Full Show Podcast: 16 March 2025

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Resident Builder podcast with Peter wolf
Camp from News Talks at B. Whether you're painting the ceiling,
fixing the fence, or wondering how to fix that hole
in the wall, give Peter wolf Camp a call on.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Eight.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
The Resident Builder on us talks.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
At B.

Speaker 4 (00:26):
A house sizzle, even when it's dark, even when the
grass is overgrown in the yard, even when a dog
is too old to barn, and.

Speaker 5 (00:41):
When you're sitting at the table trying not to stop.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
House scissor home, even when we are ben, even when
you're therellone.

Speaker 6 (01:04):
Well, a very very good morning and welcome a lot
to the Resident Builder on Sunday. That's with me, Pete
wolf Camp, the Resident Builder, and this is an opportunity
to talk about all things building and construction, whether it's
the rules, the regulations, the actual getting down amongst it
and doing the work. Anything that you have any concerns

(01:25):
about or any questions about building and construction, we can
talk about it. Feels like it's been a bit of
a week anyway for me of talking about it. I
was at the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveys training
day yesterday, so kind of as part of their continued
professional development. Members are invited to come along to a

(01:45):
day's workshop with a number of different speakers, and actually
it was my job to sort of mce the event
and host a couple of discussions. In fact, a discussion
with someone who's been a fairly regular contributor over the
ten years of the show, Matthew Cutler Welsh and the
Green Building Council, Joe lythe head of the Passive House

(02:06):
Board chair for the Passive House Institute. And a guy
that I've seen around but haven't had a chance to
talk to before, Tommy Honey, who's actually the Chief executive
of the New Zealand Construction Industry Council. And that was
just the morning. I've been talking about building all day
yesterday as well, but looking forward to talking with you
about building and construction and about your projects whether it's well.

(02:30):
Sometimes it goes well and other times it doesn't. So
if it's going well, that's great, we can talk about that,
we can talk about improving and refining your project, and
if it's not going particularly well or we can certainly
talk about that Today on the show as well, We're
going to have a bit of a catch up with
Mike Colts later on the show, and then of course

(02:50):
at eight thirty, as always we're into the garden with
red Kline pass So if there's any gardening and antipological questions,
Rudd will be joining us from eight thirty. But apart
from that, the floor is yours. Basically, this is your
opportunity to talk about I mean, look, the platform is
pretty wide, right, we're talking building and housing and construction,

(03:13):
so it's everything from foundations, through structures, through to roofs,
through to exteriors, through the boundaries, through to regulations, requirements,
the restraints that are there. In fact, it was kind
of well, it was out. There was a bit of
a question yesterday around what the government is going to
do when they decide on what types of buildings might

(03:37):
be able to be built without necessarily requiring a building consent.
So for a long long time, under Schedule one of
the Act, you could build ten square meters with certain
other requirements without necessarily needing a building consent. That got
pushed out thirty square meters. Now there is talk about
doing granny flats, and that's it's pretty that it feels

(04:01):
like that's a it's not a pejorative term, but it's
kind of seen as a bit old fashion. But anyway,
the terminology is granny flats. My understanding for the reason
for that name is that the intention was that if
you owned a piece of land, you had your family
home on it, and you wanted to provide some accommodation,

(04:21):
some housing for an extended family, maybe granny then that's
why you could build a granny flat at the back
of the property. It was always sort of related to
the people that occupied the main house, hence the term
granny flat. So then I don't know, they're not going
to come up with a new name for it, but

(04:42):
granni flats. And then the proposal that's out there at
the moment is maybe the granny flat could be sixty
square meters. Sixty square meter is not an insignificant building
to build, possibly without having to get the building consent.
And then in the discussion yesterday, actually Jeff Barrenson, who
is head of Building Inspections for UXSN Council, which must

(05:05):
be one hell of a job to be fair, Jeff
was addressing the group as well at the Building Surveys
conference and talking about the possibility that maybe those granny
flats will extend to ninety one hundred maybe even one
hundred and twenty square meters without necessarily requiring a consent.
That changes the landscape quite considerably. So it's an interesting space.

(05:30):
There's a lot of discussion around. We talked about remote
building inspections. I think the Minister Chris Penk who has
also been on the show before, came out quite a
while ago, now, not long after they took office, to go, hey, look,
we want this to be the default position. There's a
significant amount of pushback in the industry to the idea

(05:53):
of remote inspections. And again, one of the speakers yesterday
the conference is involved with apartments in Australia. They beamed
into the conference saying, hey, look, you know, the sperience
hasn't been great here with the certifiers for some of
the apartment complexes. The quality that work's not great, and

(06:14):
you know, be cautious about what you wish for. It's
been It was a good conference actually, And then I
was in christ Julier in the week. I'll talk about
that a little bit later on. And I've got a
bit of news about some project that I did a
little while ago that you can watch. I know Pete's
TV's going I eight hundred eighty ten eighty. There's lots

(06:35):
to talk about this morning. Get on the line, get
an early. I eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the
number nine two ninety two for the texts and Pete
at newstalksb dot co dot nz is the email. A
very good morning, lovely to have you with us this morning,
and just quietly a little bit excited about being able
to watch some Formula one this afternoon as well. Right, Albert,

(06:56):
good morning to you.

Speaker 5 (06:58):
Yes, good morning sir. I was just starting to listen
to your show and I just came over this in
very general question. Sure, there was an article in a
newspaper not so long about engineer Timber. Yes, and it
was quite recommended as these shooture for New Zealand to go.

(07:18):
And yeah, I was vuldering about this.

Speaker 6 (07:21):
Well perfect timing actually, Albert, because I mentioned I was
in christ Church on Wednesday evening. I was a speaker
at the Site Safe graduation. So for people who have qualified,
they have gone through their site safe course in christ
Church and one of the things that I wanted to
do while I was in christ Church is go to

(07:42):
I think it's two to two to one High Street,
which is I think Lee's Construction are building a building there,
a commercial building maybe to four stories high, and they
are using engineered timber. Now, engineered timber is kind of
a broad phrase for you know, I think in our head,
if we talk about a timber building, we imagine four

(08:04):
or two studs framed up mid floor, et cetera. This
is engineered timber where the components, the columns, the beams,
and the floor plates are coming to site. They've been
fabricated in a factory, the ones that I saw sitting
on the back of the truck. And actually good of
you to call, because I'll put up some photographs later

(08:27):
on this morning on my Facebook page. So you know,
the columns would be shivers three hundred and fifty by
three hundred and fifty milimeters square, right. Then the beams
would be maybe four hundred by three hundred and then
the floor, the actual complete floor, so spanning maybe a

(08:48):
distance of four or five or six meters, would be
two hundred and fifty milimeters thick. Now, they are all
individual components, they've got all you know, they're bolted together
with specifically designed brackets. It's pine, it's good old fashioned
pinus radiator. It's it's obviously been processed and engineered to

(09:08):
a very very high level. It's very high spec. But
obviously in christ Church, where they've still got concerns around
seismic activity, timber is great there. It's really fast. And
in fact, there was a couple of guys from Hawkins
and from Fletcher Living who were at the sight Safe
conference and they were talking about they were struck by

(09:30):
how quickly that building was going up.

Speaker 5 (09:33):
Yeah. I have a little bit of a forestry background,
and I was thinking the trees could be grown with
a shorter rotation maybe.

Speaker 6 (09:45):
I mean, I think already one of New Zealand's great
advantages when it comes to forestry is that we can
go typically twenty years from planting to harvesting for Pinus radiata,
which is about eight to ten years quicker than almost
anyone else in the world.

Speaker 5 (10:01):
Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, Oh well, yeah, thank you very much.

Speaker 6 (10:04):
Yeah. It In fact, there was an article about it
in the paper. So if you just search for, you know,
engineer building christ Church or something like that. I went
to another way about two years ago that Naylor Love,
another large construction firm, we're doing for the Auckland University
of Technology, so aut at the Akaranga campus. And again

(10:27):
I think that's five stories. It's all colt. So it's
all laminated timber, glass, laminated timber. Look, it's great, it's
it's really really good. And the fact that it's using
a natural resource, the fact that it does in a
fantastic job in terms of carbon and sequestering carbon and
all of those sorts of things. Yeah, and we grow

(10:49):
lots of it. Why aren't we using it?

Speaker 7 (10:51):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (10:52):
No, thanks very much. Pleasure for nice of you to call.

Speaker 6 (10:56):
All the best. Take care. One hundred and eighty ten
eighty is the number to call, exactly. So I knew
that I was going down for the site Safe GRADU,
which was actually a really nice event to be part of,
and I appreciated that the opportunity to talk to people
a little bit about safety and my own experiences of
what I did. To be absolutely honest, I did say

(11:17):
at the beginning of the oh, to the person who says,
is this an ad No, it's not.

Speaker 7 (11:25):
Right.

Speaker 6 (11:25):
This is you know, this type of building construction methodology
that's sort of in development at the moment is genuinely exciting, right,
This is really really good for the country. I think
it's a fantastic use of a resource that is readily
available here in terms of its environmental impact and its sustainability.

(11:48):
I think it's a massive leap forward in terms of
speed of construction. It's fantastic by all accounts. Working in
those buildings in the future is actually quite pleasant as well,
which is really interesting. So no, it's not mad, it's
just this is innovation, right, This is what a a
decent sustainable future looks like when you see these timber

(12:10):
buildings going up. So yeah, Because I was heading to
christ Church anyway, and i'd seen the article, I decided
I wanted to go and have a look through. And
it's gosh, it would be within sixty or seventy meters
maybe one hundred meters of the Takaha Stadium, which i'd
only ever seen sort of in its ground stages. That's

(12:32):
really starting to take form. And then I had a
little bit of time on Wednesday morning and wandered along
to the Cardboard Cathedral, the Anglican Transitional Cathedral, which again
i'd seen and read a little bit about, but never
had the opportunity to go and have a look at.
It and the guys from Metro Glass did the digital

(12:52):
print on the effectively stained glass. It's not stained glass,
it's digital print on the front facade of it. So actually,
christ Church, I'll make a couple of other comments about
christ Church a little bit later on. I know you've
had to put up with a hell of a lot
in terms of the rebuild and the infrastructure, and there

(13:12):
still seems to be you know, lots to do and
lots of work going on, and lots of road cones
and lots of people ripping up the roads in that.
But my sense was it's going to be a great
Oh it's a great city now. But you know, as
the rebuild part comes to a close and some of
those really big projects get wrapped up and some of
the redevelopment of the residential inside the city wraps up,

(13:37):
it's it's going to be a great city. Oh eight
hundred eighty ten eighty. The number to call might take
a short break. We'll talk to Jim in just a moment.
If you've got a comment, call us now, oh eight
hundred eighty ten eighty.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
Squeaky door or squeaky floor, Get the right advice from
Peter Wolfcare the resident builder on News talksb.

