A Dannevirke property maintenance business which wasn’t meant to be more than one handy man in 2020 has surprised its owner and delighted its customers by growing into a team of 25 multi -skilled tradespeople who will take on most things on a residential or commercial site other than new builds or additions.

Ruahine Property Works was started by Torrin Day when he employed a full time handyman to keep his rental properties up to spec. The plan was to utilise him approx. 20 hours per week around his properties and hire him out 20 hours to help offset the wages. A local sign writer came up with some orange sign writing for the van and the phone started ringing. “From day one it just started growing,” Torrin says. “The decision was then made to support it and grow it.  Now we’ve got 23 vehicles on the road.”

In Dannevirke, Ruahine Property Works grew from maintenance services into the renovation market, and the only trade it doesn’t operate from in-house is an electrician. “But we’ve got a reliable contractor. We’ll do anything around the property that you want including gardening / tree removal / fencing / concrete driveways through to new bathrooms and kitchens. We now also have a full-time roofing team undertaking repairs and full reroofs.

Many of these tradespeople are multi-skilled and can turn their hand to other tasks. This works well when weather can affect outside work or when one area of the business is quieter than the others. It also gives the guys some variety in what they are doing.

After about six months in business, Ruahine Property Works hired Anna Rhodes for a part-time administration position. Now Anna is running the day to day functions of the business full-time and has been instrumental in its growth. “The first couple of years we had unbelievable growth,” Torrin says. “We were employing new people all the time and buying vehicles left, right, and centre.

Torrin and the team started looking at what else they could do for people while they were already on their properties, and late 2021 Ruahine Property Works bought a Garador dealership for the supply and installation of custom-made garage doors around Tararua and Central Hawke’s Bay. The company now also has the local Stratco dealership, supplying and installing a range of patio and outdoor living products around Tararua, Central Hawkes Bay and the Manawatu.

Ruahine Property Works has now taken on the Garador dealership in Palmerston North. This has lead to having a team based full time in the Manawatu to support both the Garador and Stratco dealerships as well as undertake building repairs and maintenance in the region.

Torrin says there are a lot of very good tradespeople in Dannevirke but they are all very busy working on bigger projects. Ruahine Property Works found its niche in the smaller jobs market, starting just after Covid while there was plenty of opportunity.  Today Ruahine Property Works does undertake larger projects and as its experience and resources have grown, so have its customers, with the company now working for large entities like Te Whatu Ora, local councils, house rental companies, private land lords, local Iwi and Police owned properties.

In pursuit of compliance with health and safety requirements on Government agency projects, and to guarantee its health and safety capabilities, Ruahine Property Works has an in-house health and safety committee, staff regularly undertake various training, and its quality health and safety systems have gained the company Sitewise Green certification. We also have our team members police vetted which while is a condition of some of our contracts it’s also good practice as we are working in a lot of private homes. Torrin says he is fortunate to have a great team around him and supportive suppliers who have all helped Ruahine Property Works to grow. “We try to be that solution for people if they have a problem. At the beginning there were some services we were providing for the first time, and we couldn’t have done it without our great team and our suppliers. We still get the odd request for something which we haven’t come across before, but we tend to nut things out and learn for the next time. We keep good records of costs etc of each job so we can look back when a similar request comes in.

We are excited about the future and thrilled with the team we now have.

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RUAHINE PROPERTY WORKS

Transforming Homes Across the Tararua
and Central Hawkes Bay​