Sea views come with sea spray.

What the salt zones actually mean

You might hear builders talk about sea spray zones, or exposure zones. They come from the building standard NZS 3604, and BRANZ maps them. Zones B, C and D run from low to high exposure to wind-driven salt. Zone D covers land within 500 m of the coastline and within 100 m of tidal estuaries and sheltered inlets, and the building code's E2/AS1 guidance adds a zone E for beachfronts with rough seas and surf beaches.

They're building design zones, used for things like choosing fixings that won't corrode, not a cleaning schedule. BRANZ also says its maps are technically conservative around estuaries and inlets.

Whether your place sits in one comes down to the exact address, so we won't guess. You can look yours up on BRANZ Maps. If you're that close to the water, the coastal washing advice from the makers, just below, is the bit to read. Confirm: will you check addresses on BRANZ Maps when quoting?

Source: BRANZ Bulletin 588, BRANZ Maps

Some Kāpiti roofs feed a tank

Most Kāpiti properties are on town water, but not all. The council says some are on private tanks or bores, and out at Hautere and Te Horo, households on the rural water scheme put in their own tank and pump.

Tanks turn up in town too. The council requires every new or relocated home to have another water source for toilets and outdoor use, either a 10,000 litre tank or a 4,000 litre rain tank plus greywater diversion. And in a 2022 Greater Wellington survey of mostly rural Kāpiti households not on the wastewater network, more than half of the people who answered used rainwater for some or all of their supply. Greater Wellington says the survey isn't definitive.

If your roof feeds a tank, the downpipes into it need disconnecting before any roof treatment goes on. BRANZ says to disconnect the pipe to the tank first and rinse everything thoroughly with clean water before reconnecting, and the exterior cleaning industry's code of practice says treated roofs that harvest water need diverting and disconnecting so the water isn't tainted. Confirm: your tank routine, including who disconnects and reconnects the downpipes, and how much rain you wait for

There's more on how that works on our roof treatment page.

Sources: Kāpiti Coast District Council, your water connection, community supply and grey water and water tanks, the Greater Wellington rural water survey summary, BRANZ Level, rainwater maintenance and the ECIA code of practice

A lot of the coast went up in the 1970s

A council-commissioned housing report (January 2022, using 2019 data) found the 1970s produced more of the Kāpiti Coast District's homes than any other decade, at about one in five. Add that to the decades before it and close to half the district's homes were built before 1980.

Age matters on a roof. WorkSafe says high-pressure water blasting must not be used on roofing that contains asbestos, and to find out first, through an asbestos survey, the building plans or a tested sample. The exterior cleaning industry's code says to treat Super Six-type roof profiles, some shingles and older metal tile roofs as containing asbestos until a test says otherwise.

Paint can be a thing too. The industry's best-practice guide says homes built before the 1990s may have lead-based paint, and that it should only be cleaned or stripped by someone who knows how to handle it.

Our rule: we don't do asbestos work. If a roof or panel is known to contain asbestos, we'll decline the job. If your home was built before 2000 and you'd like a roof treatment, we may ask for an asbestos check first. Confirm: what you do with old, flaking paint that might contain lead

The short version: we don't blast roofs. Here's why we soft wash instead, and the roof details are on the roof treatment page.

Sources: Housing demand and need in Kāpiti Coast District (2022), WorkSafe, high-pressure blasting and asbestos roofing, the ECIA code of practice and the ECIA best-practice guide for claddings, gutters and roofs