Anyone who's lived pretty much anywhere by Australia can tell you our housing standards are pretty crap. Unfortunately cheaping out on energy efficiencies costs us all more in the long run. Its not like cutting costs saved anyone money, either. Out house pricing is very high, even worse given the poor quality.
When we built 6 years ago, we advised the builder that we wanted a Zero Energy house and that it would be audited and profiled by the SECCCA and published in their magazine.
We weren’t seeking any discount or special treatment, but it would have been a great opportunity for this builder to showcase that they are progressive.
Every step of the way, the Site Supervisor and contractors snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. It is was almost as if they were trying to sabotage the build.
It came to a head when they tried to install an “electric assist” hot water service instead of a fully electric hot water service. We never had Gas to site.
The Site Supervisor and their manager called us idiots for not wanting gas and ranted and raved. They said it was not possible to have a house in Australia without Gas hot water.
Their CEO got involved and pointed out that his house did not have Gas to site, he had two Tesla PowerWalls and 20kW of solar over two inverters and was essentially off-grid in suburbia. He got a rebate from his power company every month.
The Site Supervisor was fired and their manager was given a demotion.
O think I've met these site managers.
For a work fit out we were going paperloss office, new company 7 years ago. They kept on wanting to know where the multi function cnwtre printer would be. They were designing cabinetry, electrics and Ethernet around it. When we kept insisting we would not have one, they eventually relented and only planned for it to be in the occasional office/store cupboard beside comma.
7 years later and the cabling and power points are still there unused as expected but they couldn't get their heads around it. I mean, if we changed our minds we could have gone WiFi. It was so frustrating.
Shit like this is why we refused to look at anything built this century when we were househunting. I'll take lead and asbestos over structural issues every time
Building Inspectors used to be employed by local government and were audited to prevent them being able to take bribes.
Now Building Inspectors are employed by the builder. Their whole business model is one big bribe.
I don't know what to think about housing anymore, I'm just so tired. The new builds around my parents house look shoddy and just plain ugly, not to mention first thing developers do is remove any and all trees and put concrete over the entire block. "Nimby" has become such a buzzword and a scapegoat but like, it's hard not to have a bit of empathy, and anecdotally lots of people would be supportive of these new developments if they weren't all shit. These concrete jungle suburbs will be around for decades at least. But also, the housing crisis is real and developers are saying that red tape around building quality is slowing them down. I desperately want a place to live, nothing fancy but at least safe and liveable. Is it genuinely impossible to have density and build quality?
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