Latest / Best of Business / Malcolm Fleming: New Zealand Certified Builders Association CEO on the Government's proposed changes to insulation standards

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Malcolm Fleming: New Zealand Certified Builders Association CEO on the Government's proposed changes to insulation standards · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk Z'B. Follow this
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  Speaker 2: The government has decided not to roll back the new
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  Speaker 2: insulation standards that were introduced last year. The Construction Minister,
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  Speaker 2: Chris Penk organized a review of the H one standards
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  Speaker 2: after reports that they made building a new house cost
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  Speaker 2: forty to fifty thousand dollars more. But there was a
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  Speaker 2: backlash from the industry and now the Minister is going
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  Speaker 2: to keep the standards but make some changes to them.
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  Speaker 2: The changes are going out for public consultation. Malcolm Fleming
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  Speaker 2: is the chief executive of Certified Abilities with me now,
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  Speaker 2: good evening.
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  Speaker 3: Fighting me on to your show not a problem.
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  Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to have you here. Are you pleased
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  Speaker 2: with this outcome not dropping the standards altogether.
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  Speaker 3: Yes we are, and he's introduced The Minister is introduced
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  Speaker 3: a change in terms of eliminating the availability of what
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  Speaker 3: they call incheduling method to assess the installation and available
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  Speaker 3: in the house and that changes been well with signals.
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  Speaker 3: It signaled and presents a sensible solution and demonstrates that
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  Speaker 3: the Minister has listened to the industry on this matter.
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  Speaker 2: Did he get it wrong initially when he said, you
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  Speaker 2: know it was it was forty to fifty grand per house.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're advocating strongly to the Minister that that sort
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  Speaker 3: of level of cost was a little bit over blind
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  Speaker 3: and to demonstrate that, we surveyed a membership base, but
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  Speaker 3: we also did a case study with a new ENDEDCB
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  Speaker 3: Design studios and when using the more sophisticated calculation method,
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  Speaker 3: which you're going to have to either use that or
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  Speaker 3: even more sophisticated modeling method going forward, it demonstrated that
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  Speaker 3: the costs impact on a new home, a standard sized
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  Speaker 3: home were pretty minimal. The minister's officials did the same
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  Speaker 3: sort of numbers and came up the same scenerisum.
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  Speaker 2: Right, And when you're talking about just for those who
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  Speaker 2: aren't in the know, when you're talking about the modeling
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  Speaker 2: method that you're now going to be able to use
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  Speaker 2: that enables designers to adjust the things, adjust the insulation
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  Speaker 2: levels to things like walls and ceilings and underfloor, et cetera.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so's there's been three types that you can use.
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  Speaker 3: The now defunct schedule method which uses a table that
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  Speaker 3: was described. I think they may well described, but I
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  Speaker 3: see in the Minister's also described as a blunt instrument,
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  Speaker 3: which it is that's no longer available going forward. So
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  Speaker 3: the more sophisticated methods, which are calculation which is an
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  Speaker 3: online calculator method, or the modern method which is descript
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  Speaker 3: is software. Both of those are more sophisticated. They drive
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  Speaker 3: down the cost. They provide the designer and the build
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  Speaker 3: with greater handsability as.
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  Speaker 2: Well, so it's more targeted. Essentially, it's more bespoke for
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  Speaker 2: each house and therefore you're not potentially ramming insulation into
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  Speaker 2: a house that doesn't need.
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  Speaker 3: The best way to describe it at both those more
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  Speaker 3: sophisticated methods which we now need to use look at
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  Speaker 3: the house holistically, the whole house and its entirety, rather
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  Speaker 3: than elevation or material singularly, and that's the big difference,
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  Speaker 3: and it drives down costs when you use those right.
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  Speaker 2: The bigger problem here, of course, for the rest of
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  Speaker 2: us who are maybe trying to renovate or maybe trying
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  Speaker 2: to build, is that the price of building a house
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  Speaker 2: has gone up. I think the must have said over
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  Speaker 2: the last couple of years, what do we do about that?
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  Speaker 3: We need to drive down the cost of building, and
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  Speaker 3: there's there a number of ways of doing that. The
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  Speaker 3: government's tackled some of that. We're heading some headlines recently
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  Speaker 3: with looking to utilize building products from overseas and they
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  Speaker 3: are looking at from trusted jurisdictions. That's not the single answer,
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  Speaker 3: but it's part of the suite of options that they're
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  Speaker 3: looking at. They're also doing quite a lot of work
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  Speaker 3: in the compliance cutting area as well and putting streamlining
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  Speaker 3: the process which requires the buildings and designers to pick
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  Speaker 3: up some more of that risk. So those are being
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  Speaker 3: consulted with currently and as a suite of package could
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  Speaker 3: well lead to some cost savings. We agree with the
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  Speaker 3: Minister that the price of building in New Zealand is
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  Speaker 3: too high and we're determined to do something about it.
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  Speaker 2: You'll submit on these consultations on the changes, presumably, is
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  Speaker 2: there anything in there that you would like to you
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  Speaker 2: know that you will that you will submit to amend.
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  Speaker 3: In terms of these particular.
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  Speaker 2: H one changes.
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  Speaker 3: No, we're pretty happy with where we're lunded with H one.
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  Speaker 2: So basically, he came out, he said something outrageous, You responded,
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  Speaker 2: He listened. Everyone's happy.
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  Speaker 3: It's pretty much a good summary. We're lot forul of
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  Speaker 3: the submission in terms of the detail, but as the outline,
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  Speaker 3: the board brush outline it has been proposed, demonstrates that
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  Speaker 3: he has in theed listened and that industry would be
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  Speaker 3: supportive of this change.
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  Speaker 2: Malcolm Fleming, Chief Executive Certified Builders, thank you very much
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  Speaker 2: for your time. It is just gone, which I begs
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  Speaker 2: the question, I mean, was it worth it in the
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  Speaker 2: first place? We have saved ourselves all of this time
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  Speaker 2: and energy and effort. I suppose at least there was
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  Speaker 2: a change, and as Malcolm outline, there was a change
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  Speaker 2: going from the more prescriptive scheduling method which I didn't
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  Speaker 2: know about before this whole issue came up, to the
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  Speaker 2: modeling or to the calculation method. So there you go,
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  Speaker 2: things you didn't know about building the intricacies of building
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  Speaker 2: a house.
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