The Value of a Resident Builder

I remember a time many years ago when my wife and I were buying a new house. My brother, a lifetime builder with decades of calloused hands and a healthy dose of blunt honesty, came to check the place out. As he left, he casually tossed out the line, “Well, I’ve seen worse. In a condemned house.” Not exactly the reassurance we were hoping for.

Naturally, we ignored his advice. To be fair, he wasn’t wrong. The place did have a pretty impressive borer problem, and not long after moving in we ended up ripping out the entire floor and subfloor. It was a baptism of fire into the world of homeownership, and a reminder that optimism doesn’t hold up quite as well as a solid joist.

Over the years, I’ve owned a number of houses. Having started out life as an electrician, I spent plenty of time on building sites, absorbing the quiet competence of tradespeople who know exactly how to make things square, true, and watertight. I built our current home and renovated others. While I’m a long way from being a qualified builder, I’m not bad with a hammer and saw. At the very least, I can hold my own in conversations about flashing details or the right way to fix a squeaky floor.

That background came to mind the other Sunday as I was driving into the airport to catch a flight to Wellington. National Radio, my usual companion on those early-morning drives, was playing its kids’ show. It might have been riveting if I were still ten years old, but at my age, it was less than enthralling. So I flicked across the dial and landed on Newstalk ZB, just in time to hear my mate Peter Wolfkamp giving out building advice.

Now, Peter is what I’d call an old-fashioned builder. Not just in the sense that he knows his way around a toolbelt, but because he’s generous with his knowledge and genuinely enjoys helping people. He’s done the media thing, famously as the resident builder on The Block, but his real value is the decades of practical experience he shares on his radio show. Callers phone in with problems about condensation, laminated floors, paint bubbling, leaky decks, and Peter calmly works through the issues. He doesn’t drown them in jargon, but he explains enough theory so they understand why he’s suggesting something, and then backs it up with practical, real-world fixes.

Listening to him, I realised how valuable that kind of pragmatic wisdom is. Living in a rural area, I take it for granted that everyone knows how to change the oil in their car, replace a tap washer, or throw up a bit of gib. Around here, DIY is less of a hobby and more of a survival skill. But in our cities, it’s a very different story. There are plenty of people whose closest brush with a power tool is the paper cut they get while collating another stack of reports.

That sounds harsh, and I’ll admit when I was younger, I was pretty dismissive of people who sat behind desks all day. As an apprentice, I couldn’t see much value in work that didn’t leave me with aching muscles and a few splinters. Age has softened me, and I’ve come to see the enormous value in the intellectual and managerial work that keeps businesses, communities, and economies ticking over. But even with that change in perspective, I still take real pride in having a practical foundation. Being able to use one’s hands to solve problems is a fundamentally good thing.

And that’s why people like Peter are so important. For every confident DIY-er who knows the difference between a nog and a bearer, there are a dozen others who freeze when faced with a broken hinge or a leaking pipe. Some retreat, paralysed by fear of getting it wrong. Others barrel ahead and end up making things worse, botched jobs that cost thousands to fix later.

Peter’s role is to bridge that gap. He empowers people to give things a go, but he also teaches them enough to know their limits. There’s a subtle wisdom in that: yes, you can try to fix the gib yourself, but no, you probably shouldn’t attempt to rewire the switchboard unless you’ve got a death wish.

And isn’t that a broader metaphor for life? We live in an age where more and more of us are losing the ability to do the practical, the tangible. Everything is mediated by a screen, outsourced to an app, or delegated to someone else. The art of making, fixing, and maintaining is being slowly eroded. Yet at the same time, we live in a world where resilience, true resilience, comes not from having a flashy CV, but from knowing you can get through life’s challenges with both your head and your hands.

The borer in my old house taught me that optimism only gets you so far before the floor gives way. Peter’s radio show reminds me that there’s wisdom in the basics. And my own journey from apprentice sparkie to business owner, board director, and occasional commentator has reinforced the idea that theory and practice, head and hands, aren’t mutually exclusive. The best outcomes often come when both are in play.

So maybe the lesson is this: celebrate the Peters of the world. Value the ones who can translate practical knowledge into everyday wisdom. And for the rest of us, maybe spend a little less time shuffling paper and a little more time learning how to fix that leaking tap. Because one day, you’ll be glad you did.