E87. The problems with condensation with special guest Clarence from Ionic Constructions (Part 2)

In the second part of our two-part series which follows on from the previous episode, Amelia and Frank discuss with special guest Clarence from Ionic Construction a deeper look into one of the most overlooked challenges in the construction industry—condensation. 

They discuss poorly designed and constructed homes that are not just inefficient; they can lead to major moisture issues, mould growth, and long-term structural damage. In this episode, they discuss why condensation is a critical issue, how outdated building standards contribute to the problem, and what designers and builders need to do to create healthier, more durable homes.

They also explore how Tasmania, despite its small size, is leading the way in pushing for higher industry standards. With some of the country’s top industry leaders and a unique approach to construction, the state has become a testing ground for better building practices. By moving beyond the bare minimum requirements and embracing smarter design solutions, we can reduce condensation risks and create homes that stand the test of time.

If you're in the building industry or planning a home, this episode is packed with insights on why condensation matters and what can be done to tackle it. Tune in now!

About us
Prime Design is a building design company locally owned and operated in Tasmania since 2004.  Our goal is to share as much valuable information as possible about the process of building design, extensions, and more. We will talk about a different topic each week. To suggest a topic you would like us to talk about contact us at info@primedesigntas.com.au

Disclaimer
The information provided on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, individual circumstances, or remedy. We strongly suggest you consult a qualified professional before taking any action based on the information provided in this podcast. The views, opinions, and information provided in this podcast are those of the hosts do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organisation, employer, or company. All content provided on this podcast is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this podcast and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, or damages arising from its use. We reserve the right to change content or delete any information provided on this podcast at any time without prior notice.

Transcript

E87. The problems with condensation with special guest Clarence from Ionic Construction (Part 2)

[INTRO] (0:08 - 0:24)

Hello and welcome to the Building Design, Prime Time Podcast, focused on providing valuable information for anyone looking to undertake a new build or extension project. We'll share our tips, tricks and stories from a building designers perspective.

[Amelia] (0:26 - 0:58)

Hello and welcome to the Building Design, Prime Time Podcast. I'm your host Amelia and once again we're joined by Frank Geskus and we welcome back our guest Clarence from Ionic Construction. If you've been following along from our previous episode, we talked to Clarence about condensation in your home.

So we had part one in our previous episode. We're going to dive straight into part two. Enjoy everyone.

[Clarence] (0:59 - 2:24)

But coming back to this thing with the decks over a habitable room. Now, if we take a sort of step sideways and look at a deck over a habitable room and look at the tiles on the deck. 

[Frank]

So you have a bedroom underneath a deck, which is fully exposed to the weather.

[Clarence]

Yes, and there's nothing over the top of the deck. Now, how is that deck performing any differently to a roof? 

[Frank]

It's not.

[Clarence]

It's not. It's doing all the things that a roof is doing. 

[Frank]

Exactly. It does everything. 

[Clarence]

So it's keeping the rain out. It's protecting the rooms underneath, et cetera, et cetera.

Now, under the National Construction Code in Climate Zones 6, 7 and 8. So we're talking Blue Mountains, Canberra, Southern Highlands, lots of Victoria, southeast of South Australia, Adelaide Hills, southwest of Western Australia. So even though it's geographically not a huge part of Australia, there are millions of people living there and tens of thousands of houses are being built every year, big population centres of Australia.

And so if you're in those areas and you have a roof, which is less than five degrees, I beg your pardon, less than 10 degrees, there are certain things that must be complied with as far as roof ventilation is concerned. So if you build a roof that's five, even nine degrees, you must have a certain amount of ventilation, clearance with your insulation, et cetera, et cetera, underneath that roof decking. Now, how is a tiled roof over a habitable room any different to a roof?

[Frank] (2:24 - 2:24)

It's not.

[Clarence] (2:25 - 7:10)

It's not. 

[Frank]

And you can't vent it because the floor system is usually too thin. 

[Clarence]

Well, you can vent it.

[Frank]

Not well. 

[Clarence] (2:31 – 3:20)

Well, what's the saying? It's this American cartoonist, heaven on earth is technically possible, but the cost would be astronomical. And it's a bit like that. It's possible, but the cost would be astronomical. It is absolutely possible to do, but the cost and complexity would be astronomical.

So here we are. This is effectively the fourth exemption under the National Construction Code as far as ventilation of a roof. If it looks like a roof and talks like a roof and quacks like a roof, it's a roof.

And if we've got a tiled deck over a habitable room, it's doing everything a roof's doing, but it doesn't require ventilation. Jesse Clark from ProClimber said, if you wanted to build the most condensation generating structure in a building, a tiled deck over a habitable room is it, but it does not require, under the Code, ventilation. 

[Frank] (3:20 – 3:48)

So who's the Muppet that thought that was a good idea? Well, it's that whole committee, the ABCB, you know, because there's very convoluted processes you've got to go through and it's massing through the BDAA. We have representatives there amongst lots of other associations, HIA, Master Builders, everyone's represented, yet it's got so much more complicated there with the amount of paperwork and the amount of documents they have to read, yet the results aren't there.

