Dry home costs $2500 more

As a torrential downpour exhausted itself over Auckland yesterday, Building Industry Authority chairman Barry Brown launched changes to the Building Code, to outlaw some materials and practices that have contributed to homes rotting.

The changes are a response to the leaky building crisis, which some experts believe could affect tens of thousands of houses built in the last decade.

The new rules, covering a range of common building practices, govern construction of timber-framed buildings up to three levels high. They come into force from next February 1 and add more detail on how buildings should be designed and built to stop them leaking.

People building under the existing rules have until January 2006 to finish work and get their buildings signed off by a council inspector.

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