit the fencing. Yeah, no, and okay. In one of my flats, which is insulating the top in the bottom. I had a phone call the other day from the lady that's in there, and she said the painting is flaking off the roof in flat in both the bedrooms. But it's not flaking in the lounge or
the kitchen anywhere else. Only in the two bedrooms. And I'm wondering if because it's all locked up, something's or what.
Interesting a place that I look after. And we had persistent issues with like it had been relatively recently repainted, and yet the paint was starting to peel from the ceiling in the bathroom and that ended up being an issue around. The extractor was okay, but there was insufficient airflow into the bathroom it for it to go efficiently. So I ended up going in there drying it thoroughly,
cleaning it really thoroughly, let that dry completely. Then I did pigmented Cela, and then I did two top coats of a new water born enamel product, and thus far I did that probably almost twelve months ago. It's lasted quite well, so I think for you and I'll run it past Bryce as well. In those bedrooms, it'd be interesting to go up and see what condition the insulations in. It'd be interesting to know whether there might be a slow leak or something like that that's that's making that
area a little bit damp. And then and then yeah, possibly and it may also be And this is one of those things. I was looking at a presentation the other day just around the need to ventilate our houses. That it seems like somewhere along the line, we've kind of forgotten what our parents did. Maybe you and I,
who are slightly older, still remember this. But you know, any any opportunity, if the day was halfway decent, you just open the windows, open the house up, let fresh air into the house, on as many opportunities as you can. And seemingly these days people just don't tend to do that as much.
So that if they heat the bedrooms up in the cold weather and close up everything.
Yeah, I mean, look that sensible at night because you want to retain the heat. But you know, on a on a if you're in Auckland, the last couple of days have been beautiful, right, We've had the back doors open, just allowing some ventilation, and then as as soon as you can feel the temperature change inside the house, you go, okay, well now it's time to close it up. I want
to keep that. I want to retain that heat that I've built up during the day, but that that positive benefit by having some airflow and some ventilation is huge. And the other thing is, look, maybe it's just old paint work and it's just reached the end of its life, and perhaps the lounge was painted later. It's kind of hard to know, but I would check the insulation, I would check the ventilation, see how they're using the room,
and then if you do go and repaint it. I'd be really inclined to use a pigmented seiler as you first come. Yeah good, can't go wrong.
At the same flats, I had a fence blow down in the storm. Oh yeah, And I looked up and I found a ground that under landscaping and fencing and they were not that far away from it. So we're in you know, Papakura area, And I rang up and got the manager there isn't it. It was Board of Fencing and he sent a couple of guys out to have a look at it. And the next couple of days he rang me with a quote and I accepted it.
He sent them around. They did a fantastic job. But the best part of the whole deal was the cost. It wasn't over cost, and I heavy shone number if the lady would like it. I looked up his card that they had given me.
Yeah, brilliant. I'll tell you what. I'll pass you back to Tyler, my producer and tyra rather and if you could just leave the number and if that other caller wants to call back, if they're in the same roughly the same region, that's great because I recommendations like that firsthand are the best possible recommendations you can get.
So that's great, And I'll listen to the painting question when a painter comes in. Absolutely, thank you very much.
My pleasure. Have a great day, Frank, all the very best. Take care, Bobby quick texts before the break morning, Pete. We've got a twenty year old plus corrogated fiberglass roofing on a pergola that we want to replace. Bits of the fiberglass appear to be coming out. The role was put on in one piece ten meters long. I'm now worried that removing it will flick fiberglass shards into the garden. How can it be done safely? Sou from Fanngaparur. Typically,
let's hope that they're fixed in with screws. So essentially I would be getting a decent quality ladder, ideally a platform ladder, and then work your way in from one end, essentially reaching over, undoing the screws, starting to roll the sheeting back up and then carry on removing the screws, rolling the sheet up, removing screws, rolling the sheet up, and possibly once the roll gets to a certain size, you might just want to run a sharp knife through
it and probably just cut straight through it take that down. The other thing is, if you are worried about fiberglass shards going into the garden, is to put drop sheets or mesh down into the garden so that anything that does fall outside of the area that you're working in you can simply collect that up in a drop sheet and then shake that out, collect that up and dispose of that as well. And just by the way, that
sort of roll roofing material is still available now. So of course the benefit of it is is that let's say you've got a six meter wide veranda, you can buy a six meter roll. If it's a ten meter one, you can get a ten meter roll. As I understand it, I've never installed it myself, but it just means that you don't have all those joins, which is actually a
pretty nifty idea. Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call if you've got a question of a building nature get in now, because to be fair. At around seven forty five we're going to be talking painting, and after eight o'clock we're going to take a deep dive into solar panels. So if you've got a question, you should give us a call right now. Oh eight
hundred eighty ten eighty is that number to call. I made a comment earlier in the program, just around I'd spent a couple of days at Building Z, which was a kind of real trade focused building exhibition number, and
they do a number of seminars which was interesting. They had a number of people who were like CEOs of large building companies like south Base and CMP and who else was there one other company as well, talking about you know, where the market's at at the moment, and the fact that some of those rates that skyrocketed COVID
