Latest / That Home Loan Hub / What Does “Weathertight” Really Cost In New Zealand?
Transcript
- 0:10SPEAKER_00: So I've got Evan back.
- 0:11SPEAKER_00: He's a building inspector.
- 0:13SPEAKER_00: And this week he's been very, very busy.
- 0:14SPEAKER_00: He's he's just told me he's done over twelve inspections this week.
- 0:18SPEAKER_00: Hello, Evan.
- 0:18SPEAKER_01: Hi, how's it going?
- 0:19SPEAKER_00: Good.
- 0:20SPEAKER_00: Twelve inspections in one week.
- 0:21SPEAKER_00: That's a lot.
- 0:22SPEAKER_01: Twelve inspections in three days.
- 0:24SPEAKER_00: Oh, hold on.
- 0:24SPEAKER_00: In three days.
- 0:26SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's a lot of exercise for you.
- 0:28SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
- 0:28SPEAKER_01: Yep.
- 0:29SPEAKER_00: Okay, what's the common theme that you're seeing at the moment?
- 0:32SPEAKER_01: So this week has been mainly focused on maintenance reports.
- 0:35SPEAKER_01: So one of the inspections that I did on Monday, it's for a beachfront property in Waikanae.
- 0:44SPEAKER_01: And the vendors passed away and it's getting inherited by the three daughters.
- 0:52SPEAKER_01: And they essentially needed to know what the condition of the house was.
- 0:59SPEAKER_01: They also a valuer came in and valued it quite high.
- 1:06SPEAKER_01: And that's when they got a builder to come through, have a look, and they were like, it's it really needs a reclad, new joinery, a bunch of a bunch of work.
- 1:19SPEAKER_01: But he wasn't willing to put anything in writing because he's not qualified to do so.
- 1:24SPEAKER_01: So that's when they engaged me, went in and pretty much confirmed what the builder said, but really detailed what areas were the problematic issues.
- 1:36SPEAKER_01: So this beachfront property was a cedar clad.
- 1:41SPEAKER_01: So I think we talked about a little bit about last time.
- 1:44SPEAKER_00: Last time about the cedar, but for those that don't haven't listened to that one or don't remember, do you just want to quickly brush over the cedar cladding?
- 1:51SPEAKER_01: So cedar cladding's great.
- 2:04SPEAKER_01: So this one here was an older style uh cedar cladding, which is shiplap.
- 2:09SPEAKER_01: So instead of like bevel back weatherboards or vertical shiplap, which is pretty common for building products nowadays.
- 2:18SPEAKER_01: This one it has like a flush profile finish.
- 2:22SPEAKER_01: And so when you look up the side of a building, you can literally just see all the bottoms just warping, and you can see gaps up underneath the cladding.
- 2:34SPEAKER_01: When it's not too advanced, you can actually nail those back down and you can seal them.
- 2:40SPEAKER_01: But this one here, I pushed on some and they just split uh and broke.
- 2:44SPEAKER_01: So the northern, eastern, and southern faces were just completely cooked, essentially.
- 2:52SPEAKER_01: The only the only good side was the western face, which is usually one of the more exposed ones, and especially being on a beachfront.
- 3:02SPEAKER_01: However, it had a wraparound veranda deck, so it was completely enclosed with the normal kind of elements.
- 3:09SPEAKER_01: You could see a little bit of weathering and stuff to the bottom edge right next to the deck, but other than that, it was pretty good on the western face.
- 3:16SPEAKER_00: Wow.
- 3:17SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you gave them a plan.
- 3:20SPEAKER_00: Well, you give them a report.
- 3:21SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 3:22SPEAKER_00: A maintenance report.
- 3:23SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 3:23SPEAKER_00: And now they can take that report back to the builders and get quotes.
- 3:27SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 3:27SPEAKER_00: And then decide whether they want to fully renovate and sell.
- 3:30SPEAKER_00: Because I guess in that state, it won't really sell it that much.
- 3:33SPEAKER_01: Because I don't think the intent is to sell for that one.
- 3:36SPEAKER_01: They're they they want to keep the property, whether or not I guess the it was clarity on what would be required if they were to re-clad and you know do all new joinery, or do they bold the house and and build something new on it?
- 3:54SPEAKER_01: Because the location is incredible.
- 3:57SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 3:59SPEAKER_00: Okay.
- 3:59SPEAKER_00: So was those sort of reports like I understand usually the vendors or order them or the buyers, but in this case it's the kids that inherited the house.
- 4:08SPEAKER_00: It's okay for them to order as well.
- 4:10SPEAKER_01: Yep, 100%.
- 4:11SPEAKER_00: Okay.
- 4:12SPEAKER_00: I guess they're the new owners?
