JC Political Thread - For All Things Political Part 2

Immortality said:

But that is someone deviating from either accepted design practices or someone deviating from the plans.

I do find it interesting thought, you watch a pad or foundation been poured here in NZ and then watch a building show from Britain and see how big/deep their foundations are. No wonder their housing lasts centuries.....

When we built the deck out the front of our place I went overkill on all the pilings that went in. The joke is, if/when Auckland is struck my an earthquake (it won't, it'll be a volcanic eruption), the house might fall down but I'll still have my deck!

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We can build homes to that standard, but people won’t pay.
Every second article is about affordable housing, builders aren’t going to start building homes to higher standards any time soon.

keith reed said:

We know a couple who built a house here in Ipswich as an investment property. Within a year one side of the house subsided by 100 mm and that was just in the lounge. In that time they separated and wouldn't talk to each other. They could have made a claim but because they wouldn't talk to each other they didn't. They then had to sell the house and lost a lot of money. From memory the house cost $480,000 and sold for $330,000.

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At least they could just tear the house in half along the dotted line when they separated and take half each

J_D 2.0 said:

Or maybe not!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/10/arizona-republicans-block-repeal-state-abortion-ban

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Democracy and states rights in play, how it should be.

the_boozer said:

I know of 8 houses less than 5 years old with cracks along the entire length of the slab I can put my finger in some of them. We all know how much help the owners are getting.

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There were horror stories many years ago of some operators pouring dodgy slabs. The unscrupulous operators were removing the reinforcing mesh after inspection, but before the concrete was poured. The story was that they were using the mesh again (and again) on the next job.

Then you’d also get reports of some operators not using ‘bar chairs’ to hold the reinforcement mesh at the correct level. The claim was that the elevated mesh was too hard to walk/work on, but don’t worry, they’ll reach in and ‘pull the mesh up after the main pour’. Yer, right. So you end up with a slab with the reo sitting at the bottom doing practically nothing.

The other story that was common was the plastic membrane (water proofing) would sometimes partially fill up with water due to rain. So, instead of pumping and mopping the water out, some operators were just punching after holes in to the membrane to drain the water. No regard at all of the further home owner who might discover a damp area in the building later.

The advice at the time (and still holds today) was to have an independent inspector (perhaps the architect) present during the pour to see that all is done according to the plans. Alternatively, read up yourself and be there and video record the concrete pour for proof (your ‘word’ in court won’t be considered an expert opinion, but the video evidence will hold up). Just having someone knowledgeable there can help keep things above board. You just might need to put it in the contract in case the builder tries to exclude an independent witness using ‘safety‘ as a reason not to have them on site.

And don’t use the building inspector recommended by the builder. Hire your own and make sure they are looking after your interests, and not those of the builder.

My grandfather when he was alive had a house built.
He asked for there to be no expansion joints in the bricks.
So the engineer said he needed to upgrade the slab, I think it was a 250mm slab with dual reo.
The brickie kept on arguing that houses need expansion joint, my grandfather had to get the engineer to explain that they aren't needed.

That slab, never cracked or moved, it cost like an extra 20k on the house and then my grandfather died 8 or 9 years later.....

So the new owners will have a trouble free house......

He also had the sparky put grommets in every stud and he followed him around on his mobility scooter.
He was a class 1 electrician back in the day of graded trades.

AirStrike said:

We can build homes to that standard, but people won’t pay.
Every second article is about affordable housing, builders aren’t going to start building homes to higher standards any time soon.

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But the minimum standard should include a slab that doesn't sag or crack..... or at least I thought it did?

If you are going to poor a minimalist slab you'd better know what it was laying on top, geology matters and probably more when it's a basic slab, last thing you want is houses starting to move down the slope.

It's also about govco putting in minimum standards that are good enough for a building to last 50 years.

J_D 2.0 said:

It’s not “thinking along these lines”, it’s mentally convenient.

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J_D 2.0 said:

Is the Louvre keen to clear out its art works at rock bottom prices because the value of them are going down every year or are they happy to sit on them?

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I think this is your shark jump moment.

J_D 2.0 said:

Is someone with a mint VF2 Motorsport keen to clear it out or are they going to hang onto it because it’s an investment and will become worth more in the future?

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That's a wholly subjective question as to the reason why they bought the car in the first place and somebody holding something with the speculation it will appreciate has nothing to do with, or is comparable to your analysis of the building industry apart from the word "speculation".

J_D 2.0 said:

The exact same thinking infects the building industry, they aren’t in a hurry to move or make anything because it’s all an “investment”.

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Nope. Building industry is moving as fast as the market allows. Most customers want things built yesterday and the progression is hampered more due to weather and supply of product, two things not in our scope of control.

J_D 2.0 said:

I copped that same BS newspeak when I got my carport put in, apparently it wasn’t “costing” me over $10k, it was an “investment” into the value of my home!

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And what benefit does one give?

-to shelter vehicles from the weather
-to have somewhere to store things from the weather
-any future buyer will probably have some use for it and see one as a beneficial feature.

Compare that to the ~$10k you will spend in holding your VF2 Redline Motorsport Benz over 5 years for no benefit when it comes time to sell the "investment" and the smart money isnt in the car.

J_D 2.0 said:

Yes, I pointed out earlier that we should be doing that (importing workers) in the interim to get on top of the current shortage. They will build more houses than they occupy so it’s a net win on the housing supply front.

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If we're currently building about 2000 homes a week (110,000/year )nationally and need to nearly double that figure to meet the 2029 target and the construction industry currently employs 1.2 million people, let's be generous and say we need an extra 400,000 people to get us to our target.

That's 400,000 individuals or families who aren't all going to want to share into your "average 2.6/home figure" your idea requires enough homes to tie up the entire expanded construction industry for over 2 years.

That's not accounting for the increase in required materials.

the_boozer said:

How many of them are good buildings that will still be there in 50 years? How many of them are concrete slabs in flood zones that will flood.

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How many mushrooms to a slice of pizza?

Sabbath' said:

How many mushrooms to a slice of pizza?

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Non (hopefully)!

marty351 said:

Democracy and states rights in play, how it should be.

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We will see. Some of the Republicans seem to be walking back their previous hardcore positions so they obviously see votes being lost by their crusade against abortion.

Time will tell how much importance Americans place on the abortion issue (and other issues as well) but of course the MAGA brigade won’t accept the result if it doesn’t go their way and scream about the election being stolen again rather than it being “democracy in action”.