You're listening to the Resident build Up podcast with Peter Wolfcamp from News Talks at Bay.
Even when it's dark, even when the grass is overgrown in the yard, even when.
The dog is too old to bar.
And when you're sitting at the table trying not to start have scissor hole, even when weave a band gone, even when you're there alone, house is a hole.
Even when there's ghost Even.
When you got around from the world, you let your most.
You scream those broken plaints feeling from the wood.
Locals when they're gone, leaving them, even when we bene even when you're in their alone.
Well, a very good morning and welcome along to the Resident Builder on Sunday. My name is Pete worf Camp, the Resident Builder, and this is an opportunity to discuss, debate, just have a good old chin wag really about all things building and construction, which is pretty much what I've been doing for the last a couple of days or so.
I've been in Wellington and as attending in fact MCing the New Zealand Institute of Building annual conference happened to be their thirtieth anniversary as well, so spending time with their members and delegates at the conference, And obviously when you go to a cons about building surveying, you tend
to talk a lot about building. So a whole bunch of new ideas floating around inside the Noggan sort of an opportunity to catch up with industry experts, and that's what building surveyors are to talk about changes to the legislation, things that they see. Had a chance to chat with a gentleman by the name of Philo Sullivan, who if you recall all of the discussion around the leaky buildings, who and his company and his brothers who were very much at the forefront of pointing out, hey, look these
things are going to be a problem. And you know, now sort of in semi retirement and all, I don't think you can quite let go of it. You know, a wealth of information, a wealth of knowledge, a real depth of perspective. If you've been engaged with us for forty years, you've got sort of long term view of what the industry looks like, what some of the challenges are. So anyway, a great couple of days in well actually beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful day in Wellington yesterday. But we'll talk about Wellington ter on right. So if you've got a question, because I've now got a head full of new information, eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call anything that relates to building construction, getting projects done. Projects perhaps that didn't quite go the way that you were hoping that they would go. We can talk about that on the show this morning. Now a slightly different format to
the program this morning. I may have mentioned last week that a couple of days prior to that, I had the opportunity to spend an hour here in the studio with the new Minister for Housing and Building and Construction, the Honorable Chris Pink. I'd reached out to his office to say, look, new minister, lots of new ideas, lots of talk at the moment around building and construction. Could
I please get an interview with the minister? And their response was yeah, sure, Chris, we'll come into the studio on a Thursday afternoon and you guys can chat, which is exactly what we did. So that interview that I recorded last week i'll play after or between seven and
eight this morning. It's fairly lengthy. The intention for the interview was that we had an opportunity to kind of stretch our legs and talk about a whole number of issues, and there are a lot I mentioned yesterday at the conference that I genuinely can't think of a time in the last ten certainly in the last ten years since I've been doing this program where the political aspect of building and building legislation has been as prominent as it
is at the moment. So lots of discussion around sixty square meter granny flats without necessarily requiring a building consent, talk about changing parts of the Building Act to allow for We had a discussion around what's the difference between minor variations, amended consents and now minor adjustments. I think is a new thing that the Minister wants to introduce, particularly for multiproof. We got on talking about councils. We talked about joint and several liability. We talked about H
one changes. This is probably the most topical of all of the discussion points that we wanted to touch on, so that will be in the next hour of the program. Which is also my way of suggesting that if you've got a question, you better get your skates on. Give me a call right now. Oh eight hundred and eighty ten eighty will take calls this hour. We'll do the interview with Chris Penk, the Minister, in the next hour, and then we'll continue with calls until we talk to
climb Past. When I get here in the mornings, typically I log into my email. I have to say that the common theme and the emails for me this morning getting in here is can you please send me some plans for an oil box? Yes, I will work out some way that I can do that. I might have to redraw my hastily drawn sketch of what I ended up building, but I will try and get that underway
and have those ready for you by next week. Righty oh, it's your opportunity to talk about all things building construction projects that have started that, like I say, I didn't quite go the way that you wanted them to. My thanks to a bunch of people that have emailed with thoughts on a few topics that we had last week around spouting and roofing and those sorts of things. Really appreciate your emails, but right now it is time to talk. Eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call.
So eight hundred eighty ten eighty you can text as well nine to nine two and if you'd like to send me an email, it is Pete at newstalksb dot co dot NZ. So Pete at newstalksb dot co dot in said, Pete, did you watch the All Blacks? They won again? Only just I didn't. Actually I don't have Sky right, so I don't get to watch the games live.
But while I was cruising through the supermarket and starting to cook dinner, I had iHeartRadio on so I could listen to the game while I was circling through the supermarket and cooking dinner, and thought, Oh, this is going to be a regular old downtrow, isn't It didn't quite end up that way when I checked the herall before I went to bed, a little bit closer than we expected, right, Oat, But we're not here to talk sport. I don't mind talking sport, but no, we're not going to do that
today on the show. We are here to talk all things building and construction. Be great to have your calls. Let's do it now. Eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number your new talks there'd be. Pete wolf Camp, isn't builder with you this morning? Little bit Kroakie. It's been a weekend of or week of conversation. So as I mentioned in Wellington yesterday in the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveys conference, so fairly extensive discussion. Well annual
general meeting yesterday. Conference on Friday with a bunch of speakers. And the great thing with going to these types of conferences this one other ones that I've been invited to
over the years, is the quality of the speakers. So had some just outstanding presentations on Friday which was really quite cool, including as it happens, Karen Reid, former All Black Captain, came to talk and then had some panel discussion with a couple of young people who are part of the Keystone Trust, and we talk to them a couple of weeks ago, so I kind of see the sense in these things. I've never been part of a corporate life, so I don't really do the whole going
to conference every year type thing. But when you get an opportunity to sort of have a bit of a refresh and the introduction of new ideas makes a lot of sense. Oh eight hundred and eighty ten eight years that I'm going to call Yes, I'll just deal with this text quickly, Pete. The Minister is on record of promoting BCA's building consent authorities no longer undertaking physical building inspections. Pete,
I've been building twenty years. There is no way complicated elements can be illustrated in detail with photographs, physical inspections and sure quality control and enables the BCA to identify work that's non compliant or needs improvements. In some cases, I take photographs of a few elements for a fire engineer during big jobs where they have confidence based on
many site inspections. The Minister on TV has made it clear that he thought this would be more efficient for the BCA and for progress based on common sense and experience, I believe another disaster if adopted. Great show, Pete, listen every Sunday. Very nice of you to call. In fact, we do talk about that with the Minister, so that'll be in the next hour. I think it's going to be maybe slightly more nuanced as it happens at the
conference over the weekend. I also hadn't chance to talk to a couple of council building inspectors and lead building inspectors and to get their take on it. As well, and I'll unpack that a little bit more for you in just a moment. Right now, it's your chance to have your say and to ask questions. Eight hundred and eighty ten eighties the number Joanna A very good morning, Hello Joanna.
Oh good morning, Yes, hello Pete. I have used a rusing person to spray for like an and moss on my concrete tiles over the years, and I had it done recently and they are now telling me I have cracks in the concrete joints along the ridge lines that are holding me yes styles on And I'm just wondering whether is that sort of work common. The house is about twenty years old.
Oh okay, yeah, because things move, right, Our houses move and settle over time. Typically, mortar is not terribly flexible. Saying that, yeah, I mean there is new additives that are elements to mortar today that we might use for what we call pointing of ridge caps and hip cat caps pardon me, that are slightly more flexible, but it's still reasonably rigid. Right, So if there's some settlement or we've had a really big blow or something like that,
then you will get cracks. Now, individual cracks and the pointing are probably not a concern in terms of weather tightness. But if the individual cracks then mean that pieces of the mortar fall out, excuse me, then that might be a little bit of an issue. If pieces are falling out but just cracks themselves, I don't know that I'd
be too concerned. Certainly, there's a couple of roofs on houses that I look after where you know, the pointing is probably fifty years old, right, and at this stage I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that it's causing any leaks. So something to be aware of, but I don't know that it becomes an urgent repair.
No, Okay, that's interesting saying that, you know, if you can, if you trust the contractor, right, because I think the concern.
That you might have, or if you don't have it other people listening to the call would have, is that you know, sometimes there are unscrupulous contractors who go turn up and they go, oh my goodness, it's in terrible condition. We've got here just in time, and for two thousand dollars, we can fix that for you, And they end up fixing something it's not really a problem. So you know,
if you think that it's a genuine concern. Maybe get another contractor to give you a second opinion, and if both of them agree that, hey, look this is necessary work, I'd get it done because it can be a maintenance issue. But in some case, if it's twenty years old and unless pieces are falling out, I wouldn't be too concerned.
No, there's nothing falling out. They've taken photos of the whole route.
Well that's good.
Yes, but I think I will get another opinion.
Yes, it'd be wise. Yes, nice to talk to you, my pleasure. Take care. Jall. We one hundred and eighty ten eighty from one roof to another. Actually, Colleen, good morning to you.
Oh hello, o pay. I have a nineteen thirty stucco house. It's a Spanish mission style, so that's got a flat roof, yep. And we'd had a leak in well water damage and the ceiling in one room which had been there for a long time, so we put on a whole We've got a whole brand new roof done or the roofing company, yep. I mean being in an old house. We thought that's
the best scenario anyway. But in the process of redoing this ceiling inside the plasterers have said that there still moisture coming through, right, and the fact that we've got a whole brand new roof and guttering in this still moisture, I'm we're sort of confused as to where this water is coming from. We can get into the ceiling space, but not to the rest of the house, but not to this part of the house coming too, it's too low.
