"SIPS will never work in Australia" - that's what many builders said about Structural Insulated Panels just a few years ago. Today, we're exploring why companies like Fenster & Panel are proving them wrong.

We sit down with Dave to understand why SIPS are gaining traction in Australian construction. These engineered panels combine structural strength and insulation, offering faster construction times, reduced waste, and better thermal efficiency. For an industry facing skilled labour shortages and rising energy costs, these benefits are becoming increasingly attractive. Dave shares practical insights about shifting from traditional methods to prefabricated solutions, addressing common concerns while demonstrating real-world value.

LINKS:

Fenster and Panel: https://fensterandpanel.com/

Connect with us on Instagram:   @themindfulbuilderpod

Connect with Hamish:

Instagram:  @sanctumhomes

Website:   www.yoursanctum.com.au/

Connect with Matt: 

Instagram: @carlandconstructions

Website:  www.carlandconstructions.com/

Dave, your work with sips put you at the forefront of prefabrication.

For decades, prefab often carried a stigma.

Yet you're advocating for a future where components like

wall systems are built off site.

What is the deepest conviction or the most frustrating inadequacy you

saw in traditional building that made you believe in prefabrication?

I'd have to say with all humility that I didn't see it.

For quite some time.

You know, I, I went through and became a, a carpenter and then a builder at

domestic and commercial and just built regular houses like everyone else and

build, tried to build a lot of them, you know, townhouses and bigger projects and.

And had big crews, but I was always interested in doing

it a little bit different.

So I did, quite a few renovations in period homes.

I loved the idea of salvage and the stewardship of materials.

We ran a business called Mr. Wolf where we worked for, banks, salvaging

projects that had gone sideways.

So there was always that element of, you know, let's try and

get the best outta situation.

Mr. Wolf.

What a fucking name

after Harvey Kittel in pop fiction.

Oh my God.

It's copyrighted too.

So if you can Brilliant.

then we started looking at a little bit of prefabrication.

'cause I had a German guy come and work with me in 2007.

Thomas, who still works with us.

I know Thomas, he's not shy.

In in backwards, in coming forwards.

And he said, you guys are, this is ridiculous.

Like to see this sort of construction in Germany, I've gotta go to the museum.

You know, he was that hard.

This is in 2000 and when?

2007. Yeah.

Right.

Okay.

So, so 20 odd.

Look, we're too busy.

We're involved in housing.

That's when I started building housing,

literally when I started.

Yeah.

Social housing construction with the government as part of

STEM pack through the G ffc.

And we're doing some, a lot of projects, you know, almost 140 at one point.

And we started an architecture firm because we were tired of

not being able to manage design.

We had installation, we had construction, we were building in, Queensland.

I was building two projects on the Great Barrier Reef, on magnetic island

on land that we'd bought on spec.

Like we were doing some crazy stuff.

And then I had no time to think about how to do it better.

So were you a builder or carpenter or architect?

Like I'm confused.

A

carpenter who became a builder.

And then we started a design firm and, we had a development company as well.

And so, and since then, we've actually moved into engineering.

And engineering was a problem, so we found a good engineer.

Took them out and said, look, let's go out on our own and start something,

but we want you to work for us and we want you to do it differently.

So we've managed that in-house.

So I've started three engineering firms as a, as a principal and

partner over my time now as well.

One architecture firm, several development companies, couple of building companies.

So what

haven't you done?

I've done a lot of things actually, and it wouldn't all fit into a podcast.

I've worked in a lot of places around the world.

And that's where I came in to sit So fast forward, land the plane on the question.

After the GFC, we all had a bit more time on our hands 'cause things slowed up.

I was working with Thomas, the German, we're doing a lot of landscaping

and a lot of concrete and block work just 'cause it was simple.

It was available.

We're doing anything we get our hands on.

Yep.

We had more time to talk, so we started to say, all right, what is this?

All this nonsense about how better building is in Germany and so in

Europe, what start talking to me, so we started looking at sit panels.

We were dealing with kingspan in Germany.

We started pricing projects.

SIPS Industries had started.

We were, we had a project at the same time.

SIPS Industries were based out wa weren't they in wa?

Yep.

Yep.

We were, we kind of met with those guys, did some training, we're

potentially gonna partner with 'em, but that didn't turn out.

There was a clash of personalities and a few other things.

So I wanted to get better at panels.

And I wanted to know more.

And it was difficult for me because my Deutsche wasn't very

good and it still isn't very good.

And Kingspan was based in Germany at that point before it moved to the uk and

didn't, didn't really, excel anymore.

So I looked and found the SIP school in West Virginia in the US in 2011

and thought, all right, if I'm gonna find out more about SIP panels,

I'm gonna go to the SIP school.

My mate just happened to have a wedding on.

About an hour away, two days before it.

And I thought that's meant to be.

Yep.

I went and did the training, loved it.

The guy who runs the SIP school is now my main business partner, Al

Cobb, who's been the, the head of the SIPS Association in North America.

Probably one of the most well-regarded guys in the SIP industry in the world.

And from there, I basically tapped into this world of knowledge and

understanding and network of, of, engineering, of construction.

He was running a full.

End-to-end business where he would do design supply from other companies.

He wasn't making it, even though he's ran, three or four different foam

plants and sip manufacturing plants himself and running the SIP school and

running an installation team, he's, to date, he's still done the biggest.

SIP installation project in the world, which is I think 384 semi-trailer

loads of panel to a Cherokee Indian school up on the northeast coast.

So it's a lot of panel,

and this is where, so this is where Fe drum panel started.

So Frum panel was born out of doing a project in 2011.

I went to the SIP school and Thomas and I said, we should do this.

Just after the GFC, when the market's completely flat, no one's got any money.

