nz housing is on the slippery slope of failure.

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#3304263 2-Nov-2024 10:08

fastbike:

we had decent plans,

its probably a case of the plans matched the builders practice.

one of the big issues in a lot of trades is the lack of training as new tech, materials, systems, etc come in. they learn once and thats all they ever do. so plans can vary a lot from what they actually do in practice. which is usually why things get missed. some industries are good in that they do compulsory retraining, but afaik building does not.

tweake

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#3342988 14-Feb-2025 20:26

Building consent reforms

"Warranty-based organisations that drive responses and learn from defects are best."

yet another push from the building industry to scam kiwi home owners.

they fail to mention that warranty based setups overseas are a disaster. 10min on social media will give you tons of horror stories. warranty companies refuse to pay out or push for repairs as thats in their best interest. private inspectors work for the builders so they miss the defects, and they all can run or dissolve when things go bad leaving the home owner to foot the repair bill.

the reason councils works well is because councils can't run or dissolve, so its in their best interest to make sure your home is built well.

the insulting thing about this article is they are trying to make out that its a good thing.

fastbike

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#3343066 14-Feb-2025 22:24

tweake:

Building consent reforms

"Warranty-based organisations that drive responses and learn from defects are best."

yet another push from the building industry to scam kiwi home owners.

they fail to mention that warranty based setups overseas are a disaster. 10min on social media will give you tons of horror stories. warranty companies refuse to pay out or push for repairs as thats in their best interest. private inspectors work for the builders so they miss the defects, and they all can run or dissolve when things go bad leaving the home owner to foot the repair bill.

the reason councils works well is because councils can't run or dissolve, so its in their best interest to make sure your home is built well.

the insulting thing about this article is they are trying to make out that its a good thing.

I'm at the shitty end of a horror story of trying to get EQC to honour their policy on a 2011 Chch EQ repair. They sent in a Fletcher sponsored cowboy that failed to fix foundation damage which EQC have finally admitted should have been repaired back as part of the original scope of repairs done in2013. 12 years later I'm left with project managing getting quotes from a new contractor to cost the full repairs - on top of my demanding day job. And I've not even got to the actual repairs.

And the government says just trust these cowboys to do the right thing. Private insurers will have even less incentive to make sure that the policy holder is left "whole" after a predictable clusterfarek that will ensue when we get self regulation.

Otautahi Christchurch

tweake

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#3343106 15-Feb-2025 09:51

chch is probably a good example. how many homes had quick and dirty repairs done, then sold off to unsuspecting buyers ?? some hit the news years back where the next owner was getting them repaired by eqc due to the dodgy work that was originally done.

if building industry gets their way, all new builds will be like that and the value will plummet. once things go bad those homes will be like efis house, bottom dollar if you can even get the bank to lend on them.

tweake

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#3356647 23-Mar-2025 20:34

it seams the building industry is having another go at this.

tv1 news this evening ran a story. northland councilor wanting northland to have a different climate zone so they can have single glazing, less insulation etc and make slightly cheaper but worse homes, because their homes "are to hot".

really interesting to see a builder being interviewed complaining about window cost yet he was standing in front of an entire wall made of windows. here is a hint, don't install so many windows. less windows is cheaper, keeps the house cooler and gives higher insulation.

at least they interviewed a building science guy about lowering the h1 standard who basically said "thats not how insulation works".

northland councilor basically tried to blame new house build prices for people living in sheds or cars etc. that somehow making it slightly cheaper would somehow benefit the poor. looks like someone got sucked in or has other interests. i can guarantee slightly cheaper homes will not make any difference to the poor one little bit.

it looks like building industry is still pushing the misinformation about insulation in a vain attempt to increase profit.

mattwnz

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#3356770 23-Mar-2025 23:28

The thing is the high cost of building in NZ is due to NZers overpaying for materials due to a range of factors including a lack of competition. It is as bad., if not worse than the supermarket sector imo. But no one seems to be doing much about it. Extra insulation is a small cost over the life time of a building compared to the energy saved and the health benefits. But the fact is that many low income people that would benefit from the better standards are living in substandard rentals that don’t need to meet those standards

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fastbike

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#3356785 24-Mar-2025 06:13

mattwnz:

But the fact is that many low income people that would benefit from the better standards are living in substandard rentals that don’t need to meet those standards

It's actually worse - I could afford to live in a poorly insulated rented house which I could make comfortable by incurring a high power bill. People on low incomes do not have that choice.

