MBIE survey results

You may have seen or heard of the results of a repairs survey by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), released today.

The report and other relevant information from MBIE can be found here.

The survey results and our thoughts

We are pleased with our result of zero non-compliant defects in the MBIE survey and feel this is a testament to the quality assurance, training and monitoring in our programme. 

The results of the survey also show that our practices around structural foundation repair methodologies are working. We are confident in our quality assurance initiatives across our programme for these types of foundation repairs.

However, we are not resting on our laurels and are constantly looking for ways to improve. We regularly review current and completed work to ensure compliance and best practise, and are currently undertaking a review of all the timber floor foundation repairs we completed earlier in our programme, prior to the introduction of our ROVER quality inspections.

Early in our programme we had less than 40 repairs exempted from building consents, out of the total 619 repairs that are currently either under construction or completed. We stopped that practice because we wanted customers to have greater assurance that their repair work was Building Code compliant, and we are now reviewing the small number of jobs that were previously exempt from building consents as part of our overall review.

Repairs programme initiatives and quality assurance

Initiatives which have been implemented in our repairs programme to date include:

• Involvement of a qualified structural engineer to set out the best way to re-level floors and to sign off the completed work for each customer
• Use of a purpose-built robot with in-built camera (ROVER) to accurately capture details of the damage and assess the quality of repair work under the floor in the areas we can’t access
• All Arrow-managed structural repairs are now covered by a Building Consent
• Our repairs project managers are trained to monitor the quality of work throughout the re-levelling process to make sure it is being carried out correctly
• Selecting and monitoring our principal contractors on criteria, which includes demonstrable quality measures, as well as ensuring that those in charge of signing off foundation releveling work attend the appropriate MBIE training

These initiatives are in place as part of our continuous improvement and commitment to delivering quality construction, so that customers can have total confidence in their repair work. The MBIE study reinforced our focus on this.

Further assistance for repair customers

We are currently in the process of setting up an 0800 number exclusively for customers who have already had over cap house repairs completed in our programme. With the assistance of expert technical repair staff, the purpose of this service is to provide customers with an opportunity to have their queries answered, arrange site visits and obtain technical reports and video footage where applicable.

This number will be made available here on our website in the coming days once it's up and running. If you're interested in this service, check back here for further details or contact your Claims Specialist.