So I'm just wondering as our best option to try and find this is to cut a hole in the fibrous plaster in the ceiling and go up that way and see if you can see where the water is coming from, or what's the best way to find where the water is actually coming from any ideas.
The other challenge with this is defining, Like if the contractors have said we've seen more there's moisture there, it kind of depends a little bit on what they actually mean by that.
So, for example, what happened was they'd put in the process of doing the ceilings. I've done keep ceilings in the house, and they've come to this part last. They'd put the shore seal on. Yes, and he says it's not drying out there and you can still see staining coming through, and in the process of that day there was more rain and it was getting more moisture coming through. I see that it was darkening. You know that the areas around there were all dark, where the rest of
the roof was ceiling was was dry. Okay, Yeah, so it looks like water's coming through and it may be pooling in that area. I don't know, yeap, that would.
Make sense, Okay. Now, the reason that I wanted to ask that is that in a roof like that, it's potent potentially you have two sources of moisture, right. One is obviously it rains and the roof's not completely weather tight and the water gets inside. The other is, because it's of the nature of the construction, you can get moisture trapped in there through lack of ventilation insulation being
in the wrong place, right. So it's it's kind of atmospheric moisture that develops in the essentially condensation.
Right.
So there's no there's no insulation in that part of the ceiling because it's too it was too low for us, right, So there is inlation other parts, but not there from that area. Yeah, I mean, you can the area is there is a space but it's just not space big enough for anyone to get into there.
And knowing that type of so I presume if you're talking about nineteen thirty is house stucco, chances are your exterior walls go up and then you've got effectively a parapet maybe on two or three sides, and then the roof is inside that minimal fall running to spouting at one end right probably away from the road frontage. Okay, the contractors that came to do the rear roof a couple of things. One is did they offer any warranties
and realistically they should have done. Have you invited them back to yes.
I they supposedly came back this week. I've found them and told them or explained their situation. But the reason I'm ringing you is because we had a few other issues with it as well, and so I haven't got that much faith in them, although they are part of the Roofing Association and they rate and they do have a warranty. So I'm just trying to I thought, I'll just call you to try and pre empty a few questions. Yeah, sure this week and say, oh, this systems and the other thing.
I guess to another area.
I don't know. I know it's hard with the flat roof houses, but.
They are, but there are ways around that, right, So you know they're challenging if you don't detail them right or if you don't use the right product. So was there corrugated iron on there previously? Most likely? And do you happen to know what the actual roof pitch is like? Has anyone ever done a calculation said, oh, this roof is If you feel like doing a bit of maths,
that would be quite interesting to figure that out. So, for example, typically roofing corrugated iron is designed for roofs with at least about a seven degree pitch on them.
Now, if you use it, I would say, So, I've been up on the road and there is definitely looking some you know some there is definitely some fall.
I suspect knowing those types of houses, that in fact it's less than seven degrees, but it probably won't be less than three degrees. And so ideally, if you're somewhere in that spot between three degrees and seven degrees, you want to use a profile of corrugated iron called true oak, which has a taller profile. Right, So the distance from the top of the iron, you know, the crinkle, let's
say from the bottom to the top is taller. It's about twenty three millimeters, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's more than eighteen nineteen degrees, which is kind of where modern corrigid iron gets to and so it carries more water and it's more suited for that. So it'll be interesting to ask the contractor what profile of
corrugated iron they use. The fact that they're a member of the Roofing Association is good because it does give you the opportunity if you're not confident about their ability to solve the issue, and it should be theirs to solve, right, is that you could then go to the Roofing Association and go could I ask one of your supervisors or assessors to come out and have a look at the quality of the work done by one of your members.
And typically that way you'll get someone who's really, really experienced, and I know some of them who will come out. And if the original contractor is not able to determine where the leak comes from, you can draw on the experience of the association and they might be able to help you. But I think it's not unreasonable for them. If they've done the job and they've offered a warranty, it should be where the type end of story. There shouldn't be any expert.
That's what I just wanted, some sort of a second option.
And potentially what it is is it might not actually be about the roofing. It might be about the flashing junction. Right, So whether or not they've taken their flashings and gone to the top of the parapet, did they potentially replace the parapet flashings? Is that a source of leaks?
Yeah, there was actually no fleshings along the parapets. Put fleshings on them.
Okay, well that's a good thing, all right.
Look, I think joined in the fleshing though.
Yeah, but that's not unexpected. And again, if we know, typically would lap them one hundred and fifty mili, we'd do two beads of silicon and then fix them down appropriately. So you know, joins are okay, you just have to
detail and execute them correctly. So look, I have to say having I was in a conversation earlier in the week about roofing and about roofing contractors, and you know the concern that a number of contractors are not part of the Roofing Association, at which time if you have a problem with them, you've kind of got nowhere to go, so, you know, unless you've got contacts for contractors. I think it's really important that people choosing contractors choose people who
are a license registered LBPS or members of associations. And you've done that, which is great.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, actually from listening to your show, that's why I chose to on.
Well, thank you for saying that.
Well, it's one from the roof Association. I mean I didn't think I was going to need it, but now I'm thinking, well, actually maybe I will need it. Depends on what they say is when they come this week, and hopefully they'll be able to sort of.
Get them back. I think it's really important. Yeah, I think it's really important. In fact, I think in consumer law you have to give the original contractor the opportunity to come and do the remediation. And if you're not confident with that, or even if you just want a second pair of eyes over it, contact the Roofing Association get them to come out and do a site visit.
Yeah, good luck, Okay, Well, thank you for your.
Having all right, no trouble at all, Take care, all right, all the best bar I think, oh eight one hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call. Will take a short break. I'll talk a little bit more about, you know, contract the selection straight after the break back
in the my just quickly I can. The conversation I had this week was about a contractor that I know who rang me, who is acting on behalf of a client who, it's greatst respect, was probably an older woman on her own and had contracted someone to renovate the bathroom. And so someone turned up. They said, ah, this is great, yep, we can start sort of soon and I'll do everything.
I'll pull the old one out, I'll do the waterproofing or i'll do the plumbing, I'll do the lining, I'll do the I'll fit the shower, I'll do the tiling. Da da da da da. Anyway, it's been a bit of a disaster. They've got leaks, they've got tiles falling off. It's been a really poor quality job all the way round. But of course, because the person's not licensed, certainly not licensed to be a plumber, and therefore they've broken the law.
There probably don't have any qualifications in terms of the waterproofing, even you know, having attended a course on how to install that particular waterproofing. They're not an LBP, they're not part of any profit association, and so when you're looking for redress, where do you go? You've got no support. You can't go to an aid an organization and go look, one of your members has done X, Y and Z.
So I'm really delighted to hear that, Colleen. In choosing to have, you know, something as important as an expensive as doing a reroof you look around for contractors who are professional and maybe have some professional association. So roofing is restricted building work, so someone should be an LBP, a licensed building practitioner. But the fact that they've then gone on to be part of an association, I think gives you some surety and it gives you somewhere to
go when maybe things don't work out well. So that's good to hear from Colleen. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call. Just a reminder, will take calls this hour next hour. I had the opportunity to do a fairly extensive interview with the Minister for Building and Construction, the honorable Chris Penk. We will have that interview for you after the seven o'clock news. Michelle, good morning.
Morning, I love your love listening to a little woman. What we're about to get our deck be done. So this is the question about what to do. So we've currently got a queer deck. We have four decks around the house. Yes, we're going to extend one, et cetera. At the moment, you've got the ripped side up, and the reason we want to redo it is because what happens is it gets water in it, and then it gets moss and then we're having to constantly paint it and you know, like it grows.
In the ale.
So we've got bill designed that's going to start next week. They said, because initially we thought we would just get them play lift it, flip it over to its smooth side, because we actually want to paint it gray. We don't want to have that ground look the white the white house. So one of the said, well, what you know was been lifted up and then you know the flat side
and then you know, get the paint and painted. But they also said there is a number of composite or some sort of other product that we could look at. So can you just advise because we're in a quandary as to do we just chuck it away and put a new product? If I do a lot of decks and showing us Yeah, so what would you recon mean is something that's gonna last that's not going to get that old dollar?
Yeah?
Sure, yes, I guess there's a couple of different approaches here. One is if I put my sustainability hat on, which is pretty important to me, then I'd go. You know, if you've got decking material that's durable and as well within its lifespan, and you can extend that life span by reusing it, that's a really good choice to make. Right, So you're not wasting a resource that you've already spent money on. You're not sending something to landfill, and I hope you wouldn't do that. You'd send it off to
a recycling center. So if there was an opportunity, if the boards are in reasonable condition, if they for example, if they were screwed down rather than being nailed down. So I'm being practical here lifting boards that have been nailed down, you will get a bit of damage. If the boards have been screwed down. You can back the screws out, flip the boards over, you might even give them a bit of individual attention before you relay them. And so you know, cost wise and environmentally, that's a
really good choice. So that's something consider. The other option is some of the composite boards, where there is a range of colors. I've used a couple of them over the years. The one that I've probably used the most is one from a company called out Dure, and that the benefits of that is that you will you will get a concealed fixed system, which is kind of nice. They have a slightly better slip resistance to them because
of the way that they're made. So you know, if you take your queeler and flip it over and have the smooth side up, that will have less slip resistance than some of the composites. But if you know, if you're doing four decks and you're throwing away four decks worth of timber and then buying four decks worth of new material and you don't need to, I guess my heart would say do something to reuse what you've already got.