- 4:14SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 4:14SPEAKER_00: I don't know how it was their stake.
- 4:16SPEAKER_01: I'm not too sure, you know, on the other hand.
- 4:18SPEAKER_00: But someone can just give you a call and be like, hey, come on over, do the maintenance report.
- 4:21SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 4:22SPEAKER_00: So how is maintenance report different to the builder's report?
- 4:25SPEAKER_01: So the way that I write my builders' reports is I do include a lot of the maintenance issues.
- 4:32SPEAKER_01: This one really focused on weather tightness and what it's going to entail to get the house back to being weathertight, and you know, when there's cupping holes to the cladding, splits, rotten joinery where you can just poke your finger into it.
- 4:54SPEAKER_01: And then I did thermal imaging on the inside as well, which clearly showed areas where moisture was holding.
- 5:02SPEAKER_00: That would be an expensive exercise for them.
- 5:05SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I ballpark figure.
- 5:08SPEAKER_01: He he actually was pretty close to the the money, the husband of one of the daughters.
- 5:14SPEAKER_01: He's he's a Sparky, so he's in the trade.
- 5:16SPEAKER_01: He kind of had a figure of around about 300.
- 5:20SPEAKER_00: I was about to say 300 to 400.
- 5:21SPEAKER_01: I said, yeah, it could depending on if you have to go through consent and if you can do the direct fix where the boards again is, I think, zoned to be able to do direct fix.
- 5:34SPEAKER_01: If it was one wind area higher, if it was extra high, then I don't think you're allowed to.
- 5:44SPEAKER_01: Uh, I'd have to double check that.
- 5:46SPEAKER_01: But yeah, putting in a new cavity definitely means you have to replace all the joinery.
- 5:52SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 5:52SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of scaffolding and you know, painting and all that jazz.
- 5:56SPEAKER_01: It it could be, you know, anywhere from 250 all the way up to 600k.
- 6:01SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
- 6:02SPEAKER_00: You know, it would be really cool to like fast forward us into the future 30 years later, and you put like a little thing onto the house, you press a button, and it automatically just goes and like covers covers the whole house and the cladding.
- 6:15SPEAKER_00: How cool would that be?
- 6:16SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you'd um you'd put a lot of builders out of a job if you well, there you go, guys, for those that aren't in tech and building expertise, you know, think of something that you can just like press a button and it just goes.
- 6:29SPEAKER_00: That's my new um voice effect.
- 6:30SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
- 6:31SPEAKER_00: But awesome.
- 6:32SPEAKER_00: So, how fast can you turn around those reports?
- 6:34SPEAKER_00: Because I mean, if you've done 12 in three days, you'd be like off your feet.
- 6:38SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 6:38SPEAKER_01: So I mean wait.
- 6:40SPEAKER_01: I was I was working until probably like nine or ten last night.
- 6:43SPEAKER_01: I sent it out last night.
- 6:45SPEAKER_01: Um, two days.
- 6:47SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 48 hours for that one.
- 6:48SPEAKER_00: Wow.
- 6:49SPEAKER_01: If if I wait too long, then all of a sudden it's just a snowball effect.
- 6:54SPEAKER_01: I I really have to keep on top of it, and it's fine.
- 6:57SPEAKER_01: The majority of my inspections this week, they're smaller units, and it's for a it's for a development company.
- 7:06SPEAKER_01: So I've been working with them, uh working with some subtrades to get just generalized estimates and yeah, mainly just focusing on the maintenance side of things if they're healthy homes compliant and what the costs to get it to healthy homes compliant or just the general maintenance.
- 7:27SPEAKER_00: Do you do the healthy homes sign-offs as well?
- 7:30SPEAKER_00: Yep.
- 7:30SPEAKER_00: You do that.
- 7:30SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 7:31SPEAKER_01: Okay.
- 7:31SPEAKER_00: Good to know.
- 7:32SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 7:32SPEAKER_00: All right.
- 7:33SPEAKER_00: Well, awesome.
- 7:33SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Evan, for sharing that story.
- 7:35SPEAKER_00: I think that's quite important for people to remember that you know, whether you buy, whether you inherit something, you can get a check on that as well.
- 7:44SPEAKER_00: Just a pulse check to see what's the investment like and um what what do you need to put up with.
- 7:49SPEAKER_00: Because you can't just ignore it.
- 7:50SPEAKER_00: Like you've got the house now.
- 7:52SPEAKER_00: You've got to do something about it.
- 7:53SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
- 7:53SPEAKER_00: And the longer you ignore it, the worse it's gonna get.
- 7:55SPEAKER_00: Yep.
- 7:56SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
- 7:56SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Evan.
- 7:58SPEAKER_01: See you soon.
- 7:58SPEAKER_01: Cheers.