Great time to start a business.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Perfect.

Difficult.

Yeah.

So needless to say seems to be

a common theme though.

Very common theme.

Yeah, and needless to say, it meant we did a lot of concreting and block work and a

lot of everything else for quite a while.

We weren't able to do it full time until I know, 2016, 2017, where we were able

to stitch enough projects together.

But still, we had to do more.

We had to do the install, we had to do the structure for owner builders.

We had to do the other parts of the building.

For owner builders, we had to do the whole build on a number of projects

because builders wouldn't touch it.

So at the beginning, we had to do all of it, and now we work with

great people like yourselves where we can say, you're the builder, you

take care of all the other things.

Which are more, regular and understandable and more part of the

usual building and construction process.

And we'll come in and help you with the structure.

And so that's where we are today.

We have an engineering company here in Australia.

We have one in New Zealand.

We have, an interest in the production facility that you have overseas.

We buy a panel from about 15 or 16 different sources.

We buy mass timber, CLT, mass, glulam.

Feature grade, timber, all the fixings, the sealants, and offer a

total of about 30 different companies.

We try to find the best thing for every project and the best

product to use in every instance.

And so that's why it's so diverse and it's a real spiders word because

Australia is such a small, it's a small industry because of the small population,

and it's backward in a lot of ways.

It seems to be at the end of the earth.

Literally in the construction industry where it takes a long time for anything

to change and, and we're always seeming to be in some sort of building

boom, so there's no room for change.

And so yeah, we've had to do it ourselves.

So I spent a lot of time overseas.

I didn't travel when I was younger when I left school, but

I've traveled a lot since then.

And I opened my eyes up to how the rest of the world, approaches construction.

And I've tried to immerse myself in that and not get bogged down in how

the Australian industry does it.

Just so that we can say, do you know what?

This is a problem that other people have, have, faced and there's answers to this.

Here's five or six different alternatives.

What's gonna fit here?

And that's where we got to, and that's where, where we are today.

Explain what SIPS are first.

Yeah, sure.

Let's do that.

Dave.

What's, what's,

what's a sip?

A SIP is a structural insulated panel.

So there's a lot of products that will call themself a sip, but if they're not

structural, technically they're not.

So it should be in place of a typical or a traditional structure

for a floor, a wall, or a roof.

And it's, usually a composite of various materials to achieve it.

Usually making up, something that's structural and something that has

insulation properties and potentially hiding various structural elements

to make a composite to, be in place of a floor, a wall, or a sip.

So technically, a CLT panel is not a sip.

Yep.

It's just a mass timber panel.

Yeah.

I mean, you could argue, you

could argue there's a late now value in there, but it's not, it's not

as, it's like an ice cream sandwich.

Exactly.

Right.

But it's not a,

it's not a composite of various things.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And, and, and I think that's, that's the probably the key definition

there is that it's a composite.

Mm-hmm.

So typically, or from my experience with sips, is you, the OSB

externally, some kind of foam call.

And then A OSB sheathing on the inside as well.

Yeah, and don't get me wrong, I love CLT.

Yeah, I'd like to do more of it.

We have, maybe half a dozen projects on their books that are CLT.

Yeah.

It's a difficult, world to work in because, cost or.

It's more expensive.

It's probably, it got its best fit in three to eight story buildings.

Yeah.

Because it's so structurally amazing.

Yeah.

So it's a great alternative for concrete panels.

Yeah.

So not so much domestic.

Yeah.

But, and why is it taken off then if it's a great alternative for concrete,

with concrete being such a high contributor to greenhouse gas emissions?

Mm-hmm.

Why haven't we opted to go more down the CLT route through,

say the commercial sector?

Oh, I think the commercial sector's probably more rigid

than the domestic sector.

They, they, they do, we are doing a lot of projects in Australia.

Yeah.

And if you speak to the European manufacturers, so, you know where most

of the CLT 90% of it in the world comes from, they will say that Australia is

known for having the big projects in CLT.

There's America's starting to do them.

There's some scattered ones.

Canada, a little bit in Scandinavia.

Yeah, I saw a couple.

In America on my last trip

going up.

Yeah.

Do you, do you think the Atlassian building's gonna be a bit of a

driver in people kind of seeing as an opportunity to, what's that?

What Atlasian building.

Atlassian.

They're building its biggest timber structure in the world.

Yeah.

World.

Yeah.

You have heard of this?

Yeah.

Concrete.

Our image of a building.

Big buildings in timber.

Yeah.

Con, concrete.

Concrete, concrete floor.

From my understanding, you might know a bit more than that.

I guess to anchor the building and then everything above that, a lot.

Glass Air, air Boss Dan was I did, yeah.

I, I, I know all know that.

Incredible.

Like, you have a good chat with the

guys at Pro Climber.

They, they're, they're working on now because we've, we've

banged on about this a lot.

It's prefabrication.

And I, I still wrap my head around why we haven't adapted as quick

as

we should.

I dunno what,

so when did we do a project?

2019. 2018. Just before COVID 18.

18. Yeah.

And it was.

Such a, and I remember, I remember when I chatted with Chris from Archie, he called

me up and he goes, I've got this project.

I didn't even know who Chris was.

I didn't even know who Archie was.

And he goes, I've got this cool kind of thing.

And I'm just like, yeah, I'm in.

Sounds, sounds great.

And then I haven't looked back.

I think I've done a dozen, close to a dozen buildings now with fencer and panel.

Is it like a

model that works?

Like is it like a, a box with a gable or what works best?

Anything.

Right.

And I think, probably circling back to something that Dave was saying before

and I'm, you know, 'cause Dave and I have had a business relationship for years.