and post COVID have started to come down. So I made the comment that, hey, look, if you are in a position where you can fund a project right now, now's not a bad time to be in the market
looking for pricing and so on. Tony Sex through peak as an electrician of nearly forty years, the costs of being in business only goes up each year, and now I'm getting tire kickers wanting small jobs done cheaply, and I expect to work for nothing and give them the materials at cost just to get some work at a loss. May as well shut up shop, Tony. I agree with you. No, you shouldn't be doing jobs at cost, and yes, I agree with you. Costs of being in business do seem
to go up all the time. Compliance costs are going up. You know the amount that we know you would have paid your GST the other day. All of these sorts of things continue, right, So I'm not suggesting that you should be doing jobs at below cost, although that happens when the market starts to turn effectively, companies are looking to just buy work to keep their guys going, to
keep the doors open. It's not a great situation, and it's not surprising that in that environment we get a lot of liquidations and we're seeing any number of those
at the moment. But at the same time, some of those crazy rates that were out there again talking to a quantity survey who's been on the show, Andy from cost Consultants, you know, at one stage square meter rate for block work shot up from about four hundred and forty bucks a square meter to about eight hundred and eighty or eight hundred and sixty dollars a square meter. Now that's come back down almost to those you know,
over time levels. So again that's what I'm talking about, that some of those really really high level rates have dropped back. One of the guys at the conference on the weekend was talking about, you know what you would pay typically for structural steel, and they do it on a per ton basis, that's dropped considerably, two and a half thousand dollars down to about sixteen hundred dollars a ton for structural steel. Now, so again I stand by
my point. Now is not a bad time. And you know, if the government was half way smart, now's not a bad time to carry on doing some of those building projects. All those schools that need work, gets some very sharp pricing right now. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty is then I'm going to call Charlie.
Good morning, Hi, good morning, how are you good?
Things good?
I just wanted to ask you a question I've been living. I book my little apartment in two thousand and four, and I think the building was built in the late seventies. What I'm trying to ask is that in my shower they had a new head shower put in, but they didn't cover the hole in the wall when the shower comes out of and I'm just wondering if I'm going to get rot in there.
Certainly, if in the shower area they haven't sealed around the penetrations, then I would say, yeah, that's poor workmanship. Basically, I mean, you don't want holes and gaps around where fittings are changed. Now, if it's around the actual shower rows, then you've got the shower rows coming out of the wall, and then the head is that, so you're not practically speaking, you're not going to get a lot of moisture going
back right. It's the showers aiming downwards right, So to get water to go uphill, you'd have to be splashing around in there quite vigorously. I would have thought to get it to go uphill, But same thing. It's not a great thing. And in a bathroom area, which is typically a fairly damp space with a lot of internal moisture, you don't want openings that allow moisture to penetrate into the building envelope, into the actual inside of the wall.
So ideally you'd either, and it might be as simple as taking the fitting off because there'll be a threaded connection, and then putting a flange over there that seals the penetration, and then putting the fitting back on. You probably want to get a plumber to do that, but that's the sort of thing. And then you know, overall, I think bathroom's really important that we've got ventilation and extraction into bathrooms.
And I actually think that having some heat in a bathroom just to keep the temperature up helps mold at bay. So even the temperature that you get from a heated towel rail, I know they can seem like a bit of a luxury item, but having a heated towel rail in a bathroom just keeps the temperature up, and I think that keeps the mold at bay as well.
I've got issue.
You got a head to rail?
Yeah, and do you typically just leave it on or do you only use it only?
I actually turn it on when I put towels on meat dry, So that's once every evening, I suppose.
Yes. I mean, look, I tell you what's what is actually quite useful too for heated towel rails, Because you know, I'm going to counter what I just said, which is they're great to have there because they keep the temperature up in the bathroom, but also if it's you're using energy when you don't necessarily need it. A lot of them.
Now you can add a timer to them, so for example, it'll turn on let's say five o'clock in the morning till eight o'clock, so that if you have a shower in the morning, your towels will be nice and warm, and then it won't run for the rest of the day and you might set it to turn on again in the evening, and that that's a much more efficient use of it. And these these sorts of timers are relatively easy to install. Now your electrician will know about them.
Fantastic.
Yeah, no trouble at all. H You have a great day. Chae all very best. Take care by you A news talks. It is seven twenty six, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call morning peak. My apartment roof space is only about four hundred milimeters deep. I want to change my bathroom extractor fan, but in the roof space I can only see the tubing, so there's no actual fan or motor in sight. Let's assume that
there is one there. It might be located midway, which is not that useful in terms of getting to it to upgrade it or to repair it later on. Like if it's located, let's say it's a five meter run from the intake in the bathroom to the exhaust on the exterior of the bill. Let's hope that it does exhaust to the exterior of the building. And if you do an inline fan and you locate it midway, but there's no way of servicing it. I the only way to get to it is cut a hole in the ceiling.
