“We never just sit and wait to see how things develop in the market,” says Felix Scheibmair, Managing Director of Rothoblaas New Zealand. “Our international sales team is constantly feeding back to our research team to ensure we remain at the leading edge.”

When Teulo last caught up with Felix, Rothoblaas was growing both its team and its considerable product range of fastening, airtightness, waterproofing, soundproofing, fall protection, machinery and tools. This trend has only continued over the last couple of years, Felix says, as Rothoblaas cements its place as one of the global industry’s premier suppliers of adaptive solutions for designing and building with wood. “Internationally, the Rothoblaas team continues to grow and move forward. New Zealand is more-or-less in line with that growth, though our domestic team remains relatively small to allow us to provide a really personalised service. If you’re working on projects in a particular region, you’ll be dealing with the same Rothoblaas contact every time. We believe in building long-term relationships; it’s how we like to do business.”

One way that Rothoblaas supports the New Zealand market is through its extensive collection of catalogues and data sheets, all of which are informed by its deep, international expertise. “We constantly update our range and, as a management team, we get together every six months and update at least one of our product catalogues. Last year, we released our updated Smarbook for screws in which we took all of our insights from overseas and combined them with our experience in New Zealand to create a detailed resource for industry professionals. This overarching document provides support for our products but, really, for all similar products. At the end of the day, we have to remember that we’re not fighting against others in the same space; what we’re trying to do is transition the entire industry away from concrete and steel towards more sustainable timber materials. We’re also about to release a new extended catalogue for plates and fixings that will feature floor diaphragm connections and floor wall connections for Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT). As a company, we’re moving away from an exclusively screws-based approach to some smarter connectors and a broader range. There are some new product additions in that catalogue that will be exciting to see a little later this year.”

The key message, Felix says, is that Rothoblaas is a holistic supplier with a big-picture vision. “We have a massive range of products, not just screws and fixings, and we’re using them to bring full-system solutions to market. At the moment, we’re focusing on membranes, airtightness and waterproofing. These solutions aid our work in the Passive House space and, more broadly, our sustainability ambitions as a company. We now have a complete range of both internal and external airtightness and watertightness products, from expanding tapes to penetration sealings. These solutions help to create spaces that are more durable and energy-efficient for the long term; this aligns with our values as a family-owned business with a future-focused approach. Internally, we’re constantly pushing towards carbon net zero and reducing our waste and energy usage. We’re not just looking at this generation, but the generations to come.”

The Rothoblaas team has been spreading the word about their full-system solutions at roadshow events over the last few months, Felix says. “We hosted several Rothoschool events in conjunction with Timber Design Society late last year. The idea was to get engineers and architects into a room and give them a clearer picture of both the waterproofing and the fixing side of things. We also had Timber Unlimited on board to do some work around how we adapt European data for a New Zealand context. We did live waterproofing and membrane demonstrations with an aim to close the gap between what engineers see on paper on a day-to-day basis versus what’s actually happening on site. These events were really well received and we’re looking forward to doing them again this year.”

Rothoblaas New Zealand continues to perform very strongly in the commercial space, with a number of showcase buildings recently completed or underway. “We’re currently working with Tauranga City Council on 90 Devonport Road, New Zealand’s largest mass timber office building. We’re also working on Fisher & Paykel’s new New Zealand Headquarters in Auckland. We’re very prevalent in the mass timber commercial space; we have involvement in the majority of large timber projects across New Zealand. With that market steady and growing, we’re now aiming to further develop our residential market in 2024. By diversifying in that way, we can offset the sometimes unpredictable nature of longer commercial projects by balancing them with more consistent and detailed residential builds, particularly in the Passive House space.”

The other focus for this year is membranes, Felix says. “The fixings side of the business is well-established, and we’re now really targeting the membrane space. We have a huge number of membranes available to us, many more than the New Zealand market actually needs. So we’re working on streamlining the full Rothoblaas catalogue into solutions that are tailored for the local industry. We’re in the process of selecting a few internal membranes and a few external membranes to put into a New Zealand-specific system that we can drive out to market this year.”

The best way to incorporate Rothoblaas solutions into any project is to plan early, Felix says. “There’s at least a six-month consenting period for most of these builds, regardless of whether you’re using our product or someone else’s. It’s quite straightforward to make modifications at the front end of the design process but can be more challenging to change things later on. We’re eager to connect at the beginning of the design process and we’re very happy to collaborate. New Zealand is a small market and it’s much easier if we all play together.”

To learn more and connect with Felix visit https://www.rothoblaas.com/ or email felix.scheibmair@rothoblaas.com.