“Sustainable design is not just lower energy bills. It is health, comfort, moisture safety, and long-term performance.”

We sat down with Marcus Strang, Technical Lead in Passivhaus at HIP V. HYPE, to explore what sustainable building design really means in practice. With a PhD from the University of Queensland and deep expertise in building science, Marcus shares how Passive House design is helping shape healthier, more energy efficient buildings in Australia.

We unpack how Passivhaus principles go far beyond energy efficiency. This conversation covers thermal comfort, indoor air quality, moisture safety, and why high-performance homes need to respond to Australia’s diverse climate zones. Marcus explains how sustainable architecture is not about applying one formula everywhere, but about designing buildings that perform properly in their specific environment.

A major focus of the episode is hygrothermal modelling and moisture movement in engineered timber buildings, including CLT construction. Marcus shares why condensation risk, mould prevention, and long-term durability are critical parts of sustainable construction, especially in hot and humid climates. If you care about building performance, timber construction, and low-energy design, this part of the conversation is especially valuable.

We also talk about the bigger picture for the construction industry. How technical expertise, early design decisions, and better collaboration can help drive net zero carbon outcomes and more resilient buildings. If you are interested in Passive House Australia, sustainable design, building science, energy-efficient homes, and the future of high-performance construction, this episode is packed with practical insight.

👇 CHAPTER MARKERS 👇

00:00 Intro

01:58 Favourite Passive House Build

03:19 Meet Marcus Strang

04:05 What Is High Performance

07:44 Passive House In Humid Environments

12:41 ERVs And Dehumidification

14:08 Why Schools Need It

20:30 Commercial Modelling And Roles

22:52 Conflicts And Certification

23:37 Avoiding Certification Failures

25:29 Common Airtightness Mistakes

27:07 Moisture Risk in Cavities

27:29 Ventilated Brick Drainage

28:22 Photo Checklist Workflow

29:52 First Home Retrofit Plan

33:12 Low Cost Efficiency Upgrades

34:40 Step by Step Passive Retrofit

35:01 Windows and Air Quality

37:41 External Insulation Debate

42:06 Airtightness Without Intello

46:20 Apprentice Mindful Moment

48:44 Embodied Energy Tooling

50:57 EasyPH Controversy

52:14 Wrap Up and Thanks

LINKS:

Connect with Marcus:

https://hipvhype.com/our-approach/our-people?t=marcus-strang

Our Sponsors:

Pro Clima - https://mindful-builder.captivate.fm/proclima

MEGT - https://mindful-builder.captivate.fm/megt

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/

Mentioned in this episode:

Proclima Sponsor

So we are at Pro Clima Studio today at Hit V Hype.

We have a very special guest, Marcus Strang, um, passive house royalty.

I would say he's one of five Royal masters.

The

Royal King,

the Royal King, who's the King?

Prince Andrew too soon.

I dunno how I feel about that description.

You are the Prince Andrew of the passive pass.

I don't, I know you,

uh, I'm not used to seeing you outside of a mountain bike.

Yeah.

Uh, shuttle.

Very odd.

A shuttle bus.

Really weird being in my, Marcus and I were both up the south

coast of New South Wales and just randomly bumped into each other.

Oh.

So that wasn't set up?

No.

No, we'd been threatening for a while saying we should go mountain bike riding.

And I was walking along the side of the car and I see this

person like smiling at me.

He's got a helmet on.

She's like, oh my God, should take from sancton homes.

I'm like, I'm like, who the fuck is that guy?

Did I have my stitches in at

that point?

Yeah, you did.

You did.

And I look around and I kind of took me a second.

I'm like,

oh fuck, it's Marcus.

Anyway.

What's your favorite passive house project you've worked on?

Uh.

I think, yeah, anything with wood fiber, um, rammed earth, anything that's,

is there one certified that, like, that is the one I would want for my house.

Yeah, I think, um, bill Tops project.

It's like a nfit project.

Were you trying to say

your project?

No, I was wondering just to know.

