All this draught is daft

Reports indicate that only 5 per cent of rental properties have been insulated through the scheme. That's an appalling figure. A failure.

You have to feel sorry for tenants in these places. I can still vividly remember my first flat, in Wellington's Aro Valley, which was so cold and damp that it's a longstanding bookmark in my mind.

Another in Arch Hill, Auckland, was so cold and draughty that when you swept the floors you didn't need a brush and dustpan. All the rubbish fell through the wide gaps in the floorboards.

Because of its location, this house has, no doubt, been done up and is worth a million bucks.

One of the biggest problems is that property investors are wary of many of the installers who work under the scheme, some of whom do a poor job or ramp up the prices.

Feedback we have had clearly shows that many home owners have chosen to go it alone.

The suggestion has been made that the government subsidy should be extended to property investors who self-install.

This makes total sense, as many investors do their own maintenance. Also, the house is their asset and their investment. But nope. The response from officials is that it's not a goer.

The Green Party has a bill it wants to get before Parliament which would force landlords to make sure their properties meet "Government standards" for heating and energy efficiency.

Many landlords have added heat pumps to their properties for the benefit of their tenants. If they are forced to spend more to insulate without access to a subsidy that makes it worthwhile, then they could well be entitled to raise rents.

Comments from our readers

On 21 August 2012 at 4:12 pm Lslie Ruf said:

We are obviously one of the few landlords to have made use of the subsidy - it was a big help. However I would not be happy for the government to legislate for minimum heating & energy standards in rental properties. More encouragement or more incentives to insulation would be better. Landlords are facing big increases in costs for council rates and insurances. Tenants are not necessarily able to afford higher rents even though rents should in reality rise to cover these increases.

On 21 August 2012 at 5:47 pm john said:

We have decided to insulate using our own resources. The "Licensed" installers are using the opportunity to insist on remedial work before doing the necessary part, using weak "not up to standard" comments on earlier, very up to standard installations by competitors.
The net cost makes the subsidy an extra expense, not a reduction.
That of course is going to be the "unintended consequences" of any licensing scheme.

On 21 August 2012 at 11:31 pm chrs said:

As the author points out, NZ housing is shamefully inadequate in quality. And considering the high prices, it is extremely poor value compared to what can be bought elsewhere. I blame mainly the lack of competition, the lack of standardisation (do all doors and windows really have to be custom built?) and the industry not catching up on newer technology (but that's competition again isn't it?). I was hoping the Christchurch rebuild would shake things up, but no such luck so far. We are stuck with the same old inefficient, poor-quality, expensive, processes and suppliers.

All this draught is daft

The chill may be coming off the housing market, but that isn't the case for tenants. We hear lots of crowing from the Government and the Green Party about the success of its home insulation subsidy scheme, Warm Up New Zealand, but the reality is different.

Tuesday, August 21st 2012, 12:00AM 3 Comments

Comments from our readers

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