Leaky classrooms set for demolition

Four of the original classrooms were demolished and others have been closed. Photo / File

Buildings at a relatively new Auckland school are about to be demolished in one of the biggest casualties of the leaky building crisis.

Alex Burrell of Burrell Demolition in Grey Lynn said he had tendered for demolition of buildings at Manurewa's Gardens School, estimated to cost about $22 million to rebuild.

The decile 10 primary school with just over 600 students, near the Auckland Regional Botanic Gardens, said last year that only two of its 24 classrooms would be kept.

Despite wanting the work, Burrell said he was unhappy about tearing down the buildings.

"As a carpenter, I'm uncomfortable demolishing something as nice as that. But where do you go? When I first heard they were using untreated pine as a building material, I was absolutely horrified because I deal with the remains of those buildings. When we find a piece of untreated pine in a building 30 years old, you can kick it to bits with your foot because the borer eats 75 to 80 per cent.

"No matter what they do ... they thought borer wouldn't touch it but as soon as water got in, it fell apart. Borer do backstroke through un-treated pine. They swim through it."

Four of the original classrooms were demolished and others have been closed, forcing nine classes into prefabricated buildings on the playing field. Burrell said it might cost between $300,000 and $400,000 to demolish the buildings and take approximately two months.