Thanks yomcat this is bloody great info.
I have no idea if it's asbestos or fibre-cement. Is there a way I can tell that?
What are the implications if it's asbestos in terms of cost etc?
Yea I was thinking about throwing some pine scotia up there instead just to make it look nicer.
I'll probably sit for a while, just periodically checking and making sure no moisture sticks around, like I have been.
Down the track sounds like I'm in line for a re-clad which will be fun.
Yes scaffolding is an absolute killer, I've already been looking into this as we need to start looking at a re-paint as well. It's a two story house, the leaking is at the very top at the highest point. We have a really high roof pitch as well, and a driveway slanting down to the street, so scaffolding is going to be very expensive. I've talked to a couple of people about potentially buying some of my own to store, so I can throw it up when I need it, but not yet sure if it's cost-effective.
Asbestos versus fc is a tricky one. If you've got the original consent documents (or can grab them from an archive somewhere), they should say what the cladding is. Hardieflex is good (well, it's fibre cement), whereas Fibrolite is bad. I'm guessing it's fibre cement based on the age, but you don't want to find out it's asbestos just as you're ready to start work. A suitably qualified person (old (experienced) builder or architect) should be able to identify it by sight.
Depending on how much asbestos you're dealing with, the costs just go up and up. You need to get in a special crew, tent the house, have negative pressure, and all sorts of expensive things (this is worst case, mind).
With the leak, if you're not already, you should be checking the floor under it. Water is good at getting inside sheet cladding, running down the inside and then eating the floor away. One two-storey house in Strathmore Park we did (it was a proper leaky house, with no eaves, parapets, fake stucco, membrane decks, round windows, the lot) we had to replace the entire floor because the joists were so bad. We only found out once they opened it up as well, which wasn't a pleasant surprise for the owners.
With the painting, if you do it yourself, the Health and Safety rules don't apply so you can do it perched on the end of a ladder like a dodgy bugger :) Another option is to reclad in something like Palliside (plastic) or NuWall (metal) that doesn't need painting, just a rinse every so often. I did this for a 1-storey house in Khandallah that was about 3 stories off the ground at the front with awesome views over the harbour. But that's a rather expensive (it's cheaper to put up timber weatherboards and paint them) solution to a potentially minor problem. And when to repaint is hard to figure it (it's not like cladding, which is required to survive (with maintenance) for 15 years). BRANZ basically say repaint when it fails.