Crusading Dr Rot talks anything but

By MICHELE HEWITSON

Two years ago, on a winter's afternoon, Philip O'Sullivan told his wife he was just going outside for a while. He had a few "things" to do.

When the man known as Dr Rot goes outside chances are the few "things" he plans to do involve drilling holes in the side of the house. That's what he does for a living. Still, he might have warned his wife, surely. He waves that one aside. "I'm like this. You know how you slip away, and husbands do these things."

Actually, Philip, most husbands don't go around drilling holes in the side of the house to see what's happening on the inside.

He's looking at me in a genial sort of way, the way you look at harmless people who have a few screws loose. To O'Sullivan it is quite simply what he's like; it's what engineers do. He likens it to medicine: "When you start chopping up bodies, you learn about what makes things go wrong. We started chopping things up and you end up seeing things that no one else sees."

As Dr Rot, he has been banging on about leaky buildings - in trade publications and to anyone who would listen - for three years.

Looking inside his own walls was the equivalent of the physician examining himself. He carried out a pilot study on his house. "I surveyed it like any other house, and drilled holes in it like I was doing with every other house." He knew his own house - built in 1996 out of fibrous cement with a Coloursteel roof and aluminium joinery by his boat-builder brother-in-law - was well built. He already knew that "you cannot build a building that does not leak - ever. I'm sure the Pyramids leak."

He drilled through the outside cladding. He used both "destructive and non-destructive" methods, including a non-destructive meter which senses moisture. "So," he says with the air of an expert who has spent a lot of time recently talking to idiots, "I didn't drill everywhere. No, I didn't turn it into Swiss cheese." He is very good at talking to idiots. He likes it. He gives me a lesson on the way water behaves. The campaigner for the exposure of the epidemic of our leaky buildings talks about water with the passion a sommelier might save for a rare wine. "Water's an amazing substance that we take for granted. You've got to understand water."

Educating me in an understanding of water involves a 10-minute instruction. Imagine "we're all in this room and rather than be individual people floating around and mingling like most substances ... what water does is hold hands with itself ... "

He apologises for the water talk: "It's really boring stuff." It's not, and besides, he can't help himself.

He says, apropos of his self-mocking "I'm a media star!" status, that he doesn't mind talking about bad buildings but he's no good at parties.

You can see that he might struggle with the small talk. Crusaders are better at the big talk.

He doesn't like that description too much. It's a bit, oh, flashy or something. But "I suppose I am". He wouldn't describe himself as whistleblower either. But "I want to see everyone get a fair result. I mean, who wants to go home to a wet house?" He has, he says, a social conscience. He's a church-going Catholic; he supposes he's rightwing. "You do get people who believe in self-determination and the market but also have a social conscience, and that's quite a good person to meet."

He is outspoken. "That's an interpretation. When you're trying to warn an industry that's heading towards a precipice, people think you're drawing attention to yourself. Because you're waving a flag [they think] you're self-promoting. But all you're doing is waving a flag and saying, 'You've got a problem'."

He has anticipated one of the accusations levelled by others in the industry - usually when he's out of ear-shot. "I know it's a good thing for business, don't get me wrong." He counters the critics by pointing out that the business, Prendos (the building repair firm of which he is a director), has been training people outside the company to do the work of independent expert surveyors. In any case: "The simple answer is, we can't cope with it."

O'Sullivan can come across as arrogant. It is, I think, a facade which masks an ongoing frustration. He is certainly impatient with the so-called experts he calls "idiots", of "a whole lot of mayors and people who go down to Wellington, spend a lot of money and come back with stupid statements".

He would like to be asked by the Government to act as a consultant. He hasn't been. He's not miffed: "No, I just get on with life." He has, in any case, been shouting into a dark hole in the cladding of the building industry for years. He'd rather be thought of as a man who has "learned patience". So you might think that he now feels vindicated. "Not really. I suppose you don't want to spend much time there. It's not a healthy place to be."

He will admit to being combative. Partly this combativeness, this tenacity, comes from growing up in a large boisterous Catholic family. There are six kids; five of them boys. Four of the five are in the building business. The eldest, O'Sullivan likes to joke, "is the black sheep. God knows what he does". Something to do with education. "He writes up unit standards. He's on a different planet."

O'Sullivan senior was a builder. There was a family business. Philip O'Sullivan went to work for it, with some of the brothers, in his youth. "I think I swore never to work with them again."

He is now 45; Prendos was started by his brother Greg. Brother Sean works here too. When Philip phones Greg to ask him if we can take a picture at the site of one of the firm's clients' properties, Greg starts shouting. "So much for that vow," grins O'Sullivan. He says Greg thinks he's the boss. It is fair to say O'Sullivan has never been overly troubled by authority - least of all when the boss is his brother.

At Rosmini College in Takapuna, which the O'Sullivan clan has kept well supplied with boys since the school opened 40 years ago, he'd sneak out at lunch time for a pint at the Poenamo Hotel.

In 1974, the year he was head boy, the harbour bridge was opened to pedestrian traffic because of a bus strike. He still maintains the resulting detention for wagging was unjustified.

He fondly remembers a three-day working stint at the steel mill at Glenbrook. He left because the boss "was an idiot". This was not a sentiment he felt inclined to keep to himself.

He keeps little to himself. He likes to have an opinion. He likes a joke.

Here's a good one. Remember the house that O'Sullivan drilled? The one built by his boat-builder brother-in-law? It leaks. When it rains he puts a saucepan in the hall to catch the drips.

* If you have information about leaking buildings,
email the Herald or fax (09) 373-6421.

Further reading
Feature: Leaky buildings

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