Latest / Best of Business / John Tookey: AUT construction professor on the Government's plan to roll back insulation standards

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John Tookey: AUT construction professor on the Government's plan to roll back insulation standards · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News TALKSTB. Follow this
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  Speaker 2: And the government team is considering rolling back insulation standards
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  Speaker 2: because of overheating and new build cost blowouts. The new
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  Speaker 2: standards are estimated to save a new home around forty
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  Speaker 2: percent on heating. Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk has
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  Speaker 2: reportedly asked mb to quote urgently investigate the cost of
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  Speaker 2: the changes. John Tukey is a professor of construction at
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  Speaker 2: aut end is with us this evening. Hi, John, good
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  Speaker 2: evening overheating and new built. Is this a thing?
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  Speaker 3: It's a new one for me. I have to say,
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  Speaker 3: I just looked at it on seriously, really is that
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  Speaker 3: a thing? I'm not sure? Honestly, not so much.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So what's the problem.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, So the issue here is it comes down to
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  Speaker 3: the cost of acquisition and through life costs and the
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  Speaker 3: difference between the two. Right. So, if you when you
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  Speaker 3: acquire a new build and you try to upgrade the
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  Speaker 3: capability of the new build to be able to deal
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  Speaker 3: with insulation and but whatever, you know, pick an issue,
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  Speaker 3: then you you have to spend more. And that's the
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  Speaker 3: way of things. And they're spending more in the short
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  Speaker 3: term means that long term is through the through life
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  Speaker 3: sales or sorry, through life costs associated with fifty years
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  Speaker 3: or more of operation means that you make it all
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  Speaker 3: back and more just on the basis of the lower costs.
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  Speaker 2: Right. So what you're saying is that it makes more
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  Speaker 2: financial scenes to look at things over the longer term,
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  Speaker 2: and that justifies the investment in really good quality insulation
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  Speaker 2: when a building is constructed.
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  Speaker 3: As a general sumb absolutely, I mean you're talking about
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  Speaker 3: relatively speaking, a few thousands of dollars upfront as opposed
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  Speaker 3: to tens of thousands of dollars through life. You know,
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  Speaker 3: you're if you're talking about fifty sixty seventy years of
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  Speaker 3: the operation of the build, then guess what you know
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  Speaker 3: you're going to get. You get a better bang for
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  Speaker 3: your book over the long time rather than the short time. Right.
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  Speaker 2: So the thing that the Minister is apparently investigating at
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  Speaker 2: those upgrades to insulation and glazing requirements that were introduced
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  Speaker 2: in May of last year. So how significant were those changes? Oh,
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  Speaker 2: are you there, John.
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  Speaker 3: Well?
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  Speaker 2: Whatever you've lost John Well, see if we can get
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  Speaker 2: him back in a moment. So This has come about
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  Speaker 2: because of official because of correspondence that has been released
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  Speaker 2: under the Official Information Act to aren Z and in
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  Speaker 2: which case the Minister was warned about upgrades potentially leading
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  Speaker 2: to some overheating, although it was noted that in that
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  Speaker 2: official information apparently those upgrades had overwhelming support. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it probably all depends on the nature of
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  Speaker 2: the upgrades, but you know, they certainly reduced heating requirements
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  Speaker 2: according to this information, like a four bedroom home by
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  Speaker 2: up to forty percent, which is significant. And when you
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  Speaker 2: imagine what energy bills might be over the lifetime of
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  Speaker 2: a house or said building, you think you'd make that
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  Speaker 2: money back in no time. Sorry, Sorry, John, I think
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  Speaker 2: you beck with us now.
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  Speaker 3: I was just asking I'm back. I'm definitely back to
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  Speaker 3: West of Auckland is a wonderful place there.
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  Speaker 2: It certainly is, just not when it comes to cel
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  Speaker 2: phone reception. So how significant were those changes to insulation
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  Speaker 2: and guizing requirements that were introduced last year?
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  Speaker 3: Look the way I view I mean, to sit here
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  Speaker 3: and start complaining about overheating is laughable. No, it's not
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  Speaker 3: an issue as far as overheating is concerned. Guess what
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  Speaker 3: all you have to do is I don't know, open
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  Speaker 3: a window. Who knew that this could fix it? You know,
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  Speaker 3: it's not complicated long term. If you're interested as an organization,
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  Speaker 3: as a country, or anything else in terms of being
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  Speaker 3: able to deal with you know, greenhouse gas emissions and
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  Speaker 3: bloody blah, then you know, guess what you're going to
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  Speaker 3: have to You're going to have to insulate. You're gonna
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  Speaker 3: have to insulate effectively. You're going to have to insulate
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  Speaker 3: over the long term, and you're going to have to
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  Speaker 3: deal with that cost up front. You know, to to
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  Speaker 3: to play games and start talking about this notion of overheating.