But then I'm coming very strongly from a point of view where I don't like to see us waste resources, and so I would favor reuse over purchasing you. But that's more kind of a political decision than a practical one, let's say. But yeah, some of some of the composites are very good.
Yeah, and which someone lasts the longest, Like the slip thing has been an issue because these ridges, when they get wet that it's actually not a you know what I mean, that's why we're and isn't.
That curious because typically we flip the boards up to have the rib side up because it helps stop slipping, right, But your experiences they actually get more slippery as a result, and doc to be fair, if I'm laying decking that has the ribs on it, I would typically put those down, but I often use I often flip them back up again if they're on the nose of a stair, so on the edge of a stair, just it helps with a bit of slip resistance. And it's a visual queue
that there's a step here. So yeah, look, yeah, for what it's worth, possibly i'd probably if I was looking at it, i'd probably encourage you to reuse. But if you didn't, then you know, get the builders to lift it in such a way that potentially it could be sold and someone else gets to buy it, which would be great. And or you know, in the very worst case, if you are sending that material away, make sure it's going to a site that recycles it.
Yeah, so just one more question mentioned they could put you know, we've been discussing what to do about it, but it's so much digging. If they also say, well we could replace it with pine digging, yep, it gives you you.
Know, a because we do want to paint it the beas and beans. We get a lot of sunshine, and we in our last property we owned, we made a couple of mistakes. We put black outside in the pool area, which is we're going to be decking around this pool as well, and we painted it too whiter dead and it's got too hot.
So we sort of want something that you.
Know, there is flatness, move easier to just give it a quick hose to keep it playing. We don't want the moss as you yeah, and we don't want it to be too hot for the green tests not to be able to send or do you know what I mean?
So again, look, I certainly don't have a problem recommending soft woods like Pinus Radiata. I think it's really important to seal it, as in put in a penetrating oil seal. I certainly don't when you say paint, I presume that what you mean is staining, right, You're not actually going.
To paint it.
If you start painting it, you're just creating a lot of work for yourself and it'll be quite slippery. So again,
Pinus Radiator good quality. That it definitely becomes a question if you get what you pay for right, So don't you know if you're going to get a cheap product or a cheaper or more cost effective product, make sure you look at it first, because certainly I've been to a job where the owner bought the decking themselves, thought that they'd got a real deal and it was just rubbish and we ended up having to send it back and buy something decent. So make sure you get some
really good material. I've got to run, Michelle, But good luck with all of those eight hundred eighty ten eighties that I'm going to call Anthony, good morning.
Good morning piece.
Hey, how you doing.
I've got a good I've got a question for you. My daughter is looking around to buy her first house, and we went to a few open houses. She found one new bill and it's my question, is the laundry. The laundry is a meet up by meta?
Yep.
It's got no it's got notub or not sink or not provision for it yep. And is that okay? Is how they build them these days or do you do you have to.
Have that in there?
You don't have to have a laundry sink, right, They're really good to have, obviously, and there's a practical reason for having one. But you know, increasingly we're building more and more compact house is right, So something's got to give because we just don't have the floor space. So yeah, it's not a requirement in the building code as far as I'm concerned, or as far as I'm aware, to have a laundry sink.
The other thing is because the laundry is as usual these days, it's under the stairs, yes, And it's got no height to mount the dryer right wall itself. Yeah, So what do you do with a dryer these days? Just put it in the.
Well?
Yeah?
And I mean there's probably other issues around, like, for example, I would hope that in a space like that, it has ventilation or extraction in it.
They do.
There's a little tiny thing other thing does bloody hell. It's about two hundred by two hundred. Yeah.
Look, if it's a one fifty and it's a reasonable run, it'll be doing something and that's really important. Yeah, I mean, look, this is this is just one of the challenges we have with more compact living, right, And you know, you might I do. You know, I have space where we've got a bench and the appliances, and I can hang the dryer on the wall and I conduct it out through the wall to the outside. But in many modern apartments you can't. So I guess if it's not there,
really hard to create it. But as best I understand it, there's no requirement in the building code to develop houses that allow for that. Yeah.
Just one more thing. The switchboard. Electrical switchboard. I thought they had to be on outside these days, but this one is the inside the dining room.
No much more common these days. And let's separate out two things here. One is the meter, right, which is where your man's run to, and it calculates how much energy usage you've got. The other is the distribution board increasingly distribution actually a meet yourself. No, it's not uncommon for them to be inside. Typically, if for the projects that I've been doing, I would try and put them
in the garage. But a lot of modern medium density housing actually don't have a garage, in which case they end up maybe close to the front door, and the front door basically goes straight into the lounge, so you end up with them in the lounge.
Yeah, this doesn't have a garage, so that's that's why it's not in the garage, I suppose, yep. Yeah, And just one way question, if I can this unit? She looked at she it's it's there's a five I think in the block and hers her one is at the highest point of the land, if you like, yes, now at the back seemed to me like there could be some water issues where the water is gonna, you know, on a heavy range water the backyard, it's got to go somewhere. It's obviously going to go down to the
other units. How does how do you sort it out? And can they say, look, you have to keep your water on your property or how does it work?
I guess only water that lands on your roof. Do you have to contain, right, So.
That runs water on a grass or that's fine.
Yeah, yes, as long as it's not set up in such a way that it's an obvious nuisance. But in the end, you know, you can't stop water going downhill, right, So whether or not it's your property and or it's you're adjoined to your neighbor because you're in a multi unit development or something like that. So I think there's kind of a reasonableness to it. But what, for example, what you can't do is discharge your roof water in such a way that it becomes a nuisance for a neighbor.
But if if and because chances are the water that is on your the house that your daughter might end up purchasing, that might come from the neighbor, right, So it comes from the neighbor onto this property and then goes to the next one. So as long as it's not deliberate, I think you're okay. All right, nice to talk to you, lovely to chat and good luck with the house hunting. All right mate, all the us take care bye bayh. We'll talk to Craig straight after the break.
Quick text. Is there anywhere that you can go to check that the LBP is registered or do you just ask the LBP or the builder if they are. One of the best things about the LBP scheme is it's completely open, right, So you simply go to building dot gov dot nz forward slash LBP and then select search register, type in the name or they really the name of the person and it will come up. And if they're
not there, they are not an LBP. If they were an LBP but have been deregistered for some reason, or their name has been taken off the current list, that will come up. And any other information about them like if, for example, they had failed to get re license in time, had their license suspended for a period of time but then reinstated. All of that's there. So building dot gov, dot nz forward slash LBP will give you all of that information. Like I say, you're either on it or
you're not. I had to relicense the other day, so before I expired, I've done that. It's been accepted. I'm on the list. I'm number BP one two zero zero, nine to eight. It's as simple as that. Craig, good morning, good morning, haws a game, good things.
It's bringing on Behalf a friend of mine who doesn't like ring up radio station. He's a little bit shy. He's old school. He's got a problem with this pool. As far as the council goes. Their property is down a right away down the bottom of a quite a large steep hill with their houses. They are the only one down there, and then it goes up a steep driveway to the main road, and then their broad is
quite flat. But then all around the hill's feather about an one hundred meters up the hill, about kway from the house is the water reservoir. Right now, he's been told they need his failed his compliants for his pool. He's got a water meter, but they said he needs a backflow valve and there to stop the water going back into the system. And he's a little the confused because being on the bottom of the hell, how's the water supposed to go back up the hill to the reservoir.
Yeah, okay, so I don't think council are concerned about the water going back up the councilor concerned about the water going down and through the main system. So if there's a requirement to have backflow prevention, which is essentially a device that stops water inadvertently being siphoned out of the pool and returned to the main system. Now that's and the principle behind it is reasonably sound, and we
have them inside our houses. So, for example, a shower on a detachable hose right that you can handheld one has to have a backflow prevention device included in it because let's say you inadvertently lifted in at the bottom of the shower and it's sucked up water, it would siphon foul water back into the council line, into the main line. So all of these regulations are around protecting
public safety by ensuring we don't have that. So that's a reasonable request from counsel to us for a backflow prevention device.
Okay, I'll just excuse also been it's a bottom of hell and matter the pressure and the pressure in the water mains for how, I don't actually know how it would go back up the hill.
It's not about it going back up because in the end that there are people downhill as well, right, and it's protecting those.
He's the only one of the bomb the hill, He's the only one there.
It wouldn't look if it needs backflow prevention, it needs backflow prevention. It's in the regulation. He just needs to go and do it, Okay.
All right, it just doesn't make physical sense, that's all.
It doesn't matter. It does despite the fact he's at the bottom of the hill. It's it's all about protecting public safety and I think it's important and if it's part of the regulations, then just get on.
And do it. You know.
I understand him asking the question. I do, but at a certain point it's it's there for a reason. Just do it and get them to do it, and get him to get on with it and get the Council off his back would be my approach. Good luck with all of that, mate, Oh eight, one hundred and eighty ten eighty ah, we might have time for one call after the break. We might do that. Then we've got the Minister Chris Pink joining us for an extended interview
between seven and eight though looking forward to that. We're back straight after news, sport and weather. If you'd like to join us, stay tuned because we've got the Minister Chris Pink after the news your news talks. Here be just a very quick call before we go to the interview with Chris Pink. The Minister for Building and Construction. We'll have that interview in just a moment. Marie, Good morning to you. Hello Marie Elly, Yes, hey there, how are you doing?
Good?
Good?
Just a quick question on a rural property in the way kaddow. Yes, as the downpipe goes down and the water just sits in a puddle at the bottom, it doesn't go anywhere.
Yep.
