Trading PlacesHaving just arrived in New Zealand, Sheila Ryan thought jet lag had affected her when she saw a two-storey house trundling towards her on a truck. But it was just another normal case of right house, wrong place
Jet lag can do strange things to your state of mind, but the sight of a two-storey house rolling down the highway towards me confirmed that the flight to New Zealand had really taken its toll. But it wasn't a hallucination. For over a century, New Zealanders have thought nothing of hoisting their houses on to wheels and moving them to a new location. An aspiring homeowner can buy a plot of land and then shop for their dream home in a used-house lot. Shortly afterwards the house is delivered by truck.
It's a cost-effective way of getting a foot on the property ladder, but buying an old house has other advantages.
Relaxing of building regulations in recent years has sparked a spate of leaking and rotting homes and this has highlighted the benefits of old timber and building practices. "The craftsmanship in an old building is better than in a modern one," said Paul Britton, manager of the Wellington branch of Britton Housemovers Ltd.
In addition, an old house may be made from the timber of native trees such as rimu and kauri, which once covered large parts of New Zealand. These trees provided wood first for Maori war canoes and later for the houses of the early settlers, and are renowned for their beauty and strength. Their durability is attested to by the fact that some of the early settlers' houses are still standing.
However, the booming timber trade put many native trees on the endangered species list. Logging of native trees is now heavily restricted, making their timber a highly sought-after period feature. "If someone gets a house with rimu floors, they get polished every time instead of carpeted over," said Mr Britton.
The government housing agency, Housing New Zealand Corporation, has picked up on the benefits of moving complete houses around the country, and has been doing it in significant quantities for almost two years. In addition to moving old houses to areas of high demand, they build new houses for transport to rural areas. "There's a big cost premium for building new houses in remote areas," said John Tocker, development planning manager with Housing New Zealand. "For remote locations, the cost of transporting materials, people and skills is much more expensive than transporting a complete house." In addition, houses often become available when an urban area is redeveloped or a road is extended. Where homes might otherwise be demolished, Housing New Zealand relocates them. It's the ultimate in recycling.
It seems incredible that a house can survive a long journey by road. But New Zealand houses are built with the flexibility to withstand the earthquakes to which the country is prone, and the usual building material is timber. "Wooden houses are very forgiving," said Mr Tocker. "They bend and come back straight when you take them off the truck." The ability to accommodate urban development without having to demolish old houses has played an important part in preserving New Zealand's heritage.
In 1989, when Brittons moved the clubhouse of an historic Wellington boat club, they discovered it had been moved, exactly 100 years before, to facilitate harbour redevelopment.
The largest building relocated in New Zealand was Wellington's Museum Hotel. The five-storey, 3,500 tonne building faced demolition in 1993 to make way for the proposed Museum of New Zealand. Instead, the entire structure was separated from its foundation and was transported on a specially built railway track to its new site, 120 metres away, earning the name Hotel de Wheels.
Houses currently available from Brittons include a three-bedroom railway house featuring wooden joinery and sash windows. The price of NZ$44,000 (21,500) includes tax and delivery to an accessible site within two hours' drive. Homeowners looking for a little extra space can pick up a ready-made extension, a double garage or a self-contained granny flat for around half that price.
The prospect of a complete house arriving on your land without struggling to find a builder might sound like a dream come true for Irish buyers, but it could become a reality. New Zealand companies are now exporting complete houses to Asia and America, and they have set their sights on our part of the world.
"A market we're opening up now is Europe and the UK, and particularly Ireland because there's a growing demand for timber houses," said Greg Charteris, managing director of Tristyle International Ltd. He plans to start selling complete timber houses to Ireland by the end of this year. "A one-off, custom-designed house could be landed in the UK for around about NZ$900 (€440) per sq m," said Mr Charteris. A standard house would cost about two thirds of that, and prices for Ireland could be similar, depending on exchange rates and import duties. At these prices, it may be only a matter of time before the sight of houses rolling down the M50 is as commonplace here as it is on the other side of the world.