That's not great design. I found. Now with apartments, there's a lot more services engineering goes on, so you know, durability, maintenance, replacement is all sort of designed in. You might not get that, but that's a real challenge if you if you can't see any motor. I presume that there's a switch, right if you turn the switch on, can you hear something? And if you can hear something, then there's got to be a motor there somewhere, in which case, now it's
a question of finding it. And ideally you'd want a minimum of one hundred and fifty miliducting and ideally semi rigid rather than flexible. I think they're more efficient and if it's a longer run, possibly even two fans to ensure that the extraction works well. Oh eight hundred and eighty ten eighty the number to call Brian. A very good morning to you. Good things.
Hey, I have talked to you before and have listened through your chats about instlations. So we did have the under floor installation done. We've got obviously up and the roofing area probably still got to do. The moisture brea has still yet to be done, but we've still got quite a bad condensation. We're up here in tor Bay and Auckland and I'm just wondering because we have got a moisture master as well, but it doesn't really seem
to be working that well. I'm just we're just thinking about going to either a DVS or HRV is maybe a better solution. Do you have any comments about that? I know you don't typically dismiss products per se, you may have a bit of a bend towards one versus the other type of thing.
Yeah, I think again, if you do a little bit of reading, you'll find now that there are. There's actually a whole heap of information now around ventilation systems. And the reason it's become more and more important essentially, and why there's more discussion about them is that increasingly, as
we build, we're building much more air tight buildings. Right, So, if you're doing a and this isn't talking about necessarily passive house, where that's the intent of passive houses to make the building air tight and you can do blower door tests on it and those sorts of things. This is just in general if you're building specifically, if you're doing like a rigid air barrier, whether that's a ply word or an OSB board or a fiveber cement sheet
or whatever. If you're doing a rigid air barrier, you're taping all the joints, you're putting in decent quality joinery, you're doing an air seal around the perimeter of the joinery. We're making our houses reasonably air tight, still a way to go to be genuinely air tight, but pretty good. And then in those situations there if you're completely reliant just on opening windows for ventilation, then on those times when you don't open the windows, you are going to
have problems with internal moisture and so on. So there's that's long way of saying there's a lot of information out there at the moment, and a lot of that focuses on systems that draw fresh air from outside, circulate it through a heat exchanger, and then push it into dry areas of the house, so living rooms, bedrooms, and then the intakes for that system are from what we typically call wet areas or moist areas, so kitchens, bathrooms,
laundries and so that way, it's almost like a balanced pressure. So there's air being driven into the house, and then it's being extracted from those areas where we want to remove that moist air, and then it's being expelled to the exterior. So I have an older one of those systems,
it's not like that. So I'm drawing air from the roof space and it's essentially being pushed into the house, and then it relies on my house leaking air, which it does because it's a nineteen oh five villa, right, there's gaps and cracks everywhere despite my best efforts to put insulation in. So that system is drawing air from the roof space, pushing it into the house, and then it's basically leaking out. It's not a terribly efficient way of doing it right. It relies on a house leaking air.
So again, if we look, if I was in your situation, I was looking at upgrading, I would want something that drew air, fresh air from outside, filtered it, possibly went through a heat exchange, and then extracted it in a very deliberate manner to exterior. Again, that will make a big difference.
Okay, so do you want do you want to drop us the name of someone that does that?
Look if you want to go top quality. Then I talked to Steeble Oltron, who actually have a showroom in Barry's Point Road. I was talking with Grant, who's one of the owners or works there at Building Z on the weekend or during the week. Rather the other systems, I've noticed they've started to expand the scope of what they do to include I guess if I was looking, I would be My criteria would be does it draw
fresh air from outside? Does it expel to outside? And I think if it's not doing that, then you're talking about a system that pushes air into your building and relies on the building leaking to get rid of it.
Yeah, well, house was built in ninety five.
House was built in ninety five.
So what was the name?
Yeah, on Various Point Road in Takapuna, so not too far from you as well. And then Zender is another really top quality system. But you know, it was like I went out to a basically a low carbon house that was built the other day and they had a very very you know, well designed, well installed ventilation system and it was key to the performance of that house given how airtight the house was. Which won't be your house.
So no, that's right.
No, I'm not denigrating your house. I'm just that's and this is where again it's fascinating. If you do a blower door test, which is a device where you essentially close all the doors and windows, seal up things like extractor fans and outlets, and then in the front door or in a door, you install a blower and you push air into the house and you can measure how many air exchanges, so you calculate the volume of the house.
It's a cubic meterage, and then you push air into it and you can measure how many air exchanges per hour you might have. And most New Zealand houses might be around nine to ten air exchanges per hour, which means the house is basically just leaking air. A new build done without too much attention to air tightness and all the rest of it might achieve five or six. If you want to focus on air tightness, you might
get that down to two or three. And if you're looking for passive, how standard you're at about I think it's about point six or something like that. Yeah, So it's interesting numbers.
Yes, so quick questions and HIV. They don't draw in fresh air and expel them out.
Some of some of these systems do so.
Again, if because we're not because we're not looking for top of the line, we're just looking for something that's a general price, a good system.
And to be fair, anything is better than nothing. Right, let's start there. Let's be practicing anything's better than nothing. But ideally, and like I say, I think both of those companies have moved to systems now where they're drawing from outside and pushing it to outside, and that's really really important.
