Latest / Best of Business / Malcolm Fleming: NZ Certified Builders CEO on the Government's push for remote building inspections

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Malcolm Fleming: NZ Certified Builders CEO on the Government's push for remote building inspections · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalks. The'd be follow
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  Speaker 2: Jack Team.
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  Speaker 3: And as part of its housing push, the government has
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  Speaker 3: announced plans to make councils do building inspections remotely. Minister
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  Speaker 3: for Building and Construction Chris Pinks is the building process
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  Speaker 3: takes way too long and this will make things easier
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  Speaker 3: and cheaper. Some councils already use remote inspections, but uptake
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  Speaker 3: at the moment is low and practice is vary. Malcolm
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  Speaker 3: Fleming is the CEO of New Zealand Certified Builders and
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  Speaker 3: is with us this evening. Good a Malcolm good evening, Jack,
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  Speaker 3: So talk to us a little bit about how a
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  Speaker 3: remote inspection actually works.
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  Speaker 2: So remote inspection works like this, so a builders ready
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  Speaker 2: for their inspection, and it could work just as well
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  Speaker 2: in a very remote location and we've been trying the
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  Speaker 2: McKenzie country, or could be work in a very traffic
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  Speaker 2: congested place like Auckland. And so it would work like
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  Speaker 2: this that the builder would have a video, have the
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  Speaker 2: camera and be directed by a Building in council inspector
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  Speaker 2: back at their base and asking them to show particular
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  Speaker 2: parts of the building that they wanted to.
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  Speaker 3: Check, right, Okay, So and when you say a camera,
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  Speaker 3: is it just their.
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  Speaker 2: Phone the phone, Yes, the phone would do.
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  Speaker 3: Right. So you basically just do like a zoom call
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  Speaker 3: or a FaceTime call, just a video call between the
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  Speaker 3: inspector back and the office, the builder and the building.
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  Speaker 3: And how many things would they be inspecting during one
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  Speaker 3: of these digital inspections.
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  Speaker 2: What depends on what the building inspection was for. Some
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  Speaker 2: of those building inspections are for specific items, for example,
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  Speaker 2: some structural steel that's been put in place, some tanking
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  Speaker 2: that's gone on going on underneath, some tiling, some specifics
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  Speaker 2: like that. Or it could be for a pre line
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  Speaker 2: inspection which is quite a significant miles, or a final
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  Speaker 2: inspection had been to the projectories.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah right, So say, like for a typical house, what
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  Speaker 3: would be the inspection that at the moment takes the
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  Speaker 3: longest period of time.
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  Speaker 2: That would likely be pre line inspection. My sort of
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  Speaker 2: view of NJEDCB that remote inspections wouldn't be for those
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  Speaker 2: big milestone inspections. It would work very well in tandem
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  Speaker 2: with some other tools that are available for some of
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  Speaker 2: the smaller aspects, which can be quite time consuming and
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  Speaker 2: builders are often waiting on site for building inspectors to
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  Speaker 2: be able to arrive on site, and so the whole
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  Speaker 2: projects at a standstill.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that kind of makes sense. So what when you
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  Speaker 3: say there'd be small projects, what kind of inspections do
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  Speaker 3: you mean?
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  Speaker 2: Well, sort of talking about so if you worked in
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  Speaker 2: tandem with other things like say producer statements for example,
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  Speaker 2: which engedcvs are quite keen on. So what I'm talking about.
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  Speaker 2: So if we look at the tanking example previously, if
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  Speaker 2: you allowed the applicator provide a producer statement to reflect
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  Speaker 2: that it's been applied in accordance with the manufacturer's requirements,
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  Speaker 2: that creates a level of certainty. It's a paper trail,
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  Speaker 2: and then all what we required. Then rather than a
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  Speaker 2: physical inspection, a video inspection, the remote inspection would be
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  Speaker 2: the tick box required to give the confidence to the
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  Speaker 2: building consent authority.
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  Speaker 3: That just seems incredibly sensible to me. What is the downside?
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  Speaker 3: You know there must be some downsides to not having
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  Speaker 3: inspectors there in person.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I've seen this of the commentary around and I
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  Speaker 2: think it's accurate that there could be mis representation by
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  Speaker 2: some builders in terms of our control on the camera
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  Speaker 2: where it goes our view NZCB that this should only
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  Speaker 2: be available to LBP builders and also LBP builders who
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  Speaker 2: have got a proven track record with the council.
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  Speaker 3: Right, Okay, so councils that already have so builders that
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  Speaker 3: already have a relationship with council but have also been
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  Speaker 3: shown to produce high quality buildings that meet standards over
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  Speaker 3: a period of time.