Okay.

Because there's so many cool one.

Yeah.

I thought he was going to give some diplomatic answer.

The all beautiful homes.

Yeah.

I love that.

He just owned it.

So what's,

what's so good about that one?

I think it, yeah, it just used a lot of, uh, like recovered materials.

Um, he had like, which one's that, a compressed straw in it

and, um, wood fiber as well.

Where's

that?

Where is it?

Um, that's in North.

Who's the architect on that one?

Um, he had a architect early on, but then it kind of, then he ended up

doing a lot of the detailing we worked together to kind of work through.

Was that owner builder?

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

Yep.

Can we say it anywhere?

Is it on social media?

Uh, it is certified now, so I think Yeah, it is.

It's on the register.

It's on the register.

Cool.

At least the PHI one.

Yeah.

Um, not sure if it's on the Apple one at this state.

Yeah.

Is it a passive house?

If it's not certified,

it's Yeah, it is certified.

That mean, can we call it a passive house if

it's

not certified?

Well, it's, and it.

He's asking, he's asking the question, can you call a house a

passive house if it's not certified?

Uh, I guess

the answer's no.

Yeah.

No, no, I

agree.

Yeah.

Stop

making him feel uncomfortable now.

No, go for it, man.

Marcus,

who, who are you?

Um, so yeah, my name is Marcus Str.

I'm a passive house certifier designer.

Uh, I do some teaching for Australian Passive House Association.

Yep.

Um, yeah.

Anything High performance buildings.

Yeah.

Really get into.

So what's your

background?

I don't think if I've asked you that, like, uh, education

University, um, studied civil engineering.

Yep.

Okay.

Yep.

At Melbourne Uni.

Yep.

Um, but wasn't really so passionate about that.

Um, and then.

Quickly found Claire Perry, who just started a Ah

yes.

Third company.

Yeah.

And that was a very, very lucky.

Everyone's engineers everyone.

They're all engineers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

And then I, yeah, more, more recently, since, since working in industry

for a little while, did a PhD at the University Queensland focusing on, oh,

I do want to get, I want to get to that.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

You made a really good, you, you said high performance.

What's your definition of a high performance home?

Oh, that's a, because, is it because Hamish, is there anyone more

qualified to give us this answer?

I don't think so.

F

That's, that's such a good question.

I, I feel like maybe I said high performance very flippantly.

That's a, yeah.

Yeah.

What, what would you, if something come across your desk and they

say it's high performance, when would you like No, no, no.

That's not high performance.

It's probably relative to, I guess, yeah.

The context of Australian buildings.

Uh, yeah.

For me, high performance would mean it's being, it's gone through

an energy modeling process.

And it's sufficiently above the conventional, like energy consumption.

Yeah.

Um, so yeah, looking at It's gone.

Yeah.

Some sort of optimization to like, what is, what is it currently?

How can it be improved?

What are some low hanging fruits?

Um, and everyone's on board, builders on board, the clients

on board to achieve some outcome.

On, on that.

Um, but yeah, so I like any, anything that's, yeah, really choosing energy

efficiency, thermal comfort, um, good indoor air quality as an outcome.

I, I would say is a high performance building.

Do, do you, what I like about that explanation is that you

are agnostic to the modeling, whether it's PHPP or not hers.

Would you, would you say that, to close that off nicely, is that

there's as-built verification in some,

yeah.

Yep.

Degree, whether that's blower, door camera, a third party.

Yep.

Yeah.

Whether that's in-house with a builder or the architect, I, I think to,

to close that loop, in my opinion.

I agree with everything you say, but just to kind of put a bow around

it, there needs to be very, and

the indoor quality didn't specifically say HRV or airtight.

Yeah.

Which I, which what I liked about it.

Yeah.

I think the, the, the agnostic sort of terms there are good.

'cause I think you can still reach high performance outcome,

but then it needs to be tested

if it's measurable.

Yep.

Yeah.

If we can say, yeah, it is achieving this outcome.

And entirely agree.

