How Far Should You Push Performance? Rethinking High-Performance Building with Andy Marlow of Envirotecture

Andy Marlow's definition of efficiency in passive house and airtightness will annoy some people: it's doing the bare minimum required to clear the hurdle, which he says is much the same as being really bloody lazy. Andy is a director at Envirotecture, a long-time passive house advocate and former Australian Passive House Association board member — and he thinks the industry's obsession with beating its own numbers is costing builders money for no measurable gain.

The core of the conversation is where the point of diminishing returns actually sits for high performance. Once a building is genuinely airtight, the model becomes predictable (you can't model a sieve) and that predictability is what lets you cut back everything else. Andy walks through the UK apartment work presented at the Passive House Conference where parts of the building are deliberately built worse than code because the form factor absorbs it, the concrete footings nobody needs to perfect, and the one thing you can never compromise on: condensation risk.

Brian makes the same case from the other direction — that a decade of chasing certified air-tightness is what teaches you how much performance you can buy for far less. They get into the airtightness arms race between builders, the bloke who hit 0.06 and probably wasted his weekends doing it, achieving 2 ACH cheaply through the plasterboard line, and whether a tiered certification pathway would drag the volume market across the line. Andy also explains the relaunch of Passive House Design & Construct as pre-designed-only homes — the same logic applied to design fees.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

• An educated way to cut corners.
• The airtightness arms race — 0.6 versus 0.5 versus the 0.06 warehouse, and where the ego takes over from the engineering
• Condensation risk as the one thing you don't get to compromise, and Andy's caution on loosening airtightness
• Low Energy Building as the sensible tier down, and why a 300mm-plus wall isn't always financially sane
• Health, comfort and longevity as the real product — "no one cares about energy efficiency"
• Applying the same logic to design: the relaunch of Passive House Design & Construct as pre-designed homes you can't modify

LEARN MORE
Envirotecture: https://www.envirotecture.com.au/
Passive House Design & Construct: https://passivhausdc.com.au/
Sustainable Builders Alliance (SBA): https://www.thesba.com.au

BROUGHT TO YOU BY
Sustainable Builders Alliance (SBA): https://www.thesba.com.au

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to the Sustainable Builder Jack, the podcast that gives you the confidence to build high performing sustainable homes.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

We're here to cut through the noise with honest conversations from the front lines of the industry. Talking with builders, designers, consultants, and the change makers driving a more sustainable future.

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Whether you're on the tools, behind the drawings, or just curious about what makes a home truly sustainable, you're in the right place.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Get comfy, get curious, and let's have a yak about the future of building better.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

The info shared in this podcast is the icing on the cake. Sweet but not substantial. For the real deal, tap into the wisdom of experts who can provide advice on your specific situation. Stay sharp and say sustainable. We'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today and pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging. G'day people, how are we? On today's podcast, we were joined by Andy Marlow of Envirotecture. Now, I've known Andy for some time through the Passive House Association, but he is nothing short of a gentleman. Bit of a mad scientist look about him, but behind that Einstein look is a very knowledgeable and driven man. As I said, he is the director of Envirotecture alongside Tallina Edwards, and both have been long time advocates and been involved in the Australian Passive House Association for many, many years, since almost I would say since its inception. Now, we started out with Andy with a review of the recent Passive House Conference in Melbourne, which was a couple of weeks ago. We spoke on the key takeaways being mass market adoption, retrofit market adoption, loosening the shackles around certification and use of language, and lastly the impact of airtightness and how we could potentially introduce a tiered system of certification. Quite an interesting conversation given Andy's been involved for so long. But mass market adoption, we both felt, and retrofit both felt were the biggest key takeaways for this year. And there was a few heavy hitters at the conference too. So it was that was a good chat. You'll enjoy that. Now, the real reason we had Andy on today was to chat about his new venture, Passive House Design and Construct. Concept here is to provide a full design and build service to clients who just want a passive house. It's that simple. There is a small catch, and this is specifically aimed at the sector of industry that is getting left behind because of cost escalation. Now we're we're aware of this, and it's happened to us many times over the past five to six years because of cost escalation. There is a portion of people who really want a passive house, but they just get left behind. The industry is just it's too high. The costs are too high. Now, the small catch. They're pre-designed homes that will not be changed in any way. Okay? Have a listen to the podcast and you'll see there are some changes you can have state by state. It depends on the state. But the benefit is that you can get a fully designed and certified passive house with an experienced passive house builder for less than a conventional custom home passive build. Now, this is a remarkable approach, and I really feel that if it gets the right audience, it could catapult the adoption of passive house into that niche that we've been pushed out of over the past few years. Um look, it's simply due to cost escalation, as I said. Andy is a really smart cat alongside Tallina, these two guys are absolutely crushing it. And I I'm excited about this venture. We tried something similar to this a long time ago, but we were not architects, so the design and build thing didn't work. We did get some designs done, but we were approaching it from a building angle, and it didn't work. We tried, it didn't work. It's a great concept. I personally would love to be part of it. Andy already has builders in several states, so have a listen, folks. Jump on the website, take a look. It's Passive Host Design and Construct. I hope you enjoy this chat. Andy's an absolute legend of the Passive House industry. Good day, Andy. Thanks for joining us, Matt. I know you're a very, very busy man, especially after being away for a whole week last week. So thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it. Absolute pleasure, guys. Absolute pleasure. Alright, so can we start off, please, with a bit of a review or a recap on last week. So we were in Melbourne last week for the Passive House conference. Um I thought it went really well. I my key takeaways, and I know you can jump in anytime you want, but my key takeaways were were um where do I start? I guess. So they they hit hard on retrofit market, I would say firstly. Then cost of material efficiencies was a big one. Mainstream market growth was I thought, yeah, I thought it was really, really good. So they're looking to see exponential growth in the mainstream market. Um, their approach, I'm not so sure about. Uh, I really, really warm to the technical compliance thing. So the whole, you know, what they did last year with saying how we can say it and what we can and can't say. That approach to market I thought was really refreshing. I thought they took the handcuffs off this year, they put them on last year and they took them off this year. And then site and trade practicality. I think that was really good. They approached that very well this year. So that was my key takeaways. I'm not going to go into them anymore, but what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Oh, look, um, pretty similar for me, to be honest. Um, I love the retrofit focus. Um, I thought it was awesome. Like there was a couple of nice talks around projects here, but they were, you know, small scale, which is what we've got, which is fine because that's what we've got. But then when you contrasted that with the retrofit guide and they're talking about the stuff in North America in particular, yeah, where you know they're retrofitting a 40-story 1960s social housing tower, like we've got a way to go. So there was the inspirational part of it's possible it can be done, it's been done. And then there's the incredibly sad part about we're just knocking those towers down because we're too lazy to put the effort into work out how to retrofit them. So you know, bit of you know, bit of sweet. Um yeah, we've got to start somewhere. I do agree with that. Yep. Yeah. Oh, look, exactly. We're on this, we're on the same trajectory. Um, we're also in the process of making half the same mistakes that everywhere else has made. So it'd be nice if we could make a few less mistakes. Like it's much cheaper to learn from other people's than your own. Um the information is there, Andrew. It's it's absolutely there.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

That's the part that's brain frying. It's like, it's really just not. It's not to say that it's not hard, but technically it's not hard. And so I thought what was both useful and again slightly disappointing, sad, whatever, was the finance guy from the CEFC, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and his thing about firstly, the fact that he talked about the market as if the market is its own like entity, like it's his own little human. And in some ways it is, and that's certainly how they think about it. But the fact the way that he spoke about it, and the market needs this, and the market will do that, um, was kind of enlightening, um, but also a little bit depressing. Um, especially when he kept come effectively alluding to, you know, there's um, what did he call them? Policy inconsistencies, I think was his polite phrase for it. And so you're like, but without those drivers, we're really gonna struggle. And all the things that we're gonna do. Well, it's good to see it though and understand the bigger picture. Like, oh, absolutely. Yeah, but that's what I mean. It was great to understand, and then also a little bit sad because you're like, oh, hang on a sec. So you're really saying that without policy drivers or some sort of subsidy or something from government, effectively, yeah, then most of this stuff's never gonna kick off to the same scale that it does overseas.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

And they've been kind of banging that drum, they just haven't explained it. You know what I mean? They've been banging the drum for the last maybe three or four conferences, it's been touched on, but it's never been explained. And I thought they explained it while it was upsetting. Yeah, now we understand, and now you can start going to the policymakers essentially and the government. Well, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

And there's a bunch of people in my world that have been doing that because they've already understood all those things, and so it's like everything, it's all you know, from all places from top down, bottom up, in between, all directions.

