Home builders get screwed.

[duncan macgregor]

My next door neighbour over the back has a small acreage divided into two paddocks fully fenced off, with an existing private road up to their house in the back paddock. They wanted to split the property up to allow their daughter to build in the front paddock. The daughter had to come to me, and the surrounding neighbours first of all to get our approval.
The property has its own water supply, and would be on a septic tank system at no expence to the council. It cost them $56,000 in fees, and other bullsh*t before they were allowed to even start building. They then had the added expence of insulation, and double glazing as if it was being built in the artic circle. Its all this namby pamby crap that will drive the young people off overseas to greener pastures, and cheaper houses.
In the bad old days before leaky homes existed, we used to drill holes in the bottom plate to allow the walls to breathe which equalized the pressure to stop the wall sucking water in and up. Today we fill the wall up with insulation like a thermos flask then try and find the leak. Macdunk

[Serpie]

So each cavity that you built was a vacuum, and needed a hole drill to equalise the pressure? Come on Macca - really?

You can't argue about the value of insulation (well - I suppose you can if you want). I lined the underside of my weatherboard house in CosyFloor last winter (pink batts with a foil backing) and what a difference!
I was watching a Canadian programme about house construction, and they were talking about using batts with an R24 rating. I thought that they must use a different rating system, until I saw the batts. It was about 18 inches thick. That's what you ned for the Arctic circle.

Double glazing should be optional though, and the "reserve" and "water" contributions that local councils charge are extortion, especially when there's no park within 5km, and you sink your own well.

[duncan macgregor]

SERPIE, If i fly on an aircraft i expect the designer and manufacturer to have a basic understanding of the principals of flight. The building trade is cotrolled by people with no basic understanding of the laws of capillary action, or air pressure in walls or roofs. Water gets sucked up hill under certain conditions.
Leaky homes started with an airtight plastered wall on a timber frame. The air pressure outside the wall is greater than the air pressure inside the wall. There is no builders myself included that can build a house that wont leak under those conditions. I refused to build that type of house, and argued the point all the way with inspectors since the mid seventies. The air pressure inside your roof cavity is lower than the air pressure on the outside thats why you cant have really low pitch roofs. Place two sheets of corrigated iron on the flat one on top of the other and notice the water inbetween even on a hot day.
If you leave the two sheets of iron you will notice large white spots that you can poke out with your finger. Look at sheets of roofing iron in the store next time, ever wondered why it says stack dry. The ignorance in the building game by the people in control is costing you heaps. Macdunk

[Serpie]

Some muppet put a lean-to on the back of my house (before I bought it) with a 3 degree slope corrogated iron roof on it, so I've found out that water can indeed run up hill! It runs up hill until it hits the top plate, and then starts running down hill - until it reaches the carpet!!
I thought the leaky homes thing was mainly caused by internal gutters and reducing eave size, so I've learnt something today.
So I take it you don't have a lot of faith in BRANZ? I've never been to BRANZ to have a look (I've read their bulletins) but I imagine it would be quite interesting. Have you visited them?

[Financially dependant]

Don't forget that a house is dynamic, temperatures, moisture levels, pressures are constantly changing in direction and level, seasonally, daily, climatically and place to place.

Drilling holes throughout a house to ventilate it may work in the Bay of Islands but not in Cromwell, there is no one 'fix all' approach.

tuff'n up does nothing for your health, that is builders logic that put the housing stock in the sh*t it is now, run by builders for builders.

Look at the Canadian building model is see how a house should be built in timber, that is where the smart people in the building industry are looking for help.

Disc. not Canadian!

[Serpie]

I love watching "Holmes on Homes" on the Living Channel. Those Canadians know all about controlling moisture.

[STRAT]

Hi Duncan/Serpie, I would suggest vacuum has nothing to do with leaky homes. Capillary action which is only one of many reasons for leaky buildings has nothing to do with vacuum or air pressure either.

[Joe King]

Great post Dunk.
I have a builder mate in Seattle who was involved in the early days of "leaky home syndrome" in USA (5 years before problem in NZ). He took me to several problem houses that were under going "try to fixit" and I saw exactly what the problem was..... exactly as you describe. Admittedly they have a wider range of temperature extremes but the vacume effect you describe was definitely the problem.... A few years later he came to NZ, saw what was happening here and predicted correctly what was down the track... common sense really... he sure was right.
I was totally gutted to discover the lovely new home we had just built was in fact constructed with untreated timber, and clad in the Hardy cladding very popluar in 90's. Just 2 years after completion part of the coloursteel roof needed replacing, in the process the roofer stuck a nail through a cable which required removing a sheet of exterior cladding. Imagine my horror to see white fungus growths apperaing on the lower studs already. Needless to say we moved house. I recently spoke to the new owner who told me that although they had no MAJOR problems the whole house hade been treated with a fungicide applied through the plaster walls into the framing cavity.... Yerk! We made sure there was lots of ventilation throughout the framing space both top and bottom when we built our current home... Hinuera stone.
Cheers
JK

[STRAT]

Hi Joe, At the risk of being labeled pedantic and sparking an endless debate there is no vacume or differential pressure in the wall space of a house.

[ari]

Back to Dunk's original post which mentioned Council fees........a friend of ours has made enquires re the subdividing (really just wants to cut off a small corner of 50 acre farm). 15 acres has to be planted out in native plants as a first step!
Yet, around Taupo they allow 1000's of acres to be converted into dairy!