Fletcher Building chief living in leaky home

Ralph Waters

Fletcher Building's chief executive Ralph Waters has had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars fixing up his leaky home, the Dominion Post reported today.

He had spent nearly $400,000 so far fixing his 13-year-old Auckland home but was not seeking compensation.

"I've had to substantially rebuild the house I live in all because of poor workmanship, poor building standards and a whole lot of water ingress," the Australian, who moved to New Zealand in 2001, told the paper

It had been an interesting exercise to see first-hand.

Mr Waters said the dollar value of leaky building work to the building industry has been overlooked.

He believed there was more spent on fixing up homes with leaks and timber issues than recognised or included in official housing data.

He saw a message for the likes of the Reserve Bank. "There's a lot of people spending way more money than they've invested anywhere else...just on securing the value of what they've got."

- NZPA