KEY POINTS:
It's amazing the fun you can have with a hammer and a saw, and the trouble you can get into.
Building and Construction Minister Clayton Cosgrove is driving the Government's response to the leaky building fiasco that exposed the inadequacy of the framework of the building industry, from training, to skills, to products to certification. The courts and Weathertight Homes Tribunal will be kept busy for years sorting the mess as homeowners seek to sheet home responsibility.
One of the planned measures is a regime of 13 licences covering various building industry roles. It's to be phased in from November, starting with voluntary licences for design, site lead and carpentry and by 2010 it will be compulsory to have a licence for certain "core" work. That this work is yet to be specified suggests it will involve big construction work involving the structural integrity and weather envelope.
As the proposal now stands, this won't stop the DIY builder from building a standard house, "those with simple roofs and wide eaves and conventional cladding." But, if you, or the person you hire to build your house is unlicensed you will be required to record the fact on your property's Land Information Memorandum, held by councils.
Minor tasks done by the DIY builder will not need to be recorded on the LIM report but major work will. You would, for example, be able to replace the iron on your roof yourself without having to notify the work. But if you were to rebuild the roof structure, or the structure of a wall from the ground up, or add a storey to your house, you or an unlicensed builder could do it but that work would have to be put on the LIM. The work would be subject to normal building inspection, the quality of which the Government is hoping to improve by auditing the councils that carry it out.
"That means that anyone interested in buying that particular house knows the score [and] they can make an informed choice," says Cosgrove. "They can either take a chance on the quality of the build and get the necessary pre-purchase inspections and due diligence or they can walk away and buy the house down the street built by a licensed building practitioner."
That proposal gives a broader exemption to the DIY builder than either the current legislation (The Building Act 2004) or the Government's earlier proposal which both required major work such as adding a room or building a basic house to be supervised by a licensed builder.
Until recently, the minister was signalling extending electricity, gas, plumbing and drainage work that must be done by qualified tradespeople for safety reasons, to building jobs where safety and durability were factors, such as foundations, framing, cladding and roofing. The change was to be introduced from November 2009.
Cosgrove says his proposal changed because as he consulted, it became clear the earlier plan was unworkable. An impromptu poll at a series of breakfast seminars with builders around the country suggested licensed builders were unwilling to oversee unlicensed builders. He said only 11 among the "thousands" who attended the briefings said they would do it. That meant the interests of DIY builders wouldn't be protected because they wouldn't be able to build "a meat and potatoes house".
The change wasn't a flip-flop, he says, because it was always no more than a proposal and it wasn't in response to a possible cost in terms of votes if the Government curtailed the great Kiwi DIY tradition.
The Registered Master Builders Federation has labelled the current policy of notifying major amateur work on the LIM "nonsensical" and a false economy when the likely extra cost of building inspection and likely consequent market devaluation of the property were factored in.
But chief executive Pieter Burghout said the federation's major concern was the move would undermine efforts to improve the general standard of construction. "Rogue builders who can't get their licences or can't be bothered will become the dodgy DIYers of the future."
Burghout says he understood DIY builders built about 2 per cent of new houses and represented a similar percentage of leaky homes cases. He believes the percentage could increase to 30 per cent of new houses as unlicensed builders exploited the DIY exemption as has happened overseas.
Cosgrove says short of following people home from Placemakers, Bunnings and Carters, it was impossible to know what work was being done and it was impossible to police. He believes a more robust inspection system and the requirement to list major work done by an unlicensed builder along with the impact that may have on resale value was a sufficient imposition.
If the current proposal comes into force, the DIY industry won't be affected and may further thrive - good news to the likes of Bunnings Warehouse and similar companies. Placemakers' spokesman Michael O'Driscoll said the company's core client base was the trade and the serious DIY practitioner. He said Placemakers was monitoring the debate.
Whatever finally becomes law, most work that true-blue DIYers do won't be affected. You can build the deck, hang a window or door, remove or add an internal wall and remodel a bathroom or kitchen. Whether you will be able to knock up the shed or sleep-out without having to record on the LIM you did it yourself depends on what is specified as "core" work.
Cosgrove, who became minister in late 2005, is attempting to find a route that will return standards to the building industry in the wake of the leaky building disaster without getting offside with the great Kiwi DIY tradition and without alienating the good builders. It's already proving a hard row to hoe.
