Creating a "passive" future: November 2017

Building anything, on time, to the standard and on budget is pretty difficult, I know because for many years I have managed various projects or been heavily involved in bringing some pretty big ones to completion, in many different countries. Its not easy....and neither is building a passive house in NZ.

Right from the start in this project Maureen and I were determined that we would do all the planning up front so that there were no changes...of our own making, as we went along.

I don't know how building companies ever make a profit in NZ- well Fletcher Building showed us this year size does not matter either !

I am beginning to lose count of the number of key project items that have been wrong, either wrongly estimated, wrongly delivered, damaged in transit etc. There is one major item that has been wrong at least 3 times !! If this would have happened in the international oil industry we would have told the supplier to go and find other customers! But this is NZ, and supplier choice is limited- perhaps that is one of our major problems - we don't have either enough competition, enough skilled workers or the size is too small?

The other key area that needs a huge boost is communication- especially reading or comprehending detailed documents. In an industry dominated by many small players, with many individual subcontractors this is not just a possible risk- it is an ISSUE.

Despite all this Mike and Gary are doing a fantastic job, as you can see, with over 50% of our new aluminium cladding now on the house, and looking very smart. The key quality of a professional LBP has to be patience- Mike has it in buckets ! So a very good piece of advice would be - meet your builder before the build and check out his or her ability to handle the many supply chain errors that will occur on your job. I also recommend you keep a list of these errors.