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  Speaker 2: That and also for building inspections, are well prepared and
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  Speaker 2: that they don't have rework that needs a reinspection because
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  Speaker 2: that takes takes time. Those builders who don't use the
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  Speaker 2: council as a building a control system and a review
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  Speaker 2: and sort of having to teach them what does and
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  Speaker 2: what cannot happen. So I need if they restrict it
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  Speaker 2: to LBPS and those with track records, that will provide
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  Speaker 2: the conference to life.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah right, So I'm just just trying to play things
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  Speaker 3: out in my mind here. If there were a scenario
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  Speaker 3: whereby a builder was having a remote inspection, the inspector
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  Speaker 3: wasn't totally happy with something and needed to inspect it
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  Speaker 3: in person, that would require not only the digital inspection, right,
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  Speaker 3: but also an on site visit in order to sort
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  Speaker 3: out exactly what was wrong.
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  Speaker 2: What you're describing, I think would require a physical inspection
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  Speaker 2: to follow up. And we're sort of advocating that physical
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  Speaker 2: inspections should not be done away from entirely. For the
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  Speaker 2: milestone one we talked about earlier, they should still be
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  Speaker 2: in place.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the final I just wonder how it's kind
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  Speaker 3: quite hard to know, given we only have limited use
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  Speaker 3: of remote inspections at the moment, but from the councils
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  Speaker 3: that are using them in the moment at the moment,
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  Speaker 3: do you have any idea how often a building inspector
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  Speaker 3: would end up doing both the video inspection and then
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  Speaker 3: having to go out on site as well.
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  Speaker 2: That's a good question. I don't have an answer to that,
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  Speaker 2: But what would suggest that right now there is not
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  Speaker 2: buildings because of the lower volume of building consents well
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  Speaker 2: down with that work? Yeah, right eighteen months ago, Jack,
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  Speaker 2: this is a really great opportunity to start sort of
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  Speaker 2: rolling some of these initiatives out. And as I said
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  Speaker 2: on its own, I don't think it's a panacea, but
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  Speaker 2: in use with conjunction with other tools that are available
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  Speaker 2: to the building consent authorities, I think together they could
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  Speaker 2: create some efficiencies it's not going to reduce the material
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  Speaker 2: cost to build, but it will help reduce time, and
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  Speaker 2: project time is money.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah right, yeah, so how much time could they say?
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  Speaker 3: What are the potential upsides if this new system works well.
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  Speaker 2: Well in a busy building consent environment. So we were
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  Speaker 2: eighteen months ago waiting around for projects for building inspections
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  Speaker 2: that could add weeks to a project if you're thinking
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  Speaker 2: about the finance holding costs to the property owner associated
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  Speaker 2: with that, each week that goes by is a cost,
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  Speaker 2: and it's also additional days and weeks that contractors are
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  Speaker 2: on site. Yeah right, Okay, it comes to the cost.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean the thing that I'm sure many of
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  Speaker 3: our listeners will immediately think about it as something like
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  Speaker 3: the leaky homes saga and worry that any relaxation of
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  Speaker 3: oversight in the building and construction sector will ultimately lead
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  Speaker 3: to a degradation and quality and we could find ourselves
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  Speaker 3: with the FIASCA that we have in the past. What
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  Speaker 3: would be your message to those people?
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  Speaker 2: So my message to those people is to mitigate risk,
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  Speaker 2: and you can do that by ensuring that you're build
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  Speaker 2: a trade qualified and aligned with the trade association that
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  Speaker 2: in combination with those suggestions that remote inspections not be
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  Speaker 2: available to everybody as a discretion of the Council LVPS
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  Speaker 2: and those with a good track record that should mitigate
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  Speaker 2: risk for the home owner.
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  Speaker 3: And Malcolm, as you mentioned, construction consents are well down
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  Speaker 3: on where they were even just twelve months ago. So
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  Speaker 3: how long will it take before for this is standardized
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  Speaker 3: across the country do you think?
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  Speaker 2: Well, the government is going at pace with the whole
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  Speaker 2: range of building consenting changes and proposals. This is the
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  Speaker 2: second one this week, for example, so they've certainly got
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  Speaker 2: the bit between the teeth and all them. Their main
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  Speaker 2: driver is to reduce the cost of building in this
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  Speaker 2: country and there'd be no argument from Promistry that we
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  Speaker 2: do have high building costs or anything that can do
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  Speaker 2: lead towards reducing that is to be applauded. So they're
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  Speaker 2: on the right track. They've got to start getting coordinated
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  Speaker 2: with some of these ideas and start bringing them together
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  Speaker 2: and work with industry.
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  Speaker 3: Well see, thanks Malcolm, appreciate your time. That is Malcolm Feming,
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  Speaker 3: the CEO of New Zealand Certified Builders.
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