SPEAKER_03 7:31

I did I really, really liked there was um a presentation I can never remember the guy's name, but he wasn't long after Sean Maxwell, and he touched on um airtightness and then the efficiencies of airtightness at different levels, and I thought, you know what, this is something that has been missing for years. So we all chase the elusive 0.6 for certification, right? And we we don't, as an industry, understand what's the difference in efficiency from 0.6 to 5. So by our current code. The number five is you need heat recovery ventilation, right? So this guy put it on a sliding scale in a wedge shape, and man, I thought, wow, this is this is what we've needed for so long. Because it basically shows your risks and your efficiencies in one chart. Here's your risk of mole and mildew, here's your risk in your building versus your energy efficiency on airtightness essentially. When you have HRV and you have airtightness in a building, I thought it was absolutely amazing. It's been missing for so long. I'd love to get a hold of that. Yeah, I think that was the Arab guy who spoke with Kate from Fraser's. Um possibly, maybe, maybe. But that explanation of the importance of airtightness, and then in that same one, there was there was an explanation of how you achieve airtightness, and then then he he went through achieving it with the minimal amount of cost influence on a project, which was through your Jiprock, which is what a lot of the European countries do right now, and he was sitting at about two, and the value increase on the project was almost nothing. I'm not gonna say it's nothing, but it was almost nothing. It was so cheap. I thought that was already good.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

What kind of got me though was there's still so on the assumption that we're because we're not in WA, everyone's still building timber frame buildings and wrapping them up. Yep, like we've had guys achieve 0.4, 0.5, 0.6 just with a single external wrap, and most climates we don't need more than that. Yep. Um, and so there's a little bit of the I'm not against you detailing your jiprop really, really well, but you also you've got the obvious question about what did you not do with the external wrap? Like, where did you go wrong that you didn't get a better result out of the external wrap itself? Because the external wrap's weatherproofing, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I agree with that. It's yeah, the jip thing was really interested, and I loved the BTU acronym. I thought that was very, very clever. Yeah, um, but yeah, I yeah, I yeah, I think they can do better. I thought it was interesting that the Metricon approach was basically gonna still build everything on site. Yes. Um, I thought that was a bit odd.

SPEAKER_03 10:08

Um just how they do it. Like, I I I I thought that question was asked, and I did think when it was asked, he explained it quite well. He's like, this is how we do things right now. We're open to transition, but right now for us, it was a cost efficiency thing.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

I think I get it, but it's also it's all the all the problems that they have derive from the fact they build it on site. So inherently, if you're gonna make the kind of shift they want to shift, don't you need to shift the way you do things?

SPEAKER_03 10:32

A little bit, yeah, absolutely. We'll see how they go. I don't disagree with you at all, mate. I don't. I don't overall. I was quite happy. I think the you know the reluctance for change has has shifted. So us being pigeonhole, I think that's kind of opened up quite a bit now. And then I really think um the breakout session at the end, I I really, really enjoyed that. I I think that should be a big focus next year. So the builders breakout room at the end, there was like an hour and a half. There was you were there, there was designers there, there was I don't know, maybe a hundred builders there. I really, really, really enjoyed that. The the questions that came in, and we didn't even get past cost estimation. So it just tells you the appetite that's there.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Yeah, I'm excited. It's about the coolest topic there is everything else is done before and resolved.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

Yeah, it I really enjoyed it though. I really did. I thought that was a fantastic that was one of my biggest takeaways out of it was that that room, the fact that that was facilitated this year so that we could actually get in a room and have a chat. It was good.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

No, I thought it was good. Um probably my favorite actual talk was um Megan from the UK talking about all the big apartment buildings in um in London or wherever, but in the UK, and talking around the fact that basically when they get really big, it gets fairly easy, and they're actually building stuff that is effectively less than code but performs better than code. Yeah. And fundamentally, what she was really saying was we can make a we can make small parts of the building a little bit shit because we know that it actually doesn't, it doesn't pose a health risk, it doesn't pose an energy use risk, and fundamentally it's an educated way to cut corners in a way that isn't actually negative. Absolutely. And the efficiency of that is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Yep. How do they so sorry sorry, James? I've been sitting here quietly in bogging out here from your um recap. How do they do that, Andy? Yeah, is that through modeling, is it?

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Yeah, so she used a particular example around like concrete footings. So is you gonna like in a so sorry, so stepping back, she's basically saying that once the form factor, so volume to surface area ratios, once they start to get really good, which you get with big boxy, like big six plus story boxy buildings, then everything gets easier because you've got so much enclosed space. But so footings are always really tricky because obviously you're trying to insulate footings in you know colder places than most of Australia, um, and it's hard because you've got concrete and steel and everything's bloody heavy. And so what she's basically saying is that even as long as you do it kind of all right, you don't need to go anywhere near perfection, yeah, because the impact of that thing being a little bit not perfect doesn't matter. It's the building itself is like it's a tiny proportion of the whole building, and as long as you manage your condensation risk, which is obviously a really important thing, but do that, that's all you really need to do, and you can get away with a whole bunch of other stuff. So it's really about where to spend your time and money.

SPEAKER_03 13:57

There was a lady last year who came from New York at the conference and she did two multi-story um apartment buildings, and she was, if you read between the lines, saying exactly that. And she was she was running, she certified them through Fias, which is slightly different. So they were a lower and a low energy building, they're not a certified passive house, but man, when it comes to performance, these these buildings were built like cost effective and they're super performance. Like it was yeah, so this year again, the same thing came up again. Yeah, you don't have to be perfect and chasing that elusive perfection all the time. Well, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

You've got a benchmark, you've got a hurdle to clear. As long as you're clear, it doesn't matter how you do it. But once you get and so this is the thing, right? As soon as you're airtight, your model works. So your model will predict your building because it's predictable. You can't predict a sieve because that no computer can cope with the complexity of that. And so as soon as you've got the confidence in the model, you can basically cut, cut, cut right until whatever hurdle you're trying to clear, and that enables you to optimize a bejesus out of everything. So it's like we still talked about before, Brian, with your 120 studs. Like if you um if you know whether that's your thing, you can tweak and optimize everything else to get to that point. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Here I was thinking all you passive house mob were absolutists, it sounds like this this is efficiency in its purest sense.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Efficiency is the same as being really bloody lazy, right? It's doing the bare minimum to clear a hurdle. And so our hurdle is healthy buildings for people.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Um, the efficiency, to be honest, is really just a byproduct.

