Site Intel: the four site factors from a single address

Site Intel is Toolie’s built-in shortcut for the four site factors that cascade through a whole quote. Type the job address and it derives the wind zone, coastal exposure, H1 climate zone and seismic zone — the inputs that then drive fixings, framing sizes, insulation R-values and bracing demand. It’s a fast first pass, not a substitute for the council’s record.

What it derives from one address

Enter the job address and Site Intel returns, in one go, the site conditions that flow through the rest of the spec:

• Wind zone — drives fixings and framing.
• Coastal exposure — the exposure zone, graded A to D.
• H1 climate zone — zones 1 to 6, which drive insulation R-values.
• Seismic zone and region — feeding bracing demand.

How it works

Site Intel takes the address and resolves it to a point on the map, then reads the surrounding conditions:

1. The address is resolved to coordinates from Toolie’s NZ location data.
2. Coastal exposure is worked out from distance to the sea plus a list of known coastal suburbs and points — so a beachfront site reads as a harsher exposure zone than one a few km inland.
3. It returns the wind zone, exposure zone (A–D), H1 climate zone (1–6) and region in one pass.

It’s also macron-aware: it strips diacritics before matching, so “Waihī” matches “Waihi”. Without that step a macronised town could wrongly read as Inland.

Verify the borderline cases

Site Intel is built to be conservative and honest, but a township’s centre coordinate isn’t the beach, and suburbs right on a zone line can go either way.

• For anything near a boundary — coastal vs inland, High vs Very High wind — confirm against the council GIS or property file before you lock the spec.
• The zones it feeds are explained in the Wind Zones, Exposure / Coastal Zones, Climate Zones and Seismic Zones topics.