The Building Co Review & Defects New Build

We hired The Building Co & Kendal Read in 2021 to build our new house and i’ll put it bluntly, it was a disaster. I would think twice about hiring this building company located in Westmere, Auckland to build your house. Not only was work on the property not compliant, defective, changed without approve and generally just bad, Kendal the owner in our opinion had a terrible attitude, caused delays, would refuse to fix issues and from the owners experience they also felt bullied. The house took 4 years to complete, nearly 3 years past is binding completion date.

Below is the defective, non compliant, rough work that was done on this new build. This review will be simplified, meaning we will keep as much complexity out as possible to keep it easy to understand. Not every issue will be added.

Disclaimer: Everything below and above is factual. We have emails, images and/or reports to back up everything. This post has been created based of facts for awareness so you can judge for yourself. This is the owners true experience building a new build with The Building Co 2006 Limited. This an honest opinion of a service that was provided provided.

TL;DR. The owner who hired this builder didn’t have a good experience and the project was nearly 3 years late. Throughout the build had defects and non compliant work. Does not recommend.

1: Ground Works Defect

The ground works were not up to scratch at all and had to be redone. The plans and codes state trenches have to be backfilled with the correct hard full. What was used instead was the wet sloppy clay that was originally dug out. Its much cheaper to just try throw the old wet stuff back in but it’s not compliant. A wooden stick could be pushed into the ground under the house, thats terrible.

The base for the house concrete slab was also completely contaminated with clay.

2: Waterproofing and bathrooms

This was a major, all 3 fully tiles bathrooms had to be ripped out and done again. An expert report found that tiles were spot fixed on and thats non compliant. This means minimal dots of glue were used to stick to the walls. Water stops were not used and this was also a breach of contract. Not only that the second time the bathroom were getting done non-compliant work was done again! The floorboards in the up stairs bathrooms were not cut out around drain flange correctly those also had to be replaced.

Waterproofing laid on paint and drywall dust. Breach of manufacture specification.

Grout falling behind tiles due to cavity behind tiles because of spot fixing. Imagine you have a brand new house, brand new bathroom and the grout is falling out.

Split waterproofing on second attempt on rebuilding bathrooms. There was much more, I think this explains how bad the bathrooms were.

Tile just falls off wall.

Snippets from export bathroom report below.

3: Damaged Bricks & Wrong Plaster

Under the requirements of the development the houses getting build in it required a nice plaster render over the brick that showed the brick pattern. The owner sent The Building Co an email confirming this. However, the plaster was done wrong and it had to be taken off, this happened on about 30% of the brick. Lucky the owner noticed or it would have been 100% of the brick. Bricks were damaged in the process.

4: Garage Unauthorised Plan Changes

The Building Co in Westmere made changes to an approve detail without approval from the architect, council and owner. This is a builder in Auckland, New Zealand where leaky homes have been a major issue. The builder closed off the cavity above the garage, this means water can’t drain if it gets in that section. In fact, what makes this worse is the builder did have it laid out right and council has signed it off then they changed it AFTER that. Thats really bad.

Had to be pulled apart and done again. Glue was also used on bottom of cladding and it warped as was not fixed correctly. We won’t be uploading all the images to this Auckland builder review, just we thinks needed.

5: Roof Venting Issue

Parts of the roofing on the new build did not have the required ventilation. I’m adding this to The Building Co review because it’s important. The roof needs ventilation so it had to be pulled apart and done correctly. This happened in multiple areas of the house.

6: Non Compliant Works on Flashing

This was one of the worst things that happened on the new build from The Building Co. They were suppose to screw the corners on the house under the windows and doors. We have these black aluminium flashings for the corners of the house. Gluing them on is against the code and they can just fall off and let water in, thats exactly what started to happen. Will add images of this at a later date.

7: Unacceptable Painting Finish On Wall

A few places had some bad paint work, image below was one of the worst spots. This was suppose to be a stage 5 finish however its not even close. The finish was bumpy and has lines in it and was just bad. Wall had a big hump in the middle it had to be cut out as well and redone.

8: Walls Not Straight

Walls were not straight in multiple areas and out of tolerances. In one area a large area on one side of the house had to have GIB (dry wall) taken off and done again. One area even has to be done multiple times.

9: Bathroom Shower Floor Repairs

The shower floors where the drain was were done incorrectly. Instead of cutting a hole for the drain it was smashed out with a tool leaving a hole that was over size and brittle. It was done on a fiber sheet so it was weak and had to be replaced.

10: Low Quality Gate Installed

The gate that was installed was so bad, It was flimsy and cracked in the corners so it had to be replaced with a new quality gate. It fell apart in the end.

11: Non Compliant Driveway Prep

The minimum required thickness for the driveway is 100mm. Lucky the owner checked before the driveway was poured as it was less than that in places. Some places nearly half.

12: Damaged Shower Base

When doing bathroom rectification a shower base was damaged in multiple places. To repair it plaster was used and voided the warranty.

13: Issue Around Roof Junctions (from report)

14: Flooring Defects (from report)

The flooring was defective on the new build and needs about $60,000 worth of rectification. I have added a section from the expert report that explains it all. Vienna Woods in Auckland is who did the flooring.

15: Electrical Work Compliance (from report)

16: Retaining Wall Work

It might be hard to tell in this picture, however if you look at the very end and then the very front of the picture the retaining wall down the side of the house was not straight. This had to be fixed and still has a bow in it. This wan’t a major problem, however not a good look for the start of the job.

We have not posted every single issue here. The Building Co did fix issues however, it took weeks or months for them to do so. The owner of the Building Co Kendal was also the director of another company that was liquidated, public information.