I received professional inspection training through Archicentre, Australia's largest property inspection service, back in the 90s.
I have written hundreds of inspection reports of various types: pre-purchase, home safety, building advice, plus some other variations, dilapidation, owner-builders, and commercial buildings. A number of reports were written as an expert witness for building disputes.
I became a registered architect in Melbourne, Victoria, in 1994.
I ran my own domestic architecture business in Australia for 14 years, specialising in residential construction.
I took new home and complex inner-city renovation projects from conception, through the design stages, regulatory approvals, tendering, and usually administered the contract between the owner and the builder.
I went through rigorous practical training and gained a thorough understanding of the building industry's construction methods from the ground up.
This one was an external inspection of an 18-storey building, looking for issues where a construction sealant used to waterproof the building exterior had failed. After discussions with the main construction sealant suppliers, I wrote up a 54-page report with recommendations for remedial work.
Sometimes you can have just a little too much excitement in your job.
I travelled overseas to gain additional big building experience and worked as part of a 26-person team on the tender documentation for a new Current Affairs building for the BBC, leading the documentation for the exterior envelope.
The Aotea Centre was a great place to learn about large-scale building construction, which we documented while it was being built. As New Zealand's largest performing arts centre, the building had plenty of complexity.
I joined the 25-person design team as the last of the concrete piles were being poured, and followed the construction through to the interior fit-out, working closely with the contractor management on site.
After three years of practical training, I sat the exam and became a registered New Zealand architect in 1988. However, I am no longer registered with the New Zealand Registered Architects Board (NZRAB) as I only do building inspections and reports these days.
That's with a B Arch (Hons) from the University of Auckland. After a few years of further practical experience, I passed the examination to become a registered New Zealand architect three years later.
I believe those glasses have almost come back into fashion. I should have kept them.
Nelson College has that fantastic resource, Mataki Lodge, which introduced me to tramping.
Tramping has been a major incentive to return to Nelson. I have continued with my appreciation of the tramping experience, and have created the website tramping.net.nz, an almost comprehensive guide to tramping on many of the most well-known tramping tracks in the South and Stewart Islands.
If I'm not available for work, there's a fair chance I'm out in the hills doing further "research".
Oh, mostly in the 1970s, back when I, like everyone else around, had hair, usually plenty of it. The mullet was standard for the blokes.
Yes, a long time ago.
