Leaky Home Turns Tap on NZ Homeowner Nightmare
When Chris and Vicki Goodall take a walk around their home town, Chris passes houses that prompt the same unwelcome thought to pop into his head: “That has the signs of being a potential leaky home.” Chris knows what he is talking about. The couple watched as their own beautiful family home was systematically ‘deconstructed’ after they discovered it was a victim of leaky home construction. Now Chris has set up Leaky Homes Help! to assist others who find themselves in the same very nasty, leaky boat.
“After what we went through, I really wanted to put the whole nightmare behind me, but it niggles at me how many people are living in homes, unaware that they will find themselves in the same nightmare, further down the track,” Chris says. “The tragedy is that there is only a 10 year long stop period in legislation after the Code of Compliance is issued, when claims on leaky buildings can be made. Many properties are not going to show what is rotting away quietly inside until that claim period is over. Homeowners will be left with no recourse, with nothing. The financial fallout will be huge and could make the recession look like a walk in the park – it’s potentially that big a figure. Lending institutions are at huge risk as people are forced to go into bankruptcy as their equity disappears. No one in New Zealand is untouched by this. Once claims are made, local councils are often left as the ‘last man standing.’ All other respondents can go bust and start again, but the buck stops with the ratepayers and the tax payers.
“This leaky homes issue has just started. Every day in New Zealand, hundreds of homes fall off the long stop. Government started off saying the leaky homes issue affects 20,000 homes, now they say 60,000. I agree with the experts who say that there are potentially 180-200,000 homes in New Zealand in various stages of decay, from small repairs to total demolition, like ours. There are no reliable figures out there. It’s the problem no one wants to face, until it hits them.
“There is a misconception that only homes with plastered, monolithic cladding can leak, but that’s not true. The problem can be caused by a number of factors – untreated kiln dried timber frames, aluminium joinery set in with silicone, which breaks down after a few years, inadequate building inspection and bad or inadequate workmanship. Everyone suffers when there is an issue with leaky homes. A lot of builders who were highly skilled at building homes with treated timber frames didn’t use the exact specifications when applying the cladding, and got caught out when moisture was trapped and houses rotted.”
Chris explains that cladding is only a ‘raincoat.’ In our climate, rain can drive in, even under houses built with eaves, letting moisture into the building. He says using untreated pine for framing was seeding disaster: “Once our houses were built with solid native timbers. They would last 100 years plus if they were looked after, washed regularly and painted every 15 years. Pine was substituted for housing frames because of the dwindling availability of timber like kauri and rimu and to preserve what was left of our native trees. The treatment method was dropped to cut out the effects on the environment of toxic discharge from the treatment process. If you think about what happens to a raw pine barbeque table out in all weathers – it will get soaked, but dry out thoroughly – no problem. It will last for years. But if you paint it, moisture gets in through chips and the timber will rot away inside. That’s what happened in that era, between 1998 and 2005. Untreated pine frames were sealed off with cladding, leaving no breathing space, no cavity for air circulation – no way for the timber to dry out.”
Chris would sooner he didn’t know so much about the problem – but his shattering experience with his own leaky home and subsequent research has made him a reluctant expert on leaky homes. The first sign of trouble came when the Goodalls noticed a small amount of mould around a skirting. The house was seven years old when purchased by the Goodalls and the first small sign appeared when it was nine years and seven months old. Chris googled Leaky Homes at the Department of Building and Housing and located a form to apply to have the building assessed.
“The assessor looked at the house from the outside and said he didn’t think we would have any problems. Weeks later, after a Quantity Survey, it turned out repairs would cost $309,000. We could have taken the claim to court through the Water Tight Home Service and probably would have recovered 50% of that cost, but I thought, ‘if it’s that bad, it could turn out to be worse.’ So we said we would like to repair it first.”
Unfortunately, Chris was right: “Once the cladding came off, it was a real shocker. You could have wrung the moisture out of the batts. It was so wet in some places, the moisture reading reached 80%. The Building Surveyors’ subsequent report listed so many faults in the construction process that it summarised by stating that it was difficult to understand how the Territorial Authority concluded on reasonable grounds that the building when built would comply with the Building Code and that they could issue a Code of Compliance Certificate.”
The scope of the disaster left the Goodalls with no other choice. The house had to be systematically ‘deconstructed,’ effectively – demolished. It was two stressful years before a $580,000 claim was lodged and a mediation settlement was reached with the local council and other respondents – still well below the value of the rebuild, but by then the couple were emotionally and physically worn out.
“It could have cost $100,000 extra to take it to the High Court and any gains would have been swallowed up in legal fees, so we decided to cut our losses and start again. In a way, we were fortunate. We approached the situation positively and stayed strong as we worked through it, but it still took two years of our lives. My business faltered and there was terrible strain on our relationship, but it has been much worse for others. Struggling with a leaky home has caused marriage breakups, bankruptcy and a number of suicides. That’s why I want to help other victims of leaky homes in any way I can, by setting up Leaky Homes Help! In all of this nightmare, the home owner is the most innocent party. They didn’t build the house. So where does the blame go? Councils are not experts, but are called to account because their building inspectors signed off the houses. The result of that has seen some ruthless fighting by councils and calling up anybody who touched the house during construction as respondents. This involved trades people who shouldn’t be involved and made the process longer and more stressful and costly for everyone.
 | Anida |
| Sunday, April 29, 2012 |
That's actually very cool. I'd use it, if I didn't alradey live in the city. But one minor quibble . the opening hours. 7am to 7pm? I'm lucky if I finish work at 8pm! To use this, I'd have to get there at 6:30 to get changed etc. The petition for longer opening hours starts in 3 2 1