An earthquake repair story from the south

OPINION

Earthquake repair work is under way on our 1911 villa in St Albans, courtesy of EQC.

Thousands of Christchurch homeowners are going through this.

On my daily walks around the neighbourhood I’m constantly surprised at the disappearance of homes that have made up my urban landscape for the past 26 or so years here.

And the speed of building replacement houses is amazing. Some sections have had poles the size of lampposts hammered into the ground about one metre apart, topped with various concrete foundation systems. On other sections the soil has been removed and replaced with harder fill, compressed and then re-covered.

Modular construction means framing and roofing can be installed within a week or two.

Regardless of the propaganda from EQC about its progress, there are still plenty of big jobs in the queue to keep contractors busy for many months yet. Ours is costing close to $100,000.

Repairing older homes is less straightforward, like the arrangements for project managing them.

It’s essential to develop a relationship with the contractor.

The EQC/EQR (Fletcher) repair programme is a three-way bureaucratic tussle.

When it’s time for the so called “final” scope, an EQC manager arrives with an EQR hub project manager, plus the contractor.

The homeowner’s role as the ultimate client is lost – the contractor is responsible to EQR, which is responsible to EQC.

But EQC and EQR are temporary and fluid organisations with staff leaving all the time.

A slapdash EQR manager who disappears for other pastures leaves behind undone work for colleagues.

This is where the integrity of the contractor comes into play.

Our guy seems on top of the game. We had to go through the house again after the “final” scope because our departed EQR manager left half the items off the final report.

When this happens, contractors must seek variation orders from EQC (via EQR) and work won’t go ahead until these VO’s are verified because contractors have been caught out before with EQC refusing to come to the party over extra items.

A date was set and we moved to the house next door with the help of hired movers. Sorting new internet connections and phone lines was hopeless. After a fruitless day on the phone the simplest solution was extension cables over the fence thanks to help from my mate at the local pub, “Kiwi” (Kiwi Communications) who turned up with 10m of cable.

After a week in the other house with no progress on my own, the contractor rang to say he’d belatedly been given an engineer’s report commissioned by EQR that showed we need to jack and pack about 20 piles. Another site meeting with the contractor and the piling guy. They need to cut holes in some of the floors and the work needs to be done before any final plastering. This requires another variation order which will take a few days.

Meanwhile, the first tradies have arrived and spent the past week pulling out the ceilings and raking some of the plaster walls. It’s weird walking through your home and peering up into the attic.

As the wallpaper stripping progresses the damage to walls becomes more apparent. It may require more variation orders for gibbing of walls as well as ceilings.

I’ve been organising a replacement enclosed burner for the decorative tiled old open fire. Under the EQC rules you are entitled to a rebuilt lightweight chimney, enclosed burner or a heat pump. The chimney option is no use because open fires are illegal now. We’re not enamoured with heat pumps, having gone through three of them in the past 10 years, and they simply don’t work in Canterbury’s frosty and sometimes snowy weather. We’ll try to salvage some tiles and finish off the surround of the new burner in an authentic way. It takes a couple of weeks to obtain resource consent, so hopefully will fit in with the repair schedule.

The schedule is important because our private insurer is paying for our $1000 per week rent and there is a $20,000 limit. If it takes more time it comes out of our pocket. A mate of mine has just learned he’ll be out of his hillside house for another 12 months, none of it covered.

Elderly or inexperienced people must be at an incredible disadvantage going through this process.

I’ve had a little experience in the past managing the extension and retrofit of our villa.  This time I’ve been connecting up the various players on emails to make sure we’re all on the same page. I’ve also done a few handyman things like finding the screws and loosening the ceiling roses for easy removal and other handyman bits and pieces to smooth things along.

I took a few beers over to the two tradesmen who have been swimming stoically through plaster dust for the past week. Mostly they don’t have a lot of contact with homeowners who disappear to other neighbourhoods for the duration. 

Our new EQR manager rang to ask if we really want replacement rimu tongue in groove flooring or would a sheet of plywood do; and the wallpaper we’re replacing is more expensive than what EQC offers. More variations orders in the pipeline... 

I feel for people who can’t make progress and I read about the court cases against EQC and shoddy assessments.

This big repair job across our city is less about systems than individual integrity.

I hear the horror stories from homeowners and contractors. Some homeowners are impossible to please. Old homes are not comparable to new. Compromises are necessary. A few fly-by-night builders have left a bad taste for some.

So, we’re under way. I’m imagining moving back to the home where we brought up the girls and upgraded the place ourselves over the years with the help of friends and contractors. It will be nice to have a dishwasher and mains pressure shower again. The cat will be confused – he’s been spending most of his days sleeping close to me on a chair in my office. We’ll have a good party when it’s over.

c.hutch@clear.net.nz

Listen to audio of Chris Hutching talking to Todd Scott moments after the second Chistchurch quake hit here.