Yeah, and they reasonably cost effective to run doing the heat exchange of things. I thought they were quite they could they could lift your electricity price up reasonably well.
The idea of the heat exchange is that it extracts heat from the warm air that's being expelled from the house, right, So some of those systems add heating elements to the ducting. Again, unless the ducting itself is insulated, then you're actually if you're adding heat at one point and it's traveling along a standard piece of flexible ducting and coming out five meters away, and that ducting is uninsulated, I suspect that most of the heat that you've generated will be lost
by the time it gets to the outlet. So again, if they are saying it's got a heating element to it, you'd expect to see insulated ducting.
Yeah, okay, all right, probably.
More questions than answers, but I again, oh, drawing from outside expelling to outside, that would be my minimum.
Yep, great stuff, an.
All the best, Take care B. You a new stork, se B do we Yeah, we should take a break. We'll take a brain Remember we've got Bryce, our painting expert, will be joining us at around seven forty five. We'll chat all things painting right up to eight o'clock and then after eight o'clock. Marlon from Lightfoce Solar is actually going to join me here in the studio. We're going to be talking Solar, but more than happy to take
your questions about Sola. If you've got a question about panels, cleaning, durability, maintenance, longevity, performance, that sort of thing, feel free to text them through nine to nine two back after the break your news talks. The'd be Bryce coming up after the break, but right now we're taking your calls. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call, Actually just quick text that's just popped in. Is there a rule of thumb for the ratio of the number of guttering ie
downpipes for the roof size? Yes there is, but you're off the top of my head. I think it's about sixty square meters, but I just go and check on the building code. But yes, there is a guidance there as to the side of the down pipes for the catchment area and the number of down pipes as well. Owen a very good morning to you.
Oh, good morning, paint morning. I just wanted to ask. I've got a painted long run roof and in one section particularly, the nails are sort of loosening off it. You can bang them back down and to loosen back off again. I'm told the danger is if I try and put them out, you know, putting a bar under there.
I can leave a dent there, which just accentuates issues if as far as you know, maybe water getting in and so sort of a double question one is is there a way I can get those out without damaging out and even replace them with screws or bigger nails or whatever. And the other one is which paint if they're starting to just deteriorate it, but you know, not correate a little bit of just around in the hles, but the rest.
Of the roof is actually reasonable.
Yeah, yeah, and I could just repaint that.
Yeah, is it corrugated iron? It's that profile or is it a different profile.
It's sort of a long run sort of a profile on it rather than a.
Wavy Okay, all right, yep, I.
Thought it was color steel, but someone took a lock it and goes no paint.
That's all right. Yeah. Look, the key to it is having like obviously there's pearlins that run. The pearlins are underneath the iron, right, and that's where the nails are fixed down into. So what you want to do is put a block into that trough next to where the nail is and then get either a crowbar or a lot of roofing guys use two hammers, so you use one hammer with the claw to get underneath the nail head, and then you hit the face of that hammer with
the other hammer to drive it in right. So rather than try and strike the hammer and get it spot on and get underneath the nail, you just put the forks either side or either side, tap it in, and then leave it onto a block, right, and that should stop any damage. The other really nifty tool that I've seen that a guy made was a set of vice scripts welded to a slide hammer, you know, like a what panel Beyters used.
In the back of my mind, yeah, and I've.
Seen a guy use one, and I thought that's a piece of genius. He obviously was able to do a little bit of welding, so he got this vice script welded it to the sliding part or the shaft of a slide hammer, and then he could fasten the vice script onto the head and then just slide the weight along the shaft and bang pull the nail straight up.
So The whole point of trying to get the nail out as straight as possible is you don't want to increase the size of the hole, right, So if you are tearing and levering at the nail rather than lifting it straight up, if you're pulling it sideways or up and down, what you'll do is you'll tear the hole that's already through there, and then when you go and a replacement in, you'll find that it won't cover all of the gap. So yeah, and then look, I did it on a little job not that long ago. I
pulled out a whole bunch of nails. I used a block and a crowbar and a hammer to get the nails out, pulled them straight up, replaced them with a roofing screw that was a little bit longer and the slightly wider diameter, And so you could tell that you've got good purchase into the perlin. And then around the there you can just use some rust cool paint and then do a roofing paint over the top.
Ye cool paint. And then the only that's welding a pair of vice grips onto a slide hammer. That's probably about the only saying that my welding would be certified. You can want to hang off the green canyon on it.
Your welding sounds a little bit like mine. And given that my dad was a welder, he would be horrified see the state of some of the welding that I do. I should have spent more time in the factory with him back in the day. A nice of you to call all the best take care of I'm just looking at some dramatic pitches out of Germany at the moment. Obviously, Euro the UAFA Euro twenty twenty four games are on,
so Germany is playing Denmark. The match has been suspended due to the weather and there is literally golf size golf ball size hail crashing down onto the pitch, so the fans are desperately trying to stay dry, but the players have actually been removed from the pitch such as the weather. I guess it'll wow. There's some dramatic pictures anyway, Love and the football. I got to say, it's a bad excuse to stay up when you wake at four o'clock in the morning and just watch football. I even
went and bought myself a brand new flag. My old Dutch flag was as well worn and maybe just a little bit small. So I've gone out and brought a significantly bigger Dutch flag that I can fly when the Dutch team are playing. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten. I know, Actually no more calls right now, text messages questions for Bryce. We will be talking to Bryce after the break news talks'd be and our painting expert Bryce McDermott joins us bright nearly, good morning and lovely to
bump into you the other day building z Ed. Okay, Bryce, there we go? Sorry, mate, there we go? Got you now? Hey, nice pumping into you at Buildiing z Ed. Hello. Ah, now hang on, I'll tell you what. Just stay on the line. I might just get rid of that and we'll do it that way. Bryce, have we got there?
