Timber scandal hits owners

A Whangarei couple's hopes of spending the golden days of summer in their new bach have vanished in a splatter of red paint.
All work has been stopped on the half-completed building following the discovery that many of the trusses and frames may be made of sub-standard timber. The coastal bach is fully enclosed but is not yet lined.
The timber, distinctively marked with red bands, has been found in hundreds of houses in Auckland and in five others in the Whangarei district since the Frame & Truss Manufacturers Association of New Zealand raised the alarm earlier this month.
The owner of the Whangarei bach, who did not want to be named, rushed to the coast to check the building after his building company rang to say there was a rumour going around that non-load-bearing timber marked with red paint had been used to make trusses and frames, which are load-bearing.
"When we looked we could see blobs of red paint all over the timber," he said.
He said he wondered why the red paint had not set alarm bells ringing for anyone involved in the building process but added: "In fairness, timber gets marked on building sites for all sorts of reasons. I'm told our building company had ordered number one framing and assumed that that was what it had got, likewise the builder ... it's just very lucky that the house isn't yet fully lined."
Whangarei District Council issued a stop-work notice on the building as soon as the suspect timber was discovered. Construction was also stopped on five other houses. This has been followed by a notice-to-fix, requiring removal of the timber by January 16 or getting an engineer's report on whether the use of the timber poses a structural risk.
Council building compliance manager Bruce Rogers said the "fix-it" notice was required by law to officially start the process but also a way of starting to communicate with those affected.
Anyone who was worried about the timber in their house should ring the council, he said.
"Call us and we will work with you," he said. "The situation is not of your making or our making. It's a shame to face extra stresses unnecessarily at this time of the year. There are a number of solutions that builders and engineers can look at."
The Frame & Truss Manufacturers Association triggered the crisis when it warned members this month that red-striped or banded framing timber, designated as downgraded non-load-bearing (NLB) timber, was being passed off as structural machine stress-graded timber for the frame and truss market.
CEO Rob Skipsey says the association has evidence NLB timber has been used as structural timber in wall frames, roof trusses and purlins (horizontal beams that support roof rafters).
He called on all members to help identify where NLB timber had been used structurally, stressing that no downgraded structural timber could be selectively sorted, re-cut and passed off as stress-graded timber.
He said the illegal use of NLB timber had the potential to significantly damage New Zealand's frame and truss fabrication industry.
"The practice is a gross misrepresentation by the fabricator and constitutes a breach under the Fair Trading Act," he said. While Mr Skipsey said the association had traced the source of the defective timber and had been working with "the source, the verification body and the fabricator", Placemakers chief executive David Edwards said yesterday that his organisation believed there could be up to three Auckland fabricators involved. He said Placemakers had formerly manufactured 80 per cent of its frames and trusses in-house, an operation which was "100 per cent compliant". Following the warning about the sub-standard timber the company had cancelled its out-sourcing contracts and was meeting all requirements through its own manufacturing plant.
He said all timber had load-bearing capacity and the issue now was "whether NLB timber has been used as structural timber and if so how strong it is. That has to be an engineer's decision."