Extra work follows army house checks

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 10, Issue 447, 4 August 1992, Page 9

Extra work follows army house checks

BV

' JAN

SAVELL

Waiouru's property office is taking a wellearned breather after actioning all the chits (work orders) from the recent housing inspection. SERCO now has a heavy workload. Extra staff have been employed to cope with all the work generated by the inspection. "We've got a heck of a lot of work," said Andrew Hema, manager, for Waiouru's SERCO. "Defence required action on chits within seven days but this is not possible with the massive increase in work." "The bulk of the housing chits are expected to be through by the end of July." SERCO recruited four new tradesmen on a short-term basis and also called for more Army assistance. "We usually have Army apprentices working with us anyway. They're engineers from Linton and they work with us as part of their training." At present four soldiers are working alongside SERCO staff to clear the backlog of work. A problem workers are

experiencing is that they are often sent away from homes. Yvonne Smith, property officer for Waiouru, said that this is because her inspection team may have picked up things that the tenant didn't notice. "Please at least let the workman look at it," said Yvonne. "If there is nothing wrong that is fine but we don't want to have to send workmen back again later." Another concern for the property office was the state of the smoke

detectors. All houses are fitted with them but many were found to be inoperable. "They are really important. Just the other week a home was saved from serious damage because a smoke detector raised the alarm while the occupants were away. We've got batteries down here and residents can just come and pick them up." The team were unable to gain access to 15% of the houses. These will be left for the next inspec-

tion in 12-months time. Yvonne believes the whole exercise has been a resounding success. "I really enjoyed it. Now I know exactly what state the houses are in. The paperwork is all there and if someone rings up I can just dive onto the file." Staff at the property office had a giggle over one effect of the comprehensive inspection - clean homes. "The continual smell of fresh oven cleaner kindof gave the game away."