E105. Passive house design with guest Sam from SM building (Part 1)

In this episode of Building Design, Prime Time Podcast, Frank and Amelia sat down with Sam from SM Building, who recently achieved something remarkable, completing the very first certified Passive House units in Launceston. Sam opens up about his journey of navigating the process for the first time, sharing both the opportunities and the challenges of bringing this globally recognised building standard to Tasmania.

If you’ve ever wondered what really goes into creating a Passive House this conversation is for you. Frank, Amelia, and Sam explore the five key principles that make these homes so efficient, the lessons Sam learned onsite, and how he overcame hurdles around design, detailing, and cost. You’ll hear why comfort and health are just as important as energy savings, and how simple changes in building practice can completely transform the way we live in our homes.

Whether you’re a homeowner, builder, or simply curious about the future of sustainable housing, this episode will open your eyes to what’s possible when you rethink the way we design and build. Sam’s experience is proof that with the right mindset and commitment, better homes are well within reach.

It's definitely an episode not to be missed! This is part one of a two part series so be sure to check out the following epsiode so you can listen to part 2. 

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

E105. Passive House Design with Sam from SM Building 

[INTRO] (0:09 - 0:24)

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 - 0:51)

Hello and welcome to the Building Design, Prime Time Podcast. I'm your host Amelia. And once again, we're joined by Frank Geskus.

[Frank]

Hey Amelia. 

[Amelia]

Happy Friday. 

[Frank]

Another happy Friday.

[Amelia]

Yeah. 

[Frank]

And we've got a special guest. 

[Amelia]

We do. I'm excited. 

[Frank]

You going to do the intro. 

[Amelia]

Oh, I suppose I should do the intro then.

[Frank] (0:52 - 0:54)

It's your job. 

[Amelia] (0:54 - 0:57)

It’s my job. Welcome Sam from SM Building.

[Sam] (0:57 - 1:00)

Hi Amelia and Frank. Thanks for having me.

[Amelia] (1:00 - 1:19)

No worries. We're going to have a chat to you today about passive house. And I feel like there's so many misconceptions and it's a term that's sort of something you can search on Instagram and everyone's looking for what passive house is, but I don't think anyone really knows what it is.

[Frank]

Some do.

[Amelia]

Some do. 

[Frank] (1:19 - 8:50)

Some don't. And you can learn a lot about it online. You can. But not try to listen to all the bullshit you need to listen to people who know what they’re talking about.

And to be fair, Sam's working on his units out at Hadspen at the moment, which I had the pleasure of visiting. And it was awesome to have a chat over the challenges and the details.

And I couldn't stop asking you questions all the way through. Angela, who was with me, she must have felt like she didn't get a word in anyway. 

[Sam]

Yeah, it's interesting once you start going down that path, I think. Yeah, the learnings and stuff with passive house, for sure. 

[Frank]

So do you want to quickly say, in your opinion, what is passive house? 

[Sam]

Yeah, so I guess like a passive house is, I guess it all starts with the design side of things where you use the, like they've got five key principles.

Insulation, high performance windows and doors, air tightness and mechanical ventilation and eliminating thermal bridges. And that's all done in the design stage to make it an energy efficient, comfortable, healthy home to live in. 

[Frank]

And the units that you're working on now, you work closely with the architect on that one?

[Sam]

Yeah, so the designer we had, Torkel, he's been really good designing and he was really good to help through that process. 

[Frank]

And did he learn lots out of it from a practical sense as well? 

[Sam]

I'm not too sure. He's part of the Passive House Association, so he probably knows a fair bit about it. But yeah, I think it's probably a learning curve for everyone involved, I think. We had Ruben from Res Engineering, it was his first time doing it. So I think, yeah, everyone took a lot out of it and probably opened a few eyes, I think. 

[Frank]

Yeah, and I suppose that's what it's about, different construction techniques. 

[Sam]

Yeah, definitely.

[Frank]

And how you were describing the amount of steps and photos you had to take at each step, it kind of blew me away. Was it 120 different steps? 

[Sam]

Well, I'm not sure. It feels like you're almost a photographer rather than a builder. You've got to take a lot of photos for evidence. I guess you're replicating the design because that's what they model everything off.

And if you're sort of deviating from that plan, obviously that can change the outcomes. So yeah, documenting what insulation that you're putting in the slab, in the walls, the size of the frames, the windows, all those sort of things. 

[Frank]

The gaps.

[Sam]

Yeah, documenting that you're not doing it with gaps in your insulation, all those sort of things. So I guess at the time you came to the units, it just looked like a normal development then, doesn't it? 

[Frank]

Yeah it did, it looked like a normal house.

[Sam]

So after the fact, yeah, you've got no idea.

