Posts by Steve Barnes
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Being a DJ is the best and worst of jobs. When it falls into place, it's brilliantly affirming: you're the king or queen of the moment, the people are with you and you are their joy. On a bad night, it's a very lonely place indeed.
I can't let this slip by...
DJing is, at best, an art not a trade, by calling it a job, unless you are talking radio DJs, devalues both Art and Trade. -
Hard News: The positive option of Red Peak, in reply to
Redesigning, reprinting and retranslating materials about enrolment and voting that referenced four voting options would cost $280,000.
See what happens when you rush things?.
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Speaker: The government's Rules…, in reply to
The main workmanship problem ( there were a few ) was that their builder was supposed to install 'dripper lines' from windows -
Good grief. A shonky execution of an afterthought from a kneejerk reaction to bad legislation.
Drip lines were the "solution" to allowing monolithic cladding to be used on anything other than a shed. Back in the day we were required to install trays under joinery, as the mullion and jamb joints at the cill run through and any amount of sealing, silicone... yuk.... would eventually give up and leak. In my opinion the new regs around window and door openings are over the top, that combined with the desire to build "airtight" buildings will, eventually, lead to rotting and decay through lack of adequate ventilation of the structure. Buildings should "breathe" so that any damp which manages to get in can get out, nothing can be perfect so you mitigate. I fear knowledge has been lost and we may never recover.
We need apprentices, we need good teachers. We don't need "Licenced" building companies employing minimum wage hammerhands building, what in most cases, peoples biggest investment. Once again we should look to Germany and the way it regulates these things. The first step is to respect your builder the way you would respect your doctor and to do that we need good rules that are backed up by good workmanship and that can't happen with our current system run by clueless and ruthless businesspeople. -
Its not as if the information on doing the job properly is not easily availiable...
THE GUIDE FOR
CANTERBURY BUILDERS
BELOW-FLOOR
WORK
Written in a language designed for twelve year olds complete with cute dog and printed coffee stains...
Well, written for people who could not build a Doghouse or Garden Shed without supervision. -
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Speaker: The government's Rules…, in reply to
I might've had it out of context, but the mate reckoned that a few builders out there have council inspectors in their pocket.
One has to ask... "how does he know this?"
In my experience it is rare and "a mate told me" is not proof.
Back in the good old days when building inspection services was privatised on the other hand... -
Hard News: On youthful indiscretions, in reply to
Ian Wishart and his scabby organ
Ewe...
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Since when has a right wing Government not fucked something?.
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Speaker: The government's Rules…, in reply to
He was a BAD builder
You shouldn't have employed him then but how can you tell?.
I have no problem with a well run, efficient Ministry of Building and Works, qualified and certified builders would be a boon to an industry blighted by fly by night cowboys the problem is we don't have a Ministry of Building and Works, we don't have good apprenticeships or even training incentives. Instead we have a mish mash of rules and regulations that were set up for the benefit of developers and materials suppliers and a bunch of greedy business people calling themselves builders with useless stickers on their shiny and new Holden Utes claiming them to be experts.
It has to change and diluting the few controls we have is not the answer.