Building Act Review And The Implications For E3

Do It Once And Do It Well….

I listened with great trepidation to the latest release of information from Maurice Williamson regarding the Building Act Review and if there are any changes to the New Zealand Building Code (NZBC) or compliance documents in the pipeline.

Feedback I have had from the Minister and Department of Building and Housing (DBH) over an 18 month period have always touted the popular line of reducing red tape and regulation. It looks like the wheels are in motion to make this happen by licensing builders by 2012, implementing less inspections and allowing volume builders to submit common designed homes for an instant CCC approval that will require no inspections at all — Multi Use Consents.

So on the face of it, yes this should reduce cost and should speed things up for builders and homeowners, but what about quality, ensuring we do not keep repeating the sins of the past by building homes that are not up to standard, leaking externally or internally. 

The Minister has given the building industry a beautiful sound bite: “Do it once and do it well…” Fantastic, but with there being less inspections to ensure it is been done once and well, the onus to achieve this will need to come initially from the architects and designers and then backed up by competent licensed builders and plumbers.

The DBH seem reluctant to make any change to the NZBC and any compliance document and continue to remind us ad nauseam that the NZBC is not performance-based and only there as a guide. All care no responsibility.  They will only recommend Best Practice Procedures and hope the industry employs these to exceed the requirements of the NZBC.

Do you really think that by licensing builders and plumbers and reducing the number of inspections, we are going to automatically build better homes?  Especially if we are still working inside the same framework of a building code that has allowed leaky homes to be built for the last 20 years.

Obviously I am passionate about changes to E3 and the compliance documents associated with this clause. E2 and external moisture problems are well documented and there is plenty of education and focus on this area as well as new products designed to remedy existing faults and ensure weather tightness like the fantastic Flashman range etc but there seems to be nothing happening around E3 and internal moisture and no advice or confirmation from the DBH that there is?

Surely an area of our homes that is exposed to moisture on a daily basis requires a bit more focus and attention, rather than relying on a building code and incomplete acceptable solutions/compliance document showing us the minimum requirements needed to meet the NZBC?  Let’s not forget there isn’t even a verification method for testing purposes of products for E3? Maybe that’s a good place to start.

At a minimum, please consider specifying above the requirements of E3 and looking at some real problematic areas such as extensive waterproofing membranes, falls to floors (where applicable) correct installation of shower mixers and making sure the penetrations in wet area linings are sealed so that warranty requirements from tapware manufacturers are met and if a leak does occur behind a wall, for whatever reason, it will not be able to enter the wall cavity and go undetected (Wetwall Caddy).

The last clause of E2 (E2.3.7) asks that building elements must be constructed in a way that makes due allowance for:

• the consequences of failure
• the effects of uncertainties resulting from construction or from the sequence in which different aspects of construction occur
• variations in the properties of materials and in the characteristics of the site

If this clause was at the forefront of your thinking when designing wet areas, then we would be well on our way to ensuring a better brand of wet areas for the future and we would only do it once and do it well…