There's no one way to do that.

Yep.

Yep.

Awesome.

Um, so civil engineer and then yeah.

You met Claire Perry and then how, how, what's the journey to sort of

end up in the role that you're in now?

And

must have been young as well, like you would've been very young to be going

to uni.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So very fortunate in that, and then kind of specialized in

passive house from then on.

Um, wow.

So, yeah.

That was with Gru Consulting.

Yep.

Um, back in the day

with, with Claire.

Yep.

Yep.

Yeah.

And then, um, that went to Inhabit group.

Mm-hmm.

Inhabit Group, uh, purchased GRU Consulting at that stage.

Um, then I went to Jacobs for a little bit.

And then they were like a global consultancy.

Yeah.

Um, and it kind of moved more into infrastructure Yep.

And didn't really want to be moving that direction completely.

So it kind of came, came back again and then Yeah.

Kind of started the, the PhD from then on.

And it came over to hippie high during COVID Yep.

Time as well.

So it was a PhD,

so that was looking at, um, pathways towards net zero energy for multi-story.

All timber, um, buildings in hot and humid climate.

So I kind of had those three different areas of like passive

house, like ultra low energy building, um, CLT, cross laminated timber.

Yeah,

yeah,

like bio-based materials and kind of those two things, having.

Um, originated in Scandinavian climates and looking at those in

a, like cooling dominated climate.

So

because

we said doctor, because that Mark Strang, when we introduced

in it definitely should have said Dr. Strang.

So, so, and if you think about that logically, we're talking about a

material in a heim in a humor climate that's more susceptible to mold.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Because if you just replace that with concrete Yep.

What's much less lower risk.

So can we dispel a myth, or maybe I'm wrong here.

Is passive house required in a hot or humid environment?

Uh, I think there's always benefits for the passive house certification

process in whatever climate you're in.

Um, and yeah, those main ones being, you know, can you measure the performance?

Is it like you, are you actually getting that outcome?

And that's part of AS certification, having that third part, third party to

independently review those outcomes and.

Assess that

because we always look at cool temperate climates and I don't know really

much about the humid side of things.

Yeah.

And I'm assuming the argument up in say Queensland is, oh,

we don't ever run the heater.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

But do you wanna maybe talk about the other things we

actually, and go into detail?

Yeah.

Where the house can,

but, but maybe also talk about why the passive house, uh,

criteria or the certification was implemented in the first place.

'cause it wasn't about energy efficiency, it was about health.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because if, and if we think about health, health and wellbeing in, in

our cool climate, it's, you know, mitigating the risk of um, uh.

Mold buildup in our walls from moving inside to outside.

Is that right?

And then up there it's the opposite way.

Yeah,

exactly.

So it's all kind of flipped around.

So it's still the same risk and it's still the health under the lens of health

and passive house if it's a certified building, just solving that problem.

Yep, yep.

Totally.

Yeah.

So we just, we have different climatic factors where instead of vapor pressure

going from the inside outwards for most of the year in that heating dominated

climates in those hot and humid or, yeah, tropical subtropical climates.

It can either be more mixed or it's coming from the outside having really

high vapor pressure moving inwards.

And we still need to be building that in a really safe way.

And passive house standard gives us a framework to ensure that we're,

yeah, not gonna build building that's gonna accumulate moisture

in the, in the assembly itself or.

In the indoor space, which might mean we need a bit more deification

to ensure we're having that thermal comfort and good indoor air quality

and low risk of moisture accumulation.

But then looking at energy efficiency as well.

And the thermal bridging is still, is still a relevant thing for making

sure we don't have, yeah, too cold still to cause dew point in a.

Yeah.

'cause we have, we are having the building cool down, actively cooled.

Um, and yeah, make, making sure that our cooling demand is still, yeah.

It's still a really energy efficient building.

So, yep.

Instead of looking, yeah.

On that side, insulation is still important.

Air tightness is probably more

important.

Air tightness is, yeah.

More important.

Um.