[Frank]

Other than I had to take my jacket off. 

[Sam]

Yeah, that helps.

[Frank]

It was a bit warm in there. And that's the whole point of it, you know, that it performs incredibly well from a thermal perspective. But also the ventilation, that was the other thing, we were chatting because I was interested because I'm going to put the HRV in my house. And curious, and some of the points and tips that you gave me, and that's only one aspect of the build. And it was really interesting, so I did a lot more research on it after I spoke to you. 

[Frank]

Yeah, well that's good. And that's the thing, isn't it? You talk to people that have been through the experience, there's a lot of learnings along the way, and we've learned so much in just this one development of different processes and techniques we'd use along the way. But yeah, I guess it opens your eyes once you start doing it and do the course.

Yeah. Yeah, it just seems silly to build the old way and stuff like that. But you don't know what you don't know.

Absolutely, yeah. To, to be fair, the Australian National Construction Code is designed for eight climates, and the construction type is pretty well the same all through the whole country. There's a lot more climates in reality, but under the National Construction Code, there's only the eight, really.

And yet we've got to construct with the standard acceptable construction techniques to meet all these different climates. It's kind of madness. 

[Sam]

Yeah. Well, I suppose Passive House uses the climate zones as well, but they design to the specific ones. 

[Frank]

The very specific ones. 

[Sam]

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. In Tasmania, it's climate zone seven, and maybe some areas, it might be eight. 

[Frank]

Yep, up the highlands.

[Sam]

Yeah, so they design specifically to that. So you might have bigger insulation, like triple-glazed windows as opposed to double-glazed. Ventilation would have a heat recovery part to that, whereas in warmer ones, that changes. You can have smaller glass and all that sort of stuff. 

[Frank]

That's right. So for you, when you chose to go down this track for these units, what was scaring the crap out of you more than anything?

Because of the change of construction, getting the glazing, because that glazing is not readily available, and it was available through Uni. 

[Sam]

Uni Lux, yeah. 

[Frank]

Uni Lux, and they're fantastic.

[Sam]

Yeah, Stew’s really good. He was really good to deal with. I think everyone in the Passive House realm is pretty happy to help out where they can, whether it's just tips or whatever.

So in terms of the unknown, there's so much in terms of you can price everything up, but there's a layer of content that you can't really estimate for because it's such an unknown. 

[Frank]

Because you haven't done it before. 

[Sam]

Yeah, and then I suppose on the back end, getting your money back from that perspective when you're selling it. I mean, for us, it probably wasn't as – obviously, everyone's in it to make money. 

[Frank]

Yes. 

[Sam]

But I guess for us, we had two reasons for doing it. One was because that's what we wanted to get into from building better homes for people and that sort of stuff. So we thought, what better way to show that we're doing it than doing it for ourselves? There's a lot of people out there who say we specialise in high performance or Passive House, and have they built one or not?

Who knows? 

[Frank]

Yeah, we were just talking about that. 

[Sam]

Yeah, so I think the proof's in the pudding. If people are saying that we're doing it and we're going out on a whim, I suppose, then that gives them clarity and positivity around that. 

[Frank]

And confidence, because you've done it and been through it, myself, and looking at how you did some of the cladding and the flashings we went through. It was fascinating because it was stuff I didn't – there were certain details I wasn't 100% aware of on how you had to do the windows. Because the windows, triple-glazed windows, were inside the frame. They don't have the same reveal as you see in most Australian homes. 

[Sam]

Yeah, that's right.

[Frank]

That's the biggest difference. So then you've got a reveal on the outside that you have to form. And that's to make sure that the insulation in the triple-glazed windows are all in a line, so the insulation is consistent.

[Sam]

Yeah, continuous insulation. So there's a few different parameters that change in that. And after doing the course, they talk through that. It just makes sense.

[Frank] (8:51 - 8:51)

It does, doesn't it?

[Sam] (8:51 - 9:45)

And that's not to say there's not places for aluminium to be used. There definitely is, but it's on a 130 reveal most of the time, so then by the time, that's sticking out into the elements. 

[Frank]

So then the reveal becomes that weak point for the partition.

[Sam]

Yeah, and aluminium. 

[Frank]

Yeah, and aluminium by itself. 

[Sam]

But regardless of what the window's made out of, if it's sticking out past that layer, there's just a weak point, and you're never going to fix that. Yeah, that's probably some of the bigger learnings from the course, I think. 

[Frank]

And it's the thought, then, the work that goes into getting the external flashings. 

[Sam]

Yeah, it's a lot of change.

[Frank]

It's a lot of change, and it's a lot of detailing to make sure that it's watertight. 