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  Speaker 3: My god, yeah, really, you know this, this this is
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  Speaker 3: not a thing.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's in good faith. Let's at the other side
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  Speaker 2: of the argument. Let's take the capital out lay and
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  Speaker 2: so say, you know, the insulation costs forty or fifty
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  Speaker 2: thousand dollars to meet the eight one standard. What is
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  Speaker 2: the likelihood that that expense for for people or companies
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  Speaker 2: building houses? Ultimately, is the difference between us addressing you know,
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  Speaker 2: the housing shortage and not addressing it as effectively as
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  Speaker 2: we might is having that standard costing us in terms
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  Speaker 2: of new houses?
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  Speaker 3: Well, again, I'm going to come back to the requirements
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  Speaker 3: that we have as a nation with regard to meeting
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  Speaker 3: the requirements of the of the climate cords that we've
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  Speaker 3: signed myself up to legally as a nation in terms
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  Speaker 3: of greenhouse gas emissions. Now, am I some sort of
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  Speaker 3: zelop that's going to sit here and say, oh, we
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  Speaker 3: need to do this for this reason. No, that's not
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  Speaker 3: my point. You know, if you're talking about the long
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  Speaker 3: term through life costs associated with the expenditure on heating, right,
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  Speaker 3: let's say that fifty years is your baseline. Fifty years
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  Speaker 3: is your baseline, and you've spent fifty thousand dollars at
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  Speaker 3: thousand dollars a year at current prices, you know, which
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  Speaker 3: equates to a lot more over the longer term, you know,
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  Speaker 3: in the future future cost basis. You know, I'm sorry,
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  Speaker 3: but you know it is an absolute no brainer in
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  Speaker 3: terms of in terms of savings made, and it's also
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  Speaker 3: some substantial change in terms of the total amount of
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  Speaker 3: greenhouse gas emissions and blah blah that is required. You
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  Speaker 3: can't have it both ways. You can't just sit and say, well,
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  Speaker 3: we're going to sit here, We're going to go for
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  Speaker 3: the lowest cost of acquisition, and it's a case that's nice.
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  Speaker 3: But actually, if you if you really are serious, if
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  Speaker 3: you're really playing the game of being able to achieve
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  Speaker 3: all these outcomes. And by the way, all governmental ministers
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  Speaker 3: are going to be really keen on saying, oh, yes,
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  Speaker 3: we've met our climate obligations and so forth, all of
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  Speaker 3: them throughout the Western world are very keen on this.
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  Speaker 3: Then you know that there is a there's a there's
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  Speaker 3: a payment of the piper that's required.
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  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, And I suppose you know when you
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  Speaker 2: when you think about all of those related costs, right,
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  Speaker 2: even just the healthcare costs from from people who have
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  Speaker 2: illnesses that might have been prevented had they been living
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  Speaker 2: in warmer, drier home. So I mean, there are all
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  Speaker 2: sorts of flow on effigs that you can imagine that
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  Speaker 2: are quite hard to equate for, to account for. But
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  Speaker 2: but but significant.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. And you know, you know, at what
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  Speaker 3: point do we step back from going for the lowest
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  Speaker 3: cost of acquisition? You know, I'm serious. You know, as
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  Speaker 3: we sit here now, the biggest single issues associated with
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  Speaker 3: this government and the previous government and the previous government
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  Speaker 3: prior to that, and the previous government pride of that.
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  Speaker 3: I've been talking about this stuff in the last couple
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  Speaker 3: of decades, and I'm telling you here and now the
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  Speaker 3: issues are around infrastructural acquisition. They are about dealing with
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  Speaker 3: things like stormwater, raff toilets, flipping, dealing with you know, sewerage,
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  Speaker 3: water supply, power roading, all the other infrastructure around, dealing
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  Speaker 3: with you know, having doctors' surgeries and hospitals and YadA, YadA, YadA.
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  Speaker 3: All this stuff is are things that we need to
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  Speaker 3: consider and to play the game. And this is not
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  Speaker 3: me being political in any way, shape or form, but
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  Speaker 3: to actually say with a straight face that we're going
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  Speaker 3: to now talk about the problems of overheating really in
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  Speaker 3: New Zealand, Are you sure, really, I'm honestly, I'm I'm
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  Speaker 3: I'm at a loss to know how to respond to that.
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  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, that's that's a fatuous position to take.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time, John, We really
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  Speaker 2: appreciate it. That is John Tookey, who's a professor at a.
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