But yeah, looking at, yeah, lower low eeg, low e glazing and shading,

that becomes more of a priority for reducing the cooling demand.

Yep.

Um, but yeah, yeah.

Tightness and having a full vapor blocker on the outside, is that, what

if, if it depends where you are in the climate, like, so Brisbane probably

kind of, I don't know, I guess like more of a Depends, but then, yeah,

really far like Darwin, Cairns.

Yep.

It is actually more helpful and I think, yeah.

Bro.

Kleer do have a,

they've got

the green.

Yeah.

That's more suited to those tropical climates now.

Yeah.

And would in something like in Intelo from broke climber, who a sponsor,

would they, would you still put in intelo in a project like that?

Or is it become redundant?

It's, yeah.

That in Intelo, that's the vapor.

Yeah.

That, not vapor barrier, but va Yeah.

Vapor layout.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, you, it's not, so it, yeah, you wouldn't really have that there on

the internal of the air tightness.

It's, you would then push it to the external, sorry, external of the.

The insulation.

Yeah.

' cause you want it on the, the co.

The, yeah.

The, the warm side.

Warm side, which flips around to the other side.

Yeah.

So kind of, yeah.

If you are kind of condensing a lot of those, um, yeah.

Control layers to that same position on the external of the insulation layer,

so that weather resistant membrane.

And the air tightness all becoming that same one of the same.

Yeah.

It's a very, I mean, is my, maybe I'm wrong here.

Would it just be very easy that in a hot or humid climate to get certified?

Yeah.

Uh, yeah.

Like, so yeah.

Thermal bridges aren't so critical in those climates.

Insulation is not as, depends if you're really far north, then insulation

becomes more, more important again.

But yeah, it is just shade the building.

And does,

and does.

It does.

Subfloor insulation become redundant less,

less

relevant?

Yeah.

Depends again, don't too like your

slab.

No way.

Yeah.

In climates like Sydney, uh, it's, yeah, you can get away with that, but the

further north you go, again, again, it depends on cost and things like that.

You've been talking to Cam too

much?

It depends.

Yeah.

Well, I was just gonna say, like, what, what is, what is probably

interesting to point out here that it, like every single project

Yeah.

Is going to be different, which is why modeling is so important to

actually find out if you, if you, if you're hell bent on getting a, you

know, predictable result, you in a model that you can't just guess and

you would have a ERV.

Yep.

Compared to HRV?

Um, yeah.

Far north, absolutely.

And then why

is that, and why is that?

' cause we have, in the cooling demand has two different things.

The sensible cooling demand, and then latent cooling demand.

And that's, that's, yeah.

That's gonna help bring down that latent cool amount of amount Is

like that stickiness moisture.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it's the

humidity.

Yeah.

If you've got that E rv, it's gonna help.

Uh, remove passively some of that humidity in the air.

'cause it's going transfer across, spread across the

house evenly.

I was

So does that mean that that, um, that that, uh, that vapor drain

that we put into our HIV vs.

Here in Melbourne actually means something up there?

Definitely gonna be more u Yeah.

But you would also still run a full dehumidifier probably in the

whole house of some perspective.

Yeah.

And that kind of depends.

Like I've had, there's many different ways to do that as well.

You can have a, just a standalone unit.

Yeah.

As long as it has to be installed.

You know, me as a certifier would be checking it's, it's there in the building.

Yeah.

Then, you know, whatever, what the client does with it is up to them essentially.

But, um, it's gotta be there.

Send the photo or it can be.

You know, part of your ac, part of the AC or part of the H HRV or

however it's set up within that would that would more sense the services.

It makes so

much more sense.

And also if you are a client in those areas wanting to build a passive house,

you're probably just not gonna take their.

De if I take the photo and take it out as well, it's like, oh, you're probably

actually gonna be, I think you're

committed.

You're committed

to it.

But we always talk about residential projects at passive house.

Now you guys have, you've got done a number of, say commercial.

Mm-hmm.