[Clarence] (3:48 – 4:34)
 And coming back to the tiled decks over habitable rooms, you can go to the National Construction Code or the standards and find all sorts of layups and designs and construction methodologies for all sorts of different things.

But as far as I'm aware, a tiled deck over a habitable room, there is not a prescriptive design detail for a tiled deck over a habitable room in any Australian standard or National Construction Code. So then, is a tiled deck over a habitable room technically an alternative solution? It may have been your colleague Dale Barnes from the Building Designers Association of Australia who brought that up, that that may well be an alternative solution, but people are building them as if it's the same as building a trussed roof or a stud-framed wall or a slab-on-ground construction.

[Frank] (3:48 – 5:14)

They're not understanding their risk when they design it. Sorry, we're going down a rabbit hole here, but we refuse to do lightweight tiled decks. That's why we said go concrete.

But that doesn't always work either, because the thickness of your floor structure doesn't allow adequate space to not only construct this, hold it up, but also to vent. There's just not enough space to do it, because you're going to put a fall on this thing to get the water away. So then they say, oh, it all comes down to your design.

Well, it also comes down to the client's requirements, and sometimes you just go flat out and say, we can't, hand on heart, guarantee this is going to work. And if we can't do that, we can't design it. 

[Clarence] (5:14 – 5:22)

Yeah, look, that's right. And look, there are sort of ways around it as far as hygrothermal modelling or finding some funky design. 

[Frank] 

Is that the Woofie software? 

[Clarence] (5:23 – 5:56)

That's the Woofie software, which basically models the heat and moisture transfer through a given system.

And so there are technically ways around it. But the risk is extreme in the tiled decks over habitable rooms. But the other thing that happens with that is once you've got the four, six, five, four Australian standards for the waterproofing of wet areas, the number of times you will see decks designed without the step down, and we're talking a lightweight frame deck where there's not the adequate step down at the door entry.

[Frank] (5:56 – 6:01)

You can’t put the lip…but that's a different standard again, with the windblown rain, you've got to have an upstand. 

[Clarence] (6:01 – 6:53)

Correct. Yeah, and depending on the wind zone, it's 50, 70 or 100 mils. And look, it's very unfortunate, but there was one particular builder in Launceston, and they have a good operator, and they had two decks and at least five bathrooms which had failed from their waterproofing. I looked at one of the bathrooms and one of the decks, and we did a few sums on the back of a bit of paper and worked out there was over half a million dollars worth of failures there. And the tiler had left and gone to Queensland and changed his name, changed his business name.

And one of the decks I looked at had water coming in with the thermal camera, had water coming in in six different isolated locations. So it's not just one particular area. And then you throw the condensation in there as well, a few poorly vented fans or so on in the rooms underneath.

And you've got a complete, I think schmozzle is probably the word, and a very expensive one at that. 

[Frank] (6:53: 7:12)

Oh, unbelievably expensive. So with that in mind, also failures, huge cost to the industry.

You know, poor design, poor thought process, poor execution. From a cost and constructive perspective, what do you think are the biggest challenges meeting the new ventilation requirements? We touched on the ventilation.

[Clarence] (7:12 - 14:53)

I think flat roofs and the flat roof systems are going to be one of the biggest shakeups in the design and construction. And I think it's only because people haven't got their head around, they don't realise how big the shakeup's going to be. Now, I believe there's a table in the National Construction Code, and I apologise for not knowing the number.

I think it's E1A2. 

[Frank] 

I think we'll forgive you on that one, because you know a fair bit. 

[Amelia] 

You know a lot of them.

[Clarence]

Oh, look it’s umm...and it's a verification method in the National Construction Code. And it's been a big thing in the New Zealand National Construction Code.

[Frank] 

Didn't they go through hell? 

[Clarence] (7:44 – 7:58)

That's still evolving too. We believe that New Zealand's got it all sorted out.

They're further ahead of us. But they've still got a fair way to go as well. Not a fair way to go, but it's not like they've got everything 100% bedded down either.

[Frank] (7:58 – 8:00)
 No. But they went through a lot of pain. 

[Clarence] (8:00 – 8:07)

Absolutely. And we're talking, you know, I think $50 million or $50 billion. I beg your pardon, billion. 

[Frank]

It’s Such a small country.

[Clarence] (8:08 – 8:28)

Yeah, that's right. Look, I think it's E1A2. And this table basically models all the risk associated.

And it's to do with water ingress from outside, not condensation. It's to do with weatherproofing. And it talks about decks over habitable areas.

It talks about complexity of the facade. It talks about how wide your eaves are, et cetera, etcetera. 

[Frank] (8:28 – 8:31)

How do you do your flashings? Quality flashings. 

[Clarence] 

Well, look. 

[Frank] (8:33 – 8:36)

As well. You know, because you do beautiful designs. 