[Sam]

Yeah, that's right. And Stu from Unilux was really good with that. He sort of gave us a few tips on how to do that, and I think they've come out really well.

 (9:45 - 9:46)

Yeah, they look great.

[Sam] (9:46 - 10:59)

They don't stand out, so it's not going to change that much for the client if that's the way they do it. And that was probably, I guess, when you're thinking about doing the unknowns. So it's like, oh, how are we going to do that and make it look good?

Because people aren't expecting that. So it's like they're expecting their windows to meet the brickwork and all that sort of stuff. 

[Frank]

Yeah, exactly, because that's the normal construction, whereas you have to think it completely different. Just to get it to – because the focus is on performance. Aesthetics is important, but you find another solution on the aesthetics. 

[Sam]

Yeah, absolutely, and I think with cladding it's a bit easier. The brickwork one, it's a bit harder, isn't it? 

[Frank]

Yeah, I saw that. But you made it look really neat.

[Sam]

Yeah, and there's other ways of doing it. I've seen some other ways after we did those, and they're pretty neat as well. I guess it comes down to the cost side of things as well.

So, yeah, just sort of trying to find that best solution. 

[Frank]

It's that balance too. What do you think some of the biggest misconceptions of passive houses?

[Sam]

Probably one of the biggest ones I've heard probably is people think you can't open your windows and doors. 

[Frank]

Really?

[Sam] (11:00 - 11:02)

Yeah. 

[Amelia]

I wouldn't have thought that.

[Sam] (11:03 - 11:32)

Well, I suppose because you talk about the air tightness and all those sort of things. People think, oh, well, you can't then open your windows, I suppose. But it performs the same. As soon as you shut the windows, it's back to working how it's meant to. 

[Frank]

But also when you checked out these triple glazed Unilux windows. 

[Sam]

Yeah, they're pretty cool, aren't they?

[Frank]

Oh, they're cool, because they were tilt turns. Yeah. And that was cool to try one for the first time.

[Sam]

And they just feel, like when you open them, they just feel good.

[Frank] (11:33 - 11:34)

Oh, solid.

[Sam] (11:34 - 11:43)

Yeah, they're doing what they're meant to do, which is nice. 

[Frank]

Yeah. So it was casement.

[Sam]

Yep. 

[Frank]

So it opens like casement, so it opens like a door.

[Amelia] (11:43 - 11:43)

Yes.

[Frank] (11:43 - 11:46)

And then you lock and change the handle the other way, they tilt.

[Amelia] (11:47 - 11:47)

Oh, that's cool.

[Sam] (11:47 - 11:49)

Opens from the top, yeah.

[Amelia] (11:49 - 11:50)

Oh, that's really cool.

[Frank] (11:50 - 12:03)

Yeah, so. Now, to every international person that. 

[Sam]

That's the standard.

[Frank]

Tasmania, well, Australia is very unique. 

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah, definitely. 

[Frank]

We've got dirty sliding windows with the fly trap track in them.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Amelia] (12:03 - 12:05)

Or the wind out ones.

[Frank] (12:05 - 12:14)

Or the windy ones, yes. Our awning windows, we love those. We've got them in here in our room.

Yes. But that's going to potentially be a thing of the past.

[Sam] (12:14 - 12:15)

Yeah.

[Frank] (12:15 - 13:00)

Because as it becomes more popular, they'll start making this stuff in Australia, but at the moment, Europeans do it so cost effectively. 

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah. Well, these, so Unilux do come from Germany. Stu down Hobart deals with them. But yeah, they're quality window. And the more people use those sort of windows, the better it will be from that.

[Frank]

But Stu's put his neck out on the line to do this, and he's put his money where his mouth is, too, in his own house. 

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah. 

[Frank]

You know, he really has a good crack. And some of the detailing of the doors, the windows, the lift up sliding doors. 

[Sam]

Yeah. 

[Frank]

Magnificent.

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah, we don't have any of those in the units, but yeah, they look pretty impressive. 

[Frank]

Yeah. Not real light, though, are they? They're a bit heavy, aren't they, to move in?

[Sam] (13:02 - 13:14)

I suppose that's part of the, you know, they're triple glazed. They're going to be heavier, but I guess it gives you confidence that there's something substantial there. They're working.

[Frank]

Very much so.

[Amelia] (13:14 - 13:17)

You can kick a footy, and they're not going to smash.

[Frank] (13:17 - 13:22)

Oh, definitely not. 

[Sam]

You'd be doing well. 

[Frank]

I'd be very impressed if you could do that.

[Sam]

I don't reckon even Buddy could do that.

[Frank] (13:22 - 14:11)

No, no. So, yeah, how do you think Tasmania's climate influences your approach, in particular to insulation, glazing and ventilation? Because I think Tasmania it’s perfect for our climate. 

[Sam]

Yeah, I think, like, you suppose, like, you think about Germany, that's very cold as well.

Obviously gets a fair bit colder than here. 

[Frank]

Yeah. 

[Sam]

But similar in the temperature fluctuations that you're going to get. But, yeah, I think that obviously, as I said before, like, you're just going to have, like, more insulation in your walls. You're going to have triple glazed as opposed to your double glazed windows and, yeah, heat recovery in your HRV. 

[Frank]

So I've harped on this a few times on the podcast. I'm a big HRV fan.

[Amelia] (14:11 - 14:12)

You've converted me.

[Sam](14:13 - 14:13)

I think it's great.

[Amelia] (14:13 - 14:15)

I'd love to put in my new house.

[Frank] (14:15 - 15:25)

So the heat recovery ventilation system, people, it's utterly potentially you could change your life in the health of your home. It's not cheap because, you know, when I confirmed the price that I told you, that was right because my unit's the next size up.

[Sam]

Yeah, right. Yeah. 

[Frank]

because my house is that much bigger.

[Sam]

Yeah. So they model it. Obviously model them to the size of the house and the needs, I suppose. But, yeah, I guess the main thing with the HRV would be that, yeah, it just recycles the stale air that you have in your house, that you've created extra moisture and all of that. So then that just recycles it with the fresh outside air and, yeah, brings you back nice clean air. Dirty air out, clean air in.

[Frank]

That's it, yeah. Swap the heat over. Yeah.

[Sam]

So I think, you know, that alone sort of helps with, like, probably a lot of health issues potentially, you know, if you have asthma or whatever like that. But also in Tasmania we have this unique thing with during spring everyone has allergic reactions to hay fever. 

[Amelia]

Hay fever, 

[Sam]

yeah, that would be another big one, yeah.

[Frank]

Because you can change the filters within the units as well. 

[Sam]

Yeah. 

[Frank]

To different levels.

[Sam] (15:25 - 15:26)

Yeah.

[Frank] (15:26 - 15:43)

Which is really interesting. And that's probably the only maintenance you need to do is the regular filter change. 

[Sam]

Yeah, so.

And then the heat exchanger cleaning and things like that. Yeah, six months probably changing your filters. And I guess when you think about it, it's probably the same as what you should do with a heat pump.

[Frank] (15:43 - 15:44)

Yeah, that'd be good idea.

[Sam] (15:44 - 16:04)

But nobody does. 

[Frank]

Well, it's funny, at home we clean the filters out regularly. 

[Sam]

Yeah, there's a lot of people that wouldn't and don't even think about it.

[Frank]

It's a bit gungy in there. 

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, so I think, yeah, having an HRV and having to change it every six months could probably seem like an inconvenience.

[Frank]

But it's so easy if you pull it out, chuck a new one in.

[Sam] (16:04 - 16:05)

Yeah, that's right.

[Frank] (16:05 - 16:31)

Compared to trying to clean out the filters in your…

[Sam]

Heat pump, it's different, yeah. 

[Frank]

I know here at work, in the office, the cleaner has to clean that every four weeks. We get them to clean the filters. 

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah. 

[Frank]

But it's interesting, it's just normal maintenance. And this is, I think, with housing, people forget maintenance on housing. 

[Sam]

Yeah, for sure. 

[Frank]

You know, and this is to do with your health and wellbeing within the house. And it's no different cleaning your house, in a sense.

[Sam] (16:31 - 16:31)

Yeah, exactly.

[Frank] (16:31 - 18:04)

It should be part of that process. Yeah. Yeah, and the mechanical systems, they're so easy to switch over, the HRV to switch those filters over.

What's been your biggest learning, do you think, since building these units? Because, as you were saying, you had a lot of learning on the detailing. But has there been a big standout for you?

[Sam]

I guess most of ours would be around, yeah, the labour component and making things a lot easier. I was talking to Alicia about the decoupled slab and the XPS around that. 

[Frank]

Yeah.

[Sam]

For the insulation and then transitioning your airtight layer onto the slab. Yes. We probably do that a lot different and probably put the starter strip around before the XPS goes in and just make that transition of the airtight layer a lot easier.

Sure. Because that was quite labour intensive with that, probably. Well, not intensive, but it just sucked up a few more hours than you'd probably like.

[Frank]

Yeah, and that's just part of the learning, isn't it? 

[Sam]

Yeah. And we went the other way and tried to make things easier and tried to leave all the internal frames out so that we could roll the intello around a lot easier. And that just became a headache. And then when you go to do the internal walls, it's just a lot slower. So, yeah.

And that's probably the beauty of doing something like this. Like, we work out those issues on our own thing rather than when it's for a client. 

[Frank]

It's true, because when you go to a client, whether it's going to be a passive house or a high-performance house, you're going to have the techniques down.

[Sam] (18:04 - 18:04)

Yeah.

[Frank] (18:04 - 18:54)

And you can give the advice. But same, you can give the advice to designers like ourselves as, well, have you ever considered doing it this way? 

[Sam]

Yeah, that's right. And I think everyone's going to be learning along the way for a little while with it, for sure, because it is such an unknown product and different techniques, I suppose. And I think it is about collaborating with everyone involved to make sure you get the best outcome, yeah. 

[Frank]

Yeah. So, one question in relation with passive house and then passive solar, which are two different things. 

[Sam]

Yeah. 

[Frank]

But combined together, you potentially can have a very, very comfortable house, as long as you don't overcook it, literally, by overheating the house due to the passive solar design.

[Sam]

Yeah, so I guess in passive house design, passive solar would be part of that design when you're doing an overhaul.

[Frank] (18:54 – 19:05)

Because it's ingrained. Like, for us, it's ingrained in us. You've got sun into your living space. 

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Frank]

Once you've had it, you can't live without it, you know?

[Sam] (19:05 - 19:06)

Yeah.

[Frank] (19:06 - 22:32)

And I've got some young designers and stuff and got them to sketch stuff and they've got stuff facing south and west and said, dude, start again. Yeah. You've got to use the sun.

[Sam]

Yeah, and I think that's, yeah, passive solar is obviously based very much around utilising the sun and probably having a thermal mass inside to take the heat in and disperse it. But I guess there's that high element of risk with overheating and how quickly that escapes. 

[Frank]

Yep, and it's easy to overheat. It's funny, isn't it?

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, our house that we've got, we've got a lot of solar passive gains and it gets ridiculous in summer.

You think you won't have to run the heat pump in summer, but we've got to run it on air conditioning just to try and cool it down. Yep, we've got the same problem in my house. Yeah, whereas I guess passive house definitely uses elements of getting the solar gains, but it's the whole design to eliminate the overheating and that sort of stuff as well.

[Frank]

And the beauty is we've got software now, and I'm not talking about the passive house software. 

[Sam]

Yeah, PHPP. Yeah, and we can work out what's going to overheat.

Yeah. You know, or under whatever. So especially with your living areas, you really want to work out if you're going to cook someone in there because then you've got to compensate with mechanical ventilation as in the heating and cooling.

So that's part of that design process as well. So we're actually starting earlier with our thermal design of overheating areas. Your bedrooms and stuff, your utility areas are on the southern side.

[Sam]

Yeah. 

[Frank]

But then try not to overheat because like even in Tasmania, you will get a 30 degree plus day. You get the overhang, so you're trying to reduce the amount of direct sun onto your glass, but that's not always perfect.

I actually find the fringe points of autumn and spring and the living area heats up something shocking because the sun is hitting the glass directly on an unseasonably warm day and, yeah, she gets pretty uncomfortable. 

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah. And I guess that's where everyone's learning along the way, aren't they?

Like you guys were taught to use solar passive for a long time and now that passive house has become a thing down here, it changes the way you think. It does. And design stuff.

You know, you can minimise the size of your windows and those things and use the PHPP to ensure that you're getting them right, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

[Frank]

So one question a lot of people are going to ask is cost. In the past, since COVID, everything's gone up ridiculously in price. You know, it hasn't quite matched the inflation rates, but not even close.

So our general construction costs have increased considerably. And this is very hard to quantify what the extra cost of passive house would be because it depends on the complexity of the build. Simple to complex. House sitting on the site. Size of house, like square metreage cost. Because if you're doing a, you know, 300, 400 square metre house, that cost gets further and it's harder to control.

[Sam]

Yeah, absolutely. I think putting an exact number on it or a percentage, like, you know, people might say 5% to 10% would be probably a healthy range. But like you say, it does come down to the design side of it. But I also think building a passive house shouldn't be based around the cost. Like, there's so many more benefits to it.

[Frank] (22:32 - 22:33)

Sure.

[Sam] (22:33 - 23:00)

The health of the occupant in the home, the comfort. But so many people aren't talking about health. 

[Frank]

In the industry, we're talking about health of the house. But a lot of people aren't talking about health. The more we're interested, I can't get the stone top I want because that's been banned now. 

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah, well, this is true.

[Frank]

There's a few of those sort of things. You know, but people are more interested in that. You know, I want to have this flooring. I want to have this, that. Rather than think of the house, the health of the occupants.

[Amelia] (23:01 - 23:10)

But also the savings associated with having those things implemented with passive house as well, you know, with the energy efficiency and all of that sort of stuff.

[Sam] (23:10 - 24:28)

Yeah, well, I think, I mean, you can go on Passive House Association and have a look like a lot of the, you know, up to 90% of your energy can be saved from building a passive house. And I mean, they're all in theory for us because we haven't done it. It's a new thing in Tasmania, isn't it?

But what's your average power bill for the year? Probably five grand. 

[Frank]

Yeah, over the average person.

[Sam]

So like if you can reduce that by 90% and then you could chuck some solar panels on. 

[Frank]

To offset that. 

[Sam]

Offset that. And then all of a sudden you're not paying a power bill at all and you're saving five grand a year. Well, if you're spending 100 grand extra to build your dream home with its passive. And you're going to be there for a long time.

I would have thought so. If you're building that, like you're not looking at moving short term, are you? So I think, yeah.

[Frank]

This is exactly right. You know, if you're not, if you're going to be there for the long haul, do it once, do it right. The price is long forgotten, isn't it?

[Sam]

Yeah, absolutely. Like, and I think the return on investment isn't necessarily just monetary, but I understand that a lot of people, that's the trigger. 

[Frank]

That's their 100% focus.

[Sam]

Yeah. 

[Frank]

You know, what's my return on investment? 

[Sam]

Yeah. But I guess like the return on investment for money side of it, you'll get it back. And more, I think. Yeah.

[Frank]

Time will tell, won't they?

[Sam] (24:28 - 24:28)

Yeah.

[Frank] (24:28 - 24:59)

That comes down to that education of like, wow, you know, this house is awesome to live in. But also in Australia, we build some ginormous houses. 

 [Sam]

Yeah, that's right. We're probably, I guess, unique to a lot of other places in the world, aren't they? It's a bit more minimalistic in the size of the house, maybe with the exception of the US, but. 

[Frank]

Australia apparently has got the biggest, on average per capita, the biggest houses in the world.

[Sam]

Yeah, right. So that's crazy, really. But yeah, I think…

[Frank]

They didn't call them McMansions for nothing, did they? Back in the day.

[Sam] (25:00 - 27:29)

Yeah. So I think that's where we can probably make adjustments and go, okay, well, do we really need seven lounge rooms? 

[Frank]

Yeah.

[Sam]

15 bathrooms?

[Frank]

Well, even then, like we, look, we're happy to design document houses for anyone for their needs. 

[Sam]

Yeah, that's right.

[Frank]

You know, but when you've got, I'm going to shoot myself in the footy, but retirees, I'm only 10 years off that myself, but, and they're building four bedroom, 300 square metre homes for two of them. 

[Sam]

Yeah. 

[Frank]

And they call that for the return of investment.

Oh, I've got to build this type of house on a block. Well, it's like for your kids, or they'll come back when they come back, or whatever. Or grandkids, or whatever excuse like that.

So, but I think we've got to change our mindset because it's a bit of a waste. 

[Sam]

Yeah, I agree. I think like, you know, if you're looking at building a 300 square metre house, your budget's surely got to be north of 900.

[Frank]

Yep. 

[Sam]

So, why not go, okay, well, why can't I build a passive house for 900 and be only 200 square metres, 210? 

[Frank]

Exactly.

[Sam]

Just have the things that you need and have a better house, more comfortable to live in. 

[Frank]

Healthier house. 

[Sam]

Healthier, yeah. It's crazy to me. 

[Frank]

It's a mindset though. 

[Sam]

Yeah, I think it's a lot to do with like the Australian society of, I guess, keeping up with the Joneses, next door's built this, I've got to do that.

[Frank]

Got to have the alfresco, got to put the spa in the corner, the fire pit here, kid's cubby house there. 

[Sam]

The other side of it is too, like, you can do things later. You can't, well, you can make it passive in a renovation.

[Frank]

Yeah, well, let's go and talk about that. 

But like, if you're building a new home, put that stuff in your house. That's going to make a difference. You can do the fancy benchtops or, you know, gold standard taps and that stuff later if that's what you want to do. Like, get in there. 

[Frank]

But they all want it now, dude.

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah, I know. It's hard, I suppose, but... 

[Frank]

It is, because sometimes it's an expression of them, themselves, the person, however you want to put it, how they want to live.

Like I say, keeping up with the Joneses, appearances, all of the above. Yeah, it's an interesting thing that a lot of Australians have got to get over because we can't afford the bigger houses now. 

[Sam]

No, no, yeah.

[Frank]

I'm looking at my kids and stuff. A couple may not even get into the housing market. 

[Sam]

Yeah, well, that's right. And I've heard recently a lot of stuff about generational homes. 

[Frank] (27:29 - 27:30)

Yep.

[Sam]

That's going to have to be a big thing. 

[Frank] (27:30 - 27:31)

We're doing those. We've discussed it on the podcast.

[Amelia] (27:32 - 27:34)

We've had a podcast on that. 

[Frank] (27:34 - 29:18)

Yeah, generational homes. Yeah, seriously, because we've had clients inquire where grandparents, kids, grandkids are planning that. 

[Sam]

Yeah, if you're planning for that, why not do something that's going to... 

[Frank]

It's a big-ass house, though.

[Sam]

Yeah. A lot of people in the house. But in saying that, I guess it's on a scale of economy, isn't it?

Yes. In some degrees, bigger is not necessarily going to be more expensive with the passive because it's still a HRV that you've got to put in. 

[Frank]

Exactly, yeah.

[Sam]

Yes, there's going to be a little bit more in materials, but I guess it's... 

[Frank]

It comes down to how complex you do the design as well. Like, you've got pictures on the wall and some of these are really expensive builds because of the complexity to make them look amazing.

[Sam]

Yeah, and I guess that's probably... I mean, obviously, doing a unit development, you can't go too silly. 

[Frank]

No.

[Sam]

But I guess we've tried to be, I guess, pretty simplistic in the design so that it's... to transfer it into passive house and make it achievable for us to do and try and be on a pretty conservative budget. It all comes down to that design and being simple.

[Frank]

Yeah, it does. And it's what the clients understand and what they want to achieve. 

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Frank]

And then it comes down to the type of materials you use within the building itself. 

[Sam]

Yeah, and we've made some changes to products we've used from, I guess, like a carbon footprint health side of things. And we've spent more money on those than some of the more, I guess, conventional ones, but we've done that…

[Frank]

Because you used the Weathertex. 

[Sam]

Yeah, we used the Weathertex product, which is a bit dearer than your James Hardies, for instance. 

[Frank]

You're not buying it…

[Sam] (29:19 - 29:59)

I'm not buying it to be the cheapest. I'm buying it because it aligns with the values that we want to be promoting of carbon neutral, healthier, that sort of stuff. Same with our bricks, like carbon neutral bricks. 

[Frank]

Yep.

[Sam]

Recycle products in those. So, yeah, there's certain things, I suppose, that we've done for us and what we align with rather than cost. But, yeah, I think it's just finding the client.

Each client's going to be individualised in what they want from their product. But, yeah, it's just finding that, I think. 

[Frank]

Yeah, definitely. You mentioned before on Passive House on extensions. 

[Sam]

Yep. 

[Frank] (29:58 – 30:15)

That's an interesting one. My technical head is just spinning at the moment, combining something to Passive House into something that's built in the 50s, let's just say, and then you're building that together and at that joint where they meet, the compatibility sounds so far apart.
  

[Sam] (30:15 – 30:16)
Right, yeah.

[Frank] (30:16 – 30:37)
You know, it's something that's just Lucy Goosey, lucky to get half a star when you build something that's going to be top-notch, top-level, and how you join them, you know? And it all gets a fascinating exercise because whatever we do, we have to meet in a minimum requirement anyway to do an extension and make it a much better place to live in.
  

[Sam]
Yeah, 

[Frank](30:37 – 30:41)

it's like trying to put a forward and a holden and weld it in the middle and join it together.
 
 [Sam] (30:41- 30:44)
You’d have some angry people doing that.

[Amelia] (30:43 – 30:44)
You definitely would.

[Sam] (30:44 – 31:08)
But, no, I think, I suppose there's multiple ways you could probably go about it. Obviously, we haven't done one of those yet as these are the first Passive House we've done, but if you wanted to, you could do the envelope that's the extension as purely Passive and put your connecting wall and door as airtight and...

[Frank] (31:08 – 31:11)
You have to compartmentalise it, wouldn't it?

[Sam]
Yeah, 

[Frank] (31:11 – 31-:13)

From the rest of the house to actually get it to work.
 
 [Sam] (31:13 – 31:17) 
Yeah, or you retrofit the other one, like the other part of it, 

[Frank] (31:17 – 31:18)

so that’s a challenge,
 
 [Sam] (31:18 – 31:28)
That would be a challenge absolutely. But yeah, there's different parameters for the Passive House retrofit because there's obviously a lot more complexities in that.

[Frank] (31:28 – 31:39)
Because you're stuck with a certain type of construction of the old way of doing things where it was literally not, well very loose, no air tightness, no gaps. 

[Sam]

Yeah, 

[Frank]

No air tightness, no gaps

[Sam] (31:39 – 31:44)

and I actually probably think in a way, potentially the older, older houses...
 
 [Frank] (31:44 – 31:45)
The really old ones, yeah.

[Sam] (31:45 – 31:49)
...would in some ways be maybe easier to achieve that.
 
 [Frank] (31:49 – 31:50)
I would agree.

[Sam] (31:50 – 31:56)
But it goes if you're sort of trying to...Yes, like when you've got metal sarking and stuff on the walls, like...

[Frank] (31:56 – 31:58
Yeah, like your 80s. 80s brick veneer.

[Sam](31:58 – 32:06)
It presents different challenges, I think, but it'd be very interesting to go through that process for sure.
 
 [Frank] (32:06 – 32:20)
Because I would have thought in certain cases it would be easier like arguments sake you're doing an extension and might be the living area hopefully, you're doing living area, kitchen dining, bang. You can compartmentalise that.

[Sam] (32:20 32:21)
Yeah.

[Frank] (32:21 – 32:32)
But then the remainder, you do an upgrade, you may not be able to do the same level. But there'll be certain principles you can put in there that's going to take it from dog shit half a star to possibly five or six.

[Sam] (32:32 – 32:52)
And that's where you could incorporate, I guess, your high performance to pass you, like you could do the extension in your passive house and do what you can with the other parts, whether that's bigger insulation.
 
You may be putting in a tight layer around there. Obviously, windows are a big one, you can change.

[Frank] (32:21 – 33:09) 

Or you want to keep the look so you can actually change the window frames and retrofit them inside the timber frames, which is a lot of work depending on the look of the build. Because I think that's a whole challenge trying to keep the look.
 
 There's nothing worth seeing a 70-year-old home and they've just slept down on your windows in. It looks pretty rubbish.
 
 [Sam] (33:09 – 33:10)
Yeah.

[Frank] (33:10 -33:14)
I must say the PVC windows do fit a lot nicer.

[Sam](33:14 – 33:39)
Yeah, it's funny. I reckon maybe ten years ago, I did the, it probably worked. I was work for another builder and yeah, it's PVC windows in there and I just didn't like them at all.

They were big and chunky and heavy and I was, I couldn't believe people would use them and now I've done a complete backflip I think they’re the best thing.

Well, I think Timber, Timber Aluclad windows would be the, they're the gold standard for me.

[Frank] (33:39 – 33:41)
 But, you know, look amazing.
 
 [Sam] (33:41 – 33:55)
Yeah, I think they were really good. But in terms of, you know, getting them and trying to get them, getting a passive house and all that sort of stuff, somewhat affordable, well, more than somewhat, hopefully affordable.

[Frank] (33:55 – 33:56)
 Yeah, that's right.
 
 [Sam] (33:56 – 34:08)
 Every day people and you know, PVC is going to be more achievable for sure. But, yeah, it's just, it's just crazy how like, times changed the view with that stuff.
 
 [Frank] (34:08 – 34:38)

Yeah, we all go through this process and we've got to be convinced of changing how we perceive certain products, how things are built, how they're put together. And it's changed over time because then we see the evidence of when you work on renovations or, you know, you get underneath I think I've shared on the podcast before we've worked on older places and we go in there and there's black mould on all the studs. Every one of them.
 
 You know, it's a black stain. It doesn't look much, but it's there.
 
 [Sam](34:38 – 34:45)
Yeah, that's right. I guess a lot of the time until it comes through on your plaster, no one knows about it.

[Frank] (34:45 – 34:49)
It's unlikely you'd ever will because it just gets to a point.
 
 [Sam] (34:49 – 35:01)
Yeah, and it's one of those things they like inadvertently, you probably do know about it.

If you live in a house that's got that, you're probably getting sick more often than you not.

[Frank] (35:01 – 35:02)
Quite possibly,

[Sam] (35:02 – 32:05)
you know. Maybe you have respiratory issues or whatever.

[Frank] (35:05 – 35:07)
Could be. But you'll never know because it's tucked in behind it.

[Sam] (35:07 – 35:20)
I won’t know the reason behind it, but if you, I know, if you're looking into it and potentially you'll find that that could be the answer, but it's an expensive way to find out is if you’re ripping the walls off just to find out, isn't it?

[Frank] (35:20 – 35:31)
00:35:20,500 --> 00:35:24,540
But you can get cameras in the holes, but you've got to get through your insulation. But and this, I suppose the National Construction Code is so contrary to Passive House.

[Amelia] (35:31 – 35:46)
We might wrap up part one with Sam from SM Building right here, but stay tuned because in our very next episode, we're going to dive straight into part two when we welcome Sam back to chat a little more about Passive House.

Thanks for listening to The Building Design, Prime Time Podcast.

We'll catch you next time.

[OUTRO] (35:57 – 36:00)
You're listening to The Building Design, Prime Time Podcast.