Like, which I find probably potentially the more important part, like I

think we're both spoken openly at times at like schools, childcare

centers, hospitals aged, yeah.

Hospitals, aj, aged care centers.

They like to me, should be this.

Compulsory passive house.

Yeah, that

I agree.

Kind of makes sense.

Yeah.

Health, health wise,

it's

a no-brainer.

It's

odd,

positive.

Well, education, like you look at the like, uh, look at our

kids young minds, you know, like.

We, we say we've got this like A-A-D-H-D and autism epidemic.

But like you put any kid in a fucking classroom with low CO2 levels Yeah.

They are not gonna be concentrating at two o'clock in the afternoon.

I was, I was never, one of the students just like can sleep in class, but

during uni and those big theaters, there'd be hundreds of people in

there and it was like, I'd just just go and it was like, and I'm so

sure that it's to do with the CO2.

We got a little CO2 here, I gonna say.

Yes.

Um,

that's pretty good though, isn't it?

Is it gonna be

on the 500?

I think that's like the, the overall health rating.

It just has 87 written there.

What does 87 mean?

Some algorithms.

Um, but yeah,

so if any, like if someone's not watching this, there's a, there's a monitor in

this little pod that we're in right now, kind of monitoring the air quality in the

hyper tracking.

Same.

Yeah.

But yeah, like he, health, health is huge.

Like, like you, you, we want to, we wanna.

Build engaged students.

Yeah.

It's not like,

and it's, it's really tough if you're like, you might not, you

might not feel it like you feel it with temperature or that Yeah.

But it has a, an impact on our productive productivity

for sure.

Well, and I'll tell you, as a parent, I feel the impact when kids come home, it's

in the afternoon, particularly in winter, because they're closing the buildings up.

Mm-hmm.

You know, they're not, they have the windows run the heater

and they're running the heater.

Mm-hmm.

And then the kids are feral when they get home from school.

Having the old metal.

Metal, asbestos, portables that we grew up with.

That one little box in the room.

Oh, you know, bless, bless the school that we got, but we've, we've got little

portables in there and it's, yeah, first day I walked in, I'm just like, oof.

Now you might not be able to talk about, I don't know what projects you got on.

You might have say ND or something on projects.

If you've got something then you are working on right now,

you're like, this is like.

Potentially a game changer.

Yeah.

We have one project that I, that is a school project that's

very close to certification.

Um, awesome.

And that it'll be spoken about at the upcoming conference.

Great.

Which is really exciting.

Awesome.

Awesome.

And by the time that you guys put this out, maybe it's already certified.

I'm not sure.

Awesome.

Where's that?

We are acting as a designer c

Clifton Hill.

That's not that one though.

It's um, it's in Ballarat.

Okay.

I hope that, that, that becomes a test case or case study for It has to be.

Maybe for me from a different perspective, like not on site with like

as a builder I think, or an architect, like you're kind of a little bit more

impartial and I know as a certifier you play this independent role.

How do we start to then maybe lift that bottom part up?

Like is there any ideas that you have that doesn't get spoken enough about

enough that we just blindly don't look at?

What about, here's a thought.

What about rather than saying, and I know I've, it's been on record with me

saying this, that I can't understand why everyone's just not adopting it.

Rather than saying everyone should be doing it, you celebrate the success

stories and then people can see it.

I think people seeing it and feeling it is a better sales point.

Mm-hmm.

Than me saying, Matt, you need to build a passive house.

Or all our schools need to be certified buildings or have proper ventilation.

Mm-hmm.

Like I think we need and anything to celebrate them rather than, you know.

Throw people over the coal saying, why the fuck are you building a house like that?

Or, why are you building a school like that?

It's like, Hey, there's other options.

But look at a school, the people who are gonna rave about it.

Other people, the kids, probably not the kids, probably more, maybe the teachers.

I think it's the teachers.

Yeah, it's

teachers.

But how do you then get that message across?

Because who funds the schools generally, the government.

So how do you then get back that feedback back to the government, to the right

person who goes, teachers loved it.