We go?
Got you now? Sorry mate, I'm for some reason with conference I couldn't bring you up there. He really nice to catch up with you at Builldiing z Ed And I know the razine stand was there? Great location, smack bang on the corner. There lots of people to chat to.
Yeah, and squarely into people wandering around with crauisine umbrellas.
Fair. I had a couple of people come up to me and go, I hear these umbrellas. Where do I go to the umbrellas?
Umbrellas are so popular?
Go around see when mat bryce He'll give you one, No problem at all. Oh, how brilliant. I just hit of our questions today and we've got a bunch of them to look at. I mentioned earlier about you know, getting trades people perhaps to come and do work now, because look, to be fair, things are not always that busy. Now is not a bad telling to find trades people. Is that kind of your experience.
Yeah, I mean there's there's plenty of work that can be done, and you know, at this time of the year, even though it's cold and horrible as interiors just begging to be done, and a little bit of planning and stuff like that. You know, you can also booking something for later in the year, which normally is a very busy time. Everybody decided, right, something done anyway, So call the local trade goes and just get them going.
Yeah, now's a good time to get into it. And here we go. Here's the first one. I've stripped down window sills back to timber, sanded undercoat and repainted. But by next year they've started flaking off and require redoing any suggestion. So someone sounds like they've done everything right, but obviously something's not working.
It depends what the timber is. Perhaps if it's a native timber like coat matt I something like that, or maybe they've used an oil based undercoat, which doesn't generally work on that sort of timber. You'd probably be better off using a correct undercoat. But I'm just guessing at the moment.
Yeah, actually similar, and I know that it's it's kind of count intuitive, isn't it. Like I'm a little bit old fashioned, and I would typically like to use an oil based primer if I've got beer timber, especially outside, and yet for some types of native timber matt I in particular, it doesn't respond well. It just doesn't work. So in that case you've got to go for a waterborne primer. Yeah.
So I mean, yeah, you can put the waterbe primer on, but if you still, you know, really think that you should have an oil based one over the top, you can put one over the top of the acrylic inndicate.
You just need that layer, right, So that first layer might have to be waterborne, and then the top layer you could then overcoat that with an oil based Yep, okay, awesome, similar conversation or similar text message. We've just stripped one hundred and ten year old curry villa back down to beer. Would timber is an excellent condition? Would you use an oil based undercoat or is the razine quick dry the best undercoat to use there?
I would go for a quick dry in same sort of confect Yeah. There is a product of ours called timber lock as well, which you could use on stripped you know, fairly old timber, which is you know, it's an oil based product, but it's basically a polyester resin, but it helps bind up the timber fibers. You could use that and then put the quick dry over the top of that. It's just a very very thin timber
preserve conditioner type thing. So yeah, you could consider that, but if it's a really good condition, then the quick dry would be absolutely fine.
Ah. Interesting, Okay, So you would go from beer, you know, like and I've done the same thing stripped back the house back to beer timber. You'd go in a water borne as a primer, and then possibly then go for an oil base over the top and then swap back to or no, the tell me more about the timberlock because it's I'm not terribly familiar with it.
It's a very thin, watery substance, especially good for old cedar, which right my house was it still is, and it just just binds up the timber fibers and gives you a good surface for painting. It sounds like a bit of a misnomer. Don't use oil based on dating timbers.
Yeah like that.
But again, if the timber is in really good sound condition, then you probably don't need it, right, It's just another thing that you know, you can consider it to use.
Brilliant. Now, someone who wants I want to repaint my brick house fair enough, I've got some left over paving paint. Can I use this? Thanks for your professional advice. I'll leave that one to you.
Uh, depends on sort of saving paint. If it's an old oil based saving paint, I would probably just use it for the purpose that it was intended.
Right, That's a very diplomatic way of putting it. But if you did want to paint brick, so it's bear exposed brick and you want to do you know, funky the house up, make it a bit more modern. So if you're painting bear unpainted brick, where do you start.
Well, if it's not glazed brick, then by giving it a good moss and mold treatment and just to get all the moss and liking and stuff out of the ears of the pointing and things like that. Give it a good water blasting after that, and then I would go for the good old sure seal.
Okay, So sure seal is your first coat, yeah, yep.
And then a couple of coats of Well, there's a number of things you can use. You could use a good old lumber cider. You could use X two hundred if you want a bit more sort of water pressing qualities or whether witness as they say, uh yep, start with the sure seal and awhere you go.
