Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee says EQC will have to fix about 6500 faulty repairs.

More than 6500 homes could need remedial work to fix shoddy Earthquake Commission (EQC) repairs.

Facing questions from Labour's Canterbury Issues spokeswoman Megan Woods in Parliament on Tuesday, Brownlee said EQC forecasted 6736 homes would need remedial work.

Complete remediation was forecast for March 2016, Brownlee said, "but don't be surprised if it takes a bit longer because often when EQC approaches homeowners to do remedial work, they have a reason why they can't do it".

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/FAIRFAX NZ Labour Canterbury Issues spokeswoman Megan Woods says Gerry Brownlee is not taking shoddy repairs seriously.

Woods referred to "dodgy" work in one of her questions, to which Brownlee said:

"Repairs that have been found to be less than desirable are being fixed. It doesn't seem to be the hallmarks of a dodgy operation."

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A special team set up to deal with remedial work started two weeks ago and had inspected 125 homes, he said.

Once fully operational, the team should inspect 80 houses a week.

Repairing faulty work would cost about $1000 per repair, he said. Contractors or Fletcher would bear the cost.

Information released to Labour under the Official Information Act showed EQC's home repair team in August 2015 estimated 7357 homes could need remedial work for reasons including excess invoicing, sale and purchase of homes, workmanship issues, failed or incorrect repair strategies and scope omissions.

The document said EQC expected 116 complaints around faulty repairs a week.

Brownlee said the forecast had been revised since then.

Woods told Stuff EQC's remedial team would be unable to keep up with the 116 complaints coming each week if they could only deal with 80 homes a week at peak capacity.

"it's too slow going for the mountain that we've got here," she said.

"I don't think the minister is taking the issue seriously.

She said EQC had a responsibility to make sure work was done right the first time.

"Thousands of homes needing remedial work is a sign that they clearly aren't up to it.

"This is just further evidence that public calls for an inquiry into EQC need to be listened to."

Christchurch residents launched a petition in September urging the Government to establish a royal commission focusing on defective repair work.

The plea for an inquiry came after the Government investigated 90 earthquake repairs that were exempted from requiring a building consent, and found a third were not compliant with the building code. A further 23 had "minor defects" and most were managed by EQC's home repair programme.