Then they go, did you love your old place?

Yeah, I love the old place too.

Oh, so why do we need it?

Like, you know, like there's.

And I guarantee once they're in it, they're gonna go, this is awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I dunno.

So you, I dunno,

Marcus, what's the answer?

Yeah, well, like with the school project, so that, that was William

Bogues Architects who did that.

Oh yeah.

Really, really fantastic work.

Great detailing all the way through.

Um, but yeah, I think like, yeah, getting, getting some of that data

and like, like we were talking about like with the productivity side

and like they're just more engaged.

Like imagine having that as that's like such fantastic

information to be able to have.

Yeah.

Um.

But yeah, I think like, like the videos that you are doing, like of yeah, we

were chatting this morning, you're seeing people off and just like, it's,

it's so, uh, so motivating to see, you know, this is what you are seeing

on construction sites in comparison to like, this is what you, you're

doing on your own sites and just,

yeah,

the level of, of quality, um, thank you.

Differences in incredible, but then,

but simple.

Yeah.

Yep.

Are you talking about the what?

The, the isolation wrap one,

which, which one?

Who, who'd that piss off?

Still frame companies,

but Yeah.

But then having more open days and having more, yeah.

Like being able to open up projects I think is like, so yeah, I did actually

to Liam, like, why can't you do some form of a open up for park life too?

And it doesn't have to be to the general public, but maybe

to some really important people.

And let's get everyone in that space right now together.

Yeah.

Well, I think the proof is in the pudding with that particular building.

The fact that you've sold 50%.

Yeah.

Already.

Amazing.

I mean, that's.

That data in of itself should be enough motivation for the next

developer to build something like that.

Totally,

totally.

Um, we, I'm trying to do, yeah, get around to the, the projects I

do certify to just physically hand over plaques and things like that.

'cause it's so useful to be a, be able to go in and talk to the clients and

walk around the house and see how much they're, they're actually enjoying it.

And, um, yeah, I did one a few weeks ago.

Yeah.

It was delightful.

It was, yeah, it was like, again, you gotta go to.

To experience it.

And I unfortunately don't experience enough passive houses where I live.

And just being able to go in, it's like, it's, uh, very motivating and to see

how happy they are and they're like to, to smell the fresh air, which you, it's

oddly you don't really get that experience being in a, a building very often at all.

Yeah.

I dunno if you know Hamish.

So my house is going for certification right now.

Really?

Yeah.

And Marcus, you've got a passive house.

Yeah.

It was on tv if you didn't see it.

Huh?

Check it out.

You can come over from, again, I can't wait to get my plaque

from Marcus, who's my certifier.

Get that little photo opportunity.

Um, but I just, I wanna go back to the, the school thing.

Like do you, when you approach this a certifier, is it anything

different compared to a house or it's just literally the same thing?

Like, is there any model, all

principles are the same or the mod, like the modeling, because it's a

commercial project, the modeling is quite a bit more involved.

Yeah.

There's a lot of like general assumptions.

It goes into residential projects.

'cause we know typically how they operate, what people do within them to some degree.

Yeah.

Like there's still, you know.

They're all defaults in some regard, but a lot of information

is specific to the project.

With commercial projects, it's a little bit more, um, in depth to figure out like

who's the, are the internal heat gains and

who's the, um, the consultant on that one?

Uh, we are so, yeah.

So,

so you, so you, someone like Rob would run numbers, but then you overlook or

No.

So it has to be, we are not doing, we can't do certification

on any even, so if we.

We, there can be no overlap between any design that we are undertaking and

certification that we are undertaking.

Yeah.

So they cannot, we cannot work on the same project in that

even though you and Rob are

different people

Yeah.

You care.

So

probably just to, just to explain that further Mark as

you are a passive house designer

mm-hmm.

But you are also a certifier,

correct?

Yeah.

And they are two different things.

And Luke

would then have to go

to Exactly,

yeah.

Or Amelia or, or Scott or, or

PHI itself.

Yeah.

Okay.

