Flood, cyclone repairs a vast job for builders

MIRIAM BELL

Brin Beachman’s Ponsonby house was yellow stickered in the Auckland flooding at the end of last month, and it might take up to a year before it is repaired.

On the night of the floods, Beachman and his family escaped from their newly renovated home when the water started pouring up and out from the floorboords. The deluge was compounded when the street’s sewerage main over flowed, and the family ended up loosing most of their possessions.

It was a terrifying experience, and they had been left with a “bloody awful big mess”, he said.

“But we were at the beginning of the curve, so our house was assessed quickly. We have moved into a rental, we have secured a builder, and we are going through a massive cleanup phase.”

That involved stripping out the affected plasterboard and any thing made from medium-density.

Fibreboard, such as kitchen cabinetry and doors, drying out the house, and chemically treating it to stop black mould taking hold.

“It is all really hard and stressful to deal with. But our home is repairable, unlike many of the places we are seeing after Cyclone Gabrielle,” he said.

Beachman had been told his rebuild would take at least six months to a year. But it was under way, meaning he might be “lucky” because builders would now be in even higher demand, he said.

The construction industry went through a huge boom over recent years, and a shortage of skilled workers was a persistent capacity constraint.

NZ Certified Builders chief executive Malcolm Fleming said the industry still had a lot of work in the pipeline, and that workload would be increased by the post-flood and cyclone rebuild.

“Demand is set to ratchet up again significantly, particularly in the north and east coast of the North Island. That will pick up any slack, or extra capacity, that was starting to creep into the work diaries and pipelines of builders.”

But the scale of the damage was huge and widespread, and that meant there was a real issue about how the country was going to get the builders necessary, he said.

“Insurance assessors have a vast job ahead of them... You can’t sugarcoat it, though. The Christchurch earthquake rebuild took years, and the scale involved here means we could be looking at years in this case too.”

Master Builders chief executive David Kelly said it was too early to tell what the ongoing impact on the sector would be.

Building product shortages and escalating construction costs have plagued the industry in recent years, but shortages had eased, and recent figures from CoreLogic and Quotable Value showed the rate of cost increases was slowing.

But Fletcher Building chief executive Ross Taylor said there was no longer a building product capacity issue.

Fletcher chief financial officer Bevan McKenzie said he did not think the weather events would have much of an impact on prices.

Builderscrack.co.nz spokesman Jeremy Gray said that since the Auckland floods a significant number of jobs for flooding-related damage were being posted on the tradie platform.

“There has been strong interest in these jobs, with the ‘unchased rate’ sitting at about 10%, which indicates there are currently tradies out there for these jobs.”

Calling apprentices

NZ Certified Builders (NZCB) encourages apprentices nationwide to get their entries in before the Friday, March 17 deadline for its annual Apprentice Challenge Sponsored by ITM. The regional heats of the competition will be held in multiple locations across the country on April 1, with prizes up for grabs and the winner of each going on to compete for the coveted title of national champion in May. Apprentices can enter by going to apprenticechallenge.nz.

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