Is that legal?
I think it's probably not, because it's a house and you need to contain the water. But then you also go, well, hang on, who's that going to impact right only you. What it's going to do is make the ground damper and more saturated. It's a waste of resource if your rural chances are you want to capture that. So it's not great for the house. But in terms of its impact on other people, if you don't have a close neighbor, then it probably makes no difference at all to them,
in which case it's kind of nobody's business. But I would still encourage you to collect that rain water, either with a water tank because that's sensible resilient, or to stop all of that water sitting around your house. I would direct it away from the house as far as possible without too close to the neighbor. Being too close to the neighbor, yeah.
Now just a little puddle formed.
Which is not great.
Right.
We don't actually want standing water around our houses because if it's outside you, away from the house, chances are it's also going to saturate the ground underneath the house, and that's not great in terms of trying to keep our houses warm, dry and comfortable. But more importantly, I think if you're rural and your depend are you on
main supply mains supply for water? No, okay, then you know at some stage you're probably going to run out of water, And if you've wasted it by dumping it on the ground for all that time, go and grab yourself a water tank and capture it would seem sensible to me. Nice of you to call Marie all the very best. I'm very tempted to read out this text. I might save it for a bit longer. I don't want to bring the tone of the conversation down right now, right.
It was my great pleasure last week to have an opportunity to spend almost an hour with the new Minister for Building and Construction, Chris Penk. He came into the studio and I said to him, this is an opportunity to kind of stretch our legs.
Right.
So most of the time when we do interviews, it's all about quite quite quick. You know, we've going to race through this. This wasn't so this is a conversation that I recorded last week with the minister. We'll play this straight after the break. Chris, Welcome to the studio and thanks for taking the time to actually come in. I really really appreciate it. Tell us a little bit
about I'm intrigued by this. So you spent some time in the navy, including the Australian Navy on submarines obviously, then there was a law career, entry into Parliament twenty seventeen. Now you've got a number of portfolios. I saw you at the Dutch Memorial as representing as Minister for Veterans Affairs. You're also obviously Minister for Building and Construction. I kind of feel like, how did you end up with that job?
Yeah?
I feel very fortunate for a start, and by the way, great to have a chat with you here. I thank you considerable audience, who I know hang on every word that you say in relation to these matters. Look, it's obviously a hugely important subject for the country. So from my point of view, to to be fortunate enough to be the minister as a great privilege. The short answer is because the incoming Prime Minister asked me if I'd like to do it, And there's only one answer to
that question. But right, you know, I'm really delighted to have that. In terms of background, you know, I'm not a technical guy. I don't pretend to be any better
than the average diy hack of a weekend. But having said there a little bit of background in the law, and particularly in relation to property law, and so having experienced some of these issues in terms of how the legislation the regulations are put together, including the costs and certainty and all those difficulties and that clients used to face in terms of you know, what it meant for them not to have laws that enabled them to do things quickly and easily and therefore more affordably.
So in your practice law practice that was very much focused on property.
Yeah, it was actually and in a little bit of accident of history in terms if that was work that was available at that time, and certainly I enjoyed it and I wasn't to know, of course, that all these years later i'd have the opportunity within a political environment to help, you know, maybe make the laws and shave them a little bit. So, as I say, really pleased,
it's a little bit of a natural progression. But also I'm humble enough to say that there's a lot that I know that I don't know, and every willing and keen in fact to ask questions of the people who out there doing the work.
And to be fair, one of the things that I have noticed is that I've seen you at a number of conferences. I also know that you've spent a fair amount of time with different industry groups and seem to be willing to listen, which is great.
Yeah, I mean, I think any government minister would be foolish not to frankly to be recognizing, you know, particularly in building construction, that the people who are by their nature very resourceful you used to come out with solutions literally constructive in their approach, and I think if you know you're smart as a policy maker, you get as close to those people as possible because they will tell you what's happening on the ground, sure where the barriers are,
and look it's not that we can provide the answers that will please everyone all the time, of course not, because even industry itself has a range of different views. We might get into that in the discussion will certainly by missing you know, if you weren't engaged closely, you'd be missing as opportunities.
Yeah, okay. The other thing that I really appreciate is the fact that we can take some time because I think that one of the challenges with discussing building and construction issues is that we're looking for simple answers, and to be fair, they're not there right. So anything that you can summarize in a pithy headline is probably not worth really discussing. So there's lots and lots of detail.
In preparing for this, I did a quick sort of Google search and went basically Chris Minister and building changes, and one of the things that popped up is something that in fact I was talking with a builder today about exactly this, clarifying the definition of a minor variation and introducing this idea of minor customizations.
You just walk me through that. Yeah, So the.
Idea is really trying to get the best we can out of the consent system as it currently exists, because of course, the big picture is that it's a difficult, expense of time consuming and uncertain to build in this country. And part of that is around the processes with consents of obviously need a building content in the first place, and inspections as I think that we might get to talk to certainly when there are changes along the way, be it in relation to products, maybe a better or
a different products being found. Maybe you want the product that's available now, you know, a little reference and footnote to the plaster board shortagees COT of years ago, for example. But even in a business as usual kind of way, we want that flexibility because we reduce the delay, we
improve choice and competition and therefore affordability. And part of the issue, it seems to me, is that when a relatively small change needs to be happen, happen along the way in terms of those products substitutions, you want that mine of variation mechanism which does already exist to be clear as q to predecessors of mine who worked with
mb in others to institute that. But it seems there's not enough clarity of that for it to be used as often as we want, and certainly in the case of multiproofs, which you know, by their nature are a consent that can be used many times over for the same design, but you know a number of different times in maybe slightly different ways. We want to unlock the the potential of that and to be able to say, well,
you can do something that's relatively small. You know, it might be substituting a product, as I've said, but also maybe in terms of design, if you're swapping a window for a door in a way that doesn't compromise the structural integrity, or maybe even you know, the design is the same but a mirror image, or might want to be north facing, you know, to suit the particular location.
You know, we want to unlock all those opportunities without having a burdens and process that is tough for you know, the builder himself with herself in the consumer, but also of course from a BC a point of view, the councils, the building con sem authorities. You know, if we can take a bit of workload off them and relatively mundane, small scale, low risk stuff, then of course they've got more resource to focus on that which they should genuinely be engaged at okay.
One of your other comments is that, look, currently it can take six hundred days to go from consent to code compliance certificate. That's too long. It adds costs. Broadly speaking, what do you think can be done about that?
Well, I think there are a few different opportunities. One of them I just mentioned in Passing a minute ago, which was in relation to inspections anecdotally at least, and we're also trying to get the data to back this up. But oftentimes an inspection is ready to be to take place from the point of view of the person doing the work, and they simply have delays in terms of the inspection being able to take place because that's the
availability of the council officers in particularly. You know when you're adding delays, because then the next part of the work can't proceed until such time as the inspection takes place. In passes, then you go, well, if you had a more streamline version of the remote visual inspecting divisibility that some bcas are already using, of course, then you can say, well, you know, if you dial in provided this bit of internet coverage at both ends, you can actually get a
really quick update. Yes, everything's okay, fine to proceed and go ahead. So that's one little piece of the puzzle. But more generally, the picture is to have processes that allocate risk appropriately so that we don't have these undue delays, which of course add costs, particularly in the highest interest environments such as we've had the last year.
Or Sure, just on the remote inspections. From what I've read, it seems to be that you are instructing bcas to take remote inspections as the standard method rather than the exceptions. Now, over the years, I've done remote inspections, but it's tended to be a rarity. So do you want to swap that around?
Yeah, very much.
That very much a swapping around.
And the word we've used as default, and we don't know exactly what that means, and that's why we're consulting Sure, you know, to make sure we get that detail right and to recognize that in most cases we think it will be suitable, but not all. So the question of what default means, you know, what are the times that
we want to carve that out? In the three main areas that occur to me is one, if you've got a builder who's less experienced or you know, frankly, in a couple of cases, SAD is trustworthy, so that that might be a situation we might insist on on having in person inspections, or if I have to flip that around more positively, for those who are able to be trusted, you know, the credible, respectable and so on, and I've got a good track record, maybe you can take a
bit more liberty, so to speak, in terms of that.
So that's one.
And it might be that there's particular types of building or stages in a building in which it's desirable to have someone physically turn up in person and do the moisture testing or whatever, or you know, poke around in a way that isn't so easy in terms of you know,
that remote visual way. And then the final category, I suppose, at the risk of standing obvious, is when the technology isn't available builder himself or herself is not comfortable, you know, for teaching old dogs nutrients, and that's tough in I suppose in that same category as where there might be limitations around internet coverage and so on.
Right, one of the relatively early announcements from you and from your office was to say we want to allow for the importation of building products that come from similar jurisdictions to ourselves, and they can come in and be used in restricted building work as long as you can prove that they come from a you know, have a
testing regime that's similar to ours. So rather than I've said this on radio and of times, you know, I know, you know European manufacturer that makes silicon that brings it into New Zealand, then it has to go to brands or to code mark for testing and they've got fifty years of development. So is that the sort of thing that you're looking at saying, look, you know a factory in Belgium that's been manufacturing this for fifty years, they
probably know what they're doing. They should be able to you should be able to use that product here.
That's exactly what we're looking to do.
