Building quality decline noted

Grant Hunt, director of Grant Hunt Building Consultants Ltd, said he had noticed a decline in the quality of workmanship in new homes over the past three years, including increasing numbers of leaky buildings.

Mr Hunt said the building boom in Nelson, combined with a shortage of skilled tradespeople, was to blame for the poor work.

Builders were rushing to get one job finished to move on to the next, and in the case of building gangs, builders were shifted between jobs which "makes it hard for anybody to take some ownership of that work".

AA House Checks owner-operator John Munday agreed the housing boom was putting pressure on builders to work at speed, but it was hard to tell if standards were dropping as "usually you only get called out when something's wrong".

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