The cost of scaffolding regulations
The NZ Initiative prints some feedback on their report about the cost of the MBIE campaign to reduce falls from heights of under three metres:
- I’m a qualified licenced builder and it adds 20 k to the build costs of a average house build. It may have reduced some claims but I don’t believe it is 30% reduction in what I read in the building magazines . But the cost to train and police the scaffolding is huge . So I’d wonder if the savings in acc claims would justify the costs in all the policing of it. In most tradies opinions its way over the top and to pc. If your good at what you do your experienced enough it should be up to the tradies if they need or want scaffolding on there jobs.
- I applaud the initiative of NZ Initiative. I just wish our compliance bureaucracy could adopt a balanced approach rather than inflexible adherence to the book at all costs. Ultimately, it is the public who pay.
- Talking to a tradesman about an Chch earthquake repair, a handful of nails on some roofing needed hammering back in; a 10 minute job – not allowed to do it without several thousand dollars worth of scaffolding.
- Just finished a renovation of our house and the scaffolding costs added a significant cost to the build. I ended up installing some windows myself as the scaffolding requirement doubled the cost of the windows and the height from the ground was laughable. I built my own low scaffold out of wood and did the job myself and saved a heap of money!
- The cost of compliance is a joke in this country. We had a quote for $2500 for scaffolding to do a $250 roof repair that would take an hour. If you don’t play the dumb game and Work-shaft catch you, the fine’s huge.
- Whats laughable Helen [Kelly] I have worked in the building / housing industry for 50 years we always built our own scaffold on housing projects this did not include safety netting never a bad accident Currently building a small house 150m3 the cost of scaffolding has increased the build cost by $15000.Keep laughing Helen you are out of touch.
- Totally agree… Had a quote to do the roof on my house… Additional cost of $10000.. Just for scaffolding to comply with the new rules…. For a new house build of course this adds to the total overall cost…
One day you’ll need scaffolding for tree huts!