If you're painting bricks, would you like, I suppose if they're relatively smooth, you know, like the old fashioned clinker bricks would be really hard to paint. But a traditional sort of commons, right, a standard brick roller and then cut in the joints or just a really fluffy roller and that'll get into all the water joints.
Yeah, one of those big huge lambs will sleep.
Right, okay.
Yeah, and you know, just you know, it'd take a little bit of work to to you know, to work the painting, but yes, that's a good thing, you know, working it into the actual substrate itself.
Yeah.
Absolutely, In a quick one. Here, best product to use for cleaning killer decks. It's it's currently unstained, so just bear killer decking. You know, it gets that sort of moss and mold on it over a period of time. What's a good way of that.
Yeah. We have a product called Timber and Dick wash yep, which you know, you mix you mix it in the ratio with water and give it a good scrubbing and then rinse it off straight away and it should actually bring the timber up quite nicely.
Yeah, and it's available in store yep.
It also opens up the timber fibers and allows you know, the timber to accept staying quite.
More readily, if you if you then wanted to go down that path. Bryce is always fantastic advice and all of those products available at the Razine Color Store, and good advice from the team there as well. Again, Bryce, much appreciated, Thanks very much for your time this morning. After the news we're talking Sola yeah, with news talks, he'd be We're back final hour of the show. Pete wolf Camp resident build it with you this morning. Marlin from Life Force. Sola is with me in the studio.
But Gray, you've been waiting patiently. So quick call from you, sir, question, Yeah, go for it?
Are you there, Peter?
I am great?
Go for it? Oh yeah.
Now I've got a building. It's ten meters high, and I wanted in. With the storms we've had up north here, especially up in Kaiko, the tear lighters have broken off, and I'm wondering how I could go about repairing it all to see what's you know, how much I need and to do the job safely. Look, we've got any suggestions, but.
My best suggestion would be get a professional to come and do it. You know, ten meters up clear light you know, I know there was an instant not that long ago where a young worker fell through a clear light panel and suffered terrible injuries. I think, you know, it's high risk work at high heights, so I would be going around finding a local roofing contractor. I don't think I'd want to be up ten meters high trying to figure out what's going on, so time for the professionals.
I think on that one, Gray, all the very best to you. Now that's a nice segue because suddenly we're talking about roofs and typically where do we put solar panels? We put them on the roof. So it's my great pleasure today to welcome Marlin from Life for Solar to come into the studio. And we spoke earlier in the week. And what I'm very aware of a couple of things. One is, in the ten years of doing the show, I don't think we've ever talked specifically about solar, so
we're well overdue. And the other part is that some of the stuff that I know about solar is probably a little bit out of date and that the technology has moved on. So welcome, lovely to see you, Thanks for coming in. So let's start with as best you can describe it in ways that even I would understand. How does a solar panel work? So we've got this thing, we put it on the roof and magically seemingly generates electricity. What happens, all right?
So with a solar essentially what you're doing is you're converting the Sun's energy and usable energy in the home. And the way that that happens is you will have an inverter in your home which converts the DC electricity from the sun to AC electricity that you can use in your home.
So DC and what So what happens when the sun strikes the panel? It creates energy by agitating elements or getting electrons to move around.
I would say, so, yeah, okay, I don't know the exact techniquogy. Yeah, that's thefation of how that works.
So once once we've installed a solar array, we can then take that energy and use it inside the house. So for you guys, because you're doing installs on a weekly basis, daily base list, what's the process If someone goes I'm thinking about getting solar, where do they start?
So the first thing that they would do is inquire with a solar company yep, and from there you'd typically do a consultation to figure out exactly what will work on your roof. So, as we know, every roof is different in terms of the orientation than the roof material, so every home is different in terms of what they can achieve with solar. Right, So the first step would be getting a consultation with the solar provider.
And when you're looking at that, what's really really important? Is it orientation, is it roof shape? Is it potential for shading? Like what are the main things that you look at when you're assessing for Solar?
So a little bit of everything really okay. So ideally you'd have a decent amount of space because panels are actually quite large that you can't really tell when you're looking at it from the street, but they're around two meters by one point two meters in size for each panel, so you need to have enough space for one. In terms of the orientation, north is obviously the best, however, we are so do east and west facing roofs. Sometimes we'll do some on the east, some on the west as well.
Right, And we'll come to that because actually, let's discuss
it now. One of the things that I know from solar from let's say ten to fifteen, even twenty years ago, is that the way in which the panels were arrayed on the roof, if some panels weren't working to their optimum, they might be shaded by a tree or by a chimney, or in this case where some might be facing east and some might be facing west, it seemed to degrade the overall performance of the entire system, whereas today that's not the case.
So with that, so you're Invertera, essentially will have a couple of inputs, right, so if you're doing east and west, yes, it have one array in one input and the other array on another input. So they're not affecting each other, those two separate.
Arrays, Whereas maybe years ago, and we're talking you know, like I say, fifteen twenty years ago, if they were all connected together, then one part was not working well, it would have reduced the performance. That would make an appreciable difference to the amount of power that you can generate from your solar array. The advances and technology.
Yes, definitely, Yeah, there's been a lot of advances over the last few years.
Yep.