Yeah, so I mean Belgium, I mean, I don't know, and not to prejudge it, but let's just say for arguments sake, we regard them as having a high standard of building. Their particular standards in relation to you know, whether it's waterproof, nature or strength or integrity are at as higher standard or higher than those in New Zealand. Then we say, well, there's no reason we shouldn't rely on those. So there's two elements. One is credible and that's what we've referred to in this case, and the
other one is comfortable. So is it also the case that the jurisdiction, you know, the physical geography means that we can compare like for like, do they have seismic risk if we're talking about products that relate to structural and are they coastal in the same way that New Zealanders if we're relating to moisture in a way or high wind zones, neither see and so on. So it won't be uv absolutely good, good, good example. So that's
the work that's going on at the moment. And if I had a dollar for every time that the devil in the detail was used in relation to that, then and we wouldn't need the building livery at all. But you know, that's that's the kind of work that we need to do at that detailed level to unlock you.
Know, a whole heap of opportunity.
So is that you can do that right now or is this legislation in place but not hasn't become law yet.
Well, the legislation exists.
So this this very week we have the opportunity, and in fact it will be in the coming few weeks that will have its first reading in Parliament, so the public will have a chance to have their say on that. And the idea of that legislation once it passes through the parliament early or mid next year is to say, now we've got a structure that says we can add in for example, Belgium or wherever we can take our time. Let's get the easy, low risk stuff across the line first.
Let's get best bang for buck. You know, in some products will naturally be more able to be important. Just the shaer size and scale and geography in relation to supply chain issues will naturally lend the system to be really helpful in some cases, less helpful in others. But you know, we've got to do everything we can to try and get things moving in a way as I say, that doesn't compromise your safety, quality and sustainability.
Right because you know we do. We don't have a great record with innovation. Sometimes in New Zealand, as soon as you start talking about it, people will talk about the leaky building crisis. And I'm sure that people are saying to you, hey, we don't want to go down that track again.
Yeah, one hundred percent, and that's a very fair consideration. And of course without playing that off and saying for a second that we want to reduce quality or for
that matter, sustainability or safety. We do also have an issue with building affordability in this country, so we don't have the luxury of saying everything's fine as it is, with construction costs having increase forty one percent since twenty nineteen, for example, and a whole range of other stats that we could reduce, the fact of the.
Matter is we do need to do something different.
But the good news is I think we can actually make some real productivity gains by opening up for competition rather than by lowering the standards that exist here in New Zealand.
In terms of protecting the consumer, is the introduction of the building Product Information requirements part of that process, so that as a consumer I should be able to find out exactly what this is and what it's supposed to do easily.
Yeah, I think that's very much the philosophy of that change. And to give credit where it's due, that came in prior to the current government and it's a good system we think overall, albeit with some nuance that we need
to explore around the provenance of the materials. What I mean by that is what we don't want to do is have the unintended consequence whereby if a person we know an entity spends their time, the energy, their money investing and doing that due diligence to find a good product from overseas bring it to the market here, and if we require them to disclose that beyond obviously the characteristics of that product in the way that the consumer would want, then actually all you're doing is losing them
their competitive advantage of the commercial sense, and of course the problem with that is then not going to be incentivised to do that. So we're looking at that aspect, and that was an issue that the National Paty and Opposition identified. But we think overall, in the interest of informed consent, a consumer choice, it's a good thing overall, and we certainly think that will align quite nicely with those opening up of competition and availability of the overseas products too cool.
This is probably the biggest topic that I wanted to discuss with you. You have said, hey, I want MBI to go and urgently investigate the cost of the changes to H one of the Building Code, saying houses are costing up to fifty thousand dollars extra the quotas builders frequently raise concerns with me over the new requirements within Clause H one of the Building Code that they're adding tens of thousands of dollars onto the cost of a house.
Also frequent reports of moisture and overheating, which are leading to increased energy uses, making these requirements counterproductive. Can we take a deep dive into this? First up, what's the thinking behind rolling back each one?
Well, if you think about the purpose of what we're trying to do, it's to maintain quality, sustainability and health outcomes and so on.
But also we need to have more affordable building.
So it's a problem for me if I say that we need affordable building, but I hear reports for those who are intimately involved in the process, and as a committed to earlier you know, I'm listening to the people who are actually out there on the tools doing the work who tell me that you know, multiples of tens
of thousands of dollars extra that you spend. And by the way, of course, any dollar that you spend you have to repay to the bank in a mortgage two and a half times, let's say easily, So you know, an additional twenty thousand dollars if it's as little as that, is fifty k that you've got to repay.
So you know, we've got to take this really seriously.
Yep.
So I can't in good conscience are those issues that are raised with me, and including when you get to you know, particularly further north in the warmer climbs, and you get the moisture issues arising from the fact that we've got insulation requirements out of step with ventilation requirements. So it seems to me there's a problem. We're reviewing that because we want to see exactly how beast we should handle that, And look, I want to take a
nuanced approach. I don't want to be in a zone where we have to take a binary approach of rolling it back entirely and suddenly we're back when we were late last year. And certainly there's no question that we go all the way back to the mid nineteen seventies when there's no requirement at all. So let's just you know,
not engage with that straw man. But you know, if we say that, it might be that we need more of a differentiation in New Zealand, so that in Northland, for example, where the local mirror is rightly concerned about the affordability and frankly the usefulness of the regulation, versus Southland,
you know, we need a nuanced approach. Geographically, it might be that we need to point people more towards modeling and calculation methods which allow more nuanced as opposed to saying here's a schedule that means that the following boxes must be ticked regardless of the additional cost, which is, you know, at a quick and dirty route, but isn't
getting those good results. And then finally, the other sort of exerc I suppose on which we could slide the scale one way or the other is to say, well, it might be within the schedule method where it says, you know, literally, according to a matrix, this is the family broken window, this is the concrete slab with insulation. Then we say, well, maybe some of those are better being for back than others. And so we're a bit less prescriptive in terms of how those would be used.
Because much of the response what I've found fascinating and I really have enjoyed this. Part of the sort of public discourse on this issue is that we've had lots of groups come forward and kind of put their colors to the mast. Right. They've gone, Hey, Green Building Council, brands, News of Building Surveys, Passive House Institute, a whole bunch of industry bodies have all come forward and said, we don't think this is a good idea. There is no
need to wind back the H one regulations. But they have also gone on to talk about exactly what you've talked about. The schedule method is what I think has kind of tripped everybody up, because suddenly outcomes you've got to have R six point six in the ceilings everywhere across the country, regardless of climatic zones. And you've got trust manufacturers freaking out and building different trustes. You've got developers thinking I can't make my house next one hundred
and fifty millimeters higher, and so on. I'm just wondering whether some of the people that might have got in urea about these changes to H one are also those people who just want to use the schedule method. Why don't we just ditch the schedule method and tell everyone to use the calculation and modeling method.
That's a option on the table, and we're viewing precisely because we want to know the right approach, and it might well be that that's the really straightforward method to take forward.
But having said that, I would just say, at the risk of.
Immediately undermining my own point, which is essentially endorsing yours, is that we also have to think, then, well, you know, does everyone have access to the calculation and modeling method. The funny thing is I've sat down with the Green Building Council and looked at that, and actually it's looks reasoningly.
Straight, really be honest, but people don't know that and.
Aren't prepared to use it, then we need to bring them along with us, because come moment, it is just a binary discussion, which is frankly unhelpful. And you know, when people weigh in on one side or the other and make inflammatory comments, then we're not going to get a good public policy outcome. And I'm committed to that, and I don't I'm not sort of going to resolve from that.
Yeah, And look, I would agree with you. I think I can sort of understand and I like to try and take a step back and go, you know, why do we have the rules that we have?
Right?
And I've always taken that approach that, you know, as someone who has to obey the rules in terms of building, I'm always curious as to why do we have the rule that we have most of the time and the building X starts because we want to protect the people that inhabit that space. So that's sort of where I start from. And then I look at the schedule method and go, well, I understand that we still want sort of simplistic, in the best possible way approach to building.
Where we go you should be able to take three six o four, open it up and build a house, and we don't want to let go of that. But maybe that's because we do need to build better than you can just build by opening a book. So I think the modeling and calculation method it's not as indecipherable as it was years ago. I can almost understand it to be.
Blad Well, that's a ringing endorsement.
So that's a point where I made thank you the Minister.
Chris Pink with me in the studio today. Will be back after the break. I want to just off the back of something you mentioned there, the binary thing. One of the things that I found fascinating, having been engaged with the industry for as long and promoting discussion, is that we do tend to have a real binary approach that as soon as I say I've got an idea, the instant response from another part of the sector is, yeah, but I've got an idea, And because we've both got
an idea, one of them's got to be wrong. Are you fighting your way through that? Are you finding that?
Yeah, there's a little bit of that.
You know, there's least of that with those who are actively engaged in buildings find really interesting, you know, the commentariat, and you know, frankly, those who approach these questions from a political or an ideological lens, they are the ones who are really binary because they've got some sort of point to prove one way or the other. And actually, the most helpful thing is to engage reasonably with people who are in the game using these methods.
In the case of the H one question, YEP to be resolved.
And actually, you know, I think there is a lot of good will out there to do things better, but no one wants to build a house that's leaky or damp or cold and so on, you know, and it amuses me when you know, I've received quite a lot of quite shorty emails, as you can imagine. And you know, one category was, oh, you know, I grew up in the mid ninety seventies and it was under insulation. I said, well, that's lovely, but with all due respect, that's not at all on the table.
At number two.
You know, there was also the category that says, oh, you know, I've lived in a house for the last five years. That's really good because it's insulated and got double glazing, and that's really important we retain that. And I said, well, that's lovely, because actually that's the method that's you know, at most we're going to particially go
back to. So, if anything, they've endorsed my approach, even though they've come at it from quite an aggressive political angle to to point out how how bad and wrong I am in my thinking.
