The Government’s announcement of the new Building Product Specifications (BPS) document, designed to open the doors to thousands of additional building products and bring construction costs down, has been welcomed by the building industry – and one operator has already taken control of long-standing competition issues in the roofing sector.

Roofbuddy, the roofing marketplace which brings together homeowners and qualitied roofers to transact, has launched its proprietary roll-forming steel business, Guardian Steel, to address lack of competition, improve service delivery, and offer an end-to-end service to homeowners with complete accountability and transparency.

For years, roofers and customers have had to deal with monopolistic control of the steel sector. Historically, NZ Steel (owned by ASX-listed BlueScope in Australia) has been dominant, with over 80% market share.

Since Guardian Steel launched – ahead of the Government’s announcement – to offer an alternative, the take-up has been significant: while Guardian Steel is open-market, the main clients initially have been Roofbuddy roofers.

They have proved highly receptive to the new, vertically integrated offering, which delivered 48 roofs in its first two weeks on the market.

There are 100 current, vetted Roofbuddy service providers all over New Zealand – each one is trade qualified with active Licensed Building Practitioner (LBP) certification and operative public liability insurance.

Roofbuddy monitors the quality of their work and checks their performance benchmarks through the company’s on-site 65-point quality assurance framework.

The new BPS document includes roofing and wall cladding systems, stating they are eligible when compliant with international standards outlined in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) guidelines.

Guardian Steel’s product is compliant with these standards and the New Zealand Building Code. The Guardian Steel machinery is made in New Zealand for local conditions by Angus Robertson Mechanical, a Rangiora-based world leader in roll-forming machine manufacture.

The coil product is being made in South Korea to New Zealand specifications; South Korea has been a supplier to this market for decades.

Roofbuddy’s founder and CEO James Logan says he established Guardian Steel to solve a known industry problem – one common to most, if not all trades. “For a long time there has been market frustration with delays and cost overruns and a need for real accountability and quality assurance, and most of all true competition, in the building materials market.

“Those conditions set the stage for direct supply to offer genuine consumer choice, and we established this for roofing steel not long before the Government introduced the new Building Product Specifications.”

The impacts and benefits of Guardian Steel are multifold:

• For consumers, the product helps offer quicker, clearer, and more competitively priced roofing solutions.
• For roofers it means more reliable supply, greater scheduling certainty, and assurance of material standards.
• For the market there is now more direct competition, higher industry standards for price and quality, and more transparent practices and accountability for service delivery.

Guardian Steel addresses another systemic inefficiency: the fragmented supply chain. By consolidating ordering through a tech-enabled specification system sitting within the Roofbuddy ecosystem, Guardian Steel can provide competitive pricing to marketplace contractors while offering customers enhanced security through protected payment arrangements, so funds are released when the job is completed and quality assurance checks are passed.

Guardian Steel has the backing of Roofbuddy as the marketplace for roofers and consumers. Over NZ$80.7 million has been transacted via the Roofbuddy platform in the past three years, with 42,000+ quotes served, more than 3,800+ jobs booked, and an average reroof sales value of $27,490.

The average saving for customers is $2,728 per transaction, calculated by the difference between the average marketplace quote and the marketplace quotes that are accepted. Guardian Steel promises to sharpen those savings even further.

Mr Logan says, “The introduction of the Building Product Specifications doesn’t just level the playing field for the likes of Guardian Steel – it signals a recognition among policymakers that we need to truly open our market to products that comply with our Building Code and all relevant standards.“

Guardian Steel brings global-standard quality and much fairer pricing to the local market while demonstrating how vertical integration creates transparency and better outcomes for homeowners and the whole industry.

Everything from compliance to weather resistance, warranty, and durability is supported by decades of international proof – no more inflated costs, no more local monopoly on roofing products.

There are many imported building products that are better or more competitive than what is currently used in New Zealand, Mr Logan says. “That’s part of the reason why the cost of construction is so high here compared with other markets around the world. Building new structures is cost-prohibitive, which is why half our housing stock is ancient relative to other developed countries – and we have the cold, damp, mouldy homes and public health effects to show for it.

“Elsewhere in the world, housing that is no longer fit for purpose is knocked down and rebuilt to modern standards and with competitively priced materials – like Guardian Steel.”

Mr Logan also points out that reducing the cost of construction materials – whether for new builds or renovations and rebuilds – while keeping standards high has major implications for the wellbeing of New Zealanders.

“We need to look more broadly at the effects of high construction costs stemming from monopolistic control of various material subsectors.

“Our aging housing stock, of which half was built before 1980 and 35% pre-1960, is a critical public health issue, not just a property or construction challenge. It is a root cause of preventable illness, discomfort, and inequality, and it disproportionately affects Māori, Pacific peoples, and low-income renters, who are more likely to live in older, poorer-quality housing. Fixing this is a major social opportunity, and it starts with making it easier and more affordable to improve and repair older homes.”