A a relatively wealthy home owner I have a well insulated house with solar panels, so have exactly the opposite situation: comfort with a negative power bill. Because I got lucky: came of age when education was free, houses were cheap and caught a lucky break on my OE. As well as issues with the building sector we have structural inequity which forces people into renting, which is already biting us, as a society, in the rear.

Otautahi Christchurch

tweake

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#3356912 24-Mar-2025 15:23

mattwnz:

The thing is the high cost of building in NZ is due to NZers overpaying for materials due to a range of factors including a lack of competition. It is as bad., if not worse than the supermarket sector imo. But no one seems to be doing much about it. Extra insulation is a small cost over the life time of a building compared to the energy saved and the health benefits. But the fact is that many low income people that would benefit from the better standards are living in substandard rentals that don’t need to meet those standards

and what do people do when cost go up, the house size comes down. there is certain companies that if you make all houses 10% smaller they loose 10% of sales. so its in their best interests for people to build bigger homes with less "extras" (things they don't sell) like insulation.

however i suspect this is more being pushed by building companies because we have gone from a boom to a bust,. now they have to much labor, materials etc and are sitting on new homes they can't sell for profit. the word on the grapevine is that there is big building companies who are not paying their contractors/staff at the moment.

k1w1k1d

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#3356919 24-Mar-2025 15:56

A properly designed and built house with insulation should not overheat. Huge windows and no eaves will cause a house to overheat.

mattwnz

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#3356928 24-Mar-2025 16:31

k1w1k1d:

A properly designed and built house with insulation should not overheat. Huge windows and no eaves will cause a house to overheat.

Also you will see than many new houses have black metal roofs and cladding. Black absorbs the heat. Often this design requirement is on the covenants of new developments as well. If houses are designed for the site and include solar shading , they shouldn't overheat. Increased insulation standards are a total red herring.

neb

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#3356950 24-Mar-2025 17:23

k1w1k1d:

A properly designed and built house with insulation should not overheat. Huge windows

with stays to prevent them from opening or openings that are just tiny slits in order to not affect the R-values

and no eaves will cause a house to overheat.

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neb

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#3356952 24-Mar-2025 17:26

mattwnz: Also you will see than many new houses have black metal roofs and cladding. Black absorbs the heat.

Yup, there's a block of dogboxes not far from here that are black plastic cladding, a black or close to it (e.g. Karaka) roof, no eaves, and mostly non-opening windows, which really only have one feature to them, you can leave a few loaf pans of dough on the living room table when you leave for work and have freshly-baked bread ready when you get home.

tweake

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#3356954 24-Mar-2025 17:42

neb:

with stays to prevent them from opening or openings that are just tiny slits in order to not affect the R-values.........and mostly non-opening windows

thats actually a bit of red hearing in itself.

the old "north facing windows and opening windows to create draft through the house" is really old fashion and doesn't apply to modern housing. it was fine up to the 70's but not relevant since insulation was invented.

this is actually part of todays issue. customers want huge amounts of solar gain, which results in hot houses, and designers don't have any means of push back. ie designers give the customer what they want even tho its bad, because if they push back the customers will just go to the next guy. if there is a standard then govt becomes the bad guy not the designer. it was something that was missed in the new standard.

unfortunately kiwis are really in love with indoor/outdoor flow, even tho it makes for terrible housing. it also doesn't help that most kiwis don't know what good housing is, they are just so used to bad housing.

the fix is to put in a standard. however thats going to upset a lot of kiwis because they won't get the terrible designs they love so much.

lxsw20

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#3356956 24-Mar-2025 17:52

I thought no eves died a death after leaky building became a thing, obviously not.

SomeoneSomewhere

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#3356967 24-Mar-2025 19:21

Nah, plenty of new builds still have tiny or <300mm eaves.

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