You kind of touched on some of the complexities around actually

sourcing the products, right?

Mm-hmm.

As a consumer, as a, as a, as a B2B, I don't see any of that.

Mm. And I think this is what I love about it.

'cause people think, oh, it's coming from overseas too hard.

All I'm dealing with is you or your team.

Like, I'm not dealing with all the other shit that you've gotta, all the other work

that you've done on the back end of that.

I, I'm not, I don't know anything about that.

All I know is that, you know, the, our shop drawings need to get ticked off.

We're working through the details.

We're kind of estimating that, you know, we're gonna get the panel here, so let's

work backwards from there to hit all these other markers for this project.

But we don't see all that other energy that you've put to, to make that project.

Simple.

I mean, you talk about how easy it's dealing with Harley

and the guys from Logic House.

It's all the windows and they're there.

They're doing the same

thing though because it, you know, we're all managing all this quality

control in the background for, you know, 10, 20, 30 different items.

And we don't show you that.

But you know, like the screws, like, we just spend a lot of

time looking at the screws, where they're coming from, how they're

performing this periodical testing.

You know, that sort of stuff is not the thing you advertise, but

so one wanna make sure it's right.

Yeah.

You know, we wanna make sure it's the best option and we wanna

make sure we've got them and.

And I think one of the other game changers for us, I think in the

most recent years is how you've brought engineering in-house now.

And I know you kind of used to have that model, but it still felt

a little bit disjointed when you had your past engineering company.

Now we're just dealing with fence and panel.

Yep.

From civils.

For the structure.

Oh, so you do

all S seals and everyth like you actually take it So it's a whole project.

Yeah, whole project.

Which is like what Asha was saying

at the sba.

So it's not like when I did my project with

you, you were just to the sips, but we had the engineer below ground too.

No,

yeah.

Everything.

Everything.

Yeah.

And the thing is like, and we, so when it's not a SIP project, we're using Ronic.

When it's a SIP project, we're using fence panel.

Yeah, okay.

It's really simple, which makes so much sense.

So simple.

Yeah, because there's, there's connections between the documentation.

You're not sort of going back and forward.

You're not chasing a reg 1, 2, 6 from that engineer.

And a Reg one two building survey is confused at what's happening.

Who li Yeah.

It's so much easier just to go.

All right.

Fence and panel.

There's accountability there though.

And we wanna promote that accountability, that when we're designing something,

we're designing it so that it's cheap and easy to build and it's

not gonna hurt the installer because often we're the installer.

Yeah, so there's a real, there's a flow of accountability from

start to finish and we that, that really helps to have that control.

Yeah.

So, you know, I think I said it to Dan from your office

yesterday, Hamish, the day before.

I said it's actually, we would engineer it for free because that's how much

money we'll save on the installation.

Yeah.

Any project.

Yeah.

Because.

It costs us that much money if we have to deal with someone else's

engineering, but also on site we can change something and deal with it

instantly without stopping a job.

And we all know the value of not stopping a job.

We can just sign off.

You can come send your inspector like engineer to sign off on the project.

And I,

I'll tell you and we do sign off on it and maybe this is just, just to sort of

speak to relationship that we have, I know that we were, one of the projects

we're dealing with at the moment, we hit a whole bunch of Rock and Nick, one of

my teams set up this spreadsheet that was live, that Nathan was watching.

As he was filling it out and Nathan was just sort of giving him feedback.

Yep.

And every Nathan was, I think they'd set the macros or the things in Excel

that as soon as it went green, yeah.

We were all good to go.

And Nathan was approving it.

Like we just had this, like Nathan was working away and he is like just

checking the spreadsheet as he goes.

So my team could keep moving.

Nathan had his eye on, you know, the size of the holes and

stuff like that, and it just.

I and I get, I understand that that relationship is built over time, but I

guess that's the kind of stuff that you guys offer and that's the advantage of

having that in-house with fence and panel.

Yeah.

I think that's the relationship that we want to build.

Yeah.

You know, and just so that you know, we're not charging you anything for that.

We're on the job.

We're with you, and it's in our interest for us.

For that project to go well, for the timeline to stay as per what the

plan is, and for you guys to be happy because next week when something

else happens, we know you'll help.

Yep.

You know, vice versa.

And that makes for a great working relationship.

Yep.

Devin asked me yesterday why we like working with the

people within our industry.

It's because we can have relationships like that where in the general

construction industry, particularly the commercial industry, you don't

have relationships like that.

You have a back pocket full of variation orders and you fill 'em out

as quickly as you possibly can to try and pinch a dollar wherever you can.

'cause you know it's gonna happen to you.

And I think it go goes both ways as well.

I think, you know, we typically pop all the installation of the

sips in your remit, but I've always got one or two people on site.

Exactly.

And it just, it swings roundabouts, you know.

They might be doing something else without jump in and help with a

roof panel or something like that.

It's just kind of all swings and roundabouts.

Like I think

there was

a

question before Hamish, about why we haven't adopted it.

I think you asked Matt.

Yeah, I think.

There's the, the tyranny of distance.

A lot of these products don't unavailable locally and that people are very, now

the very last minute, you know, the planning process in Australia, the

consent process with building, surveying and finance, it's all very delayed.

And so when you do actually get to build, everyone's standing there

going, we need to build something, so let's just do something super fuss.

What can I get today?

Yeah, right.

There's that element.

But in order to do any sort of offsite prefabrication, you need to bring forward,

questions and you need to answer them.

In order to gain value from it, you need to say what windows are going in there?

How big are they gonna be?

What's the tolerance?

How's the flashing detail gonna work?

What do you need from us?

And that decision has to be made a lot earlier than what it would've previously.