So you know, I'm not bothered by that. I know that we need great.
Affordability as well as the sustainability et cetera, et cetera. So I'm determined we can get there. And I really think if we listen to the people who are engaged in doing this work because they approach the question in good faith, they know the costs involved will get to a good place.
So obviously, all of this discussion around H one and any change that might be made, when what's the timeline for that, well, the reviews.
Taking place as we speak, and then after that depending on what the result is, and and you know, the political decision making, which I can't really prejudge in terms of time frame or result. You know that that's a little bit how long is a piece of string kind of question, but it would it could be quite a quite a quick change because it's such a regulation rather than needing an active parliament, so it could be a matter of months as opposed to you know years.
Okay, your sense of where it might go at this stage.
I'd be surprised if we end up with exactly what we've got now, but I'd also be surprised if we were to roll it back entirely. And you know, I've got to be careful. I don't predge sure discussions by the Manistereoc colleagues, so maybe I'm about out and know them even expressing that expectation but we'll end that was something.
I think it's going to keep everyone happy right now.
This might be more in Chris Bishop's realm, but the sixty square meter granny flat, and I don't find that an offensive term. I think people the reason that they were built in originally nineteen sixties and got that phrase was because ideally they were a minor dwelling that allowed family members to live there on the same property. So, for want of a better term, let's still kill them granny flats and not be upset about that. How much of a difference do you think that might make in
terms of either supply, affordability and so on. There's obviously been some research.
Yeah, it'll make a difference in two ways. And by the way, I've got to give credit to New Zealand first, with whom when combustion this was an idea very much pushed forward by them, and Chris Bishop and I are both really keen on getting it, you know, into the statute book the laws land as soon as possible, so he owns the resource management side effectively and then the building construction side relating to building consens is the bit that I have, so you know, and it's a joint
venture obviously.
Look, I think it'll make a difference in two ways.
One is that it will provide a bit more housing supply and therefore affordability. In a related point to that is that it provides a bit of extra work for a construction sector that is asking for a pipeline. It's asking for some quick ones, and by quick I mean by the way not having to wait for a resource concent and the building consent.
They'll be able to get on and.
Do it, you know, the day after that law has passed, or actually if the smart and working in an off site kind of man, that could be doing it right now. So it's a little bit of a quick and dirty way of providing some assurance and frankly, some work to
a sector that's crying out for it right now. And then the other category is actually I think more interesting in a way because there's a bigger picture testing of a hypothesis that says, if you've got a structure that is relatively low risk because we're talking about a single story, you know, relatively small, an existing parcel of land, so it's not difficult from a development point of view, you know, and hopefully not geotechnically either that actually you don't need
to have that sign off by way of either type of consent. So it's a bit of a testing of the model of a trusted provider being trusted and having that qualification be it licensed building practitioner, plumber, guess for a drain layer, eltrician and so on, doing that work, simply providing the answer to council. And you know, look, it's not gonna completely change the game in either of those ways, but we think it's a step in the right direction.
Just in terms of council. One of the things that may not necessarily it's not necessarily building in construction, but it impacts on all of us who are building is councils and the relationship that we have with counsel, either through the consenting the inspection process. And again taking a step back, what I've come to appreciate is that ultimately, when things go wrong and the developer's gone and the business has gone, and the product manufacturer has gone, it's
counsel that our last man standing. And that relates to that whole thing around joined and several liability. So if you were the person who's always going to hold the can you would be incredibly cautious and that's what counsels are, right. So is there a way forward that you were the government of thinking about where maybe we change joint and several liability?
In short, yes, I don't think the system works well as that is currently designed.
And this is not a new idea, by the way.
I think sure previous ministers have made noises in this regard and haven't ultimately gone through and done that. And you know, it's a government decision that I can't prejudge again, but suffice to say, we do recognize the problem and
we're keen to do something about it. So if the problem is a lack of certainty and consistency from the point of view of those who are doing the building and an in frustration of getting different interpretations of the same building code according to which side of a council boundary you're on, or if you take the point of view of council as a building consent authority, as you rightly point out, they have to be cautious, you know, and as rate payers we should thank them for that
because to be the last man standing, which is to say, to have joint and several liability, which could mean one hundred percent of the cost of a defect in the event that the developers pockets and the builders last seen on the horizon in a puff.
Of smoke with the ute and dog.
Then actually, you know that there's a huge responsibility for a council, and some councils well resourced to do that. They might have a rate payer base and a staffing resource that and therefore some specialization within that that supports it.
Others much smaller.
Frankly, it's a huge burden on them, and they would rather be shot of it.
I think, all of them, to be honest.
And it's never the case that I meet with local government and they don't raise this with me. So I think, you know, there are other models we could explore. One has been put out there as in sort of a more of a national kind.
Of consenting authority.
Maybe is to sort of funnel applications and get the certainty and consistency that way. Or it might be that we have more of a market based system where the private certifiers who already do the work as contracted by the existing building content authorities might be able to be approached directly. Now we've got to be careful of course, whatever the system design is that we are providing a genuine assurance on top of you know, the builder developer marking their own homework.
But by the time you add and you know, some kind of.
Disciplines around insurance, credibility, balance sheet that enable us to trust some more than others. Maybe it's the case that we can be a bit more forward looking in terms of the way that we require things to be certified by a council. Because you know, they hate this, you know this is this is bad news for them. I've got all the risk, none of the reward, and I think they'll be you know, looking forward to conversation that we're having, I think quite soon in the public's us.
You know, we're not the other the only sort of western first world nation that builds houses, right, So look around the world and there's different models and a lot of them seem to be focused on insurance.
Right.
So as a contractor, I can't build without insurance. If I'm a designer, I can't do that without insurance. All of the contractors are insured. If there's a problem, the homeowner rings the insurance company and they chase the contractor. Is that a way forward?
It's a possible way forward.
Yeah, I think the role of insurance is something we need to think about as an exercise and risk galication. And of course all these questions are the ones at risk galication, so very fair to ask the question. I think in terms of comparing that with some of the systems overseas, we do have a smaller market in New Zealand,
so we're less attractive immediately to insurers. We're also very hazard prone if you think about the direct relationship of our earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, tsunamis and all that exposure that you have in New Zealand, more so than in every country in the.
World other than Bangladesh.
By the way, you know, from an assurance point of view, we're not that attractive to ensure building works. So I think it would need to be a nuanced conversation. But actually, I mean I've been having it already with a number of key players and excuse me, an insurance sector. Yeah, because if they're not if they're not up for it,
then they ain't gonna work. But having said that, if there's an assurance they can provide, you know, the professional indemnity that you've already referenced that that some occupational licensing goes along with then then yeah, let's let's think.
About how that can fit in, because I think there's another advantage that as well, which is also regulating the industry, because if you are a person that does poor quality work and you've had a number of claims, then maybe you won't get licensed or you won't get insurance, and therefore you won't be working. And you know, I'm sure that you've seen shoddy work. I certainly have, and we need to be able to get rid of people like that from the industry.
Absolutely, And I think that's a really good point to make, because the quid pro quo of trusting those who are credible and respectable is actually maybe we need to be a lot harder on those that are use the shorthand vernacular cowboys and who are ripping people off, who are making us nervous from a whole system perspective, as well as leaving people very vulnerable to do with the value of their biggest asset they'll ever own, and know as
relatively unsophisticated people who need a roof to live under the head, they've got to make a decision, and we've got to provide some protection and actually a little bit of that could be the stick as well as the carrot.
In terms of those who are doing good work and those who aren't. And you know, frankly, if we have a situation at the.
Moment where you have a couple of pretty poor practitioners who are going around ruining various different building projects and leaving a trail of heartache, you know we need.
To weed them out.
So I'm unreally keen to try and do that as part of an overall reform that sees rusk allicated appropriately.
The LBP scheme has been around since I got registered in twenty twelve. It's probably around a little bit longer than that. Do you see scope to extend or expand that? Like one of the vision for it seemed to have been that if you like myself, I've got a site license and a carpentry license. Therefore I'm seen as responsible and professional and all the rest of it. Hopefully, so should I be able to take on more responsibility and do more of my own inspections or have lesser inspections
to do? You know, is that something you'd look at extending the LBP scheme.
Potentially I think we need to make the system meaningful. You know, there's got to be some reason to have that status. And if it means, for example, in relation to the Grandy Flat proposal, that it is LBPS as opposed to anyone else who might rock up and fancy their ability to whack a couple of bits of wore by two together, then then we say, well, that's meaningful, and therefore we need to check that we've got the
standards and the robustness of that certification. And so that's an example of how I think we can actually force people to take it seriously and then not saying it's not taken seriously at the moment, but you know, it's got to be meaningful. There's got to be some weight attached to that sure, and because it seems to me that there's a an amount of restricted building work quite unquote that has actually undertaken under supervision in a way that's not necessarily reflecting that.
Kind of level of assurance we want. But I also think this fits into a.
Broader question that we're also looking at, which is self certification, so that anomally, for example, that plumbers can't self certify.
You know, I understand that's going to change though. Yeah, and we've seen plumbers.
We've said that openly, and you know, it does seem an anomaly that they don't have that level of trust competing with for example, electricians or a guess who have done the same with trade who may be the same person but doing network, you know, in that different place on the site. So you know, we want to remove
those anomalies. We want to move in the direction of trusting people who have proven through qualification and experience, professional body membership and so on, that they can be trusted.