Speaker 6 (13:55):
You and News talksp will come to a couple of
texts in a moment, but right now, let's have a
bit of a chat with Jim good A.

Speaker 8 (14:01):
Jim get oo, Peter, thank you for answering my call.

Speaker 6 (14:05):
Leisure.

Speaker 8 (14:06):
Look, my query is our house is eight years old
and it's got a double garage built onto it, and
there's no bats in the garage roof. Life they don't
seem to do yep. Now what I want to know
is the worth my while putting bats in the roof
this garage? Is it's quite cold the big door. The

(14:32):
big door faces east and the small door you can
drive through, faces west, and of course the lights in
there too, and in the morning it's bloom and cold
in there.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
Yeah, and I'm just.

Speaker 8 (14:44):
Wondering what I could do. Was it worthwhile putting bats
in the roof or not?

Speaker 9 (14:48):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (14:48):
Look, you know, insulated spaces are always better than uninsulated spaces.
And just for clarity, we'll go back a step so
because people will be listening, going, well, hang on, if
it's an eight year old house and it's got an
attached garage, how come the garage isn' related, and the

(15:08):
builder developer would have looked at that and gone, well, actually,
I don't need to in terms of the building code
because it's not a habitable space. So what should happen
is that the petition between the habitable space, may be
a bedroom or whatever that's on the adjoining wall, that
wall should be insulated, and then that insulation should go

(15:32):
up that wall and across the ceiling of your habitable space.
And so you end up with this uninsulated area immediately
adjacent your insulated habitable space, and it saves the builder,
the developer, you know, whatever it's going to cost to
insulate that space. I've always thought that that's really short sighted, right,

(15:53):
particularly for an attached garage. So you know, essentially, every
time you open the door between the garage and the house,
you've got that temperature differential. Often you'll tend to leave
that door open more because you're moving in and out
of the laundry, those sorts of things, So it just
cools down the whole house. You lose the benefit. I

(16:13):
think you lose the benefit of insulation in the house,
which is a long winded way of me saying yes,
if it's an accessible roof space, which it probably is.
Throwing some insulation in their properly, neatly will make a
big difference, and I wouldn't hesitate to say that you
should do it. And in fact, I'm always a little
bit disappointed when builders or developers don't insulate all of

(16:36):
the exterior walls. And I think ideally we should be
moving towards insulated garage doors, which are available, to reduce
drafts and to make those spaces more like a habitable space.

Speaker 8 (16:49):
Yeah, that was my next question.

Speaker 10 (16:50):
Betty.

Speaker 8 (16:50):
Hit the nail on the head what you've said so far.
But if the stone's not getting into the gearage much,
only about two hours in the morning or in the
middle of the winter, there's no heat in the garage anyway.

Speaker 6 (17:05):
Yeah, but you'll still Yeah, I hear what you're saying.
I just you know, the other thing that maybe with
an exterior wall we've got thicker you know, so essentially
that that petition between your habitable space and the garage
timber framing, ten mil plaster board on both sides and
some insulation in there, whereas maybe with an exterior wall

(17:27):
you've got the thickness of the cladding, maybe you've got
some brick something like that. So suddenly you know that
that the r value in that wall is probably going
to be a little bit diminished because you're not getting
the benefit of the cladding. So again the insulation on
those walls might not be working as well. And also,
you know, if it was a garage that you literally

(17:48):
just park the car and maybe that's okay, but in
the end it's sort of a habitable space because you're
working in there when you're doing the launch. Yes, ye, look,
I think if it's accessible and you know, it's a
relatively straightforward job, there would be a benefit. And I
think the benefit without weigh the cost of a couple
of bags of insulation. Oh well, thank you very but

(18:12):
I'm really fair. I'm pretty much a big fan of insulation.
So there you go.

Speaker 8 (18:17):
Yes, well see I've been in the garage a lot
of the time. But yes, that's right.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Just one.

Speaker 8 (18:25):
More question, can I not too much a question? But
these days are always run the cold water through your roof,
all the pipes through the roof and see it under
the ground. Yes, I did years ago when piles and
when you want to drink a water or something, a
run run run this water. It's such a waste feed up.
Often thought, is there not a system that you could

(18:49):
do so?

Speaker 6 (18:53):
But in terms of like typically it's not an issue
for cold water, because cold water quite happily sits in
all of the pipes, and you know as soon as
you need it, it's there. Sometimes, you know, if people
don't think too much about where they're placing hot water cylinders,
if there's a significant delay in getting hot water to
the tap, for example, in the kitchen, we tend to

(19:14):
waste a lot of water because you know, we all
do it right. You turn the hot tap on, and
you wait for all of the cold to purge, and
then when finally the hot water comes out of the
kitchen sink or kitchen spout, you put the plug in
the sink and start filling the sink up with water.
But in the meantime, you've lost I don't know, a
liter of water or so. And you're doing that a

(19:36):
couple of times a day. You know, it is a
little bit of a waste of water.

Speaker 8 (19:40):
It is I already met drinking water. You just raced
all that water until the water comes cold.

Speaker 6 (19:47):
But I see, yes, because you're getting warm water because
your pipes are up in the roof space. If it
was interesting that was that came up in a discussion yesterday,
actually around running pipes throughout uninsulated roof spaces or cold
roof spaces. I guess the other thing you could do again,
if it's accessible and it's safe to get around up

(20:08):
there in the same way, that you can buy like
a foam, like a pool sausage type thing. That's what
we use for insulating pipes. There's no reason that you
couldn't put that around the cold pipes as well, because
if that roof baces forty degrees during the summer, which
it easily will be, and that's warming up your cold

(20:29):
pipes as well, just insulate them with some of those
pool littles. Yes, yep, there you go, Peter, there's a
couple of jobs.

Speaker 11 (20:38):
Judge, we're both.

Speaker 6 (20:40):
Nice to talk, take care of all.

Speaker 10 (20:42):
The best to you.

Speaker 6 (20:42):
I eight one hundred eighty ten eighty the number to
call quick text hey Pete some general advice on painting
anything asbestos around the house. Look, it goes without saying.
I hope that you know you're cautious around asbestos. So
in terms of preparation, you don't want to be sanding
it You probably don't even want to be pressure washing

(21:04):
it or water blasting it. A chemical treatment, so proprietary
house wash just to apply it. Let the chemicals do
the work in terms of getting rid of any moss
and mold and mildew, and then a very gentle wash down.
And I wouldn't even try and sand or prep anything. Really,
I'd just be applying a coat of paint over the

(21:26):
top of the existing and that's absolutely fine. Oh, eight
hundred and eighty ten eighty the number to call. Another
quick text before the break. Remove floor in the living
room which has been covered in a clear varnish which
is now peeling and bubbling up in places? Can you
please advise how to remove it and is it best
and what is best to replace it? From ELF in

(21:46):
New Plymouth, ELF, I think that if the varnish is
bubbling and so on, it's an issue with the top
coat being applied over an existing old coat, right, so
it's effectively it's delaminating between there. Most of the time
with timber floors it's a re sand and then you

(22:08):
know back to beer timber and then bringing it up
with the polyurethanes, whether they're water borne or solvent born polyurethanes.
I have done once in a situation where I just
need a new coating, but I didn't want to go
to the expense on behalf of the client of sanding
the floors. I had the guys come in and do
effectively like an acid wash over the surface, just to

(22:31):
really cleanse it, and then apply a couple of coats
of polyurethane that lasted quite well. But look, it'll just
if it's peeling like that. It's all about the preparation
and so you'll need to remove that surface. Nine times
out of ten. It's a get the floor sanders and
cut it right back to beer timber start again. Oh
eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call,

(22:52):
coming up twenty eight minutes away from seven. Call us
now we've got a spare line. Oh eight hundred eighty
ten eighty. Text the grade as well. Nine two nine
two and if you'd like to email me, it's Pete
at news Talk set Beat talk to Pam straight after.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
The break, helping you get those DIY projects done right.
The resident builder with petabolet cats call eight hundred eight
Youth Talks.

Speaker 6 (23:14):
Right, Oh six thirty five here News Talks b. Pam
A very good morning.

Speaker 12 (23:19):
Good morning to you. I have a covered concrete patio
and for safety reasons, I'd like to bring the base
up to the level of the doorway with timber. And
I'm wondering what safety in mind, what would be the
best timber to use, and any suggestions you have regarding

(23:41):
finishing and maintain on.

Speaker 6 (23:44):
Can I presume that the existing patio probably is down
maybe somewhere between one hundred and one hundred and fifty
millimeters below the sort of level of the floor.

Speaker 12 (23:54):
I've got here eighteen centimeters.

Speaker 6 (23:57):
Okay, so one hundred and eighty mil okay, yeah, And
I can understand why you want to do that because
it's it's quite feels like quite a step down, does it.
And the step down typically is required by the building
code to ensure that we protect houses from flooding and
those sorts of events there are, so certainly you can

(24:24):
do it. One of the challenges is, you know, typically
we've got a pile, a bearer and a joist, right
and you're not going to have the space to do
all of that. But if you've got a concrete patio
there in it's sound, you can easily just build off
there to end up with either a level or almost
level timber coming up to is it a ranch slider

(24:46):
or a set of French doors? Okay, so sliding door then,
and it's a covered patio, so you're not too worried
about the timber getting slippery if you did want to
go timber. The other thing is that composite decking materials,

(25:07):
and there's a range of those available. One of the
ones that I've used in the past, and I did
it's quite a few years ago now. I did one
job where I needed to build an extension to a
deck and then an accessible ramp right at a place
that had lots of people that needed accessibility provisions, and

(25:28):
I used a composite decking called Outdure. Yeah, so Outdure
Actually I used it again another project at the school
a couple of years ago. So one of the things
about that is they are able to calculate the slip
resistance coefficient, right, so you know that the surface of

(25:50):
the material will always give you a certain slip resistance.
You can use timber, whether that's a soft wood like
pine or a hardwood. You can use grip tread timber,
so you've got that grooved surface up if you want
that slip resistance.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
Yeah, look to.

Speaker 6 (26:08):
Be fair in that situation, either timber or a composite
will be okay. If it was an area that's going
to be weathered quite a bit, then a composite just
in terms of safety might actually have some advantages. And
the other thing that.

Speaker 12 (26:23):
I'm looking for safety because I have had of fair falls.

Speaker 6 (26:27):
Yeah, then then you know, maybe the composite is actually
going to be a better solution for you. The other
thing is that increasingly there's a number of firms out
there who are doing essentially they'll make the frame out
of aluminium, so it's and it's prefabricated, can either be
delivered to site as components or delivered to site as

(26:50):
sort of like a Kitset pack, and then the decking
is fixed straight down onto the top of it. And
the advantage to that is that you end up with
you know, you can use aluminium, which means that you
get longer spans and not as much depth, which if
you've only got on a hundred eighty millimeters to work with,
that's an advantage and typically they'll come You can use

(27:11):
adjustable pads jacks that you can sit onto the patio.
So I think once you start talking with your contractors,
ask them about the whether to use a composite and
whether or not to use an aluminium deck. It is
more pricey, but it will make for a faster job
and there are some benefits in terms of working with

(27:33):
that height. At that height, you could also just fix down.
You'd want to ensure. The only thing to look for
in terms of fixing timber down is you don't want
to fix large plates of timber down onto the patio
and stop the water being able to track away. So
I presume the patio's got fall on it now, so
the water drains away. Whatever you do for your fixings,

(27:56):
you want to make sure that that water continues to
drain away.

Speaker 12 (28:00):
Oh okay, thank you doing match, No trouble at all.

Speaker 6 (28:04):
And look, I can imagine that when the jobst it
will make a significant difference to being comfortably inside and
out is a there is really very much level entry.
All the best, Thank you, great, thank you, pleasure, take
care and murray a very good morning to you.

Speaker 9 (28:22):
Yeah, good morning, Peter, You got me go for it.
My question is regarding Matti floor in the versus engineered flooring.

Speaker 10 (28:32):
Yeah, I've done it.

Speaker 9 (28:33):
I've done I've done an alteration, and I'm doing another
addition to that that alteration. In the past one we
used Matti flooring because the house was about a nineteen
fifty nineteen sixty, yes, and the Matti floor after the
first in the first year started cupping. I ended up
with a with a cup that was glued and Secret

(28:55):
Nail went on to fly with floor based underneath. Oh yeah,
and on the on the next but I didn't really
want to end up with the cupping issue again. So
people are sugges to go into an engineered flooring, which
stops that apparently true, and I can't get an engineered
flooring with the mat I finished. So that was two

(29:16):
different types timbers on the system. And obviously I can't
see when I put the mat idea on it that
doesn't breathe because by the time it goes down with
a blue based and Secret Nail sort of corrects its
own little beach space down there. So I was really
unsure if you have had any thoughts on that there,
you can stop the cup and the orb whether it's

(29:37):
just something that you have to live with in regard
if you want to use an older style flooring on
a mod Yeah.

Speaker 6 (29:48):
I'm actually I'm thinking about a project that we did
where you know, I had h Cowie floorboards throughout the house.
It was slightly more straightforward situation because the way that
the house had been renovated thirty five years ago, they'd
poured a concrete slab for the extension that was level

(30:10):
with the top of the carry flooring in the house.
So no matter what you did, you were always going
if you wanted to keep the carry flooring, you were
always going to have a step up, which I didn't want.
So it was kind of a no brainer for me.
I just laid I did actually use an engineered floor
or a laminate floor, and went over the top of
the old carry and straight over the top of the

(30:30):
concrete slab extension, and that allowed me to tie the
whole thing in together. In your situation, you've got original Mattie,
You've got Matti that was part of the extension. How
big an area is the extension to the extension going
to be? Oh couple a couple of hundred square meters? Crikey?

(30:51):
All right? And how big is the air the existing part?

Speaker 3 (31:00):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (31:01):
Okay, all right?

Speaker 9 (31:04):
Well that I mean in that continuity through as might
be achieved. But look absolutely as I can do that.

Speaker 6 (31:13):
So how bad is the cupping in the you know,
so essentially we got floor number one, original floor number two,
the addition floor number three is going to be what
you're you're going to do in the future. So the
cupping and floor number two is it significant now? Like could.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (31:32):
It settled back down again. So I went through the
first season and cuptain you would have gone, maybe cut
a couple of ny quite obvious and again split the
joints somewhere the okay over the top. So I've done that.
Then there's a settled down. Its shrunk fractionally, so you
still can see a slight line where the first wall

(31:53):
that went down it was just a real finished So yeah, sure,
I'm sure the timber was dry enough or whether it
was just the environment that.

Speaker 10 (32:01):
Was in.

Speaker 6 (32:04):
I to be fair, it feels well unless you're prepared
to accept quite a significant difference in the appearance of
the building. So you know, in terms of this is existing,
this is new, and my floor changes, I think you'd

(32:24):
I think you're going to stick with. If I was
doing it, I would probably stick with Matti in the
hope that the floor number two settles down and I
don't have the cupping issues, and that if you're will
you be laying your new Matti floor number three over
the top of plywood is substrate again? Or will it

(32:44):
go over joists?

Speaker 9 (32:46):
Now go a couple of flowered substrikes.

Speaker 6 (32:48):
Okay, So then it's really about ensuring that the plight
that the Matti is. I wonder whether the Matti that
went down for floor number two was just had a
slightly higher moisture content.

Speaker 3 (33:03):
That it should.

Speaker 6 (33:05):
So if yeah, if you get the moisture content right
on floor number three, you shouldn't have the issues with
the cupping. And just just because of the I mean
we're talking significant areas, right, it just feels like a
waste to go over the top of one and two

(33:25):
in order to get a consistent feel.

Speaker 9 (33:29):
I wouldn't do I wouldn't do that because the other
the house is actually so Yeah. I love the original
Matti as the never cut in. It's lovely, you know, yeah, yeah,
And they joined the new the new one on real
one and you can see the joints but have quite
looks quite looks quite nice.

Speaker 6 (33:46):
See, Like, I don't mind that sort of thing with
In fact, even in my own house, you know, I'm
an old villa. We've got those carry floors at the
front of the house. When I added on at the back,
I ended up actually, as it happens, I ended up
buying the floor out of an old science classroom from
I'm a high school through a demolition guy that I knew,

(34:10):
with the intention that they would lift the floor and
I would then take the floor and relay it in
My extension. Didn't quite go as simply as that, but
I've still ended up with existing Cararie flooring. Then you
could see because I've just patched rather than taking the
boards out, i just patched where our bathroom used to
be at the end of the hallway, and there was

(34:30):
holes through for pipes for the bath and that sort
of thing. I've patched those and left them obvious. Then
I've got a transition into my new extent or not
so new extension, twenty five year old extension now, and
that just tells the story of the house. But there
is a consistency because I've used old Carrie at the
back and I've got my existing Carri at the front,
So I get where you're coming from. There, and the

(34:51):
fact that you've got a transition just tells a story
about the house, which is lovely.

Speaker 10 (34:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (34:56):
Okay, so obviously no clear out it prob no.

Speaker 6 (35:01):
I think in the end it comes down to preference.
You've worked through the options. I think, you know, if
they were smaller spaces, then possibly you'd look at doing
an overlay over the whole thing. But I think for
such large areas, it feels like you're going to have
to stick with the MATTEI, which isn't a bad choice. Yeah,
that's awesome, awesome, I enjoy the building. Oh wow, what

(35:27):
a build? Oh eight hundred and eighty. Now talking about
building and projects some time ago, and I'm sure I've
mentioned this occasionally, not too much, but every now and
then about a project that I did. Well, we did
my wife and I did a couple of years ago,
and it was a little cottage. We bought it, we've
renovated it. I put in kind of a lot of

(35:50):
the ideas that I've been thinking about over the last
ten or fifteen years ago, over the last ten or
fifteen years, so, you know, things around insulation, things around dampproofing,
things around better joiner all you know, better glazing, extraction, heating,
all of that, and while I was doing the project,
we did actually video some of it that's set around
in the drawer for a while. Those videos are now

(36:13):
going to go up live over the next couple of
weeks on my YouTube channel. So if you go to
the social media you'll find me there that'll take a
link through to the YouTube, or if you just go
to YouTube and have a look for Peter Wolfcamp, Resident Builder,
the videos will come up. There's the I've Been Thinking series,
which is already up, and then there'll be what I'm

(36:33):
calling my hosts project host being the Dutch word for
house hosts. Project videos will start this week, so if
you want to see what I've been up to, you
can check those out online, check them out on YouTube.
It is eleven minutes away from seven o'clock. We are
going to take short break. Then we're going to talk
to Pete. Not talking to myself, just talking to Pete

(36:56):
after the break measure God was.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
But maybe call Pete first, Pete wolfcav the Resident Builder
News talk say'd be.

Speaker 6 (37:07):
All quick text as well. Pete, I need to replace
the car port roof to match my house. The roof
is the current roof is unpainted galvanized iron. I've been
given two quotes. One states point four b am I iron.
The other is point five to five. First quote is cheaper,
probably because the materials are cheaper. It's slightly thinner, and

(37:29):
has been fully itemized with a breakdown of costs. The
second quote is eight hundred dollars dearer, but it hasn't
broken down all the costs. Which do you suggest I
go for? So I'm going to make an assumption that
the car port roof is probably relatively low pitch, and
then they tend to get walked on. And just for

(37:52):
that reason, point four is absolutely fine in terms of
roofing iron right, it complies et cetera, et cetera. I
tend to go forero point five to five just because
someone is likely to get up there and walk around,
and they may not where to walk properly, and if
they inadvertently stand in the wrong place, the point five
to five will give them a little bit more.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
Strength.

Speaker 9 (38:15):
Right.

Speaker 6 (38:15):
So, for that reason alone, in terms of the difference
between the quotes, one that's fully detailed the other that's not,
is to go to the second one and just go
Does your price include and then you could list all
of the items specified in the first quote, just as
a way of checking that you know both quotes are

(38:36):
for the same thing, that you're not going to get
a quote that comes in seems competitive and then you
get slammed with a whole bunch of extras at the
end of it, which is actually that was in part
of the We had a quantity survey speak yesterday at
the conference as well or at the workshop around tendering
and procurement and pricing and so on, and this is

(38:59):
not an uncommon practice for contractors. They'll submit, you know,
if it's a competitive situation where a number of people
are pricing work, then they'll submit what seems like a
lower cost, and then suddenly there'll be extras, and then
you're constantly in the situation if you're the client of
having to deal with extras, whereas someone else might price

(39:22):
more comprehensively include some whole a lot of things that
are foreseeable, and then you know their price is the price,
rather than someone who prices deliberately leaving things out and
the hope that they can make it up on extras,
which I think is just a little bit dodgy. Isn't it. Oh,
eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to

(39:43):
call five minutes away from seven pete.

Speaker 7 (39:45):
Good morning, good morning, how are you?

Speaker 13 (39:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (39:48):
Good things?

Speaker 10 (39:49):
That's good.

Speaker 7 (39:51):
I've got splitting retaining wall upright, eleven out of the ground. Yep,
they hold a small garden. What little frunt trees, blind trees, etce.

(40:12):
Just really want to know the structural integrity of those
when they're starting to split.

Speaker 6 (40:18):
Right, So are the piles that are in the retaining
wall or the posts? Are they round or square?

Speaker 3 (40:24):
Round?

Speaker 6 (40:24):
Okay? Surprisingly, there's actually I've never seen one bend or
break because there's some basically gaps or cracks in them
where it's dried out right. Not terribly attractive, I know,
But in terms of it actually impacting the stability of it, no,

(40:48):
I wouldn't have any concerns. The only thing that I
have seen over time is that if let's say the
cut on the top of the post is not angled,
water can saturate into there and start rotting the post
out from the top. And in one situation where that
was quite ounced and it was a big retaining wall,

(41:09):
I actually went along and made flashings. Didn't look particularly
pretty but I made flashings that went over the top
just to keep the water away from the top of that.
So that's one thing to look at. But generally, if
there's a split in the post, particularly if it's around
I would never concern. We're back after the news.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
Doing under house storting the garden asked Pete for a hand.
The resident builder with Peter Wolfcamp call eight hundred news
dogs me.

Speaker 6 (41:38):
Sorry, just having a chat actually about AI. This was
welcome back to the show. By the way, Pete wolf
Camp here and this is the resident builder on Sunday.
We're taking your questions and hopefully I'm providing some answers,
and by the way, it will be me providing the answers.
And I say that because one of the topics that
came up at the workshop that I was attending yesterday

(42:01):
was around the use of AI, artificial intelligence. It was
a fascinating insight. Bruce Ross I think his name was,
the presenter, was you know in this field, particularly from
a leadership and business point of view, what the impact
of AI is. And I think there's some real possibilities
for it in the construction sector. And I've often wondered

(42:25):
whether it's just an a site. We'll talk to me
in just second that you know, one of the things
we talk about is building consents taking a long time
to be processed, and then the next step of that
conversation is often pointing the finger at the processing, which
is the building consent authorities and local councils who process

(42:46):
the building consents as if they're holding things up. And
in some cases that might be true, but I suspect
as well that one of the reasons that some building
consents take a while to go through processing is that
the building consent itself is of poor quality to be blunt,
you know, they've missed out items, they haven't shown code,

(43:06):
they haven't shown building code or building standards correctly, they've
missed out things. They've got poor details, they haven't just
a bad set of plans, right, and we've all seen them, right,
So you kind of wonder whether those all plans being
submitted for building consent. Let's say for residential work, that

(43:28):
you get AI to read the building code, figure out
what's supposed to be in the consent, scan the consent,
if there are items that should be there that aren't there,
it'll know potentially within minutes. Creates a list of these
things are not included, and it goes straight back to
the person who' submitted the consent, going you don't have
these details in here. I would have thought that that's

(43:50):
a pretty straightforward use of AI in terms of construct
There'll be other uses. There'll be a myriad of other uses.
So it's a fascinating insight into I guess what the
world's going to look like in a couple of years
time in terms of the use of AI. You may
want to comment on that it was a good conference.
Actually it's the beauty. I mean, I'm not well. I'm
actually now an honorary member of the New Zealand Institute

(44:12):
of Building Surveys. But going along to these conferences yesterday
listening to people talking about remote inspections, talking with Jeff Barrenson,
who's the basically head of building Inspections for AUKN Council,
talking about the inspection process and what might be changing,
talking about people from the Green Building Council, Passive House Institute,

(44:34):
and actually Storm Harper Harpham, who has been on this
program talking about ventilation, did a fantastic presentation as well.
So I quite enjoy that whole professional development thing rdio
eight one hundred and eighty ten eighty is that number
two concern? M Someone has has counted my comment prior
to the news about the timber pete. I would have

(44:58):
a concern of splitting of tantalized posts, especially in frosty
cold areas, such as when the water ingress freezes and
splits a post even more, reducing its strength. Timbers not
like in all honesty, I'd love to see a photograph
of timber posts freezing and splitting. I know it happens

(45:20):
in Stone in very cold circumstances, in very limited circumstances,
but I understand your concern. I think it's a good
theoretical concern. In practical terms, I can't see it happening.
I'm more than happy to be corrected on that, but
I can't see it. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten
eighty is the number to call. May A very good

(45:43):
morning and thanks for waiting.

Speaker 14 (45:46):
Morning you good. I just wonder if you can give
me some advised opinion regarding the louver window in the
kitchen as well as in the bathroom. Sure, on one
corner of the kitchen is the oven, and then site

(46:06):
on this side is their bench top. Then that that's
where the windows the three pain window on top of
the bench. The middle one is the lub window. So
with that, does it need to be replaced with the
some and what is the best approach to replace that

(46:28):
lub window. I presume that the standard on the Healthy
Home standard.

Speaker 6 (46:37):
Okay, in terms of healthy home standard, So if it's
a mental property and you're doing the work in order
to comply with the Residential Tendencies Amendment Act Healthy Home standards,
you don't have to change the windows at all, okay,
So there is no requirement to upgrade glazing. Where if

(46:57):
someone was to do an independent assessment of the property,
one of the criteria is that there should be no
excessive drafts. So for example, if the louver is the
really old fashioned ones with and it doesn't close particularly well,
someone might give an opinion that that is an unreasonable draft.

(47:21):
But you know, I would probably push back on that
unless it's in really poor quality and it doesn't seal.
Accepting the fact that louvers don't seal particularly well, and
older ones often when you close them there's a gap
between the individual pieces of glass. Obviously, you know, having

(47:44):
a louver closing means that you've got lots of lots
of gaps. You know, you might have six or seven
gaps in the louver. But in terms of healthy homes,
if someone has said to you, if you're happen to
be the landlord or the owner of the property, that
it doesn't comply, I would probably push back and say,

(48:05):
it's not an unre reasonable gap unless it's in very
poor quality.

Speaker 14 (48:10):
Okay, so there's the same thing apply to the bathroom
as well. The bathroom has the luber windows clothed.

Speaker 6 (48:17):
Bath Yeah, yeah, the only reason that you would comment
on it, I think in terms of healthy home standard
would be around gaps. There is and I'm very clear
about this, there is no requirement in the Act to
upgrade glazing in the same way that there is no
requirement to install insulation into walls. There is an accessible

(48:40):
ceilings and subfloor spaces, but not into walls. Now, it
might be a good idea, but in terms of compliance
with the co or with the Act, there is no requirement.

Speaker 14 (48:50):
Okay, so then what about the EXPLI I'm for the.

Speaker 6 (48:56):
In terms of compliance for extraction, I would think that
would actually comply because again there is a requirement in
healthy homes to provide extraction from the kitchen area. It
doesn't necessarily need to be a range hoit. It could
just be extraction from there. And whether that's through the wall,

(49:17):
through the ceiling, or an expell air that's in the glass,
which is a little bit of an old fashioned thing
these days, I would argue that that is compliant.

Speaker 14 (49:26):
Okay, right, So that means that no alterations is quite
necessary in that case.

Speaker 6 (49:33):
As long as they're in reasonable condition and they're working,
I think you could make a very strong case to
say this complies. And just to be really clear from
my point of view, I have been ever since the
Act came out, a big supporter of healthy home standards
for residential properties, right, and I have no time whatsoever

(49:56):
for landlords that claim that it's an unnecessary burden and
all the rest of it. The threshold is not terribly high,
and I think that all landlords have a duty to
get their houses to healthy home standards. It's you know,
it's got to be a pretty poor building for it
not to comply. Flip side of that is, I also

(50:18):
don't have a great deal of time for people who
are doing healthy homes assessments who are making unreasonable assessments
of property. And I had a discussion with someone one
time who they had a healthy Homes assessment of a
property that had double hung sash windows, and the assessor said,
you need to take all of those windows out and

(50:38):
replace them because they're not Healthy homes compliant. Now that's
that's almost criminal in my mind, right, those sorts of assessments,
because as long as they're in reasonable condition, that they've
actually got the fastener that closes the two sashes together,
that they're not terribly twisted with big gaps underneath it,
I think that the windows should comply with the requirements.

Speaker 14 (51:01):
So okay, yeah, just one one point. In the laundry,
there's loover windows that's okay as well, and they are
or if.

Speaker 6 (51:14):
They're in good condition. Yeah, I think that. I mean,
look again, there's a benefit there. I always like to
see extraction in the laundry. I think that's a real
advantage if you can get some extraction in the laundry
because people do leave the dryer on, they leave the
washing machine on again and the presentation yesta about ventilation,
you know, doing the washing inside the house is about

(51:35):
three liters of water that that is released into the atmosphere, right,
so that water has got to go somewhere, or that
moisture content in the atmosphere needs to go somewhere. Ideally
we're extracting it and pushing it out of the building.

Speaker 14 (51:51):
Oh well, that's okay.

Speaker 6 (51:53):
Thanks very lovely to talk with you, mate, Thank you
very much. Okay, good take care, Bobe. And again, just
to be crystal clear on this, I think that you know,
the healthy Homes compliance is not terribly difficult, to be blunt,
and again I don't have a great deal of time
for landlords who go, oh no, it's a real burden

(52:17):
and the house is fine and all the rest of it.
You know, if you're in the business of being a landlord,
then I think you have a responsibility to ensure that
the property is in reasonable condition. And I don't think
the three shoulder is terribly high. I don't know whether
I necessarily want the government to make it more stringent,
let's say, But like I said, my experience has been

(52:41):
it's not a terribly high bar to reach. Oh you
may wish to comment on that, oh, eight hundred and
eighty ten eighty quick couple of texts before the break morning, Pete.
I've lived in Canada for many years, never had a
problem with moisture expanding posts. The winter over here often
gets down to minus thirty degrees. Cheers from Carey, Thank
you for that look. I understand the principle about what

(53:04):
the text is saying that if you get water and
a post and it freezes, water expands when it freezes,
and that could extend the post. Timber doesn't tend to
freeze in the same way that something like stone does,
so that's really interesting one. We got talking about water
actually before in terms of you know, common practice most

(53:24):
of us. I would imagine if we turn the shower on,
we don't leap in straight away, right. We tend to
turn the shower on, wait for it to warm up,
and then we hop in. And of course that water
is effectively wasted in the same way that if you
need hot water from your kitchen sink and you don't
have instant hot water there, you turn the tap on
on hot generally there's a bit of cold water in

(53:45):
the line that needs to purge before the hot water
comes out. You know, times five million of us, times
two million households, etc. That's a lot of water that
effectively gets wasted. Because it's not warm. So a couple
of people have texted her and said, look, if I
run the tap, I catch it in a container. It
goes into the washing machine, no waste. I know other

(54:08):
people that will make a habit of maybe having the
pot nearby and topping up the pot, and then when
it comes time to cook the dinner, you've already got
some water in the pot to boil the potatoes, or
do the pasta or something like that. Leave the jug empty,
use the cold water in the hotline to fill the
jug each time, so you're not There's a whole lot

(54:28):
of new things like that. I think that's great. Um, oh,
this is a good eat too on a new build.
How can you determine how many coats of paint have
been applied to Linear weatherboards? And they've been very specific
about this. So Linear is a fiber cement weatherboard system
from James Hardy's from John or like that's like a

(54:55):
little iceberg floating along. Right, there's a little question on
the top that goes how many coats of paint underneath that.
There's a whole issue. There's a whole lot of issues
around quality of workmanship. Manufacturers warranties, et cetera, et cetera.
So I think that the only way to if you
really really got a concern is you would need to
take a sample of it and send it away for analysis. Right,

(55:17):
So some of the paint manufacturers might be able to
do that for you. I'm guessing. I'm assuming that your
question really relates to the fact that, like I've seen it,
and I've seen it with other pre painted boards. So
my own preference for these types of products pre painted
exterior cladding is they come with a factory primer on them.

(55:40):
Some come with a factory primer and a first coat.
Most come just with a factory primer. I think that
primer degrades a little bit, so my inclination would always
be to install the product sand the surface, rear coat,
recoat with a new primer coat, and then do minimum

(56:01):
to top coats on it. I am sure that there
would be builders and developers and painters out there who
will install a product like that that's got a factory
coat on it and then just give it one top
coat and say that that's finished. And I suspect John,
that's what your question is about. I think what you'd
do is you'd go back to you'd ask the developer,

(56:22):
can you provide me a statement from the painter to
say that the weather boards have been finished in accordance
with the manufacturer's specifications and for your reference, I attach
a copy of the specifications and best practice guidelines from
the manufacturer. Have you done this? And then they can
either tell you the truth or they can lie. And
if you want to know more, I think you could

(56:43):
get a representative from the paint firm to come and
assess it for you. And there may well be some
testing as well. And then another quick text Pete, I
heard that a brand new house failed a Healthy Home inspection. Yes,
that's quite possible. And the reason being is that, in

(57:10):
a glaring oversight to the New Zealand Building Code, there
is no requirement in the New Zealand Building Code to
provide heating all right, So there is nothing in the
building Code that says you have to put heating into
a house. Healthy Home Standards has a requirement for a
fixed form of heating in the living area that will

(57:32):
ensure that the building attains it's either eighteen or twenty
degrees in winter and you have to prove that right.
So if you've done a healthy Homes assessment, you can
use a tool that's online. You can describe the walls,
you can describe the type of insulation, you can describe
the type of joinery. You can describe the type of glazing.

(57:52):
You can describe the floor and the ceiling. Space, you
work out and do a calculation of the living space.
The living space also includes any space is attached to
it that don't have a door that you can close.
So if there's an open staircase and an upstairs landing,
that space needs to be included in the calculation for
the living space. If it's an open plan kitchen, dining area,

(58:17):
all of that space needs to be included. Then it
gives you a calculation for the volume. Then it tells
you how much heating that will require. And then you
can look through and see does that heat pump have
sufficient heating capacity for that space? And it'll be a
yes or no, brand new house, no heating in it,

(58:38):
it'll fail Healthy homes. There you go, oh, eight hundred eighty,
ten eighty the number to call. It's coming up twenty
four minutes after seven.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
Whether you're painting the ceiling, fixing with fans or wondering
how to fix that hole in the wall. Give Peter
wolf Gaffer call on eighty the resident builder on youth
Dogs b or.

Speaker 6 (58:57):
Good text Pete that the Building Code doesn't make the
healthy home standard is proof that the government and the
building industry are dysfunctional and failing us. He's really sure
that I go that far. But it does point out
a massive disjoint between two parts of the same branch
of government, doesn't it. James Greetings, Good morning Peter.

Speaker 11 (59:19):
My question is I have two friends there relatively unknown
to each other. But one friend has built a house
approximately five years ago and due to circumstances he sold it.
Another friend has bought that house at auction ah, and

(59:41):
he now has a problem with a leak or water
in the bathroom and also the toilet. The bathroom is tiled.
Now this leak could be due to plumbing or a
waterproofing with the tiled bathroom. Now my understanding that tyler
and plumber would have to give producer statements for CODA.

Speaker 6 (01:00:03):
Compliance, certainly within the last well last fifteen years, but
certainly within the last five years undoubtedly.

Speaker 11 (01:00:10):
And also the friend that built the house would have
been lbp'd in his number would be on this job
for ten years.

Speaker 6 (01:00:18):
So the person who built the house literally built it
because they are in LBP.

Speaker 11 (01:00:22):
Well yes, and they built it for their own delivered
for their home, but like say, due to circumstances, it
was sold. Now with these issues, where does a liability lie? Now?

Speaker 6 (01:00:38):
She was I mean, actually, one of the things that
again was discussing the conference is around joint and several liability, right,
and the way that we have it in New Zealand
is that kind of everyone gets called into these disputes.
But in this particular instance, the main contractor, which might
be friend number one who happens to be an LBP,

(01:01:00):
if they were the main contractor and responsible for finding
and commissioning and supervising and paying the subcontractors. So if
friend number one got plumber in plumber did the job
and got paid by number one, then they are going
to be involved in this as well. Certainly, if there's

(01:01:23):
a problem with the waterproofing, given that waterproofing has got
a minimum fifteen year requirement, then the person who wrote
out the producers statement for the warrant for the waterproofing,
they will definitely be involved in this if it happens
to be a plumbing leak fitting that hasn't been properly
crimped or something like that, and that's causing the leak.

(01:01:44):
Then it'll be the plumber that's responsible. But I think
in the first incidence, you would probably go to the
person who was the builder, friend number one, and go,
I've got an issue with the house. And then they
will start chasing these other people. And in the event
that the other people have gone, you could still pursue

(01:02:05):
them potentially. And this is this is where joint several
liabilities a problem you then drag in council because council
issued a ce CC right, and then counsel will try
and sue these other people. It is quite messy. Get
on to it straight away, right, you know, like it's
not going to get better. Water leaks never get better.

(01:02:27):
So Friend number two, who now owns the house and
has the issue, needs to get on on the blower
pretty quickly. Make people really, you know, go and do
us a little bit of research around your responsibilities under
the Building Act and also responsibilities under the various bits
of consumer guarantees, requirements and laws, and people need to

(01:02:50):
respond and get onto this really quickly.

Speaker 11 (01:02:53):
Who would be would this be an insurance people to
chase these people or how would that work as well?

Speaker 6 (01:03:04):
See let's say it's a water leak care by poor workmanship,
right I think, and I it's just an opinion, right,
you know, you would need to go and consult either
with the lawyer or with your insurer. That I wonder
whether an insurance company might say this is in fact
gradual damage so they might engage. I mean what you

(01:03:29):
raise an interesting point around should we as an industry
in terms of construction and house building, should we be
looking at compulsory insurance as a way of ensuring that
the burden for poor workmanship doesn't always end up at
the council's foot, right, you know, in their lap, which
it does at the moment. But I think there are

(01:03:53):
clear responsibilities for lbp's construction plumbers and people who give
out certificates for waterproofing that their work needs to comply.
I guess what inevitably will happen is everyone will say
it's somebody else's problem. So it might be worthwhile for

(01:04:17):
friend number two, who's now got the problem with the leak,
to get someone to do an assessment to determine what
the cause of the leak is that might make it quicker,
or you could just go back to them. I would
always start with the main contractor and go this job
that you supervised has got a problem. I want you

(01:04:38):
to sort it out.

Speaker 11 (01:04:40):
I know that's very good. Thanks for it.

Speaker 6 (01:04:42):
It's never a nice situation. But they don't get better
on their own, So just crack into it. Get them
to crack into it.

Speaker 11 (01:04:50):
And also the plumber has retired and sold his business,
so there's another issue.

Speaker 6 (01:04:56):
Yeah, and many people involved in construction and related sectors don't.
There's a provision with some insurances which has a carry
on clause, right, so even when you stop, your insurance
carries on. So if that person had insurance for their
work as a plumber and they're responsible for that work

(01:05:19):
for ten years and they retire, there in some cases
you can have an insurance policy that can will continue
to cover your work for ten years even if you've retired.
But only if you've got the right type of policy. Okay, yeah,
let us know how you get on its. Look, it's
an awful situation to be on and you've just got

(01:05:39):
to crack into it.

Speaker 11 (01:05:41):
Yeah, both parties.

Speaker 6 (01:05:43):
Oh yeah, it's ugly.

Speaker 11 (01:05:44):
Yeah, one person's advice and yes.

Speaker 6 (01:05:49):
Look in the end, as contractors, we're responsible for our work,
right and the reality of work. Anyone who makes something
will make a mistake, right, So if you've made a mistake,
you fix it. That's how you got to do it.
Nice to talk with you, James. You take care okay,
Thanks all the best, all the best to you. Never

(01:06:11):
a good situation, but you just go crack into it. Radio.
I mentioned earlier in the show that I'd spent a
night I went to christ Church on Wednesday. I was
speaking at the Site Safe graduation, So for those people
who had completed their site safe course, it's a level
three qualification. I quite like christ Church. I don't spend

(01:06:32):
a lot of time there. I had a little bit
of time in the morning to go for a bit
of a drive around, and quite genuinely, I was struck
by the quality of some of the small residential redevelopment
happening right inside, you know, like within the avenues in
christ Church, and so I spent a little bit of
time I was driving around. I went for a bit
of a walk through the city beautiful Wednesday morning, and

(01:06:54):
one of the things that I noticed was that I
use a lot of render in christ Church. And I
mentioned this to Mike Olds, who's going to join us
now when we were chatting the other day, Mike, greetings,
welcome to the show.

Speaker 10 (01:07:07):
Warning Pete.

Speaker 6 (01:07:08):
So I was like quite, I was genuinely struck one
by the quality of the work that I saw in
christ Church. And then when I was looking at it,
I realized they use a lot of render in christ Church, right,
And you would have seen this, and I've seen some
pictures from the Razine construction work that's going on down there.

(01:07:28):
People are using it and the end result is I
think it's beautiful.

Speaker 3 (01:07:34):
Yeah, I mean the part of it. I mean, the
rebuild in christ Church has been it was a clean
slate for the city in terms of and very few
obviously cities have the opportunity as much as it's devastating
initially to the community, but the opportunity for christ Church

(01:07:59):
to get a really succinct, beautiful into interior city environs
is pretty crazy. And when we looked at the and
you look at the inner city now, I mean if
you were down there even as as soon as five

(01:08:19):
years ago, what you're what you're looking at now? I
mean you saw the stadium going up the multi unit
residential developments that are I think there was one there
that we posted the other day around an Mr Street
on the corner of m R Street, as as one
in particular that we put up there on our Facebook

(01:08:44):
was what it actually can ultimately become in terms of
they're looking for low maintenance projects, are looking for performance
in terms of acoustics because you're living in the inner city,
so you want properties that are at nights and quiet
even though you're living in that type of environment, which
is which is quite difficult to achieve generally, so you're

(01:09:04):
double glazing, there's absolutely imperative. The system that we use
on that particular project was a lightweight concrete which has
our integral panels, which has a very very good acoustic
property as you're aware from tendancy walling external walling system,
so it read dampens down a lot about the noise

(01:09:26):
from just the general the strip down there obviously, which
is party central for christ Church down by the Avon,
but then moving just slightly out to sort of Latimers Square,
Cramma Square, all those sorts of areas, and they're really distinct,
these projects. They're not the same same and that's one

(01:09:47):
of the really cool things in christ Church is that
they're not they don't all look the same, the architecture different,
but they're incorporating a lot of features that has been
raised recently in media around or in the construction sector alone,
around the build up of heat and and things like

(01:10:08):
that into into some of these new apartments are getting constructed.
And one of the one thing that struck me to
talk with you the other day was that development, or
that both those developments be put up on that Facebook
had very small openings. They were deep recesses. They have
external shading mechanisms, you know, large windows to sort of

(01:10:33):
the southern southern sections of wall rather.

Speaker 10 (01:10:35):
Than the northern walls.

Speaker 3 (01:10:36):
Yes, you know, whereas when you get into your private
residential single dwellings on large sites, we we like to
have lots of windows to look out on things. And
but that is obviously one way to let a lot
of soul again into it into a property. But these projects,
they've been quite clever about how they've they're going to

(01:10:59):
minimize the amount of heat or film will load inside
the buildings, which is yeah, it's it's impressive with what
they're doing and hopefully the level of design and builds
and quality down and christ jedge in the space will
flow to other areas around the country when businesses have

(01:11:19):
conferences and christ conventions center there and they're looking around
as this is doing a benchmark for other urban developments
in the country. So it's pretty exciting times down there.

Speaker 6 (01:11:32):
And that's what struck me is that, you know, I
had a bit of time in the morning, I went
grab some breakfast, I had to wander around and as
I was driving through that in a city area, the
apartment you know, the sort of medium density residential developments
that like you say, there's the appearance and it's great
that they look really beautiful and they're appealing to look at,

(01:11:53):
but then when you look at it deeper and you
go okay. So part of the reason maybe that they're
using a rendered finish there is because underneath that we
can do a clouding system like the Integral that's got
really good acoustic pilus properties, or maybe we're using something
that's actually thermally efficient because it does get cold in
christ Church. And then we have also got something that
in ten years time when we need to do the maintenance,

(01:12:16):
is the maintenance is relatively straightforward, and so it's something
that's easier to do often gets done, whereas the more
complex claddings in some cases that require higher levels of maintenance,
that gets put in the two hard baskets. So there's
all of those elements are there in that clouding which
you just look at and go, gee, that looks really cool,
But there's a lot of thinking behind it, which I

(01:12:36):
think is really exciting for christ Church.

Speaker 10 (01:12:39):
Yeah, and I think.

Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
One of the other things when you look at some
of these inner city projects that are getting developed, they
are keeping the mix of exterior cloudings and connections and
technical detailing. Yeah, yes, they're complex in some situations, but
they are there to perform as well. So you're generally
finding you've got maybe two maximum three external wall cloudings.

(01:13:05):
Most of the stuff that we're seeing generally would have
have two, so you'd have some sort of either stone,
stone or timber or plaster as a dominant component, you know.
So so keeping it reasonably clean and easier in terms
of like you said, in terms of the maintenance in
a few years, the body corporates that are looking after

(01:13:29):
these projects only have to worry about two potential clading
maintenance items rather than ten different plantings across the different units.
They've kept them very simple yet yet quite classic and
style wise empathetic, which is fantastic, you know. And I

(01:13:53):
think that that's that these are important thoughts when not
necessarily justin multi unit developments, but equally on individual properties.
You know, be thinking about craky. If if I'm putting
seedar up, I'm going to be needing to to soft
wash and potentially restain that in five or five years,

(01:14:15):
you know, to keep it looking good. Whereas if you're
looking at something like a plaster surface, your rendered surface,
you've got a big flat wall area that's reasonably young complex,
and that is that you can maintain easily. And he's

(01:14:36):
equally clean easily as well, you know. So it doesn't
matter what you do on a build these days, you
will always have maintenance. It's about don't leave it to
the last minute. They be proactive with it. And and
the long and the long term costs to support that
type of quality of the build. It will endure for

(01:15:00):
a lot longer, I mean, and part of our part
of the appraisal process, we sit there with a minimum
expected durability of thirty years. I mean, we've got we've
been We've been here in New Zealand for in terms
of the coding systems, in terms of the render for
over thirty five now with some of the original projects

(01:15:20):
standing that test of time beyond that period, which is
which is great to see, you know. But every every
every project and every every homeowner is different in terms
of their take on how they look after things. But
it's it should be reasonably straightforward process and some of
the some of the performances coming out of these external
planning systems as incredible and it was pleasing yesterday Pete

(01:15:46):
to be sitting in this is in the suite of
Building Surveyor's conference and thinking about how we can look
at some of the things that even though the internal
environment we have an impact on that. There was some
really good discussions yesterday with that first session. We were
around ventilation systems, you know, trying to take some of

(01:16:10):
that that heat out of the building or transfer ear
through the building so you have a fresh air flow
and it just reduces energy costs. It was incredible. We
keep loading them, I think the general take on that discussion.
We keep loading up insulation into buildings, but we're not
actually managing it. That well, and it seems to be.

(01:16:33):
And they were saying that we don't know what the
benefit in terms of the resale value of properties that
have got this passive house type construction methodology because the
people don't sell them, they love them.

Speaker 6 (01:16:45):
So it was a really good point by Joe yesterday. Yeah,
really insightful.

Speaker 3 (01:16:51):
So there's some exciting stuff to be combined with, not
just the cloudings, but in terms of the general built environment,
there's some exciting stuff happening and getting yeah, absolutely and
getting that to the general consumer to ask these questions.

Speaker 6 (01:17:04):
Someone text me to say, Hey, make sure you wish
Mike good luck for the golf today. I understand your
tea time as tea off time is not too far away,
so appreciate you taking the time before you jump onto
the course. Good luck with the game today and and
good catching up with you yesterday. Thanks all of this,
All of this, boy, have a look actually at their

(01:17:25):
stuff online because there's the technical stuff and the you know,
the beautiful stuff effectively. So Razineconstruction dot co dot m
Z and Mike was at the conference yesterday and there
was a panel discussion at the beginning, particularly focused on
H one changes and sort of three experts in the

(01:17:46):
field talking about what they think the government is likely
to do. Given that the consultation period for changes to
H one of the Building Clothes Building Code has now
closed and the government have come in saying we're going
to make some changes, et cetera. Are going to have
to announce what those changes are going to be. I

(01:18:06):
would be very, very very surprised if they decided to
wind back the requirements for H one. In fact, i'd
think that's a retrograde step. But they will need to
make some changes. Everyone's picking that potentially the schedule method
will be the one thing that gets ditched, so it'll
be calculation and modeling for most buildings going into the future.

(01:18:30):
We can talk about that as well. But again, Mike
Col's from Razine Construction, and part of that conversation was
prompted simply by the fact that I was in Christchurch
on Wednesday. I drove around the inner city. I was
looking at some of the sort of medium scale residential
developments and was struck one by the fact I think

(01:18:51):
they've done a really good job, Like the buildings are attractive, appealing,
but they also performed particularly well, and I noticed that
a lot of them are using renders as an exterior cladding.
Right HEO, We're going to take short break. Would like
to join us. We've got some time to take your call,
so if you've got a question, oh, eight hundred eighty
ten eighty. I've got a bunch of texts that I

(01:19:12):
need to answer as well. We'll be back straight after
the break. Think squeaky door or squeakie floor.

Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
Get the right advice from Peter Wolfcare, the resident builder
on NEWSTALKSB.

Speaker 6 (01:19:23):
We have time for a few calls before the news
top of the hour at eight o'clock, so I call
us right now, Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty. Text,
what causes cloudy areas inside double glazed windows that are
only twelve months old? Can you recommend the glass specialist?
I think the fact that the glazing this is double glazed,
and I presume when you say it's cloudy, that's between

(01:19:46):
the two layers of glass, right is I would be
finding out who the manufacturer of the DG units, the
double glazed units is and going directly back to them,
because essentially it's a failure of the seal between the
two panels, which is allowing some air and moisture inside,

(01:20:08):
and then if you're seeing cloudiness or it might actually
be condensation inside there, it's a failure of the DJ unit.
From my experience, and I do quite a lot of
work with metro performance glass. It's rare, but look, it
does happen, and if it's twelve months old, i'd simply
go back to the person that installed it. You should
be able to track that back through invoices and so on.

(01:20:34):
Quite a number of texts about water. This is a
good one here in attacking any Sorry Taranaki, not takeing
any it's just down the road in Taranaki, we're experiencing
a drought and relying on tank water. So half a
bucket of water between the instant gas hot water system
and before it starts flowing warm or hot. That water

(01:20:55):
is used to wash hands, water plants, top up the
toilet system. Water collected while having a fast shower goes
into the system and it's or it's saved for the
floor or outside window washing and so on hand washing clothes.
I found myself wishing I had an old agitator washing
machine for the control I had over the water used well.

(01:21:15):
I would imagine that a modern one is you know,
users probably less water than the old agitator, remember those
with the ringer on the top, and there was always
that risk as you're trying to push the clothing. We
had one when I was a kid at home, agitator
washing machine with the ringer on the top. So you'd
finished the washing, take the clothes ringing wet out and

(01:21:38):
then pop them through that and man, if you didn't
let go in time, your fingers were into the rollers.

Speaker 7 (01:21:43):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:21:43):
We're back in just a.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
Second, helping you get those DIY projects done.

Speaker 3 (01:21:48):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:21:48):
The resident fielder with peta wolf cat call oh eight
youth talk zb.

Speaker 6 (01:21:55):
Great text from Charlie. What's exterior renders? I think when
my talking about it, essentially we're talking about coatings that
are applied to the exterior of a building, so often
over a substrate that might be masonry, might be lightweight concrete,
might be polystyrene, might be five or cement sheet, so
a coating, and then typically that's then waterproofed with a

(01:22:16):
paint coating over the top, in the same way that
you might do interior renders, which is a semtitious material
applied to the wall, but it has to perform or
doesn't have the same requirements as exterior render. Hopefully that
makes that a little bit clearer. Right, we've got new
sport and we're the top of the hour. Remember Red
client passed from eight thirty this morning here at Newstalks

(01:22:36):
B Measure.

Speaker 1 (01:22:37):
Twys god was but maybe call Pete first, feed you
ORGAF the Resident Builder News Talks B Well, good.

Speaker 6 (01:22:45):
Morning, welcome back to the program. It is coming up
seven minutes after eight. Remember at eight thirty, the Red
Climb pass will join us. We'll jump into the garden
with Red from eight thirty. We'll take your calls. We've
got a bunch of calls lined up. I just want
to make it's funny how the show we often sort
of develop a theme. I have no idea what that's
going to be when I come in here at six
o'clock in the morning. A lot of talk about water today,

(01:23:07):
in terms of water conservation. I guess water leaks, because
we talked a little bit about that water In terms
of exterior cladding and ensuring buildings are weather tight. The
other thing that I encountered this week was increasingly we're
needing to do water tanks for either storage or stormwater management.

Speaker 5 (01:23:27):
I e.

Speaker 6 (01:23:27):
The water from your roof goes into a tank and
then it disperses into the council stormwater line through a
smaller orifice in the tank, which means that not all
of the water that you collect goes out into the
public line and overwhelms the line during heavy rain. And
this is quite common now. So someone I know is
doing a workshop. They wanted to put a water tank

(01:23:51):
in the space between edge of the workshop and the boundary,
and the council came back and said, no, you can't
put a water tank there. Why not, Well because of fire. Okay,
so just let that sit sit with you just for
a second. You can't put something full of water in
the space between a building and the boundary because they're

(01:24:14):
worried about fire. And that was the general response from
the council. So I rang a guy, David, who is
at Bailey Water Tanks and said have you heard about this?
And then there is and he said, yeah, this came up,
but there's been a determination from inby that this is
obviously nonsense. Right, So you can put a water tank

(01:24:37):
there and it can be either a plastic or a
metal tank. But it got me one, there's just such
an absurdity around a council officer saying you can't put
a water tank there because we're worried about fire. But
also it got me into sort of the rabbit hole
of reading determinations from Inby about building disputes. It's quite fascinating.

(01:25:01):
So just quickly, if let's say you're involved with a
building pro reject and it's got a consent and there
is a disagreement around, you know, if your designer has
said this is going to work and council have said no,
we don't think it's going to work, or an individual inspectors,
you can go for a determination. Right If you can't
reach an agreement with discussion, you can go back to
Inby and get a determination. And all of those determinations

(01:25:25):
are available to read. So I read the one about
the water tanks, and then I started reading determinations on
tile showers and a whole lot of other things. I
thought it was quite interesting. But the water tank one, jeers,
we had a bit of a chuckle. We might we
might get some expert opinion on that. But yeah, not

(01:25:45):
putting a water tank in because of fire hard to imagine,
isn't it. Right, Let's rip into it Tom Good morning,
Good morning.

Speaker 2 (01:25:55):
Sir hold On. I've been listening to you often enough.
But building has changed since learning it at certain tech
in nineteen fifties. Yeah, because we did little buildings in
those classrooms, little buildings. Yeah, when I built my house

(01:26:18):
here sixty three years ago, they wanted them to keep
bait feet off the boundary and that was for the
fire truck to go down.

Speaker 6 (01:26:24):
To get down.

Speaker 2 (01:26:25):
Yep, that's what they said there. So I was wondering
if that person who said fire wasn't entirely stupid.

Speaker 6 (01:26:33):
No. No, it's in terms of access to properties. Like
if you're doing a development, you've taken off a house
and you're putting a couple on, there are rules, planning
rules around the width of the driveways and that sort
of thing to get access. There's also rules around that
if you've got a multi story building, even a three
story residential building, what the route is from the furthest

(01:26:55):
destination of the habitable space to the exit. So, if
I think off from the top of my head, if
it's something like seventy six meters, which is the length
of a fire hose, then you don't need to have
internal sprinklers. If it's more than that you might need to.
So look, there's still regulations around fire and there should
be right What I was what flabbergasted me, is this

(01:27:17):
made of mine goes. I said, I wanted to put
a plastic tank, which is absolutely fine in that space,
and they said you can't do it, and the concern
was fire and you just go.

Speaker 10 (01:27:28):
Right now? So what I rung up?

Speaker 3 (01:27:31):
Go?

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
I have a tenth roof and right now I can't
remember what you call them.

Speaker 6 (01:27:37):
Like corrgo dion or long.

Speaker 2 (01:27:38):
Run or no no no no no space put under
a skillion roof skill and that's yeah, eighty five. You
lose words. Now it's jibboard underneath that I'm looking at
now Oregon beans and only two inches above that, I've

(01:28:01):
got cisolation, yes, where the iron is there by the way,
I haven't replaced the iron yet, and I'm going the
way behind now. I was considering the fact that this
fridge here has got only about one in one ince
can I using this one in sinsulation polystyrene And you
can't feel the temperature on our side except we're hitting

(01:28:23):
and the hot water cylinders. Billy Muddin, it's polystyonne insulator too,
and it's perfectly cold on the outside. I'm wondering why
you need so many inches They keep saying add inches
into when they're talking about six or eight inches in
some buildings. So where are we on that right?

Speaker 5 (01:28:46):
Look?

Speaker 6 (01:28:46):
I mean, there are different insulating products out there, and
some of them don't need the space of some of
the you know, conventionally we're talking about insulation, which is
a fiber or a wool or a polyester, and that
relies on a certain depth in order to achieve an
OUR value. There are other insulation products that a more dense,

(01:29:11):
like the foam based or the polyurethane ones, which will
achieve a similar R value, but they don't need as
much space, so they might need three or four inches
to achieve R let's say three, where another product will
need six inches to achieve R three point two. And
you know these are just rough figures, so you're right,
one inch, yeah, I know, But the R value on

(01:29:33):
the freezer when you look at it won't be that high.
And also because it's a completely sealed unit and it's
metal and so on, there'll be a whole lot of
other factors involved that the basic principle is right. So
if you've got not much space, then you might use
a different type of insulation to achieve the R value.

(01:29:54):
I would imagine in your roof as it is at
the moment, with a scillion roof with some if it's
got aluminium foil as an insulator, you know, it's probably
only achieving be less than R one. Ideally. Well, the
code with the schedule method, which hopefully is going to
get ditch, would require you to have six point six

(01:30:15):
if you didn't do some calculation or some model.

Speaker 2 (01:30:19):
Yeah, that's ridiculous, isn't it.

Speaker 6 (01:30:29):
If you were going to replace the roofing, you know,
you could look at adding some insulation if you really
wanted to make it, you know, lots of insulation. You
could increase the depth of the rafters, repitch the roof
and get more insulation, and you could lower the ceiling
and get more insulation in that.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
Than you a little bit of and then but I
insist on the isolation ye commercial buildings long long ago.

Speaker 6 (01:31:00):
If it works for you, Tom, it works for you,
And that's that's lovely. And I really enjoyed the conversation.
We're pretty busy, so I'm going to move on Serena,
Good morning to you.

Speaker 9 (01:31:09):
Hello Serena, Yes, good morning, Good morning morning.

Speaker 15 (01:31:15):
I've just had a new side boundary fence built and
I left it to the next door neighbors to do
the quotes and all that. And when they've built it,
they've actually moved it over to their side by twelve
to fifteen inches, so I've got more property. But I

(01:31:35):
don't want that because it's all in gardens and I
know that I'm not happy about that. But he said,
we've done it on the boundary peg that he said
originally there was no boundary peg, so I don't know whether.

Speaker 6 (01:31:53):
But in the absence of a boundary peg, how do
you know where the boundary is?

Speaker 15 (01:31:59):
That's right, I said to him, riding your mark where
the original posts where and put them next door. If
it wasn't in the same hole, he says, well, it
wouldn't have been straight otherwise. The house is forty nine
years old, and he said it was never built straight
right from the start. I said, yes, it was because

(01:32:20):
I haven't got a husband. Now he passed away, so
I haven't got a mien to a cut from the south.

Speaker 6 (01:32:28):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, look, the fact that the neighbor
has potentially put the fence onto their property and that's
given you a bit of space. I know that there's
a hassle in terms of well, I mean, you could
say to the neighbor, look, the boundary is actually here.
It's fifteen inches inside where your fences. That becomes your

(01:32:49):
area to maintain. That's probably not a conversation that's going
to go well. The other thing is that I you know,
ideally in these situations, if you're replacing a boundary fence,
you should really have the boundary determined, ideally by a surveyor,
so in the absence of any pegs or markings, then
you would get a surveyor in and then typically you

(01:33:11):
try and line the fence up with the boundary, either
straddling it or one of your agrees on which side.
But the fact that they've chosen to do it inside you,
have they asked for a contribution from you?

Speaker 2 (01:33:23):
No, I haven't.

Speaker 15 (01:33:24):
We were doing habs, but I haven't paid anything. He
hasn't asked me to anything or signed anything.

Speaker 6 (01:33:32):
Unless they've done it in accordance with the Fencing Act,
you may not necessarily need to pay. You may choose
to pay, which is up to you. Maybe you're just
going to take advantage of the fact that they've done
a new fence. You haven't paid for it. You've got
a little bit more space, and yes, it's a bit
of work, but that might be I suppose that the
thing would be is if you ever go to sell

(01:33:54):
in the future, that you would want to make it
absolutely clear to a potential purchaser that while that looks
like that's part of my property, it's not. And the
boundary might actually boundary fence might be in the wrong place.
But otherwise it's yeah, it's a bit more work for you,
but it might actually be a bit of an advantage,
or you could see it that way. Good luck, Serena.

(01:34:15):
It is eighteen minutes after eight. We are going to
take short break. We'll be back with Graham straight after the.

Speaker 1 (01:34:20):
Break doing of the house sorting the garden. Asked Pete
for a hand the resident builder with Peter wolfcap call
eight hundred eight US dogs eNB.

Speaker 6 (01:34:31):
Some festinating texts coming on my comments about the water
tank and the proximity to the boundary and the fact
that this person had been was told that it couldn't
be located between a building which was a meter from
the boundary and the boundary this was for stormwater management
and potentially for reuse because of fire. I mean, I

(01:34:52):
get that there are rules around where you can play
certain types of structures. A couple of people of text
through that. You know, a plastic tank close to the
boundary was classed as a building. The determination from MBY
has said, you know, it's clearly not building, and also
it's risk in terms of fire is very small. Some
people have said, oh, look I've seen a tank that

(01:35:13):
got struck by lightning and sort of exploded. Well, that'll
happen in an incredibly rare chance. But in terms of
you know, is it going to burn, well, No, it's
full of water hopefully until it's dry. Even then it
ain't going to burn very well. Twenty two minutes after
eight and A Graham Good morning.

Speaker 10 (01:35:32):
Oh, good morning, Pete. Just a question.

Speaker 13 (01:35:35):
We're having some home alterations done. Architectorn plans, consent is
all approved. I've gone out to three LBPS, and I
just want to know how to read the quotes, whether
a quote or is the same as an estimate, and
watch my guarantee. They might say it's going to take
two thousand hours, but it might end up both to
twy two hundred what guarantee or who should I go

(01:35:58):
to for advice on how to read these?

Speaker 6 (01:36:02):
Well, if you were sitting at the workshop that I
was at yesterday listening to the Quantity Serve, the Quantity
Survey would probably say you should come to me for
that sort of advice. Right, this is their specialty. So
you know, you've got a set of plans, you've got
a scope of works, so you can say this is
what I want you to do. Within that, you could

(01:36:23):
list all of the things that you want them to price. So,
for example, will you manage your subcontractors in terms of
electrical or plumbing and painting and those sorts of things,
or do you want the main contractor to provide pricing
for all of those elements. So you'd want to be
very clear around the scope of the work, the number

(01:36:44):
of contractors subcontractors that the main contractor will employ. And
then yes, if let's say it's a job of several months,
are you asking the main contractor to provide you with
a fixed quote for labor or are you happy to
do that on a charge up basis? Right, so a

(01:37:05):
cost plus basis on the basis that you agree to
a certain number of hours, right, so you're protecting yourself,
and yet it gives some flexibility to the contractor, particularly
with renovations right where you know, maybe they'll uncover something
that they're not expecting, or perhaps they lift the floor

(01:37:26):
and discover that the joys are in poor condition and
they need to be replaced. Now, if they've done a
fixed price contract, they would need to come back to
you and say this is a variation. You need to
agree to the variation, they need to price it and
then the work can continue. Or if it's a charge
up basis, then you could say the contractor could say,

(01:37:49):
I think it's going to take three men six months
to do the job, and if you're still got guys
on site in seven months, you could be saying why
is it taking so long? If they happen to finish
in five months, do you get a discount? You know
you're not paying for them. But it then raises issues
about you know, when do they arrive on site, how

(01:38:10):
long do they have for lunch? When did they leave?
Are the same number of guys on site every day?
These things tend to get a bit complicated. So the
other person who might be able to advise you on
this is. Some architects will do supervision of the project.
They often do that for a fee, but at least

(01:38:32):
you'll get a professional sort of opinion as to how
long it should take. In some cases the architects will
approve the invoices, right, but there will again, I know
architects who do this, but typically it's a fee of
you know, somewhere between seven and ten percent of the
build cost. Yeah, exactly. There is not actually one answer

(01:38:58):
to your question. That's why I'm not being vague. I'm
just saying there are so many ways of doing that.
I've got friends who are doing a renovation. At the
moment they've contracted builder. The builder is effectively on a
charge up basis, but has given them an idea of
how long they think it should take. So I guess,
you know, if it's and when I had Cruise working,

(01:39:18):
I would do it. I would often do my renovations
on exactly that basis. I've worked out a schedule. I
think that it's going to take four of us this
long to do the job, and you know, hopefully the
person is honest and realistic. They're not saying they'll do
it in three months, knowing that it's a four months job,
and you end up paying a lot of extra labor.

(01:39:43):
You could manage the subcontractors, but then you become responsible
for any delays. Right if you're managing the plumber, for example,
because you know someone who's a plumber and they don't
turn up then and the builders ready to line the wall,
but the plumber hasn't turned up on time, then the
builder is going to come back to you and go, well,
my guys are sitting here waiting for someone that you

(01:40:04):
should have organized. They're not here. We're charging you for
this time, but we're not doing anything. You know, there's
just not a straight answer.

Speaker 16 (01:40:14):
No exactly no, And I'm not trying to be difficult,
it's just it does get complicated, particularly you know, if
it's a you're doing a deck, right, deck is two
weeks work for an average deck.

Speaker 6 (01:40:25):
You can kind of ring fence that. But you know,
we're knocking off a part of the building, we're going
to add on, We're going to make some small changes
to other parts of the house. It might the access
might be difficult. All of these things come into play
in terms of pricing a job.

Speaker 13 (01:40:42):
And I think also The other thing that I would
probably believe is that it's whatever the quoted figure is,
it's going to be more than that, and.

Speaker 6 (01:40:51):
I think it's wise to have a contingency.

Speaker 10 (01:40:53):
Yeah, exactly, Well, a quantity We did get a quantity
survey of price before we put it out to tender
to three daughters, and they're coming in. But you know,
the two that we've got already at different prices and
this one more to come. So yeah, that's fine.

Speaker 9 (01:41:08):
Given that you've.

Speaker 6 (01:41:09):
Already engaged with the quantity surveyor who is obviously familiar
with the plans, I think it's possibly good money to
spend to pay the fee for the quantity surveyor to
assess the quotes. Right, they'll be able to go through
and go yep. All of these things are included. And
it was part of the discussion yesterday is you know

(01:41:30):
where what you don't want to see when you're a client,
as someone gives you a quote, but there's lots of
PC sums in there, or there's lots of you know,
provisional sums in there for something that everyone knows what
has to be done. Most things should be able to
be priced accurately and a QS will be able to tell.

Speaker 10 (01:41:50):
You that much appreciated. Pete.

Speaker 6 (01:41:53):
Lovely to chat with you, and good luck with the build,
and I hope it goes well, because when they go well,
they're great. All the very best, you take care, all
the fantastic conversation. Actually with this, you know, it seems
like a relatively simple question, but it's not. It gets
really complicated right out. We're going to jump into the

(01:42:14):
garden red kline passed coming up straight after the break.

Speaker 1 (01:42:18):
Whether you're painting the ceiling, fixing the fence, or wondering
how to fix that hole in the wall, give Peter
wolf Camp a call on eight eighty The Resident Builder
on News Talks EDB. For more from The Resident Builder
with Peter Wolfcamp, listen live to News Talks EDB on
Sunday mornings from six, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.

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