Three-bed house built in a day

Fletcher Living has just built a threebedroom house in a day and hopes it will inspire others to use new techniques and build faster to meet Auckland’s pressing housing needs.

Fletcher Residential and Land Development chief executive Steve Evans showed off the 170sq m $800,000-plus house at Hobsonville Pt, which he said was put up between 7.30am and 5pm on Wednesday.

It usually takes six to nine months to build a house in Auckland, he said. But Fletcher Living’s panelised components could enable others in the sector to regularly put up a home in a single day, he said.

“It’s all about providing the New Zealand dream much quicker,” Evans said of the duplex on Pheasant St, yet to be finished inside. It took Fletcher Living just one-and-a-half days to put up the other side of the duplex, he said.

Evans acknowledged weeks of work behind making the panels for the fast-built homes. These were made in a former Laminex factory in Papakura, he said.

Fletcher built about 1000 houses a year but its new fast-build process was not just for his company, he stressed.

“We’re providing these products for other home builders as well. This is an innovation the entire sector can use,” he said.

Pamela Bell, chief executive of industry organisation PrefabNZ, was on Auckland mayor Phil Goff's housing taskforce. Her industry entity has long advocated off-site house manufacturing.

Anne Gibson

the Bluff maritime hub operator matched record freight volumes set a year earlier. Net profit fell to $8.4 million in the 12 months ended June 30, from $8.7m a year earlier, the Bluff-based company said. Revenue increased 0.4 per cent to $36.9m.