SPEAKER_03 15:36

No one cares about energy. So as you do this, so this is just my opinion, right? This is nothing I'm not saying to anything anybody for any organization or any kind. This is my personal opinion. So when you when you get into passive house, you chase the elusive numbers and you get perfection, right? And then you get perfection and you get perfection and you get it, and you get it over and over and over and over. And the more you do that, the more you realize, well, hang on a minute. We can achieve so much more for so much less, right? That's the key. And that's what anybody that's been in passive house or around passive house for a long time gets that. Really, really like it doesn't take long, but you get that. It's not that you pull away from passive house, it's that you you find efficiencies in the efficiency that you already have. Does that make sense? Does to me.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

I think one of the one of the things that gets really interesting is the like the chasing the airtights airtightness results. So I love the fact that you got a bunch of basically blokes who build stuff, who you know, historically people may suggest didn't always care that much about much at all. Um, but you all do. And so now there's mad competition unofficial, of course, to get the most airtight thing. Yeah. And in some ways that's awesome, yeah, but it's also like like really like 0.6 is a hell of a hurdle. Clear that. Like, do you get to point five? Like, it doesn't matter, but I love the fact that it exists because it says so much about the humans.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

So ego. It is it does get to that.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

Totally. Totally. Oh, we've got a guy who did a project that's like 0.06, like it's nuts. Jesus. Um, yeah, I know. It was a warehouse, it was he had a lot of things going in his favour. But um, you know, but he's very proud of that, and that's fine, but it probably wasn't the best use of his weekends.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Yeah. Are you telling all the boys down the pub or at the soccer game, kids sucking?

SPEAKER_02 17:23

All of those things, all of those things. And so that part's useful because he's telling people about stuff they didn't know about. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:31

We um we kind of don't chase it anymore. The number is the number, we hit the number, we always come in below it, and like that's I guess that's experience and it's the team that you work with, you know what I mean? But if we're anywhere below 0.5 on a certified passive, we're like, yeah, that's good enough, that's enough buffer. Don't chase any more numbers, don't need to. You're wasting time and energy and money. Don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

I'll be the same.

SPEAKER_03 17:51

Yeah, just a signal point.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Yeah, yeah. That's what happens when you've been in the industry as long as you have Brian.

SPEAKER_03 17:59

Uh, that's not me, man.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

That's the team we work with. That's the team 10 years in the builders, like a hundred years in normal human terms, I like to say. Yeah, yeah. You learn a lot and you learn quick.

SPEAKER_03 18:09

I can't remember who it was that said it to me. Uh, at some point in my journey, they said, uh, I have 20 years experience, right? And then somebody it was a it was actually a woman at the time, she said, Oh, have you 20 years experience doing the same thing, or have you 20 years experience exploring and getting better? So, in like when you said 20 years experience, it's not 20 years' experience if you're doing the same thing over and over and over. That's not 20 years' experience, in my opinion. That's just you doing the same thing every day. So there's a difference when you come to experience. If you're not progressing and not learning, I don't necessarily think that's experience.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

There's a philosoph philosophical thing there. We'll pick up even later, I think. We'll shelve that one, sorry. Yeah, that's all right. But but look, great recap, gents, on the passive house conference. Andy, we're here to talk about well, I I've I've known of you for you know many years now. I don't think we've quite met formally, but um you're obviously been an advocate and been in involved in passive house for a long time, and now we're here to talk about this passive house design and construction company that you and uh Talina Edwards have released. Is that right? Have launched.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Relaunched is probably the correct phrase, but yes, we are.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

So tell us, tell us about what why r relaunch?

SPEAKER_02 19:31

What do you okay? So we've originally launched this Passive Ace Design and Construct um about 22 minutes before COVID hit. So it was a really good time to launch anything brand spanking new, obviously. Um and so it came out of a belief um that we could build design and build more certified passive haste projects more swiftly if we teamed up with the builders that we'd already done it with a few times, because we're like, we've done this together before. Let we can be quicker than we would be with other people because we've done it before together. But we still did custom design. And so it turns out, deep surprise, that that didn't really work. Like we had some clients, we built some houses, everyone's very happy, the houses are lovely, they're on the website, like everything's hunky-dory. But it didn't make them faster or any cheaper. And fundamentally, what we came to realize a couple of years in is it's because it's custom design. And custom design, regardless of who's involved, takes, well, it takes an amount of time. How much time does depend, but it just takes time because it's custom. And every time you do in the same circles with different people, with different reasons, and and it's the way it is, and it's what environment does and has always done, and that's lovely, but it's not fast, and ultimately it's not cheap. Um, because well, not as cheap as we'd like it to be. And so what we decided probably about 18 months ago, and it's taken us a while to get our act together, was that we'd change PHDC, passive design and construct, to become purely pre-designed options. And so right now on the website, there's like three different things there's a granny flat, a duplex, and a relatively compact single-story house. And the idea is that these things are designed, like they're fully designed, they've got interiors sorted, they've got there's a couple of choices about, you know, light colour schemes, dark colour schemes, a few things you can swap in and out that really don't make any meaningful difference from a construction point of view. But there are here's a thing. If you like the thing, you buy the thing, and depending on where you are in the country and the builders network that we've got, we'll build the thing for you and that's it. But if you want to change anything, then that's cost low. Sorry? There's costs associated with it. We just don't do it. It depends what you want to change. If you want to move a wall, then the answer is no. Sorry, the answer isn't no, the answer is that's lovely. We've got this company called EnvironTecture. Come over here and we'll start from scratch. So a few years back we worked with Carbon Light really intensely on their Rubik case um thing, and it was very conceptually very similar. Um and so they really struggled with the people. Who wanted to change stuff because you know they're builders and manufacturers, they're not designers. Um, and so eventually they'd kick these people to us to say, look, can you please sort these people out? Come back when you've got a building that they're actually happy to build. Yep. And so we'd start with the things that they had, and now you're manipulating this thing to try and make it fit what somebody else wants it to be. And you spend ages going in circles, and eventually you conclude it would have been faster and better to just start again. And so if you want to move stuff, that's fine, but that's custom design. And so the crux of all of this is that by effectively, and this is kind of stupid from our perspective in some ways, effectively you're cutting out most of the design fees. So there's two ways that this is going to be more cost effective, right? We've already designed it, and so the second one at least is you know, minus pretty much all of the architecture fees for the design component. We still need to get approvals and whatever, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Um, so you save you save a chunk of money on that, but then the other side is the builder side. And so it's two bits to this. A, in theory, you're building the same thing again and again, so you should get better and faster at it. So back to your point about experience. Yeah. But also, the idea from a builder perspective. So we're trying to build a network of people as the jobs appear around the country. You've got the ones in Sydney sorted because they've been on board for years, a bunch of other people in other places who have, through various means, have just kind of come across it and got, oh yeah, we'd be interested. Um, but the idea from the builder perspective is that these are the jobs that sort of slot into your other jobs. Like this is not intended to replace all of your other work because I'm not going to tell you to wait for me because that's scary. Um, but just infill projects. Infill projects, but also they're simple. Everything's designed. In theory, you sign a contract with the client and then you see them at the end when you hand the keys over. In theory, you don't need to talk to them the whole way through. You can just build the damn thing. If you could work out how to finance it, you could do your 10% deposit, get all your other money at the end if you were happy with a bankroll it and literally not talk to them the whole way through. Because everything's already determined. There is no question about the tiles or the set out of this or where the GPO goes. It's already documented. Just build the house. And so these the margins and prelims should all come down and all of that should flow through, which should mean more work.

SPEAKER_03 24:50

So I'm going to be devil's ad as I always do. I'm going to be pricking. Please do. So let let's um is this a project builder approach to a custom market? Is this how you bridge this gap? Is this or am I allowed to say that?