[Clarence]

Yeah. 

[Frank]

Doesn't mean you can actually flash it well.

[Clarence] (8:37 – 9:52)

If we look historically at, say, we look at a brick vineyard building, for example, we would have had a head flashing over the lintel. There would have been a sill flashing in the wall underneath the sill bricks. The sill bricks would have had a slope on them with a drip edge at the bottom.

Typically, not always, but that's the sort of thing that would have happened. And you look at a lot of rendered buildings these days, you won't see any weep holes. There will not be any weep holes.

There will not be any sills with an overhang on them. And when we get the, whether it be a masonry or whether it be a foam, a lightweight foam construction, when those external moulds are put on, I've seen several of them where the moulds actually direct water back into the building. Then there are no weep holes.

Then there are no flashings or there's nothing to get the water out. And there's a lot of problems. And if you look at buildings these days that are rendered, it is very unusual to see weep holes and control joints on them and very unusual to see sills.

And this is the vernacular sort of construction that evolved over significant periods of time where people worked out, well, we have weep holes and sill flashings because they do a job. They're not there for the fun of it. They do a job.

And now these essentials have to a large degree fallen out of favour. 

[Frank] (9:52 – 9:55)

But I don't understand it because it's still in the construction code. 

[Clarence] (9:55 – 10:12)

Well, I'd suggest that anyone go around and look at whether it's a foam clad building or whether it's a brick veneer or a double brick building.

And if it's rendered, if it's rendered, and there's a, not all of them, a disproportionate number that do not have weep holes on them, disproportionate number. 

[Frank] (10:12 – 10:19)

And that, I kind of think that comes down to partly of training, education, to different sub-trades as well. 

[Clarence]

Or maybe it's the building surveyors.

[Frank]

Or is it the builder as well? It's a combination of all these people that need to know their stuff. 

[Clarence]

Yep.

[Frank] (10:28 - 10:40)

Are we not doing enough education or people ignoring it or don't understand as a professional what your risk is? There's a whole range of potential issues. 

[Clarence] (10:40 – 11:25)

There's all of the above, all of the above.

And I don't think there's any sort of single silver bullet that solves it. But just a few weeks ago, I was on a job. And the guy who did the job 13 years ago was a multiple award-winning builder.

And when he put the weatherboard cladding on for the flashing, he just chopped into the weather-resistive barrier, a silver foil, which was standard at the time. And there was no flashings. And there was water coming in everywhere on the building.

And all the cladding had to be pulled off. All the membranes had to be redone. And this gentleman, I believe, is now in the training space of builders.

And it's a bit of a shame. But I remember when I was an apprentice, if you got your flashing wrong, the boss would be on your case and screaming at you and telling you to do it properly next time or you'd get your backside kicked. 

[Frank] (11:25 – 11:35)

My very first home was a 100-plus-year-old Federation joint.

And I remember renovating that and repainting it all. Even back then, they had flashings over the top of the windows. 

[Clarence]

Yes, yes.

[Frank] (11:36 – 11:35)

Hardwood weatherboards that were like a dog's hind leg. Gaps everywhere. Baltic pine timber architraves and windows.

But there was a flashing at the top. It was the sills that failed and rotted out. But, you know, they had drip grooves and all the rest of it in there.

[Clarence]

Yes. 

[Frank]

But this is worrying where even our modern techniques, that people are missing it. And look, sometimes it's really simple stuff.

[Clarence] (12:00 – 12:34)

And, for example, on this job, when I was speaking to a colleague of mine who came through as a roofer, who's now a builder, and he says whenever he has a window flashing, he puts a five-degree slope on the top. And I said, I put an eight-degree slope on the top. So if there's any movement, you've got that little bit of redundancy.

He said, that's a great idea, Clarence. But these are some of the really, really simple things. So if when you're doing your flashings, which are typically out of Colorbond now, instead of having a 90-degree bend on the top, you have 110-degree bend on the top to help shed the water.

It can sometimes be really simple stuff. It doesn't need to be a case of reinventing the wheel. 

[Frank] (12:34 – 13:46)

And as mums and dads, you know, that might be listening to this, you wouldn't know this.

But you'd expect your tradesmen to know. And they're talking about fast-tracking apprenticeships. Remember, the federal governments were talking about cash to, you know, tradie apprentices, fast-tracking them to become qualified.

It takes time. I don't know what profession you do, doesn't matter where it is. You do adequate amount of training.

You then go, you know, at an educational facility. You then train under someone, mentor, train, learn as an expert. Then you're still working under someone over a period of time until you prove competent.

I can't help but think that the competency is bloody disappeared because no one's checking their stuff. And you're letting people loose, giving them a licence. And in some cases, they've done a Cert IV, they've never held a hammer.

They should be called project managers, not builders. And they are then building houses. There's so much to check for a building surveyor, they can't see anything because the limited amount of inspections they have.

So then you've got tradesmen go out that aren't what I call competent. 

[Clarence] (13:46 – 14:08)

Oh, look, totally agree on whether that's a plumber or a carpenter or a building designer. It's across the board. And I think mentoring and pathways are really important. And the last guy who worked for me wanted to go out on his own. I said, I'll sign off your papers to get your ticket.

But on the proviso that if you ever have a question, you make sure you ring me up for the first couple of years, which he did. 

[Frank] (14:08 – 14:33)

And I believe in Tasmania, we've got to be very clear, we have licensing as builders. And we have to put that all on our paperwork.

And there's licensing in the rest of Australia too, but different. Victoria, I think, is very similar. But on that, if you get your licence for the first time, why wouldn't you have a provisional licence?

Why wouldn't you have P plates with a mentor? 

[Clarence]

Yes. 

[Frank] (14:34 – 14;54)

And this is no different for building design, for architecture.

I don't care what it is. And then you have to then report your bank of work. Look at the quality.

Someone checks it, approves it. Someone who's suitably qualified, independent of that. Not their best mate or their old boss…no offence

[Clarence] (14:54 - 14:57)

No, no, totally. 
 
 

[Frank] (14:57– 15:17)

It's then we've got to have a level of accountability. Because if you don't get picked up on certain things, you're going to continue.

You think it's okay to not add a flashing or to not continue the flashings far enough. Waterproofing, except this. You don't tape up things.

You don't follow through or just construction techniques. 

And at the end of the day, the consumer loses. 

[Clarence] (15:17 – 17:07)

Oh, I think the consumer lose.

But I also think the trades lose as well. And it's really interesting. Having been involved with the training for several years now, I get to know a lot of builders.

And because I mainly work in the remedial space, not in the new construction space, that they don't see me as a competitor, so to speak. And so I get to see a lot of jobs, a lot of builds, a lot of what goes on. And I think the fascinating thing that's happened in the last few years, especially around this high-performance house.

And if you look at, there's Future Build. If you look at some of the pro-climber stuff, if you look at, yeah. And Proctor's doing a lot as well as far as the high-performance buildings.

I think that's given a lot of trades a bit of a sense of pride again, that there wasn't for a long time. It said, we can do something better, we can do something different. And it's not just about granite benchtops and stainless appliances.

It's about making houses that really are something better and not just look better, something that actually perform better. And we can actually put a number on that. We can actually say, it's not a number, but there's some sort of quality that goes with that as far as the construction, the air tightness, the insulation, the detailing that goes with it.

And I think that's been a real positive. But at the other end, as far as, let's call them the laggards or the people who aren't at the upper end of the industry, all these things you say about mentoring, provisional licences, I strongly agree with. And I know that when I got my licence, I probably wasn't ready.

I don't think most people are, but you can go straight out and build a million dollar house within your first year. And there's no way I'd recommend someone with their first year with a builder's licence to do that because there's a huge amount of risk involved. And once we start seeing some of these funky designs, that risk increases significantly.

[Frank] (17:07 – 17:26)

Oh, massively because of different materials you use, the different ways. And when you're spending a good amount of money building, it ain't a standard build. It's a custom build as opposed to being stock type of build.

And if you can't get your stock building, stock builds, right? What hope have you got doing a custom build? 

[Clarence] (17:26 – 18:30)

Yes, yes. When you talk about all the things like deemed to satisfy and alternative solutions, the further you go down that path, the more risk there is for these things to happen. And coming back to the condensation and energy efficiency side of things, I think in Tasmania, we're sort of well ahead of the game, but in the other states, they're not necessarily. This nexus between condensation and energy efficiency and condensation, there's this very hidden risk associated with it.

And so historically, as builders and designers, we can see if, okay, that lintel over that window is too small or the slope on the roof isn't sufficient or there's not enough reo in the slab. There are things we can look at and straight away they jump out at us as saying, well, that doesn't look right. But when we're talking about energy efficiency and condensation, we don't have the history in Australia to look at a job and automatically go, I see a risk associated with that.

Because it's not a physical thing we can relate to. And I think the industry is changing. It's fascinating to be a part of it.

[Frank] (18:30 – 19:01)

But what I think is messing up a lot of the mindset is this stupid terminology about affordable housing. What a crock of rubbish. But this political use of these words bouncing around.

Sorry, it costs what it costs. If you want a quality building, it's gonna cost you. You can blame whoever you like what it is, but we build some of the biggest houses in the world.

We've discussed this previously. We've got to scale back what the expectations are on the size and what you want in these homes. 

[Clarence] (19:01 – 20:21)

Look, I couldn't agree more.

And the interesting thing is historically, let's say the bank says, okay, a house of 200 square metres in suburb X is worth $800,000 for argument's sake. And you can build a house which is a super performance house that costs $800,000, but it's only 130 square metres because you're more interested in the performance. But is then the bank gonna come along and say, wait a sec, $800,000 for a house that's only 130 square metres, something doesn't add up.

And when we add into that the inherent cost of construction, let alone adding on all the high performance aspects, we've got a real crunch in Australia. And the last time I looked, I think it's since pre-COVID, the average cost of housing averaged out over Australia has increased 40% in five years. So you add that to all these other things and it's a bit of a straw that breaks the camel's back.

And I do believe in the next few years, there has to be a major rethink about what you said about affordability, about what we are putting value on. Is it just the square metre of the building or is it something more than just the square metres of the building? Is it, do we put a metric in there that says an eight star, well-built, high performance, healthy home at 130 square metres is worth as much as a 200 square metre home that's built like a cardboard box?

[Frank] (20:21 – 20:40)

But to be fair, people can't see the value in it. No, no, certain people. I should say certain people can't see the value in it until you live in one.

Because they want to look at what the kitchen bench, the floor coverings, the special features, the bathrooms. People love that. 

[Clarence]

Yes.

[Frank] (20:40 – 20:47)

You know, and they're drawn to this beauty. It's no different buying a beautiful looking car, yet it's a shitbox. 

[Clarence] (20:47 – 20:57)

Yeah, but it's maybe like the Lexus mentality that's sort of, you know, it doesn't look like a BMW, but the Lexus people know it's a Lexus and they're happy having the Lexus.

I don't know, is that a thing?

[Frank] (20:57 - 20:57)

I don't know.

[Clarence] (20:58 - 21:12)

But I heard a thing once that Lexus people are the people who would own the BMW but are happy to have a messy house or something to that effect. But anyway, I don't drive a Lexus, don't know anybody who does. 

[Amelia]

Frank does.

[Clarence] (21:13 – 21:15)

Frank does, there you go. Now I’ve stuck my foot in the mouth.

[Frank] (21:15 - 21:16)

Oh, not at all, not at all. I got it for the quality and the reliability.

[Clarence] (21:16 – 21:19)

Have you got a messy house? I'm not going to go into your house now.

[Frank]

I better not say anything Veronica will kill me. 

[Clarence] (21:23 – 22:50)

I do think that that turn is happening and you look at Luke Davies and his business and what they're achieving there. And look, there are lots of others.

You look at Carlin Constructions in Melbourne and look, I can't think of any outside of Tassie off the top of my head, but there are several, Evan Graham in New South Wales, where they're pitching that to clients and clients are saying, yes, I want this in the same way historically they would have had the granite benchtops or the floor to ceiling tiles or the media room or whatever. And I think on one point you can say, yes, we've got distance to go on that front. But I also think there's been a huge amount of traction in that area.

And if you go online, and just last night I was looking at Matthew Carlin, Carlin Construction, who's got a lot of stuff on the internet, on Facebook and Instagram. And you can see that there's a pride in there. There's a quality in there.

There's something above and beyond. We're just going to build the biggest box we can. And I think that the social media has, it's a bit of a double-edged sword, but that's definitely getting traction as far as the quality of construction.

And interestingly, when we talk about trade skills and so on, and also the cost of failures, if we go to some of these online things, there's Zahir Khalil from site inspections and there's a lot of, Luke Davies does a bit, that there are a lot of people putting good information out there to, A, to show you how it can stuff up catastrophically, but also details on how to do things properly, which I think is really good. 

[Frank] (22:50 – 23:02)

And- That's wonderful. I love that, you know, because it points out where people shouldn't be builders. There's a clear indication there are people that aren't competent to be builders. 

[Clarence] (23:02 – 24:51)

Oh, yes. And it's interesting. And David Chandler in New South Wales mentioned this, and I saw one of the site inspection videos last week. And one of the rules of thumb is that if the site's messy and the site toilet's horrible and disgusting, you can tell that everything else flows from there.

And I think on average, that's a pretty good indication. Okay, my sites get messy from time to time, but keeping them safe and neat and tidy and organised means it probably flows onto other parts of the job as well. But look, coming back to the online and social media, I think there's a lot of resource there.

And just last night, I was looking at a roofer from Melbourne, and I was getting very, very excited about the amazing roofing work he's doing. And I learned a thing or two about sumps and rain heads. And look, it's interesting because people would say, oh, Clarence is a bit of an expert in this, that and the other, but I'm learning stuff every day.

And I think the fascinating thing about the building and construction industry, no matter what aspect of it you're in, there is always something to learn. And I think for young people, they say, oh, I'm just going to go and put nails into bits of wood. Yeah, boring.

But the amount of opportunity and knowledge and ability to do something positive for the world and for your community and for your clients, it's pretty special. And I think that's a pretty unique industry for us to be in. And I think we can see this stuff around condensation building, technology, building performance as a bit of a, is that another hoop we've got to jump through?

But you can to some degree flip that and say we can make something a bit positive and special and interesting out of this, which is great. It has- Look, 

[Frank] (24:51 – 26:34)

Exactly, and I think it's a privilege when we get to design or alter someone's house or even for their business. I love doing commercial work as well.

And it's a real privilege, especially when you see commercial as a classic. And I don't know if people look at it this way, but you can design something with them, you listen to them intently, and their business explodes because of what you've helped them to design and it functions well. And their business increases massively.

No different with a house where you can meet their needs, their budget, and it achieves everything they want. And the house is reliable for 50, 100 years. And I keep going back on reliability because I think everything we should do should last.

Next owner may have different requirements, that's fine. But everything we should do, and we've got to stop looking at this minimum standard in the NCC and all the Australian standards. Minimum isn't a target.

We should be going above this to ensure that you get the quality of the construction prior to what we do. And then if everyone follows that type of lead, we'll have so many less problems. There's some wonderful trades, sub-trades that do amazing work, they never get recognised.

And it's always, it's the guys that don't do the right thing. Hey, I've got an excavator, I can go dig house footings. I can do plumbing, I can do this and all sorts of stuff.

I give the rest of the industry a bad name. If you're passionate about what you do and you want to be the best excavator driver, the best tiler, the best roof plumber, whatever, be that, learn, listen, and you will always have work. You have this wonderful reputation.

I love doing this to my kids. My kids got sick of this when they were younger. I designed that house.

I designed that building. And they got sick of this, trust me. But I take a great deal of pride in that.

Well, my team did this. 

[Clarence] (26:34 - 

And the other thing too, from a sustainability point of view, the built environment, it uses a tonne of resources. Huge.

The waste stream alone from construction, whether that's renovation or things going wrong, is phenomenal. So getting it right- 

[Frank]

That's a whole other topic.

[Clarence] (26:53 – 29:00)

No, that's right. And we can talk about embodied energy and carbon and sustainability, et cetera. But building crap houses or doing a crap job on houses is one of the most unsustainable things you can possibly do. And when they're going to be there for 50, 70, 100 years, and we're building crap buildings that don't last, that's about the least sustainable thing we can be doing.

And look, and this is not a plug for you, Frank, but it was interesting because I think it was two years ago, you were the head of the BDAA. Donita Warne, who's from Tassie, was head of Master Builders Australia. What's his name? Stuart Tanner from Tassie. He was the head of the Australian Institute of Architecture, and there was another one. And I think we had four Tasmanians at the peak of industry bodies in Australia.

And I know most of those people, I don't know Donita, and Craig Edmonds from Master Builders is now the chairman of Master Builders Australia. And to think that in Tasmania, 2% of the population, we had people in these peak bodies really driving very positive stuff for the industry. I think that was a pretty special time in the construction industry, and people don't recognise that.

And for 2% of the Australian population to be doing that, it shows that we can punch above our weight. And I'd like to think that doing these podcasts like this, the work that Mark Dewsbury's doing, the stuff that Luke Davies is doing, I think Tasmania has a really interesting place in the industry. And there's a thing called the Wagga Wagga Effect, and it basically says there's a disproportionate number of sports people that come from Wagga Wagga because of its position in the regional area of Australia.

And I would argue that there's a bit of a Tasmania effect where we can sort of do our own thing and use that as a bit of a testing ground where things can then develop in other parts of Australia. So maybe with us collectively, there's a lot that can be done in Tassie to sort of get the foothold for the next level in the rest of Australia. And I see what's happening on multiple levels, and I think it's pretty special.

And when there's a bit of doom and gloom and focus on the problems, it's an interesting sort of bright light in the construction industry in Australia. 

[Frank] (29:00 - 

Yeah, wow. That's very cool. I actually didn't realise that, to be honest with you, that that was the case.

[Amelia] (29:06 - 29:10)

Yeah, we're at the forefront. That's kind of cool to think of that.

[Frank] (29:11 - 29:45)

We have a very unique industry in Tasmania too, because we only bang out 3,000 odd houses a year, sometimes less. In the peak, I think it was about 5,000, and I think it was 16, something like that. Some of the stats just recently.

We don't build a huge amount of houses compared to the rest of the country, and none of our houses are cookie cutter, you know? And that's another unique thing. So we do have to think creatively on a lot of our stuff.

It's nice that not all our stuff is the same, but then comes that complex problem of making sure that it performs over a long period of time. 

[Clarence] (29:45 – 31:11)

It's interesting when you talk about cookie cutter, I'm not suggesting company A, B or C is cookie cutter or not, but there was a volume builder on the mainland, and coming back to this, I suppose this is a good tie-up of a lot of the things we've been talking about and as I said before that the ventilation in buildings in my opinion is going to be the next massive challenge for the industry and for the building codes board to get their head around from a regulatory point of view and there was a builder a volume builder in Melbourne.

 I believe one of the big volume builders and they were having a huge amount of problems with air quality mould, occupant health etc and they as far as I'm aware put a fairly basic heat recovery ventilation system into all their new builds standard so I suppose that even at that let's call it mass production or a state or a spectrum whatever you want to call it into the market that even there it's been recognised that this is an important thing and they've managed to factor that into their builds and that's part of it and with any of these things you would hope that as things become more common that the skill set increases the knowledge increases the desire for other segments of the industry to take that up increases and as a result hopefully cost to come down but as you said before it's not all about the would you rather they've been a big crap house or a small nice

[Frank] (31:11 - 31:12)
quality house, 

[Clarence]

A small nice, healthy house

[Frank]
Healthy and quality house.
 
[Clarence] (31:15 – (31:18)
 That’s going to last for your kids and then some 

[Frank] (31:18 – 31:57)

yeah and I think that's the other side of it too as we go forward for your kids I think it's a very interesting point with affordability and the rest of it kids are going to be hanging around home it's just the way it is and you look at all different countries around the world they've all gone through some type of you know this level where of home ownership are probably never even existed in some cases we've been very fortunate in Australia things are changing you've got to work our way through that and I think our generations are going to be able to have to help our kids or you make good decisions of what you buy as a call it an asset call it a home whatever you like that is going to last and your kids may have to move in there
 
[Clarence] (31:57 – 32:38)
And look it's interesting and I'm sort of aware that I'm seen as the sort of a bit of a go-to person you know god help the world if I'm a go-to person but anyway I do know a thing or two about the condensation and mould and this was an interesting thing that happened during COVID is when everybody was working for home and the kids weren't at school and there was a disproportionate amount of problems with health, mould, condensation and again once we start getting to more people within a given floor area that's another consideration.

 And the simple analogy I like to use about that is if you think of a swimming pool with five people in a versus a swimming pool with 50 people in it well the swimming pool with 50 people is going to need a lot more filtration to keep it clean.

[Frank] (32:38 – 32:40)

And chemicals and all the rest of it. 

[Clarence] (32:40 – 33:11)

And what happens in a house we have more people within a certain area so the problems as far as bacteria, air quality health are going to increase so this is all part of the conversation and as we're going down this path towards smaller houses high performance houses more airtight houses these things ventilation the air quality have to be central to the whole conversation whereas now I would say 98% of people probably know it's out there somewhere but don't have much of an understanding of it 

[Frank] (33:11 – 33:34)

and that's it and this is where we want to try and educate people where there's simple things to do open your damn windows people change the air or install a heat recovery ventilation system not saying these are all silver bullets but you've got to learn to operate your house no different you have to maintain your house you've got to maintain your car you've got to learn how to operate a house. 

[Clarence] (33:34 – 33:57)

I also think that over time particularly in the cooler climates an integrated approach to air quality inside the building and as you said it's not just about putting a heat pump air conditioner on the wall it's going to be a more considered approach and again if we look at it from an affordable housing point of view if you've got a cheap house and your kids are always sick with asthma or there's mould everywhere well what's the real cost of that going to be?

[Frank] (33:57 – 34:19)

Exactly right you don't realize it because it makes up you can't see it's hard to measure and I think it's hard things we can't measure it you can't see it like the CO2 metre was a golden idea every you know take away is I think that's absolutely fantastic you know but opening your windows getting air flow think about don't dry your clothes inside and look duct your dryer
 
 [Clarence] (34:19 – 35:50)

And look at an interesting thing too and this is where the technology can really be a huge boon for us and I remember years ago when we had problems with air quality mould humidity etc you'd have to go back and put a humidity meter in and measure it and go back and back and back and measure again and measure again and now it's possible to get these humidity sensitive air quality sensors which can be just hooked up to your phone or your internet there are two three four hundred dollars each I've got really ten of them sitting in buildings all over long system I can tell what's happening in the roof in the floor etc etc and this coming back more I suppose towards designers rather than homeowners but there are several builders out there now who are…
  

Actually if there's let's say you're designing a building and you're a bit unsure about how it's performing or what's happening in the cavity or where there's going to be a mould risk you can actually build one these metres and put them in the roof cavity put them up against the
 batons put two or three in the building okay it costs you 700 bucks put them in there you can monitor that for the next three years till the batteries run out and you can say okay well ‘A’ I know that house is healthy yeah the humidity is when the safe range or you can say okay I know there's a problem and I've got to go back and fix it but then that also becomes something you can on sell to your client by saying we've actually got monitors in your building that we can monitor for the first two or three years so we actually know we actually and look for 700 bucks what do you get a couple of power points put in you know get a crappy shower screen it's
 
 [Frank] (35:50 – 35:55)
you might be dropping anywhere 400 to 700 thousand on the basic home 

[Clarence] (35:55 – 36:25)

that's right and so you can put these things in there and so it's a really simple way if you've got to complicated or a high risk design to actually get some metrics on there where there are these grey areas and I was speaking someone on the mainland I can't say too much but it was a four million dollar build four million dollar build okay four million dollars and in the first winter they had…it was absolutely ringing wet inside the roof space and think if you've got a four million dollar build with the ringing wet inside the roof space…
 
 [Frank] (36:25 – 36:32)
So eventually that's going to turn into a dirty great mouldy mess with that mouldy bread look on your trusses everywhere
 
 [Clarence] (36:32 – 37:33)

and this is obviously for a very high end client and these things are happening everywhere and this is in obviously a high socio economic area and the cost of these is significant and we talked a bit about this before as far as training is concerned the federal government wants zero carbon net zero high energy efficient homes and as soon as we say parasycord energy efficiency I'm not making a political judgment on that but transports got to do a bit agriculture got to do a bit manufacturing's got to do a bit construction's got to do a bit and and that means that high energy efficient homes and as we know high energy efficiency means on average compromised in air quality condensation mould and interior health it's just a given that's every developed country around the world has found that's happened over the last 50 years building physics works the same whether you're in Australia or America or Africa and I believe that even just from the public health point of view the government needs to be putting money into training to avoid these knock on effects of houses that fail, poor health poor, air quality etc because the costs are in the billions it's not it's a very significant amount. 

[Frank] 

That’s right, no 100% 

[Amelia]

well we might start wrapping up because we have been chatting for over an hour now 

[Frank] 

Really?

[Amelia]

we have yes so I guess 

[Frank] 

have we set a new record?
 
 [Amelia]
oh not quite no I think I think Toby’s is probably yes still is the longest one we've done
 
 [Frank]
Gotta give him a shot at the record 

[Clarence] (37:53 - 38:10)

Oh look and I think the other thing too it's a very interesting topic and as Frank and I alluded to before that the industry is fascinating ever changing and for any young people out there or people who are interested in a career change there's so many opportunities in the construction industry and it's 

[Frank] (38:10 – 38:33)

from every level too that's from highly technical to you know all these different levels down to the most basic level but it's all valuable doesn't matter what position you are in the building industry from labourer excavator truck tiler, brickie cladder, chippie, roofer plumber whatever all very valuable part of the whole process
 
 [Clarence] (38:33 – 38:35)

And we need to build more houses desperately 

[Frank] (38:35 – 38:36)

And do it well
 
 [Clarence]
Absolutely, absolutely

[Frank]

Got to do it well yep
 
 [Amelia] (38:41 – 38:48)
So we might wrap up with are there any resources available for people that want to learn more about condensation 

[Clarence] (38:48 – 39:56)

uh look I think that the single biggest resource that I find is LinkedIn and uh and look that's just the one I happen to use but there are lots of other good resources out there my suggestion would be he's and look at it's only just since you've asked me do this podcasts I've looked at the whole world of podcast I think oh my goodness there's a colleague of mine who did a podcast with a guy called Jay Stybury who's the odd father of building science in um in the world and uh so there's a huge amount of resource out there go to the podcast the Prime Design ones uh Jess Kismit does one called the building sciology poddie SCIOLOGY poddie and there are a whole lot of other resource out there are LinkedIn and uh and companies like Prime Design and others and the Building Designers Association etc that there's training there's resources so get online and just find out what you can and the other thing too is because there are so many experts out there if you have a question put it out there on one of the forums and particularly in LinkedIn and you more often than not you'll find there are people who actively want to share that information with you 

[Amelia] (39:56 – 40:01)

And so you you're available on LinkedIn if somebody wanted to ask you a question 

[Clarence] (40:01 – 40:26)

Yep, yep and look if I can't answer the question that there's a huge uh what let's call them a brains trust out there who's uh nine times out of ten very willing to help out people and it's a fascinating area so yeah uh jump on shoot us a few emails or put a post up or respond to one of the threads that's there and Mark Dewsbury and I are trying to get more resources out there but as we all know it that's uh there's a lot of work to do that well 

[Frank] (40:26 – 40:38)

Yeah totally. well thank you very much for the effort you put in the industry right now I really appreciate really appreciate you coming on here and we're hoping to get Mark on here as well and so can spread the education 

[Clarence] (40:38 – 41:14)

Yeah look I'll twist his arm and look having Mark Dewsbury who's just up the road here literally the passion and knowledge he's got for this is extraordinary and uh and I think that's why Tasmania is where it is so I'll um, I'll twist his arm and make sure he gets in here I call myself Mark Dewsbury’s minister for propaganda he's too busy he's too busy doing his research I say Mark you've got to put more of this information out there is clearance we will so uh yep very good and thank you for having me I really appreciate you inviting me and having these conversations because I think it helps lift everybody up and uh yeah thanks Amelia and thanks Frank 

[Amelia] (41:14 – 41:39)

We might wrap up part two there thank you so much Clarence for coming in and having a chat to us about condensation it's such a huge topic of conversation in our industry at the moment so thank you so much for coming in and having a chat to us about it and hopefully our listeners out there have got some value on how it can affect their home and what things they can implement so thank you so much for that we might wrap it up there thanks for listening to the Building Design, Prime Time Podcast…we'll catch you next time
 
 [Frank] (41:39 – 41:40)
Catch ya’s later
 
 [OUTRO] (41:50 – 41:53)
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