Glass and Window Repair in North Dunedin, Dunedin

This is the most scrutinised rental housing in New Zealand right now. MBIE's Tenancy Compliance and Investigations Team inspected 53 student properties across the city over May and June and found widespread maintenance failings, including mould, damp and broken heat pumps. Media coverage this winter has centred on flats that are colder inside than the street outside despite passing the Healthy Homes standards.

Meeting the standards is not the same as being warm

That is the uncomfortable finding behind the coverage. A flat can carry insulation, a heat pump and a compliant ventilation calculation and still sit at outdoor temperature, because the windows leak air continuously and the heating never gets used.

The gap between compliant and warm is usually draughts and glass. An unsealed double hung sash has a continuous opening the full width of the window. Brush pile seals routed into the sash close it for a fraction of what a heat pump costs to run for a winter, and they do not depend on a student choosing to turn something on.

The ventilation standard, in practice

Each habitable room needs openable windows, doors or skylights totalling at least 5 percent of the floor area, and each must open to the outside and be able to be fixed in the open position. Kitchens and bathrooms also need extractor fans ducted outside.

In subdivided villas the common failures are painted shut sashes, snapped cords and corroded stays, not undersized openings. We free the sashes, replace the cords and stays, confirm each window can be fixed open, and hand over a room by room record with floor area, openable area and the percentage.

Working around the flatting calendar

Glass in this part of town gets broken at inconvenient hours and needs sorting before the next tenancy. We board up on the first visit and glaze once the glass is cut, and we can deal directly with a property manager, arrange access and invoice against the property rather than chasing a tenant.

For owners with several properties we work through them in a run, which keeps the cost per address down and gets the compliance paperwork done in one go.

What we get called out for in North Dunedin

• Window Repair in North Dunedin, diagnosed before anything is quoted, not after.
• Glass Repair in North Dunedin, common sizes measured and glazed in 24 to 48 hours.
• Sash Cord Replacement in North Dunedin, new cord, weights rebalanced, pulleys freed.
• Rotten Window Sill Repair in North Dunedin, soft timber cut back to solid and new timber scarfed in.
• Ranch Slider Repair in North Dunedin, rollers, tracks, guides and locks replaced.

North Dunedin sits on the same run as Dunedin Central, North East Valley and Opoho, so we are usually in the area anyway.