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Yeah, no, it's sort of like we we've looked really heavily at how Project Home Land works. And um, one of our um interior designers um in a previous life worked for Project Home Mob, or actually for the interiors people that service the Project Home Mob. Um one of those big displays handers go and make all your choices in a day, kind of things. Um and so, yes, well, basically they do certain things really well, but I I have come to believe that one of the reasons that they really struggle to deliver quality, there's many reasons, but one of them is none of their buildings are actually the same. They're always tweaked and changed because people get to move this, that, and the other. And so, like their ability to prefab, for example, is almost non-existent because they don't build the same building. They keep changing things all the time, not heaps, just enough to make it slightly different. And when you're using their business model of the cheapest subcontractor possible and everything's a little bit different, it's entirely understandable that the humans involved just can't cope with the change and the time pressure that they're under to deliver the thing for $2.50 a square meter or whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

Okay. So then I have another question again. Sorry, Simon, you got something? Nah, you go. Okay, so I'm in Western Australia and I've got a client who wants one of these off-plan houses, and they come to me and they go, Oh, we found this house. We're gonna pay Andy and you're gonna build it. I'm like, Yeah, no worries. Um forget the costings and everything at the moment, okay? So efficiencies in Western Australia are not identical to efficiencies in New South Wales or the ACT or Victoria for that matter. So we have availability to alternative types of materials. Where does that sit? How does that work? It'll depend what it is.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

So in the designs we've got at the moment, like so we know that A, it's really hard to get a 60 square meter building across the line for PASIFAce. So I should say, so all of the buildings are designed and will be certified through the PASIFES Institute. Will be or can be? Will be. If we build it, there's there is an approach for the people who bring their own builder, which we give them everything and they do their own thing. But if we build it or our team of people build it, it will be certified. Because otherwise we lose all the credibility of the quality assurance, and all of a sudden we're just back to trust me, and we might as well become well.

SPEAKER_03 27:27

You can do the modeling. If you produce the modeling and you produce the blow door test, essentially. Yeah, but I do hear you loud and clear. Loud and clear. I hear you. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

I I think we decided it's important because of the just the credibility, the quality assurance. Um, it will absolutely cost us work. Um, because some people will just be like, no, I want to put that extra whatever it is, 10 grand in my pocket. So, well, that's fine. In the scheme of things, I don't care. I think there's a more important role to play here. Yeah. Um and so because all these buildings can go in different places around the country, what we've basically set it up to so we've test modeled them in a whole bunch of different climates, but basically we know, you know, we've got the office in Ballarat, as you won't understand. And so in Ballarat, the walls just need to be a shit ton fatter. And so the internal line of the building stays in the same place, and the walls grow outwards, basically, in order to accommodate the insulation we need. So you're referring to your 120 stud thing, I assume. Yes. And therefore, you know, so we go from a 90 to a 120 or whatever, or put wood fiber on the outside, like whatever it is. Yeah. Um, in you know, we go in certain places we go from double glazing to triple glazing, for example. Um, and so, but the point is that from a structural perspective, everything's set up to work with as a minimum 90 mil studs, and so anything bigger than that is totally fine. So we're not we're tweaking, but in a way that's totally within the parameters that are acceptable. What we're not doing is making a door, you know, 600 mils wider than it was before. Yeah, I get that.

SPEAKER_03 29:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in that situation, uh, being who I am and what I do, am I better off to get in touch with uh Passifost Design and Construct now, prior to any of a client or anyone coming to you and say, right, these are the three or the four things that if you were to get a client in WA, this is what we would advise. Or do we just forget about it until the client comes? Because there'll be builders out there in different states listening to this that would their ears would prick up and go, Yeah, I want a piece of this.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

Um look, absolutely get in touch. I mean, it is a bit of chicken and egg. Um, until we get the clients, obviously, the whole thing's just a very nice academic exercise. Um, but at the same time, if you're gonna come and suggest a whole bunch of things, it'd be much nicer to at least have them in the back of our head, try to sort them out before someone knocks on the door. Because part of the thing is, you know, we're trying to time's got from our perspective, you know, so we're professional services, we effectively sell our time for a price. And so time for us has two aspects, though. One is the number of hours of effort it takes, which is literally the cost, effectively, but then there's also the passage of time. And so anything that we can do to compress the passage of time is keeps customers way happy, and especially at the moment, and historically this didn't matter, right? Because construction inflation was about the same as all other inflation and it was just potted along. The last, whatever it is, decade has shown us that that is not the case. There's no relationship between the two at all. And so if we spend an extra 12 months faffing around on a design, then that house is going to be four percent more expensive than it was in real terms the year before. Very rare. So and when you look at the 4% of a cost of a house and look at our fees, you're like, actually, you really need to stop worrying about our fees, pay us more, make us work faster, get there quicker, and you'll be better off financially. Absolutely. So that's a hard argument to win, though.

SPEAKER_03 31:13

Yeah, look, it's it's I wouldn't say it's a case of study and maybe even a feasibility. It's hard to put that in front of somebody to explain it. Oh, for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

And you can't guarantee it because it's construction, everything's bespoke every single time. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Mmm, this custom world, yeah. So so Andy, why move away from not that you're moving away from, I imagine you're running your custom, you know, virotectures simultaneously, and this is Yeah, so why? What what what's the what's the motivation behind this one?

SPEAKER_02 31:45

It's a great question. Sometimes it's really worth stopping and just going, why did I why why at all? Um it is. I mean, seriously, you really do want to make sure that you can out of bed for the right reasons, or at least a reason. Um look, there's a few bits to it. Um one is like just deep-seated decades-long frustration with the fact that project homes are crap and most people's homes are entirely unfit for habitation now. And in there's a report out this week about apartments in Sydney and how they're basically uninhabitable by 2050. Like basically, we're building a whole bunch of stuff that's just terrible, and that's really bad from on every aspect, whether it's financial, economic, um, financial is economic, financial, social, environmental, human, whatever. So there's that. The other one is we enviate's always sort of sat in this space, like above the project homeland, but we've never been like four-blind fancy pants, multi-million dollar mansion stuff. And that's mostly because all of the humans, so myself, Talina, and Bick who founded InviroTecture, like we're just not those type of people. And if we meet those people, they don't like us because we're not their kind of people. And we're okay with that. But what we found is that that zone between the two that we've always inhabited keeps shrinking and shrinking because the cost of building anything that's not a project home. In fact, even the cost of building a project home is a problem. And so that middle range is is shortening. And we have in the last few years turned away, I don't know how many, like hundreds of people. Yeah, because they walk in with a budget and we're like, you have no chance of delivering for that budget. What two things, a couple of things can happen at that point. One, they sort of we have a conversation about well, what is realistic, and sometimes that turns into a renovation rather than not going rebuild, or the scope changes and it becomes a job. Um, some people just run away hiding. A bunch of others we find out six, twelve months later, ran off, found someone else who, you know, looks a bit like us in some way or shape or form, told them what they wanted to hear, took a lot of their money, designed them something they couldn't afford, ended up where we said they would be 12 months ago, and then they're all distraught because they spent all this money, got nowhere useful. That's such a common story. Oh, we write like we we've got a sta standard thing that I send to those people now that basically says, like, just be wary of anyone who tells you what what you want to hear. Um, so I mean, whether it hits home, I don't know. Um, but we're trying to service those people. And so I can't really put a number on what that is anymore. But like, you know, you used to be our minimum, like someone walked through the door, what's a new house cost? You'd be like, you need at least $800,000. That number's now way north of that. Yeah. So I don't know what those numbers really are. They keep moving, it depends, it depends. But we're trying to fill, we're trying to service that gap. And so when we come back to the tweaking changing aspect of the whole thing, the people who walk through our door and we get these emails, and they always go something like, We can't bring ourselves to bring a build a project home, but we need to do something.

SPEAKER_05 34:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

Right? Especially if it's a vacant block of land and Renault, there's nothing to renovate. It's like, okay, so you can afford a certified passive haze, but it's going to be this. And it's going to be smaller than you thought you might have needed, and it's going to be this, and you're not going to get to change it. You can change the colour of the walls and you can pick and choose between laminates or whatever, but you're not moving doors and windows. You can afford it. You may quite you basically you're choosing not to because you want to tweak and butcher some project home and have something that's 50 square meters bigger. That's your call, but don't say you didn't have an option.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

Yeah. I'd agree with that.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

Not saying it's going to work. I mean, to be to be fair, as you said before we started recording, Brian, like people have tried, people have failed. So we're either incredibly good or incredibly arrogant. I'm not sure which it is yet.