Panels are of a higher efficiency, higher wattage, and yeah, you can just you can generate a lot more than what you used to be able to in the past.
Right.
The other thing that seems to have changed is, let's say the longevity of the panels. And I know in discussing with homeowners again years ago, they'd go, okay, so I'm going to invest X number of dollars I might save this amount on a weekly basis or a monthly basis on my power bill. So maybe after five or six years I would have recouped my investment, but then my panels have kind of reached the end of their
life at that point as well. Was that's probably not unfair to say that that was part of solar fifteen twenty years ago to day. And even with your panels, that's a twenty five year warranty on the panels.
That's correct. Yes, so the product warranty on panels is a lot longer than what it used to be. Yeah, it's twenty five years on the product for the panels that we use, as well as a thirty year warranty on the performance of them. So over that thirty year period they'll lose eighteen percent efficiency and they still have eighty two percent left to go after that thirty year period.
But that's a dramatic step forward in terms of if you imagine what it was like, you know that you'd get five seven years out of panels and now you're getting twenty five thirty years.
That's it is huge, Yeah.
Massive step forward in terms of some of the practicalities around the install are there roofs and situations where it's just not practical to install.
There are a few situations, yes, So one would be membrane roof, right, yeah, and understandably, yeah, in order to get the mounting onto membrane roofs to costly endeavor, sure, you know, you have to get custom plates put on, which can really blow out the cost and mean that you're not going to be saving as much or the return on investment will be a lot longer as a result.
How I would say though that if you did have a membrane roof and you knew you wanted to install solar, you could incorporate you know, some brackets into the design or mounting panels, you know, as part of it. So it's definitely doable. Doing it later is a little bit more difficult, so typical sort of corrigated iron roof, concrete tile roof, no problem.
No problem. Another one that is a little bit difficult, in one that we don't do it lightful solar anymore is clay tile, okay, and that the reason for.
That is just it's so fragile, that's right. Yeah, And again clay tiles a little bit old now and a lot of them would be reaching the end of their life anyway. So in terms of like let's say as a homeowner, you go, actually, I'm interested in solar and you go, okay, I've reached out to a company to provide me with the estimate. They've done their assessment. It's
actually practically achievable. Where do I What happens after that in terms of when it hands over to your team, for example, for the install, what's the install process?
Like?
Okay, so the first step is getting a DG application with the lines company. This is essentially just telling the lines company that hey, this home is going to get SOLER on the roof.
Right.
The process for that takes three to four weeks after this has been approved, which almost universally is approved. Once that's approved, then you'd get installed. So what that timeline looks like depends on how the company, how busy they are in your region, that kind of thing could be a couple of weeks after that DG application. After that, you would get inspected by an independent inspector to just
ensure that the work is up to scratch yep. After that, you would have your meter change to an import export meter with your energy provider. Right, and once that's done, the system is livened, and you'll be harnessing the power of the sun.
Okay, so there's some checks and balances and that in terms of like the electrical inspector who actually has to do the work on the board. They're independent, let's say, of the installer in all cases, in.
Most cases, so they inspect the work. Yes, they don't do the electrical word, it would be electricians from the providers.
Yeah. So in terms of getting the power, let's say that you're generating from your new solar panels on the roof down to the board. What's the typical process there.
So we'd have our installers run conduit typically from the panels down to the inverter, which in most cases is near your switchboard.
And in some cases that's typically exterior, so that hence the conduit. Or if you can find a pathway through the house, is that doable as well?
That is also doable, yes, right, So it really comes down to what each customer is wanting. Yes, some don't want to see it external conduit and then happily have it run inside. Others don't want it run inside and so they prefer the external cond Right. It really is an individual basis.
And that cabling that comes from the panels down to the board, that's standard electrical cable. It's not anything unexpected or you star tricky or anything like that. It's a good old, good old cable. Okay. And then and I guess once you've gone through the regulatory stuff and the meter has changed, Actually, could you just step me through what's the difference between let's say, a standard meta like the one that I have at home, and one that is both import export.
So your standard meter is just important, right, So it's just calculating what you're using on a day to day basis. An import export meter also captures what you're sending back to the grid if your solar is generating more than what you're using in the.
House, right, Okay, and she let's pick up on that. We're going to take a short break and have a look at the impact of having a battery. So if you can combine solar panels and generation with storage on site, I think that feels like it's a game changer as well. So we'll come back. Marlon from Light Force solar is with me in the studio. If you want to flick through a text that'll be fine as well. We've got a little bit time for a couple of questions after
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Your newstalk said, been with me in the studio Marlon from lightfour solar quick text. That's come through couple of things. One is, in terms of optimum performance from the panels, there is maintenance required. So what typically is the maintenance for solar panels.
So they're pretty low key in terms of the maintenance that's required. I'd say you'd want to clean them maybe once a year. There are situations where it might be prudent to clean them every six months.
Yep.
That would be if your roof's really low pitched so that the rain isn't self cleaning the panels.
Yes.
Another would be if you have a lot of large trees nearby that might be dropping debris onto the panels.
Right.
Usually it's a little bit of a visual inspection, see if there's stuff on the on the panels, if there is a clean if not, typically once a.
