This photo of the eastern aspect shows the window that’s will be replaced by french doors onto a small deck. Note the concrete roof tile slacking around on the ground rather than hanging out on the roof where it belongs.
I started investigating what I’d need to do to get a change of use approved in April 2018. The ever-helpful Ruapehu District Council told me about things like having all windows double-glazed, and fully-insulating the exterior walls. They also told me about having to connect to the water and sewerage system despite my preference to collect water and recycle my own sewerage.
The Building Act specifies what work you don’t need a consent for. That’s mostly stuff that goes on within the building envelope. Anything in the building envelope requires a consent, unless it’s an existing element.
Ok, I can live with that. Until I realised that pretty much everything I wanted to do within the building envelope was dependent on doing stuff to the building envelope first. Sigh.
Then there’s a whole lot of stuff that you don’t need a consent for, but councils will still want to know about. Stuff like heating. You don’t need a building consent to install a heat-pump, but councils still want to know that you’ll have heating. Ditto ventilation like bathroom and kitchen extraction fans. You need to get those drawn in as well.
They want to know where you’re going to install your gas cylinders for your hot water system, what they’ll be mounted on, and how you’re going to stop them from being nicked. And yes they do get nicked!
They also want to know what products you’re going to use for specific applications such as shower wall water-proofing, insulation, and new door and window fittings. You have to obtain producer statements from your proposed suppliers and submit them to your council. They then get officially stamped and you have to have them on site at all times together with your approved plans. You also have go back to council to get new ones approved if you change your mind or the supplier goes out of business. Double-sigh.
Since I’m putting french doors where the east-facing window is, that needs to have safety glass and a deck installed below it. The main entry needs to comply with the slip-resistance performance of NZBC d1.3.3 (d) – whatever the hell that is! And I have to get the road access re-done to meet another standard.
Councils have 20 days to approve building consent applications. They stop the clock as soon as they have any queries. They also stop the clock for their end-of-year three-week close-down. I lodged my application on 30 November 2018. The council requested additional information on 18 December and it was supplied on 20 December. On 9 January I got the call to say it was approved. I think we can call that some kind of record!
Next time: Damn it, granite!
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