SPEAKER_03 35:36

I'm open to anyone telling me what I am. I I think we're we're under the heat of the industry that we're in right now, like our pool of clients is evaporating. Like, and that pool, the smaller it gets, the more we have the harder we have to work to bring the people that are on the fringes into that pool. And that's I think that's exactly what you're trying to do. How do we get the best cost efficiencies? But there's sacrifices on both parts. So the client has to understand and realize that look, if you really want a passive house, you'll push go. You will push go. Or you're not that married to a passive house and you just want to have a bigger house. It's that simple. Yeah. I mean, there's a bunch of nuance to it, but simply put, yes. Yeah, yeah. I I do think I want to go back on to so as a builder man, I do want to go back onto the thing in efficiencies and state by state. In a perfect world, and I'm gonna ask this um if there are some builders out there, would you be willing sorry?

SPEAKER_00 36:33

You're such a nerd.

SPEAKER_03 36:35

Am I uh I would love the opportunity, so let's say I'm a builder in Western Australia, I would love the opportunity to get a set of your drawings um for the three houses, and then we would do a cost estimate on those based in Western Australian uh how we would build them, the most cost-effective way we would build them, and then we would give that back to you and say, look, this is where we sit, Andy, in Western Australia with our current cheapest form passive house. If we could do that up front, I think there'd be more benefit because then if a client comes to us, we can literally say, or a client comes to you, you can literally say, Yep, I have a builder, this is his efficiency, bang, this is his number. Is that an option or not?

SPEAKER_02 37:15

Um, effectively, yeah. Um at the moment there's some prices on the website. There's only one because the others haven't come through. But the idea is that the price is there, it's always going to be a from price. Um, because there's obviously going to be site construction, site chain, whatever, whatever things that are going to be different from place to place. But yeah, the idea is, and part of it is so, you know, I like efficiency, and efficiency is partly laziness. Um, we only want the people.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

How do I make it easier?

SPEAKER_02 37:42

Well, we don't have the time to talk to the people who can't or won't pay for the thing, right? I'm sure they're lovely people, but you know, I've got a daughter who's really lovely, and I'd probably rather spend time with her than some random person who doesn't want actually want to build a house who may or may not live in Western Australia. So the idea of the pricing on the website is really to filter out. So it's like, you know, here's the thing. It's also this is roughly what it pretty accurately what it will cost. Obviously, there'll be there will be differences place to place, partly because the walls change, partly because builders change, whatever. Yeah, yeah. But the idea is that yeah, that we know what those costs are. So when people get in touch, we just go, it's going to be $674,000. If that's within your budget, then let's talk. And if it's not, then good luck and off you go. Okay. All right. I'll leave you alone. No, no, you can no, definitely, definitely, definitely, yeah. No, it's I mean, yeah, building up the bank of you know, likely costs in different places is part of the part of the aim over time. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, it's hard because obviously things change as well. So what you tell me this month in six months' time will be different. But yeah, that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Yeah, you're you're not wrong. You're not wrong. Andy, to this point, how long ago did you launch and how's adoption gone?

SPEAKER_02 39:00

Um, of the pre-designed thing as opposed to the original thing. Uh well, the website went live about halfway through the first morning of the passive house conference because we told the web people we needed to tell people. Yeah, well, we we're like, we need to tell people because we talked about this last year and we still haven't delivered. Um so we're about three hours behind. And they're in New Zealand, so we the the time difference um helped us a little. Um, yeah, so look, it's been a what? It's been eight days. Um we've had two or three genuine um kind of inquiries. Um, ironically, all in places we don't have builders. Um but yeah, so I mean, so far, so good. I mean, we haven't, other than telling people at the pacifised conference, we've done nothing to promote it yet. We're trying to get a few more ducks in a row, get some of the prices up for the for the other projects, and then we'll do a bit of a you know marketing thing around it. So yeah, who knows? I mean, the big test is actually getting someone to sign on the line and build one. So that will be a big day.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

Yes. So, where do you have builders? Where would be the ideal client for you at this point in time?

SPEAKER_02 40:07

Um, look, the builders that we've already got who are signed up, so we've got a whole agreement thing that we set up when we did the first iteration. And so the three builders that we've got through that who are through Sydney guys that we know really, really well, and like they're all work, I think they're all building something for us pretty much as we speak. Um so we're set for that, that's all in place. But then we've got people two or three in different parts of Victoria, um, and one in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. We've got someone interested up on the far north coast of New South Wales, and so we've got all these other people who are like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, this sounds good. But again, until we we're in the dance between we need a we need a real client with a real project before we'll actually sign that like get legally entwined with each other. So um pretty sure you got a pillar in WA as well. Well, we do now. I know I mean we do now. I mean, this is the other thing, like we've ended up knowing a bunch of people in different places, and so if we get an inquiry from a place and we like, oh, we know in a certain name, yeah, yeah, we'll just ring them and go, hey, you're interested in this. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

As as Brian was mentioned something earlier, maybe you did, Andy, just about um the the off the shelf that it's it's what do you call it? It's like pre-designed, pre-designed, and you know, pre-specified, yeah. So there's very few decisions to make. I wonder, I just wonder, maybe I'm hoping that because the construction industry's gotten so big, there's so many decisions for someone to make. I wonder whether people you know, and with the costs of things rising as well, like you can you can buy a what a door hinge from five bucks to probably five five hundred at least. I know that. Um it's just such a massive array of uh of selections on offer. I wonder if people are getting, you know, just decision fatigue and whether something like this is, you know, um good timing. I I just do wonder. Have you got any insight or thoughts as to that?

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Um look, I think I think it's a like there's two sides to the coin. A lot of people really do seem to want to personalize the bejesus out of everything. But then there are the other people who just like you say, get the decision fatigue and just it's like, just tell me what to do. And so because we do custom design, like we end up with a I mean, we we attract a a particular client type of client who sits within sort of a sort of a spectrum of sorts, but within that, like some of them really, really want to choose everything, others really are like, give me two options and I'll pick one. And so Sophie and Courtney, who are interior designs, like they're really good at the start of the of of the process of like trying to understand the how their brains work because there's no point doing the two options with somebody who wants to go down every bloody rabbit hole, but then there's the other side too. So I think it's gonna work for some people, other people are gonna hate it, but that's fine. We don't need to serve everybody, we just need to, you know, we want to change the things we want to change. So I yeah, I think there's enough people who would appreciate the simplicity. There's also the reason we've done a granny flat and a duplex. So obviously we've got no idea how any of this will go, but they tend to be the types of buildings where people are uh saying's terrible, less sort of um heart invested. They're more hate decisions, and so I think there's an aspect of that as well. As soon as you get into, you know, a lot of our clients, as I'm sure all of you, like it's you know, it's our forever home. And as soon as you get hear those words, then that means I'm gonna just pour all of my heart and soul into this, which is delightful, but very time consuming. Yes, and so it's almost not for those people, yeah. Yeah, they can go custom home home route, absolutely. Yeah, they can. Exactly. But you've got to be able to pay for it, and then just come back to if I want a really hot, like a passive house or you know, whatever, something very close to, then you can't do necessarily do both.

SPEAKER_03 44:32

How do you intend to get this out there? So I have I have this feeling that it's a great solution, and there is there's we spoke earlier about there's an alternative solution out there as well. We're not gonna talk about that right now, but I I do feel that how do we get this to the right people? I feel like if if there was a partnership with builders all over Australia or something, I don't know, be it an institute or an organization or something, I I think you need to get it out there to get to the right people. I think uh it's a brilliant idea, it's really good, but like how do you the demographic is so small at the moment, potentially. It's quite large, but at the moment it's quite small. And we're all in I wouldn't say a pigeonhole, but we're we're in this little yeah. How do we get out there? How do we share this and get it out there?