Year, and that cleaning process is like, can you use like a chemical pre wash on them or a light sort of soapy water. What's what's involved?
Yeah, so best would be just soapy water, soft bristled brush.
Okay, yeah, and then rinse off obviously, So you do actually need to get up in close to the panel in order to sort of eduitate with a soft broom. Yes, okay, and no worries about using a broom on the panel. I mean they're fairly durable, aren't they. Yeah, they are okay, all right, But obviously there's a safety thing there around working safely on your roof with water. But hey, it's definitely doable now a couple. This is always the tricky one,
isn't it. What's the cost? Right? And this has come from a text, so just a rough idea on price. They are saying, Chris, who sent through the text with the rough idea of price, We've got the perfect roof. So I'm guessing they've got a great big roof that faces north readily able to install solar panels. There rough prices and that's all we can expect on that.
Yeah, So I'll just qualify it briefly as well that every home is very different in terms of what they're using and what they would need out of solar. So in terms of a rough price, it can range from ten to twenty five thousand dollars if you're just getting solar panels, yep. If you're adding a battery onto that you're starting probably at around thirty thousand and going up from there.
Yep.
Okay, Now, the batteries are I'm going to call them relatively new. I know that they're not. But let's say in the last five to ten years, the cost of them has dropped dramatically, as these things do with technology, the performance has gone up. What's the benefit of adding a battery to your solar array?
So there are a couple of benefits. So one of them is that a lot of people aren't working from home anymore as well, so you're using a lot of your power, usually in the mornings and evenings, right, So having a battery means that you will fill that battery and then use your battery when you're at home using power.
Yep.
Another very important part of it is having a battery in the case of a red outage, which yep, a lot of people have been experiencing exilience, especially recently, there have been a lot of situations where having a battery would have been very good, you know, like, yeah, for that energy independence.
And then I suppose if you're a little bit smart with your appliance use, you can then program appliances, you know, with a timer to make use of some of that battery storage as well. That's correct, Yeah, okay, Actually just a thought on that. So on a really rainy, overcast, miserable winter's day, what's the impact of overcast and rainy conditions on power generation from solar?
So, yes, yeah, so you won't you won't generate as much power. There will still be a little truckle coming through, but it will be reduced.
To be expected in the same way that you're not generating overnight. If it's dark, then solar panels are not working in terms of Now here's another text as well. Not sure if us, but do I need a building consent for solar?
That's a good question, and in nearly all cases no, yep. The only time when the consent is really required, or the only times that I've heard of it coming up, are for heritage buildings.
Okay, in terms of its impact, So that's more around resource consent. What's it going to look like to have panels on an older house?
That's right?
Okay? Is that common?
That's pretty rare? Okay, there are some places in Mount Eaton, let's say, where they don't want panels on the road frontage. Yes, and so you'd have to have them on the back.
Okay, yeah, I mean it would be such a small number of houses across the country that it's negligible, isn't it. That's right, And just I'm thinking about the guys doing all the people doing the install. In most cases, you're able to work without necessarily having full scaffolding and so on. All of your teams would be I guess, rope qualified and all the rest of it. So you're up there moving around, not necessarily requiring a full scaffold, needs protection
and so on. Yep, that's correct, but fully compliant.
Yes, that's right. So it depends on the roof, how high up it is whether we'll need scaff edge of protection. Yes, if it's low, lower pitched low single story, yep, than just ropes and harnesses.
Yet, right, increasingly we're starting to see sort of three story walk ups, right in terms of in urban areas and semi detached houses and so on. Single story, double story, three story doesn't really make any difference in terms of the instore we've done them all, Okay.
It does really depend, you know, like the extra cost of scaffolding sometimes sure limitation yep, you know, but yep, we'll do it.
There is, Yeah, I mean there's a reasonable investment in it in terms of I think one of the things that is when we're talking about making our houses more
eco friendly, right and more energy efficient. We're often talking about over a period of time, but typically New Zealanders might move on average, we move every five years, right, So setting up a system that's going to last for thirty years when we stay in our houses for five do you think that there's a benefit or there's something reflected in the value of that property by having solar for the next owner?
Absolutely? Right, Yeah, So if you're saving fifty to sixty percent off your power bill, yep, that is a very good incentive when someone is coming to buy your home that you can show them this is what we've been saving. Yes, of the solar system that's on the roof, it does add value to the home for that reason.
And the numbers are real because I was at a house the other day that had solar installed and had a battery and okay, it was summer time, but I said, what's your power bill? And it was three dollars ninety eight for the month, And those that's not uncommon.
I take it it's not uncommon.
Yeah, remarkable. Hey, Marlon, thank you very much for joining us in the studio. It's been great for me because it's the first time we've had a chance to get stuck into solar in a deep dive. If people want to know more, what's the website.
It's dot lightforce, dot co, dot nz.
Perfect Again, really appreciate your time, take care, Thank you all of this your news talk, said b Rud Climb pass standing by will jump into the garden with the Rudd. If you'd like to call and ask a question, the number is eight hundred eighty ten eighty.
For more from the Resident Builder with Peter Wolfcamp, listen live to Newstalk sid B on Sunday mornings from Sex, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.