And so if you add all those things up, it's a change in mentality

to start dealing with issues and design, questions or options earlier.

And that's, it requires a retraining in the industry to do it.

Yeah.

People are like, I have to do all this work.

Well, you know what?

Your site supervisor was gonna do it, and he wasn't gonna tell you.

You just would've had a really bad week in week 32 of the job.

Well,

making those decisions in pre-construction, outside of the duress

of a live project is a lot easier.

And the time's cheaper And did pro, I mean, you know, we've had, as I said.

Close to a dozen successful sit projects now, and I know that

the ones that we spend more time in precon are the easiest ones.

Yeah, I mean, we are dealing with one at the moment in the Laneway

on a tired ass fucking lock.

And there's been zero issues so far.

Yeah.

'cause we've tried to manage all the problems beforehand.

Yeah.

So how, how has growth been in, like, say the prefabrication

model from a SIPS perspective?

Have you seen like a linear growth or is it just like a very sharp, or

is it, what, what's it look like?

Is it a rollercoaster?

It, it's very, it gets my blood pressure moving when you ask that question.

Yeah.

It's a rollercoaster, I think is the best, is the best, way to look at it.

It's like we're trying to work out can we do it?

Like, it's like

we can't, we can't work it out.

Yeah.

And to try and staff from a labor perspective, we've had to

have our own projects on the go.

We've had to do, you know, all sorts of other things to try and fill our

time because it's so unpredictable.

Like that job you're talking about, Hamish, it's going super well, but still.

They've just pushed back the timeline on us by almost, you

know, three or four days, which has now pushed the, the install of

that roof into two other projects.

Yeah.

Okay.

Like, you know, we just can't plan for it.

No, no.

I actually

saw that email come through this morning now.

But what I mean is like, sorry, as an industry growth Yeah.

Are we seeing an uptake in sips and prefabrication?

So I don't mean, that's what I mean is like, no.

Yeah.

Are you seeing this year you did last, or I know three years ago

you did 20, now you're doing 30 and 40, or is it a, like, has it.

Because I still feel the industry just we're scared by prefabrication.

Yes.

Well, alright, I'll answer that more specifically.

It's trending upwards, which is great.

It's a rollercoaster.

You can probably earmark it to, financial.

But yeah, patterns within the market, certainly within

COVID, that caused a big gap.

And we probably should have had a recession.

We didn't.

When we have a recession, there's code changes and on the back end of.

Code changes.

You get people having to build better buildings and that helps us.

So we didn't have that, the finance issues during COVID put a big hole

in it, but it's trending upwards.

It, it's getting a little bit more consistent.

The volume is higher, there's no doubt about it.

But really, I mean, to answer that question, you've gotta look at the fact

that Australia, out of the OECD has the lowest amount of prefabrication.

This is where I wanted to get to on that list.

Right?

Yeah.

I think a couple of years ago it was down at like 3%.

And if you look at Scandinavian countries, like 70 plus

something, 78% they get up to,

because they have to 'cause it's so cold or they just need to get

these buildings up and then we'll work the interiors out later.

Yeah, and you have to, and so when I was talking about CLT

before in Australia, being known for building big buildings, yeah.

The majority of CLT still goes into European buildings.

Into residential buildings and one, two, and three story.

When they build their super structure super fast during the summer months,

get it locked up, leave it, go into another one, go into another one, go

into another one, and they finish all their buildings when it's snowing.

So there's a lot of that that's going on and Australia's just

approaching it differently.

So how the market's moving?

I don't know.

We're doing huge buildings in CLT.

I thought the Barangaroo, to answer your question about Atlassian.

Like, I just don't know what's actually gonna make it shift.

But 3% is, it's gotta get higher.

I think building is so expensive right now.

We, I think we're gonna go into a, sort of a period where we're gonna be

forced to try track different things.

And I think it becomes down to things like prefabrication.

I feel like Steven, the people that we're talking about, you know, not

necessarily with sips, but, like penalized construction, so a typical, you know,

1684 wall frame with wraps and insulation.

There are more people that we're talking to now in the industry that,

that are trying to get into it.

Yeah.

You know,

but why I feel like you can't try and do, like, we need other people

to start up to create competition.

No, no, I, I, I'm saying that there, there are, there are bigger players out there

with the infrastructure that are, are now chatting that we're on a, on a, you know,

higher level.

It's

what

we need to solve the housing crisis that we're in.

What's gonna do it?

I'm not sure.

I just don't understand.

We, the prefabrication market is still so small that we're still

in the early phases of adoption.

So it's still seen as boutique and it's still, the funding system hasn't

really come to come up to speed.

You know, the Commonwealth Banks talked about changing their

funding system so that they will release money for work that's not

done on site for prefabrication.

That's great because at the moment it's a huge funding issue.

Yeah.

Particularly with the tyranny of distance.

But when you're talking about CLT and you're talking about these

technologies that are coming from abroad, a lot of them.

And coming from, you know, a supply chain that's longer than usual,

that's always gonna be a restrictor from a finance perspective.

But, you know, Australia's never gonna grow a big CLT industry.

And there'll be people who argue with me about that.

But if you look at it, CLT and Mass Timber is made where the timber grows.

We don't have enough timber and we don't have enough quality timber.

And we don't to make good CLT

and we don't manufacture anything here anyway.

And, and we have some of the worst conditions.

Yeah.

To run a manufacturing facility in the world the least support the highest

costs where there's no encouragement to manufacturing in this country.

For us to, we've looked at it several times and we get

asked about it all the time.

We would have to lower our quality, increase our cost, and probably

increase our lead time to deliver an Australian made product.

And so we're gonna de decrease our capacity and probably

decrease our market share.

Uh, it's just not appetizing for me.

Yeah.