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Look, I think it's a it's possibly the million dollar question. Um we haven't really kind of refined that yet, exactly. Um, we have some lovely people helping us with that because the one thing that I've realized is that I'm not particularly good at that side of things. Um I think it's gonna be a combination of like the the marketing socially stuff that we do for other things, obviously, with a slightly different flavor for this. Um, it'll be people within the passive has world, because it's trying to tick a box that the passive has world broadly at the moment isn't quite able to tick, which is mostly around the cost bit, right? It's just trying to drag it down that that yep that cost curve a little bit. And so we don't really, as a bunch of professionals, have good answers to that. And so we are hopeful, especially once we get a couple built, because at the moment, to be fair, it's a very nice website and there's some nice designs, but it's not a building. So hopefully that is gonna be the sort of the leading light bit. And it's like, well, okay, so there is this approach over here. So if you can't afford, and to so this will be interesting for other designers, it's like, so you can't afford us or the buildings we design, but there's other people over here that will deliver that for you. So I don't know how those architects and designers are gonna feel about that, but ultimately they're not gonna get work out of those humans anyway. So maybe that will be part of it. The builders sending people as well, because at the end of the day, correct me if I'm wrong, but most builders, I wouldn't say you don't care what you build, because you do, but ultimately, you know, whether it's custom design or something that's a bit more off the shelf, if it's a decent home for nice people, then presumably you're just gonna turn up and do your job really well.

SPEAKER_03 46:57

So I think I I believe in it. I think it's bridging the gap. It's like, you know, when you're building your own business, and we've been doing passive hosts for 10 years, it's that you you keep hammering at the door, build it and they will come, build it and they will come, you know, and you continuously build. You've got to build them and show them, and build them and show them, and you continuously do that, and then you you build a brand, etc. But I think this thing, if it got the right wheels, man, it could really make a difference.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

It could, it could cause us a bunch of real problems, too. It could, yeah, it'd be good problems.

SPEAKER_02 47:27

Yeah, oh yeah, exactly. I'd love to have the problem. Sorry, love to have the problem. Passive test. And open to other suggestions. I had to spread the word because, like I said, not my forte.

SPEAKER_00 47:38

I'm keen to test your sales pitch, to be honest, Andy. But um That's all right.

SPEAKER_02 47:43

Just get someone with a lookout surname, because I know too many clerks anyway. Um, get them to get in touch and then give me a scorecard at the end. Um, loves your scorecards.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

Yeah, you can't do it. Um so so we we don't build passive house, but I've the more leads I've spoken to recently, they're all they've all got some knowledge of it. I've been sort of surprised to be honest. Um, sort of every you know, average sort of Joe types of people. So if someone's probably the granny flat's a good um scenario. So someone's looking at granny flat with anybody, because there's obviously granny flats, granny flats really can be some of the worst some of the worst homes in Australia would be granny flats, as we know. They'd be like sheds. Um opposed to then you know the what dare I say, premium or certainly superior product that you you're offering, what's the what do you think what's the what's the pitch there? What what's I mean obviously it's a type of person that that is going to um go go with this passive house design granny flat. If if a person is weighing up, say two different scenarios, one that's not passive house and one that is, what do you think's what's your sales pitch?

SPEAKER_02 49:08

Um the short version, health, comfort, building longevity.

SPEAKER_03 49:12

That's it. It sells itself. Yeah, yeah. I don't think the sales pitch is the issue. I think getting it to the right people is the issue.

SPEAKER_02 49:19

I think that's and they've and they've got to look at the numbers and say, I'm happy to pay more, because it is more, because I mean, as you said, Simon, like some of these things are woefully like I don't quite know how they're legal, like so cheap. And so there is a there is gonna be a cost uplift to the thing, and you have to be prepared to pay that. But it's health and comfort and building longevity. That's really it. The energy stuff isn't worth talking about because we have a lot of sun, solar panels are cheap, just build a shit house and put PV on the roof if you care about energy, and that's what most people are doing.

SPEAKER_00 49:53

Yeah, so so so how do we I think the health is just such a huge one. I think you're spot on there. How do we get more people to understand it? Like with you know, we've had Sean Maxwell on recently, Brian and and um some others, you know, Jesse Clark and and the like. Um and clearly, yes, just I I I now liken I use filtered water. Um, you know, I run what you know, put the water from the tap in into a filter, we pour it out. And I mean, if I'm gonna do that, it's just you know, water I consume, but oxygen I consume much more of day to day, every second or every couple of seconds I'm breathing it. But people don't recognise the the health implications that they face, you know, by by breathing in nasties, whether it's PM 2.5 or others, that a passive house, correct me if I'm wrong, can deal with.

SPEAKER_02 50:48

Yeah. And so I mean, it's really hard to work out what'll eventually get somebody to kind of flip and go, okay, I care enough to actually pay well, basically pay someone to implement a different approach for me, which is really what they're doing. Um I mean, a lot of the people historically that have come to us have come to us with their own health issues or their kids' health issues or some exposure to that sort of stuff. Um, and so a lot of people find it through the health aspect of research. We've got a bunch of people who find it because they realize that airtight has won't have bugs inside and they hate bugs. Um, you know, it just depends on the people. But the health stuff in particular, I think most most people, most people who've lived in hazes in Australia at some point have experienced some form of physical discomfort, whether it's actually like a health problem or just discomfort, because of the nature of the building that they've been in. And so I don't know how many years ago, we've somebody asked us that marketing question about, you know, who's your target audience, and we're just like, oh I don't know. And then but we thought about it for a while and came back. It's like nearly every one of our clients has at some point, whether they're Australian or not, lived overseas. And they've experienced living in buildings that aren't shit. And so they come to Australia or return to Australia as the case may be, and they're just like, yeah, nah, this is wrong. I I don't want to do that. I want to do it like they do it.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

And whether it's Europe, bunch of people lived in the Middle East of all places, um, like different parts of the world, but they've all lived in places where buildings are yeah, they're the very common client, though those people that have yeah, once you see the other side, once you see that there's actually a way you can be comfortable in a home. Um, not have to yeah, this time of year in Melbourne was just uh just a travesty. People be shocking.

SPEAKER_03 52:43

Yeah, but health is grossly underappreciated. So health is one of those things that when you have it, it's fine, you appreciate it and you you go about life and there's no drama. It's only until you you get into a situation where you're unhealthy, or the living environment that you're in is unhealthy, and it affects how you live and and breathe and operate every single day. That's that's when health becomes an issue. But unfortunately, mass market doesn't realize or understand that. So most of the clients, as you've pointed out, Andy, when they come and they talk about passive house, they go searching for passive house because they want better. They've either been overseas and experienced it, or they've had health impact. Now, where we're heading with the code at the moment, I feel we're in a real shit show right now. I really do. I feel that we're we're knocking on the door of leaky building syndrome, and it's happening in apartment buildings all up the coast from Sydney all the way up to the Gold Coast and so on. And there is currently buildings in court because of that. There are people unhealthy, and you will see the there will be class action suits that will start to come in now because people will be unhealthy. This will change the laws because it will become common knowledge, it will be on the internet, it will be on 60 minutes, it it'll be everywhere. And as soon as that happens, people will start seeking it out, and it'll it'll almost be like a juggernaut, in my opinion. That's just my opinion. I hope, I hope, and hope and hope that we're not going down that road. But from what I see and the murmurs I hear, it's on its way.

SPEAKER_02 54:11

I think you're right on all but one part of it, which is the it getting on 60 minutes bit. And so I know, and you know the humans too, there's a bunch of people involved in those court cases because they already exist.