It's fair to say, like every incoming government, people arrive with a whole bunch of ideas, and it seems that you and all of your colleagues have all come in with things that they want to change. So you, for your role, give me your top five things that you want to change as Minister for Housing and Construction or Building the construct.
Yeah.
Yeah, we've talked about a couple of them already and I think you know, with as you could probably hear in my voice and hopefully your listeners can too, some passion around you know, reforming systems to make it easier and more affordable to build. So part of that is the product thing, and you know, if we elevate that to high level, it's all about competition, as recommended by
the Commerce Commission. And then you talk about the Grani flax, which I think is an interesting step in the right direction that won't solve all the problems of the world, is going to be a useful test case in terms of some of those assurance mechanisms outside the consenting process. Number three I think would be the consent system itself, in the administration of the of the building consents and
cccs and in everything between. By the current structure sixty seven different authorities to monitor compliance with the single code simply doesn't make sense.
There we go.
I've said it, so I'd better change it now.
And part of that, I think remote visual inspections strategically are helpful because apart from providing some greater efficiency along the ways and reducing those delays and frustration, you also say, well, and if we're going to take that approach, then you can have more of a regional model, maybe even a national model that says work that's being done in a particular part of New Zealand if it can be verified remotely, then actually you can have a specialized building concent officer
who may not live in the same geographical area, who may not be within driving distance, can actually monitor the performance of that and so that degree of specialization as well as general availability and efficiency resource as hopefully you
know part of that story about remote visual inspections. So you've allowed me I think five, and I've got the three to the other two I think would be in relation to sustainability, and I know that you know, per the H one conversation, that is controversial because because I'm not prepared to recommend anything that would increase the cost of construction and make it unaffordable for people to own their home. And I know blatantly putting this in residential gyms.
And there's a commercial sector as well, be office, retail, industrial, and then you've got the infrastructure. But you know, as shorthand, if we want to have those good outcomes but can achieve them in a way that's good for the environment, good for the economic bottom line as well, then I think we should be smart enough to try and achieve that and then just surround it out with the final one.
But no less than the others, I suppose, because it is a big question for New Zealand seismic risk you know, earthquake praying buildings up and down the country, including in some zones that are you know, we think, according to the current science less seismically active, a huge opportunity cost be it in the big cities, with Wellington being you know, in danger of becoming a ghost town, but also you know, smaller regional centers we're a very high proportion of buildings
are both heritage listed but also earthquake prain and which is no realistic prospect on the current settings then anything good will happen there. And we've got a tsunami fel excuse me mixing my natural disaster metaphors of lack of compliance in that space. So we're providing by way of legislation and extra four years at least or you know, four years and then possibility of extra two years for
people to get up to stand it. But in the meantime we're also reviewing the rules to see if we can make it a bit easier, a bit more practical, and frankly again more affordable for people to be able to comply in a way that recognizes life safety without imposing extra additional cost.
Which sounds risk based rather than just a blanket. Right, You've all got to get to sixty seven percent of new building code something like that, yeah, or new building standing all right, thank you. Last question, Like, I've been involved in the sector for a long time and one of the things that I really enjoy about it is that generally the people that are in it are often really passionate, really engaged. How have you found sort of this extra engagement with the building sector.
Exhausting but good? No, I love it, I really do.
And my diary is full of different meetings behind closes or conferences with hundreds of people or more of a retail environment I suppose if you want to put it like that, like the home show recently in Auckland, that was a great opportunity to wander around and see what's available, see what people are thinking, and everyone from big you know, really serious players who invest a huge amount of money in make New Zealand a great built environment. And then
you know, just to resort to cliche. You know you've allowed me granny flats. I'm going to go with number DA as well. So you know, everyone's everyone's interested, and everyone's got a stake in it.
And if you talk about the.
Number of people employed directly and directly GDP percentage likewise. But then of course you say, well, we all have gotten in trust because we all live in the built environment. We work, live and play in places that people have built. So it's easy to be passionate and it's easy to get that from those who are doing the work. So that's what I really enjoy about it.
Mister Chris Pink, thank you very much for your time. Thank you your news talk set. But you we're back straight after News Sport and we're the top of the hour at seven at eight o'clock. Oh maybe we have to go for a little bit longer, so Chris Pink, the minister was with us, and we'll take some calls and some discussion on that straight after the news as well. A couple of really good texts that have come in already.
Where have we got some? Oh and also, by the way, all of this is available on the podcast or it
will be a little bit later on today. So if there was something in my conversation with the Minister which I'd said beforehand, you know, this is an opportunity to sort of stretch our legs and discuss at some depth and with a little bit of time some of these really important issues, because I think one of the frustrations with people in the building sector when we're involved in sort of you know, public discussion about this, particularly around news,
there's no criticism of news. We're always trying to explain something that's really really complicated in a very short period
of time and that's not that easy to do. So I think in this instance here it was a great opportunity to allow him the space to explain what they're trying to do him as the minister, they as the government, as the coalition government, and that was I found quite useful and I was thinking, well, I was listening to the interview, it might be an opportunity to also go along and get Chrissip to join us on the show at some stage as well. So I'll see if I
can organize that for you at some stage. But if you'd like to listen back to that interview, it will be available on the news Talk ZB website and the podcast, or it will be available as on iHeartRadio as well, but certainly it'll be up a little bit later on Today Your News Talk ZEDB. We got news, sport and weather, Your News Talk SB. Welcome back to the program. My
name's Pete wolf Camp, Resident Builder. This is a show all about building and construction and projects that you might get underway or that are underway that aren't going particularly well. Possibly some issues, challenges, legislation, anything to do with building and construction. We can talk about that on the show for at least the next twenty two minutes. Then we're going to jump into the garden with Rod climb Pasta
from eight thirty this morning. So if you've got any gardening or entomological questions, anything about the wonderful world of bugs, then we can talk to rud about that from eight thirty this morning. But right now the lines are open. The number to call eight hundred and eighty ten eighty. In the last hour of the program, my apologies seem to be a bit of a technical issue just right at the end of the show. There I had the opportunity.
I reached out a little while ago to the Ministry for Building Construction and to the Minister Chris Pink and said, look, it'd be really nice to be able to get the Minister to come in and have a bit of a chat, and in the end their invitation was, well, look we can the minister will come in come into the studio on a Thursday, we had a conversation. Replayed that conversation
to you just a little while ago. If you want to go back and listen to it, it will be up as a podcast are in the day, because certainly there was a lot of detail in it, and my intention with the interview with the conversation was that we would have time to discuss things that are not easily dealt with in sound bites. Nothing wrong with sound bites, they're really important, obviously, but sometimes these things take a
little bit of time to discuss. So a couple of really interesting things for me that came out of it, certainly the discussion around perhaps having a look at the usefulness of the schedule method. Just if you're wondering what that is all about. There is basically three ways to prove compliance with the H one regulations. H one is all about energy efficiency in our buildings, and the reason that we want our buildings to be more energy efficient is that it costs a lot to heat them and
it uses a great deal of energy. So if we can make them more energy efficient, one of those ways is by increasing the insulation standards and the performance level of the houses, we will reduce energy costs in the future. We're already in an energy crisis right now. Then you can understand why that's actually a really important thing to do. And then there are other benefits like warm, dry, comfortable.
That's a really good thing. And so if you're sitting there designing house, you kind of have three broad options to calculate the energy usage or the insulation requirements for the house. So there is the schedule method, which is essentially a tick box approach, right, and in the schedule method it got changed recently. So the standard for ceiling insulation across all of the country, every basically every type
of house is R six point six. Now that's about almost three hundred millimeters of insulation that you need to get into the ceiling. And then the walls changed marginally to all around R two R two point zero. Now R six point six is a lot of insulation. And there is a law of diminishing returns in terms of insulation, and I think it tops out around four point eight, So anything above that is not actually giving you much benefit,
but for some reason it's there. In the schedule method so if you just want to design a house using just the schedule method, you end up with our six point six and the ceiling. Now, if you go to the calculation method, which is where you do calculation of size of windows, type of walls, type of roof, insulation, orientation, all of these sorts of things, you can arrive at some different figures and you might find using the calculation method that in fact you can comply with the code
and have ceiling insulation. Pick a number R four right now, it's a lot different to our six point six. Then the next step up is that you do modeling, which is slightly more complicated and more involved. It'll give you a much more nuanced look at the building, but it is in terms of its success, accessibility, and its cost, it is considerably more expensive and it's done by people who are I suppose it's a higher level of analysis, right,
So not many peopeople will use the modeling method. Interestingly enough, when I was at the conference New Zealand Institute of Building Surveys Conference yesterday, I was in Wellington on Friday and Saturday, I was chatting with someone who does this modeling. Right, the modeling and the calculation and I had thought that.