And it's not good for our clients because the, our country's

not set up to manufacture it.

And so for someone to say to me, why don't you manufacture that here when we

don't even build a car in this country anymore, frustrates me a little bit.

And the thing is, it's not that we're taking jobs from Australia to overseas

because we're gonna create new jobs.

By creating installers.

Yeah.

Say

I don't have, I don't have a problem.

I I'm going to zero, zero issue.

I'm all in

on China at the moment.

I think going over there for so many things is a, like,

we, we are gonna be forced to.

And I think that's where the, a big shift our industry's gonna come from

to get priced down is you are gonna go overseas 'cause you've got no other shop.

You have to, yeah.

And if you, if you want to increase manufacturing capacity and productivity

without increasing immigration.

You have to get them to do it somewhere else.

Like that is a simple equation unless you turn.

You go the Henry Ford approach and work out a way to do it with no people,

which you can't really do with housing.

That's the housing just takes people

and Yeah, like it's labor.

40% of a co uh, a project is labor cost roughly.

Yeah.

So then,

and it's growing too, the labor component's growing,

but I feel like your project, your type of system can reduce labor to some extent.

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

We aim, and this is what we pride ourselves on, even

compared to our competitors in.

Who have a comparable product, uh, we aim not to cut anything

that, that we don't plan to cut.

That's our aim.

So we're on five jobs right now and I don't think that we've cut a panel.

So that's our aim and that's how it should be because it

should be cut in the factory.

That's be prefabrication.

It should be prefabricated, it should be well planned.

And really the guy should have minimal tools out.

So less set up and pack up time.

The the time for an average carpenter to set up on site.

It is excruciating.

I can't watch it.

30. I think it's interesting, like the take on prefabrication and certainly

my perception of prefabrication.

I've said this a few times, that I came from the slums of construction.

I think we all did, didn't we?

Where prefab was the cheapest, quickest method to get wall frames on site.

Yes.

And it was purely price driven.

Yep.

And you'd get prefab wall frames on site and it was actually more labor.

For us to put them up.

Mm-hmm.

Butcher them apart and patch them, so it worked.

Mm-hmm.

So, yeah, my perception to prefab at that time was like, I don't, I don't

want anything to do with prefab.

But now when you see things like, yeah, Mark's panelized build, I was on Hamish's

client build with the SIPS panels from you guys, and it's precision manufactured.

Everything's planned.

Everyone in that whole process has done their job properly.

All the benefits start like.

Stacking up and you know, like, this is super fast.

We haven't touched anything.

It's, it's easy.

That's a complete different prefabrication process mm-hmm.

Than your typical prefab wall frames.

Yeah.

So you should,

you should see the, Nick was proudly showing me, the other day there, there's

one beam that connects, this is one of one of our projects together, Dave, that

connects two of our, our boundary walls.

And he was showing me this one beam where it, this.

Connector beam slotted into a pocket on either, either end, like on that, the

wall that set on top of the block work.

Yeah.

And he goes, see that gap there?

'cause it was a checkout over the top.

It was like a millimeter.

Yeah,

millimeter.

Both sides.

It was like perfect.

Great.

Yeah, it was just perfect.

He goes plum, plum level.

Done, job done.

So it is make an interesting point.

We say, you don't need to cut anything so.

I've, everyone even told you this when we did our project in the parade, NASCO Veil,

yeah.

Around the corner was another SIPS project, but I shouldn't call it sips.

It was just panels on site.

Yeah.

So

we got all of ours up.

I reckon for four or five months, his poor carpentry team, they had to cut them all

on site and then we're speaking to him.

Not only that, they didn't even get any of the, like the splines or anything.

They were just the sip with the ply.

That's it.

Yeah.

And I was like, and, and what, so what?

They were

like notching everything out to put the splines in blank.

The whole, yeah.

And not only that, because the size differences, uh, I think was the inch,

two Australian millimeters that had to rip every single bit of say, one 90 down.

Then like.

Practically make their own panel on site and it would've been so fucking expensive.

Well, it's just a

waste.

And there's no way they would've accounted for all that labor.

And the clients would've seen the original price up front going,

oh, they're so much cheaper.

'cause it just got panel, panel.

Panel builders gone.

Well it's a panelized system.

How easy can this be?

And then boom.

And it took forever.

Maybe, maybe Dave wrap a bit of context around that.

'cause obviously I've been.

Dealing with these buildings for ages.

So, so can you maybe just expand on what Matt was saying?

There's blank panel.

Yeah.

And then there's the engineered component of Yeah.

The panels that you guys supply.

But maybe just before you jump in, maybe this is where the conversation

around prefabrication is, there's panels and then there's prefabrication.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I think it made me think of a job, that we did with Devin from Granted Construction.

Yeah.

Who's a good friend and colleague of ours.

Many years ago, 20 19, 20 20.

And one of our competitors said, here's your quote for blank panel.

Alright.

No.

He goes, I want to cut, I want it all prefabricated.

Here's your quote then for the panel to be cut.

But he goes, well, you know, you can get your own timber 'cause it's easier, it's

just down the, you're used to dealing with timber and, and the number's much smaller.

And Devon's like, I'm looking at this number and it's smaller, but I said.

No, it's, I'm telling you, you're getting hoodwinked.

I've talked to Devin about this before.

So I got one of my guys to put a spreadsheet together and said, all

right, now this is what you're getting.

This is what you're gonna have to add to it, and this is the labor cost.

This is why we're cheaper and we're gonna save your time,

and there's gonna be less risk.

And so we had to go through that exercise and we gave it to Devin

and bless his cotton socks.

He said, you're right.

And he went with us.

It was a very difficult job and.

That was a success, that job out in, city View in Baldwin.

I'm happily saying that address because a number of people, he opened it up and, and

to the public and it was a great project, a lovely project, great clients, and it

ended up, you know, like Devon's projects, it was a good success, but trying to.

Manufacture, four LVLs that are laminated together that have all got an obtuse

angle on them to let into a hip when they're seven meters long on a site in

the middle of winter during COVID, when you're not allowed to be one half meters

away from someone, why would you want to do it when there's a better option?

I think this is, I reckon as well as architecture gets more complex,

print fabrication gets more important.

Yes.

Well, I mean, I, I, I did a, I did a story on, my Instagram page and

I think I was following around like the rakes and different compound

mire cuts as we, as I moved around.

'cause it was all the walls and it was a, so there was a hip and a

valley and a, and all kinds of stuff.

And every single junction was perfect.

I, I dunno, I'll, I'll show the video afterwards.

Which project was that?

Thames.

And that project just, it was.

Beautiful.

Like it was, everything just went to, went together perfectly.

But that's all done off site.

Yeah.

It literally is, gets cut in a factory by a robot.

Millimeter.

Perfect.

Wait.

Not

a human er.

Perfect.

Do

labor by hand, but the facade of your studio Fang job.

Well, that was a little bit of, little bit of fence and panel.

A little bit of us a yeah.

I think if we had built that job again, there'd be things

that we would do different.

Yeah.

As banks, like the geometry was in the panel, I.

But I think we would've, raked the ceiling and not had it flat.

And that and that job you're referring to, that you took the footage of

that, that's a real evolution for us because, you know, a couple of years

ago we would've done it differently and we wouldn't have done it as well.

Yeah.

But we're continuing to evolve and because we have all of that data at

our disposal, we had that 3D model where we've combined the architecture

and the engineering information.

What we did was we made, forming trusses at the hips that were the invert of what

it should be so that we could land the panel in it very easily without working

it out, support it so that they didn't sag or deflect during construction, fix them.

And then you contacted me last week and said, Hey, these are in the way up here.

Can we remove these, forming trusses?

And I said, yeah, they've done their job.

Just knock 'em out.

They're, they're gone.

Yeah.

'cause the whole building was designed without them.

We made them to make our life easier.

Yeah.

And because we had the, the, all that insight knowledge of just saying we

know what that trust size needs to be and we can tell someone to make it,

it made the installation super fast.

Yeah.

It was really super, super nice to

work with.

And that was a complex roof as

well to go up.

So yeah.

A lot of our competitors will not do a hip and valley roof for that reason.

That's that one I

had to do and I Fuck.

It was easy.

Yeah.

Like, and me a complex site and I was like, it was easy.

Yeah.

And anyone who's installed, you know, building wrap and battens on

the sit roof, it is a dance floor.

Like you are running around.

Like you can't knacker yourself either.

Can you?

So, so this is a good, so this,

this, so this is a good point 'cause we talk about prefabrication and we talk

about it just like as a wall system, but it's also a performance system too.

Yes.

It's actually just more than your frame and supply and up we go.

So do you wanna talk about that from a level say air

tightness and insulation value?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I mean, the irony is that we are sharing a stand here with, with pro

climber, with performance membranes.

And in some ways we're doing them out of business because they, they need less of

their product on our structure because the SIP panel structure, if it's built

and installed correctly, should give you

a very high air tightness value out of the gate.

Before you do anything else, now we strongly encourage people

to wrap it and wrap it with performance membranes products.

Some people don't actually

wrap

the sit No.

By building code requirement, you need to wrap it external.

So sorry, but not internally.

Definitely it's not doing the line share of the work to get your air tight.

Us, we are wanting to put it onto the structure to deal with any redundancy.

Moisture from a bulk moisture.

Yeah.

Like you're protecting the structure.

We're protecting it

during construction, and that's at the point where it's going to

condensate behind the cladding where it's gonna hit the panel.

It's technically condensating on both sides of the panel.

If you construct it correctly, it's going to condensate on the inside and

on the outside because it's airtight.

And it's rated as airtight as, European CLT panels.

And

that's, but that's because then you have a, a foam core, which

has also got a vapor perm of zero.

Yeah.

Is that right?

So then that's the, when you need mechanical ventilation to remove excess

water to deal with that condensation.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

We want to change

the way we look at these buildings Very much so.

It's a great, it's a great question.

And that OSP is OSP four now on our panel two.

Oh,

so it's a super vapor per

Yeah, absolutely.

It is.

Top class OSB.

So that's something that Devon's very excited about because that, that is the.

The ducks nuts of OSP.

So look as, well, I mean, where did this question start?

We talked about

performance.

You kind of answered it.

Performance.

I mean, you, you, you know, you're essentially like, if you think the,

the easiest way for me to explain a sip building to someone is that we've

all owned an esky in our life before.

So we've got a esky, top bottom, sides, bottom, you know, so top bottom size roof.

That's pretty much what you get with a sip air.

It's tight, it's insulated.

And it.

It keeps its temperature really.

Temperate, like it regularly helps regulate the temperature inside.

So you kind of, it's al you know what, it's almost kind of cheating.

So this is cheating, but in a, but in a good way.

So cheating's cool.

'cause my previous question was the kind of loaded question, and it kind

of follows back to even before, is that then, like from a say a spec

home volume building industry?

Mm-hmm.

And we go down to labor, we go to quality control.

Why hasn't this then been used as a system?

Cool, because it, to me it makes so much sense that from their perspective

they can really control costs.

They can eliminate so much trade.

They can also then really, control quality very quickly

on a structural point of view.

And their homes are so, setting stone from a design point of view that they

can just go print, print, print, print.

That is a great question.

I mean, cost, I think cost at the end of the day.

Sure.

It's gotta be cheaper at some point.

I've done a lot of trade shows in my time.

Most of them with Bunnings, 'cause we consulted to them for years

because, you know, there's a lot of guys within their commercial division

particularly who wanted to try and bring that question into reality.

But we tried on so many levels and we couldn't do it.

And.

I think, I mean there's a, a race to the bottom for cost in so many

areas of the construction industry.

Yeah.

So they won't spend a dollar more if they don't need to.

And, you know, we've been included in specs in projects, and if a

builder can see a way out of it, then he'll knock us off that spec list.

And if the client doesn't know any better, then they'll let them do it.

The problem is when you've got a developer standing there, that

they're just gonna chase the dollar.

We've got a market that doesn't represent the value.

Equation as well as we'd like.

At the moment, if you build a better house that's much more, credible in

its high performance, criteria, you don't go to turn around and sell

it and get, a commensurate more amount of a larger amount of money.

Yeah.

And so we haven't got to that point yet, but we we're starting to

because energy prices are going up.

The market's becoming more educated.

Yeah.

Like we had to tell everyone what a sip was when we started even

up and until 2018, but now we don't have to tell 'em what it

is.

I mean, you were, you were using the term high performance before it was cool.

Like before there, is it cool before there was a, before there was a hash,

a cool, before, before there was a, a buzz term, before there was a hashtag

on it, you were like fence and panel high performance structures and like it

literally says it on

your top right now.

Yeah.

When

it's always said it, which is, yeah.

Yeah.

So I mean, what's your definition of high performance?

Well, it's kind of both.

It's thermal and it's also structural.

I mean, we're trying to remove steel wherever we can from a carbon

perspective, from a building.

We're trying to reduce, member sizes, but we're also trying to, going back

to like three or four questions ago, we're also trying to make prefab cool

where we can say, we didn't have a system that you have to comply with.

We, we don't have all these rigid rules.

We take great pride in saying, you show us what you wanna

produce, what you wanna build.

What you wanna create, and we're gonna work out a way to prefabricate it.

We wanna prefabricate good architecture and that's where the performance comes in.

And it's much harder to do that because, you know, some of our competitors

just say, alright, we're gonna do anything we can to sell blank panel.

And so they want to keep ceilings flat, they want to keep building simple.

They want to tell you that it's easy to do.

But really I, some of my favorite projects are the ones with rounded walls,

rounded roofs, you know, massive key.

Massive, massive Can.

We threw one in front of you the other week and you're just

like, oh, that's a great one.

Yeah.

We

love

curves.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, the first job we ever did with Curves had about 15 rounded walls on it.

My guys were like, are you kidding me?

We did one in cotton.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That is a big curved one, but it, you know, it's actually, when

you prefabricate, it's a much easier way to create a curve.

can you do a legitimate curved panel now or is it just step It's nothing

really in architecture is curved.

It's just steps.

So we, we refer to it as a wine barrel.

So we, we call them stave panels, literally like a wine barrel.

So we work out what the radius is and then what we can break it down to,

and then we'll make small panels that fit together with equal angles where,

and often we'll get the manufacturer to cut the curve that we need on a

piece of supply so we can lay it down.

So that we can set it out.

Yeah.

Very easily.

And then not only cut doing that on the curve, but doing it on the segmented

curve because the bottom plate set it, we get cut so we can't get on site too.

Yeah, exactly.

And then we put it together and then it gets sealed.

And then on the first job we did, actually, Rondo came to the party and was

so excited that they just bent them all up off our plans and they fit perfectly

to create the bend in the plasterboard.

And the plasterboard actually bent in the finished product how we had

a.

Fucking hell of a time getting that curve, that kind like, with the linings.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

Like it was, we, we were like back cutting all the, to get it.

Oh yeah.

It was.

But that, so

that's, I do it differently now.

It's really interesting with curves, I've done a few projects with like traditional,

you know, stud walls, curved, I've cut all the plates outta form ply with a jigsaw.

Mm-hmm.

And then, yeah, getting it to all work is so hard.

Yes.

Because what's the actual radius that you've ended up with?

Who knows?

Whereas doing it all prefabricated and all done with the robot, it's like, here's the

radius and we've cut all these components and we can tell the other people, you

know, I've got a wrap staircase going up.

Yeah.

You're not templating everything.

It's like, oh no, the radius is this.

We know it's this.

'cause yeah, it's been built by robot.

It's all there.

Year

math, I wish I'd paid attention.

Is there an elephant in the room that people go like, but what about that?

Oh, look, I think foam is the elephant in the room.

Look, that's always been the issue and, and that's often the one that, uh.

People who are trying to, to our product out of a project will grab hold of.

That's the low hanging

fruit.

That's why I wanted to address it,

but alright, well foam is 97, 90, 90 8% air for starters.

Yeah.

So on most projects we do, this is a fun fact.

Most projects we do, there is more plastic in their kitchen on the

cabinetry than there is in the foam, in their, in their walls.

If you melt all that foam down.

And it's a hundred mil thick.

It goes back to two mil thick, right?

There is not a lot of plastic in that, in that EPS because it's all just bubbles.

It's all just tiny bubbles, very small amount of plastic, mostly air.

So the amount of plastic is actually very small, but you have to decide to spend.

Carbon or you have to decide to spend, uh, money on chemicals or

on something you don't want to in the construction of a building.

And there's plenty of areas that you do that.

And, and they don't have such a debate about using concrete in the ground.

Yeah.

But the environmental impact of concrete is by far the biggest

contributor to carbon in, in construction compared to anything else.

And then what would be second?

Steel.

Steel.

And so, but here's the kicker.