SPEAKER_05 54:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:22

But everybody is NDA'd from here to Christmas and back again. Yep. Because the developers don't want it known. Any of the professionals involved don't want it known, but also the homeowners don't want it known either because they still own units in these buildings that are crap. And if it becomes common knowledge, then their million-dollar unit becomes worth a lot less than a million bucks and they're stuffed. And so $490.

SPEAKER_03 54:45

Yeah, I know, but you've got one person of influence that says, no, I'm not saying that in the air. Give fuck. I'm not doing it. And then there, you just need one person on 60 minutes. Yes. And then it becomes and then as soon as you get the bit, all of the other entities in News Corporate, wherever it is, they'll jump on this because people will gobble it up and they will love reading bad stories, right? Yeah. As soon as it goes out there, it's yeah. And I think then our industry will be under forced change.

SPEAKER_02 55:17

I agree with all of that. I sorry, my my skepticism around it is around it getting in the public domain. I would love to see it happen too. One of the things out of the pacifist conference that I thought was really, really, really good, and this is not trying to tie these two topics together just for clarity, I'll get myself in trouble. It just happened to cross over. Look, they do. But um, so Frasers, who presented about the point cook thing and all the follow-on that they've been doing since then. Like one of the things that I thought was most interesting about sort of what they're doing with that. So they haven't run off and decided we're going to build everything passive has. I'm disappointed in that, but also completely not surprised.

SPEAKER_05 55:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:51

But the stuff that Kate showed around what they're doing, around basically promoting the bejesus out of balanced ventilation in buildings is a phenomenal outcome. And like they operate at different scales, like they build townhouses, they build apartments, they build stuff over, like they're a huge company. And so the fact that they've decided to focus on that, I don't think that's entirely separate. No, exactly, because the ventilation part is like at the end of the day, you can ignore all the other passive house bits. If you ventilate the building, you will at least be healthy. You might be cold and cold eventually becomes unhealthy, but at least you're not going to have mold and condensation if you ventilate the building properly. Why do you think that happened?

SPEAKER_03 56:34

I don't know. I bet I bet the modeling would have showed something there. Because they've modeled both buildings, right? Not an MMs, not saying anything, but I reckon when you have a push like that, there's an absolute reason behind it.

SPEAKER_02 56:47

Well, and so the the the updated version of the CSIRO um airtightness for buildings thing that came out last year, whenever that was, like so the single detached family home stuff, like that number, the average came down from about what 15.4 down to somewhere in the sevens or eights. So like half less than a decade, which is pretty amazing. Yeah, but some of the apartments they tested, yeah, they were like point 1.5, like really, really low. With no mechanical ventilation. No, maybe a bathroom fan. That would be it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 57:22

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

That's why I say this is it's a problem. It's a big problem right now. Oh yeah. I'm not disputing the problem. I'm disputing the public knowledge of the problem. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 57:30

And then they have before Brian gets himself in trouble.

SPEAKER_01 57:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:36

Um, I'll are we saying, are you guys saying here that so for these apartment buildings, you know, they've they've got issues with condensation buildup within the walls and and potentially inside. Yep, is ventilation like a HRV the answer? Is it mandatory solve that problem? Even moisture should be mandatory inside the wall.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

Yep. Well, as soon as you start ventilating the building reliably, so we refer to it as reliable ventilation, which is a very nice way of saying windows. Windows are also very reliable, but the humans who operate them are not. Um, and so as soon as you ventilate a building reliably, then you're balancing your moisture, you know, with outside all the time. And so mostly that will solve all your problems. The part where it gets really interesting is well, it depends what's happening outside. So if you start going up like the further north you go, then you can get into a whole bunch of strife because outside is sometimes more humid, or often more humid than inside.

SPEAKER_05 58:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:36

And so you're really then at a point when you need to you need a holistic solution, like a genuinely holistic solution at that point. And you mostly end up realizing you need to start dehumidifying buildings. And so anyone who lives up around the mid-north coast of uh sorry, the north coast of New South Wales and getting into Southeast Queensland, like they've all got massive humidity problems. And historically, the answer has been to lit literally live in a timber tent, because if the thing leaks enough, then it is just like living outside. That's what they're saying. Yeah. And and it kind of works until you insulate it, until you care about energy use, until you care about indoor air quality, and then your stuff.

SPEAKER_03 59:14

They do have issues as well. I don't I didn't really want to get into this, but they do have issues with external pressures being higher and pushing water into the structure, which is a big issue. So there's nothing mandatory at the moment. Like uh RABs should be mandatory on taller buildings, on apartment buildings. It should be just mandatory. They should be vapor permeables, it should be RABs.

SPEAKER_00 59:34

And sorry, sorry, by moisture, you mean like just like vapor being compressed or buried.

SPEAKER_03 59:39

Vapor and even moisture, because when you get higher pressure on the external, particularly in storms, and you've low pressure inside the building, essentially the inside of the building becomes a vacuum and it sucks the water into the building. So when you have a poor construction on the external, you can have ventilated building inside, right? And you'll have you know, you'll have a healthy living environment inside, but if you don't protect your structure, I'm not gonna say it's irrelevant, you're still gonna get that potential for molar milieu. So it's a holistic approach, exactly what Andy said. It's a holistic approach. But I think at the very least, ventilation needs to be mandatory in apartments. That's just a matter of what climate change. Yeah, sorry. I don't think it I think it should be in houses too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It should be, it will be eventually. Like all of these things are in the code, they're just not enforced. That's the problem.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:28

And this is the thing, and then we'll go and spend a couple of bill, like I don't know, pink bat thing that went wrong, like all the other the flammable cladding. I run around a part of Sydney, and there's a fairly big construction firm that are just moving apartment building to apartment building to apartment building. They've been there for like two years changing the facades, changing the facades. Yeah. Who's paying for that? It's not me, but probably the strata people, I assume. Oh, and I I don't know if the government's opinion. Maybe the government. Maybe I am paying for it. I should bring someone.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:59

Right. Oh, Seaman. Sorry. Okay, back on track. Salem's got a reper question at the end here. I want this one. Oh, okay. Oh, what's this, Brian? Come on, man. Last one.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:09

All right. So if we recorded this podcast in 2035, what would you hope had changed about the way Australia builds its homes?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:19

Short answer. Like them all to be healthier. Longer answer, I think I'd like to see. I'd like to see us. I'd like to see us take all the things that have been spoken about for decades about how things could or should be done in terms of, I guess, an integrated process around design and construction and monitoring and maintenance, like the whole thing. Like the car industry is obviously in some ways great and some ways terrible. But you know, that the systems that they have created in order to deliver a thing is truly amazing. And we've stared at that stuff for years, thought, you know, said oh yeah, we could, we could, we could, but we've never actually bothered. Um, I I don't know how hopeful. I had a conversation Yonks ago with a guy. We talked about the difference between being optimistic and being hopeful. Yeah. And um, he's a touch older than me. He goes, I I used to be optimistic, now I'm just hopeful. Um so yeah, look, I am optimistic that things will get better. I think prefab will kick off through necessity because of the weather's gonna get worse, it's gonna be harder to build things in a field. Um, the cost curve of prefab will come down, and if we solve the design problem of everybody wanting to design everything every bloody time from scratch, then I think that will also improve. So we have really good numbers from our favorite prefab supplier about how much the second house costs, because the first house includes all the bloody computer modeling, which chews up a good chunk of money, and so the second one is really good value.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:57

Do you think there's room? So let's say in 10 years' time, do you think we would have shifted to a better tiered system for modelling, perhaps, and certification? Or do you think that it's just still going to be the Natters BS approach?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:13

That's really a reflection on where you think politics is going, I reckon.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:17

I reckon we could look, I'm not I'm hopeful for politics, not optimistic. Um Natters in and of itself is good. It's just they don't turn on the right bits and the bars aren't in the right places, and they're never gonna walk away from it because as somebody what we when I was on the board of the Passive Face Association, we were trying to get them to let Passive Face be a pathway in.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:39