You know that one of the reasons we kept the schedule method is it made doing these calculations H one's compliance accessible because the cost of doing either the calculation or the modeling was prohibitive. Anyway, were chatting away, he goes, we can do and we do the calculation method for a new home six to seven hundred dollars. Now that's in the scope of building a house and going through design and compliance and all the rest of it. That's
not an unaffordable amount of money. And I think knowing that adds weight to my suggestion than in fact the schedule method. I it just dump it right, Just get rid of the schedule method. Make sure that every single house is calculated or modeled, and the calculation cost is not that great, and it's not indecipherable, and it's not hard to do. That's where I would come from. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call. I got a bunch of texts about this. Let me
just read one, which was an interesting one. Here we go listening to your interview with the building minister. My question to you after that is ten he knows what he's talking about. One, he's faking it till he makes it from Lee. Look, I actually and I had had this opinion prior to this, because I've met Chris Penk at a couple of different events. I've listened to him speak a few times. I think he's genuinely engaged in the process. I think he's got a pretty good handle
on it. I thought that he spoke pretty well about, you know, understanding the difference between the schedule method, the calculation method, the modeling method. So yeah, I don't know whether i'd give him a ranking, but I certainly wouldn't say that he's faking it till he makes it. I think he genuinely knows what he's talking about and is more importantly engaged and wants to learn. And I know from a number of other sources that he's actively been
engaged with sitting down with industry groups. Because I missed him and I met him at the New Zealand Green Building Council event at the beginning of the year, the Housing Summit, and I said, look, so you're in you're a new minister. People would be getting in your ear every day. How do you know who to listen to? That was anyway we've got a long and lengthy discussion on exactly that RDIO. Let's get back amongst it. Oh, eight hundred and eighty, ten eighty. We take building calls
until eight thirty. Then we're into the garden with redcloinb passed Catherine, Good morning, Good.
Morning, Pete. I've got a situation where a builder has built well, developer has built three houses next to mine. Yes, and of four year years now without offense, he took down the fence to develop his property. He keeps saying, put it out, But it's been four years now, how long can I go? Should I go without a fence? And I'm totally exposed to the three property more than lacking privacy now.
Which is a bit frustrating. And I say this with genuine kindness, I suppose, and hindsight's always twenty twenty, right. What would have been quite good when the developer first approached you is to get in writing a promise from the developer to replace the fence by a certain date, right, and then you could have you know, it's quite reasonable in a development to maybe have to remove an existing fence and possibly you'll get one that's better than the
old one. All of those sorts of things, you'd put that down in writing. You'd have an agreement and the developer would say, okay, well, look I expect to finish most of my construction by this state. We'll be doing landscaping here. The fence will be in by the state, and then the day after that you can knock on the door and go, hey, you promised that I would have a new fence by the state. Here's the email to back it up. When are you starting the fence?
The hard thing is, you know, it's difficult to get leverage. Now, that's the tricky thing saying that. Do you have any evidence of your conversation with the developer promising a new fence at all that you could go back and remind them of, Oh, well.
He said it all along.
Yeah, I know not Well do I have evidence, well.
A text message or you know, did you write a diary note for example, Hey, chatted with the developer and he told me that it would be six months ago, and if that's eighteen months ago, then you could go back and remind I just think in these sorts of things, Unfortunately, dealing with developers, you need to get in and writing.
You need to.
You know, have something that you can go back and sort of provide evidence of.
Really, but I mean it's four years surely a leg to stand on over time.
I'm just not sure where you would go legally, you know, because if nothing was written down, if no promises were made, I'm you know.
But but you know, he has taken out my fense. And it's about the trees that I said these are to be left, but he took them out. But yeah, no, no, I didn't get anything in writing. I trusted him. Well, I wouldn't you.
To be fair when it comes to construction. Have a healthy skepticism, right, get everything in writing?
Oh well I should have taken the advice of my mother. Trust no one.
It's not about not trusting people. It's just about being a bit pragmatic, I guess, and a healthy skepticism of human nature is the way that I put it. But look, I think you know you might find you might find that you have some redress under the Fencing Act, and so that's probably your next best bet is to just have a read through a little bit of this stuff around the Fencing Act, write a letter saying, hey, look you did on this date remove the fence you did
promise me under the Fencing Act. I'm now serving you with a notice that you have this amount of time to reinstate it, given that you removed it. Try that so quote the Fencing Act. Quote the Fencing Act. See if that gets some action. All the best you, Catherine, You take care, all the very best. Hello Lucy.
Hello.
I have.
Neighbors who have two downpipes from the guttering yep, going straight down to the ground.
Yep.
There's no The water is not vented anywhere except to the concrete, and of course it flows under the fence, which the whole piece from the corner of their house down towards their front lawn is concrete, right, And my concrete, which is sort of laid in large squares, is now sinking right right.
In terms of the property law, it is the responsibility of the homeowner to control stormwater discharge from their property. Right, So they are technically in breach of that. And you could go to council and ask counsel to come out and have a look at that, and they may issue a notice to fix.
Yes.
Yeah, so that's the best.
When the extension was first done, there was a garden along the side of their house right, and the original owners put the gutter water down the pipe, there goes the event to the toilet. Yeah, but they had to change that when the house was sold, and that's why for the last it's been years.
But it's.
Now I'm on my own. You notice the place is yeah.
No, and no look at it. And it's really really frustrating when a neighbor, you know, blatantly disregards the requirements around stormwater and it becomes a nuisance to you. But I would say, maybe if you've got the opportunity next time we have some decent heavy rain and you see that flooding coming to your place, just take a quick photograph of that and then.
Go to the.
But I've deleted them, okay because I spoke. I did speak to him, yeah and oh yeah, yeah, okay, but nothing's happened.
Yeah. No time to get counsel involved, Lucy, Yes, time to get counsel. Let us, let us show how you get on and hopefully counsel will be helpful in this particular instance. Good luck with that. It is eight twenty here at news Stalk SB. There's never been a more affordable time to invest in solar power for your home, get the solar power that you want in a bundle
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find out more. Tea's and c's apply right o your news stork ZB We're a couple more calls before we go to the garden and we'll jump in with redclimb pass. But Cindy, you've got a bit of an issue with an LBP.
Yeah, so we've had a bit of a journey with an LPP builder, and we contracted this guy to build a minor dwelling on our property. And he came in and he started building, and we got to the cloding stage and the claud my husband sort of looked at the clouding and thought, that doesn't look right. And interestingly, their clouding came with a full booklet on how it
needed to be, how it needed to be put up. Anyway, my husband called the council, he killed it, called another builder and the architect, and they all came up and said, no, this is cowboy, and it got a complete fail. So we went back to the builder and said, you know, we need all new cludding. It's going to be all put up, and he basically said, I'm not coming back.
Find another builder. But you know, interestingly, at the very beginning, we had signed a contract, we had done all the right things, and we were giving him, you know, gradual payment throughout the project. And what ended up happening and this is what I don't understand, Like, you know, you get to this point and it feels like there's no
recourse because he didn't come back. We had to find another builder and he owed us seventy thousand dollars, and you know, in the end, we went to a solicitor who drew up, well, his solicitor actually drew up a settlement that we were meant to be paid the money by December last year. But nothing. It's like he knows now we've gone to a deck collector and he's paying
house fifty dollars a week. I mean, you know, it's just there just doesn't seem to be like, even when you've done the right thing, it doesn't feel like there's anywhere to turn.
Yeah, so the mind of dwelling that you got this LBP to do, did that have a building consent? Did it require a building consent?
Okay?
So it did require a building consent? Okay, that's interesting. The other thing is have you gone to the disciplinary board of the Licensed Building Practitioner scheme?
Well, that's the interesting thing. And what we found out later that this guy had done this before, right, And so what happened was when his solicitor drew up the settlement saying that we'd get all our money by December last year, they had a confidentiality clause in there that we weren't to talk to anybody about it. So sphin king. Oh, well, you know we're going to get our money, so maybe that's okay. Well, I mean, now we're ten months down the track and we still haven't Yeah.
Okay, Well, now I wonder do we do that? Yeah, I'm wondering whether because you know, look, lbp's like that really really annoy me, and they bring the entire system into disrepute, right, And so I think name and shame
is a good thing. So I don't want you to breach your agreement, but I would go back to your lawyer and maybe say, look, given that no payment or very little payment has been made, we are not going to abide by that non disclosure, and we are going to go to the Licensed Practitioner Board and make a claim. And and I think they would probably uphold it, in which case either he would have his license suspended or
would be struck off in some cases. But it will also then become a matter of public record, which I think is really good, so that someone else searching that person's name later will be aware of their pass performance and be warned. Great, but it still leaves you in a really really awkward situation, which is terrible. And you know, I suppose ideally, we'd hope that the LBP registration scheme
would prevent this type of thing. That's probably a little bit naive, and in your situation it hasn't, which is really really unfortunate. But look, I think that you should go and take them to the LBP disciplinary board, but you would need to then make sure that you're not getting yourself in legal trouble by doing so.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And look, maybe.
You know, and now, in the conversation with Chris Pink that we had in the last hour, one of the things that we started to talk about is, you know, should we move away from counsel being responsible right for all of this to a more insurance based one, because if it was in your instance right, and if the LBP had have had proper insurance to cover that work and the work was poor, you could have gone to the insurer and the insurer would have gone, yep, I
understand the claim, he is the money up front, right, and then chase the builder for it later. But at least you would get redress and allow you to move on rather than this nonsense of fifty dollars a week.
Absolutely, I mean, we you know, we did look at the insurance options right now everything, and it was like no, just a complete dead end.
Yeah, okay, hey, thanks for bringing that to our attention, and please let me know how you get on. And I really do think if you can take it to the disciplinary board, I think it's a really good idea. Right, we're going to jump into the garden now. Just before I do, I got this lovely text from Marie earlier on Dear mister Wolfcamp, my husband Ray, it's his sixty fifth birthday today. Could you please send out a greeting. He's a huge fan of News Talks dB, especially as
it happens myself and Rudd. And then she says, tod sense from Marie. So Ray, very very happy sixty fifth birthday. Enjoy that, Buddy Gold card mate.
For more from the Resident Builder with Peter Wolfcamp, listen live to News Talks' b on Sunday mornings from six, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio