nz housing is on the slippery slope of failure.

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192 posts

Master Geek
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#3302954 30-Oct-2024 04:42

tweake:

Remember that subdivision the council bought out because it was all screwed up, that wouldn't happen. People would have to fight it out in court and the companies involved would simply close and walk away. Well most likely start up again under a different name. No council buy out, the homeowners gets screwed over big time.

I assume you mean the Bella Vista subdivision in Tauranga.

I bet the ratepayers were stoked.

sen8or

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#3303041 30-Oct-2024 10:56

Some trades can self-certify their own work (sparkies) and there is a board that oversees electrical compliance and deals with complaints etc, I guess this is the industry trying to expand on that.

We have built 3 homes over the years, in each one I have thought the council inspection was a good thing. I'm no builder and wouldn't even know where to begin to quality check the construction aspect of a build. The council's inspection gave me a level of comfort. If it were down to an independent board or other governing body to police the compliance checks, sort of okay I guess, but the devil would be in the details. What powers does the board have to not only hold to account the builders for their workmanship, but also to get things rectified.

This is one area where a bit of Govt (local or otherwise) intervention is a good thing, too important to peoples financial stability / wealth to let the foxes design, build and certify the chicken coops

Bung

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#3303092 30-Oct-2024 11:32

Council inspection may give you a false level of comfort but all the faulty buildings have been inspected. You can't work on a system of building and routinely inspecting out mistakes. No inspection checks everything.

scuwp

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#3303126 30-Oct-2024 12:14

Council inspections didn't work so well when we were building leaky homes left, right, and center. As the saying goes - you can't keep doing the same thing and expect different results. Managed correctly with the proper accreditation and indemnity cover I think it's a good idea. Many builders are far more experienced and qualified than the council inspectors, it's a bit of a joke. Great to see some progressive thinking for a change.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

mattwnz

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#3303207 30-Oct-2024 15:16

sen8or:

Some trades can self-certify their own work (sparkies) and there is a board that oversees electrical compliance and deals with complaints etc, I guess this is the industry trying to expand on that.

We have built 3 homes over the years, in each one I have thought the council inspection was a good thing. I'm no builder and wouldn't even know where to begin to quality check the construction aspect of a build. The council's inspection gave me a level of comfort. If it were down to an independent board or other governing body to police the compliance checks, sort of okay I guess, but the devil would be in the details. What powers does the board have to not only hold to account the builders for their workmanship, but also to get things rectified.

This is one area where a bit of Govt (local or otherwise) intervention is a good thing, too important to peoples financial stability / wealth to let the foxes design, build and certify the chicken coops

But how do you know if a sparky has done everything correctly?

fastbike

447 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#3303312 30-Oct-2024 17:31

mattwnz:

But how do you know if a sparky has done everything correctly?

There is a provision to allow home owners to do some low risk electrical work (via ECP51), much of which will then need to be checked by a registered electrical worker before being connected to the home's "installation".

There is also certain electrical work that is classified as "prescribed electrical work" which can only be done by a registered electrical worker aka electrician who can also issue a certificate of compliance.

Finally, there is electrical work which is classified as "high risk" - this needs the CoC, and also needs an independent electrical inspector to issue a "Record of Inspection (ROI)".

This is more rigorous than what the govt has in mind for builders.

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Bung

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#3303315 30-Oct-2024 17:37

The building version of high risk is probably specified design requiring a registered engineer to be involved.

tweake

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#3303367 30-Oct-2024 17:58

MikeFly:

I assume you mean the Bella Vista subdivision in Tauranga.

I bet the ratepayers were stoked.

thats the one i was thinking of.

can you imagen if it was a private company regulating all that. it would simply fold, walk away and disappear. the home owners would be stuck with that mess.

fastbike

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Ultimate Geek
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#3303368 30-Oct-2024 17:59

Bung: The building version of high risk is probably specified design requiring a registered engineer to be involved.

Really ? Tell that to people who used EIFS on an otherwise bog standard house.

The problem is this change is being driven by political philosophy rather than common sense. If the issue is councils taking too long to do inspections then deal with that issue rather than allowing fly by night franchise owners to duck behind limited liability companies "when" the shit hist the fan.

Houses built after this hare brained change comes in will be harder to move as bank and insurance companies assess the extra risk.

Otautahi Christchurch

tweake

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#3303369 30-Oct-2024 18:09

scuwp:

Council inspections didn't work so well when we were building leaky homes left, right, and center. As the saying goes - you can't keep doing the same thing and expect different results. Managed correctly with the proper accreditation and indemnity cover I think it's a good idea. Many builders are far more experienced and qualified than the council inspectors, it's a bit of a joke. Great to see some progressive thinking for a change.

part of the leaky homes saga was where the councils got their information from, which was the building industry. the industry wanted to make those houses. they told the councils what they wanted so they could do it. they made the rules to suit themselves. it was a classic case of fox guarding the hen house.

its a good example i what call "industry rot". the building industry was rotten, it was doing bad building and thinking it was good. that tends to happen when you self regulate and have no accountability.

tweake

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#3303394 30-Oct-2024 20:19

just watching the saga of cy inspections on social media. i havn't got the final bit in full yet (the hearing was today) but it sounds like hes "not guilty" of the frivolous claims from one of usa big builders who has been trying to shut him up. as he keeps exposing the shonky work being done and that other inspectors have passed it. many inspectors have been doing eyes shut inspections to keep companies happy.

the companies and "their" inspectors flog off crap work even on multi million dollar homes and talk bs to get out of warranty claims, costing home owners huge repair costs.

looks like thats coming to nz soon.

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sen8or

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#3303488 31-Oct-2024 07:57

mattwnz:

But how do you know if a sparky has done everything correctly?

No one dies from incorrect earthing and the house doesn't burn down in an electrical fire :)

As per another poster though, there are checks and balances for particular works. When I was involved in the electrical trade (from an office / accounts perspective, not on the tools), our electricians were fiercely protective of their license and wouldn't put their number to a COC that they hadn't been involved with, whether that was a simple house job or complex commercial installation. No one wanted to be held accountable for someone elses work.

The risks associated with incorrect electrical work is probably more immediate than shoddy workmanship on a build, who knows how long building quality shortfalls take to rear their ugly head and by the time they do, builders and licensed private inspectors who signed it off could be long gone.

As I said in my post, the devil will be in the details and who or what governs the inspectors that certify work.

Blurtie

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Ultimate Geek
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#3303511 31-Oct-2024 09:07

Does anyone know when this system will be put in place? The linked article mentions that detailed policy details will be released in the new year. We're currently in the design phase of a build - almost ready to submit plans for BC, so I'm guessing it'll impact our build...

Senecio

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#3303563 31-Oct-2024 09:27

We recently bought a house that was only built in 2021. We were provided with almost 1,500 pages of PDFs that detailed every council inspection completed on the house over the ~9 month build period. My god, I could understand how frustrating that process would be if you were trying to build, but as the current owner of that house I'm glad that every one of those inspections were carried out. This place was built by one of the 4 largest residential builders in NZ so not some fly by night builder. Not one of those council inspections were passed on their first inspection. Every single one of them required some kind of rectification before the council inspector would sign it off. Sometimes it was minor, sometimes requiring more work to rectify. Those PDF's contain before and after photos of all remedial work performed to pass inspection.

I for one am grateful that the current inspection process is in place and would not like to see it change.

wellygary

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#3303590 31-Oct-2024 09:59

Blurtie:

Does anyone know when this system will be put in place? The linked article mentions that detailed policy details will be released in the new year. We're currently in the design phase of a build - almost ready to submit plans for BC, so I'm guessing it'll impact our build...

Only if you want it to...

Its "opt-in", so the current system continues, its just there will be alternate path available

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/trusted-building-professionals-able-self-certify

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