By spending the time to measure this, if you put foam into your wall in the

form of EPS, you might incur the cost of that environmental cost, but for

the lifecycle of that building, it's now gonna save you on your energy bill.

It's gonna give back to your carbon equation for the rest of,

of the life of that building.

Now, the in, this is the really big kick outta this one, is that of the

total carbon and environmental cost of a building, you're only looking

at about 20% of it as the, the cost of constructing the building.

Up to 80% of the, the environmental impact of the building is

running costs.

Running

costs.

Yeah.

So if you can save money on the running costs.

Holistically, we've just kicked goal after goal, after goal, after goal.

So it's a, it's a really disingenuous argument.

Yeah.

That people who are trying to sell another product bring up.

Yeah.

And really our world is surrounded by plastic.

So if you want to put down the iPhone or you want to put down

the, in your car, how much plastic there is, it's an amazing product.

Your t-shirt.

The T-shirt, yeah.

Spandex.

Like what I've got on now, you know, so, but.

You know, you need to spend money and you need to spend carbon, and I love concrete

and I've got concrete in my house.

There's a time and a place for it.

I tried to minimize it, but I'm not about to put another product made outta

timber in my retaining wall and pay the consequences for it, for the, the

rest of the lifecycle of that building.

It's about trying to assess the whole thing, honestly.

Look at it from the metric that you want to, and if that

is cost, well you can do that.

If it's time, you can, if it's quality, you can, but if you wanna start looking

at at energy performance of a structure, then you've gotta do it honestly

for the lifecycle of the building.

Yeah.

It's like a mic drop form.

Yeah.

And not once in that, did you mention waste?

No, because that was what I was gonna say.

Waste.

What did,

I've stopped even talking about.

What did

it go, what did it go back to the start?

We don't cut anything on site.

So then you don't have microplastics floating around in the Yeah, the last, the

last four or five sip projects we've done, none of them are cut.

No.

No.

And that, and admittedly there, there has been one or two where we

did, I think we actually ended up running one panel long because it

was really, this is a Brackenbury street stepped down or something?

No, there was a roof junction.

Yeah.

That we, we had to, there was no way we've could have figured it

out prior, so we just go, right.

We're gonna get that one long and cut it on site.

But I could not tell you the last time we've cut a sip.

This probably goes back to last four, four or four or five.

When your,

when your timber gets delivered on site, it's fully wrapped in plastic.

How many do you get?

You get 4, 5, 6 bundle loads of it.

I reckon there's more plastic in that than pay as you says,

if it melts down into a six, but

then have, this would be interesting.

Have you got a metric that measures how much you've spent on a SIP

project in manually handling?

Material compared to a sip and then carting all the waste

offsite and disposing it.

Whe whether that's recycling, but that that's not, but that's not cool.

But that doesn't sell a story that of say a competitor up front.

Yeah.

And that plastic wrap, I mean, not many people, people are recycling

that in Australia, but I can tell you that the EEPs foam that doesn't

get used in the factory, it gets cut out of the panel and or it gets

locked off, it gets reground and it gets put back through non-viral EPS.

Which goes into, foam that goes into slab foundation foam.

Yeah.

Because we ha we can only use, virginal EPS in structural panels.

Why's that?

'cause when the, the bonds or the polymers form, if you put re grind

in there, it changes the molecular structure and it, it breaks apart.

It, it's not as strong.

It wants to shear.

Yeah.

And it also has dirt in it, which it contaminates the mix and so it makes it,

it makes it strength drop dramatically and you can't actually use it structurally.

So you'll see in the foam that comes out, that goes in underlay, it'll have

like pink ribbons through it and a bit of black and a bit of this and that.

That's 'cause it's got reground through it and they can put up to,

well even up to 20, 25% reground.

Through Virgin EPS to recycle it.

So we just got rid of the foam on site from our job where we've delivered a

panel package and it's all going back to foam mix and I'm happy to plug them.

Yeah.

And they put it through their re grind.

We'd just give it to them for nothing.

And they're selling that to someone else who's gonna do a concrete slab.

So there's more foam going into those slabs on some buildings and going

into the sit panel package above it.

So you also use GPS too.

Graphite.

Uh,

so yeah, so there's standard EPS.

Yeah.

And then there's nepo, which is the commercial name of GPS.

Yeah.

They, but they're gonna lose their copyright on, I believe that was

made by bas, where they worked out how to incorporate graphite and,

and infuse it with the polymer.

Yeah.

And increases the thermal resistance of, by up to 25%, depending on

what climate zone you're in.

So it, and it turns it into a, a gray or a black foam.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now we're pretty much out of time.

Great.

Well that was, wow.

That's really, that's a way to end on the mic Drop on the mic drop.

Literally like, I, I kind of wanna keep it out.

Hey Dave.

How can, um, how can people get in contact with you?

I mean, you, you, I actually see you are slowly getting

more, traction on social media.

I saw that you were actually, this has nothing to do with you, I'm sure.

Yeah.

That you reshared one of our posts the other day, which was

his first, he's tick talking.

You're toing.

How can people get in contact with you?

Look, I'm a Luddite, so I apologize to everyone.

We don't have the social media presence that we, we should have.

And, sorry, we doing,

we're doing it for you, mate.

It's fine.

Yeah, no, and absolutely you do.

But we'd like to do better in that.

But look, contacting us at info fence room panel.com au or getting in touch

with any one of our great builders who work with us or just reach out

to us some more.

Push on to Dave and his team there.

Yeah, yeah,

absolutely.

We're obviously at the trade show here at Archie Build and we're gonna be at

the passive house conference next week.

Lovely.

Awesome.

Thanks.

Thanks for having us along.

Thank you very

much.

Thanks mate.