An alternative solution, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:40

Yeah, people still banging at drama as they should. Somebody did point out, it's like, but you're talking to the people whose jobs depend on NATO as being the thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:49

So you're never gonna win with those people.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:51

It's like, oh yeah, didn't think about that.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:53

But you could you could if you had an alternative tiered system. So rather than right now, certified passive house is extremely rigid and it's not tiered. If you had a tiered system similar to FIAS, is that a better approach or no? Or and I what do you mean by tier as industrial? You may have to edit this out. No, you mean like a lower low. Yeah, so you've got a low energy building, but if you had four tiers in that low energy building similar to Nathorse, but they're built correctly and they're healthy.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:19

Um look, I think in in Passive Ass Institute land, a PHI land, I think their low energy building is a awesomely good building. Yeah, we've got a bunch of projects in Vic, not Melbourne, but like Victoria, the cold bits of Victoria. Yeah. Um and they're they're gunning for low energy because they're awesome buildings. There's still a quality assurance scheme wrapped around them. Yeah. But, you know, to get to like full-blown passive haste, you need a wall that's three plus hundred mil thick. And that's just not financially sane. And we had a conversation yesterday about the fact we're going to do a whole bunch of carbon modeling on that to actually look at, you know, so how much do you save in making a wall, you know, less fat, but also how much extra PV do you need to offset the energy problem you're gonna do.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:07

So there's alternative options for my yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:10

And so I re I reckon the passive house low energy building is already that sort of sweet spot, well not sweet spot, but is already that one tier down, but still it's got all the rigor, the rigor, the air tightness, the ventilation, like that's what you're after.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:22

Yeah. I still think it's a little bit rigid. I still think it could go even lower. I think your air tightness is still quite stringent. I think we can get to two and still have a very, very high performing building. I think we can go to even 2.2, 2.3, 2.5, even three air changes, we can still have extremely efficient buildings. I think that that metric is what's and if you change that, right? If you change that air tightness metric in the PHPP modelling, it's influential, but it's not fucking deal breaker. No, it's not.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:54

But the pro the the issue that you then start to run into, so you can build a ace that'll get me 0.5, right? That's lovely. And so if I ask you to build me one that's 0.3, uh sorry, uh is uh is three ACH, then which bits do you not do well? Like how do you know because if if your leak is spread evenly across your whole envelope, then it maybe not matter. But if you end up with one big hole in a wall near a bathroom, which has got kind of moisturized. Yeah, yeah, I get it. And so yeah, I I think I I think the one's actually I think the one's okay. Um I think it's I just think it's a dicey game because as soon as you say let's debate what the number should be, if nothing else, it's government, you're gonna spend the next 22 years arguing about it and achieving nothing.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:38

Yeah, I don't think we should stick with yeah, I don't think we should argue with the number. I think we should have a s uh a slating scale and performance is what I think we should have.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:46

If you look at most game, you're saying so it'd be like a teed certification.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:51

Yeah, so similarly you've got your star ratings right now, right? And if you look at other countries, they have like your energy rating is essentially A B C or whatever it is, or A plus or B plus, whatever it is, right? I think in order for us to get the industry to adopt it over, we need to make it accessible. And right now I don't think I don't think it's accessible. I think it's there's a big There's a stopgap between both industries. So you have your high performance industry here, and you've got your standard industry here. And there's a stopgap between the two because there's no way to link them. And I think a tiered system can possibly link them. Once you link them, it's better than the process we've got now, where they're building just shit buildings and they're saying they're high energy. They're not, they're just shit buildings because they're not paying attention to the energy of, they're not paying attention to the healthy aspect of it. If you create that tiered system, you then can lock the two systems together. And then once you have them locked together, you can improve. You can just get your standards and just go, okay, now we've got you all playing this game. Now we're going to make the goals smaller. So you're all kicking to the same goals, but we're going to make them smaller.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:49

So what I think will happen is that at some point, and maybe a 2035 is optimistic, he knows. So at some point, because what the last the last ramping from six or seven stars took 12 or 13 years to happen, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:04

If they when they lift that again, what will happen is so in a bunch of climates, Brian, yours and mine in particular, maybe less so for Simon, but it's really hard to get a lightweight building to comply with seven-star NatHurs in a butt if you don't have the right orientation and a few things in your favour. And so if they ramp it any higher, the only way that they're not going to absolutely prohibit a whole bunch of blocks of land being viably built on is for them to then allow people to turn on the airtightness part inside NatHurs to then basically have to deliver a certain amount of airtightness with the insulation, the glazing, and all the other bits and pieces in order to then meet their metrics. Absolutely. And so as ramping of NatHur, whenever that happens, they're going to have to turn on the airtightness bit. But that then also brings us to the point that came up at the conference of like, if all of a sudden your your volume guy can build a two ACH building, that means that because of the airtightness, so basically going from give or take 10 to give or take two, then there's a bunch of stuff they can take out of windows or insulation or whatever because they get a benefit from the airtightness. And so you've got to be really, really careful about having some form, I don't know how they do it quite, but they have to have some form of minimums. Otherwise, they're just going to downrate the building because the airtightness got them across the line in other ways.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:31

Look, I I agree. All I think is that there should be a tiered system offered by a passive house alongside. You can they can continue to do what they're doing, right? I that doesn't bother me at all. But if you have a tiered system next to it, you're going to want people because they're going to have a point of difference in industry. Literally, it's a sales pitch for them. So allow them to adopt better buildings over here and allow that pathway. Rather than right now, it's too stringent. They will never adopt it. But I think if there was a tiered system pathway on the left hand side, you would be shocked at how many people would adopt that. And then once you start people adopting it, I don't think it's that hard to integrate it after that.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:06

If you still made them do the QA, do you think that the adoption would still be there? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:11

Do you think it's the QA that's the problem or the benchmarks? It's the benchmarks. I honestly think it's the benchmarks because once they look at the benchmarks, they put it in two hard baskets straight off the bat. They just go, nah, too hard. Can't do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:23

If it's if it's a tiered system, like your your approach right now is good. I think it needs to go further than that. I think it should be a tiered system. That's just my opinion. But how you roll that out and how AFA do that, I'm I don't know. That's just my opinion. It's not it's not up to me either. Yeah. SBA should SBA should do it. Possibly. Yeah. It's our SBA building. It's table building standard. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Let's go to the shortfire questions, please, because we're out of time. We've been out of time for a while, actually. Who's the most famous person in your phone book, Andy? Tolino Edwards. Oh, that's nice. Uh, favorite sporting team? Sydney Swans. Our nemesis at the moment. Although the lines are coming up strong from the back end too. Uh passive house or passive soda design. Silly question, but I'll ask it a little bit. Silly question. Both of them. Yeah, okay. Timber, brick, or alternative construction? Uh timber with a bit of hemp crate.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:16

Bit of straw. Yeah. Favourite music? Grace Petrie. She's a yeah, well, I thought about it for about 10 minutes last night. Uh, English folk singer. Awesome. Incredibly, incredibly funny, well worth a listen. She also does comedy. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:32

Her music would be pretty good then if she's comedian. Yeah, her it's oh, it's hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. Uh Tim Tam or Anzac. Remember Penguins? Yes, I love penguin bars. Yeah, so yeah, same. Tim Tams. Tim Tams are penguins. If I had a choice though, I'd go back to the Anzac. Would have gizzards.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:52

But no, Tim Tams.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:53

Andy, thank you so much for your time, man. I was great to catch up with you last week as well. I really appreciate you giving us some time. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:59

It was lovely to see you today and last week in particular. So thank you. And thank you, Simon. Thanks, Andy. Thanks again for tuning in.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:06

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SPEAKER_03 1:12:15

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SPEAKER_00 1:12:24

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