I,

I, okay.

So is that what you, is that what you do or you,

no.

So, uh, in that project, Luke is, is our certifier, um, yeah.

For that school project.

Did that must be some like, cool conversations when you're both

like so intelligent on that, like, but you didn't consider this,

but you didn't consider that so.

But we all, we all fundamentally agree and, but it's, it is

like, it's a good, yeah.

I mean being a designer is always a good way to keep learning and

being a certifier is a good way.

Yeah.

Like we're always learning from each other continually.

Do you

get to certify some of his projects too?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Like if he's not nice to you, I'm not gonna be nice to you on that

project.

And do you know what?

I think that Okay.

And, and I know that the, some sort of, I don't know, I dunno what the word here is,

but you know, you guys are all friends.

But you're all incredibly professional in the roles that

you play within these buildings.

Yeah.

So even if Luke or Amelia, for example.

Is the designer and you're the certifier.

I know.

And have experienced you still saying to Amelia, hang on a minute.

Yeah.

I still need this and I still need this and I still need that or I can't do it.

Yeah,

and you're probably harder on them potentially 'cause

you're like, you should know.

Like that's how I'd be like, I'd be harder on you building my house than

I think this is.

I think this is the reason why it's.

So, so great.

And I was circling back to what I was saying before about a high performance

home needs some kind of verification.

Yeah, yeah.

Like passive house is the next level of verification.

Yeah.

And

one,

I guess one thing with the independent review, one thing to add there is that

there cannot be any sort of perceived or real or perceived conflicts of interest.

So that's kind of where it comes down to.

Like even, yeah.

So.

We definitely cannot certify and design our own projects, but we, we

can do, I could certify Luke's, but there still cannot be any kind of Yeah.

Perceived or real.

And who, who makes that call?

Is that PHI?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, so like, they would say, like, if, if we were looking at doing services on

a project that's like, that's something that we, we can't do, for instance.

For Yeah.

Yeah.

If we're taking that, if I'm taking that certification rule.

Yeah.

How about failures in passive house as people who have gone for it and failed?

Yeah.

I mean, we can't give any guarantee.

Yeah.

And the earlier that we can be involved and engaged is that

certifier that, um, that reduces risk.

And something that I'm always trying to do is to be in a position Yeah.

To be able to submit a design stage assurance letter to the client to

say, Hey, we've, you know, we've done an initial review, we've

done a pre-construction review.

And that's, you know, that's the, that's the construction.

Documentation set, and if it's built as per this documentation,

then, then it looks, then it, then it will achieve certification.

One of the best investments, like we, we spoke about this the other

day and he asked us why we wouldn't put passive house in a contract that

we're gonna guarantee a passive house.

It's like, well, what if.

That they don't go to you get it pre-approved.

Mm. And I stupidly, my first ever passive house contract wrote.

Mm-hmm.

I'll to give you a passive house that is so broad.

I don't know if the designer

Yeah.

Screwed the installation numbers up.

Mm-hmm.

I think off.

Yeah.

So Finn came and interviewed us.

So that episode would be out by now.

And um, he asked, why wouldn't you put passive house in your contract?

And I just said, well, there's too many other players involved in that.

Mm-hmm.

But then I think we landed on that.

I would.

But I'd have a special condition saying if these things happen, I won't be

liable for not getting certifications.

So if the calculations are wrong or the design's wrong, yeah, the design's

wrong, client changes something, or bridge that, um, gets missed.

Like if I put the different windows in or miss out on a thermal bridge.

Or, or don't install something correctly.

Yep.

That's a hundred percent on me.

Yep.

Have you had it when it's, you've given your ticket of approval

and then post that it's failed?

I have not.

No.

No.

That's

really good.

That's good.

I was, I'm actually surprised at that answer.

I thought someone would've screwed it up.

I'm trying to think.

Yeah, like if it's.

Like air tightness thing.

Um, air

tightness is easy.

Retrofits can be challenging.

Yeah.

But that

comes experience.

But I, but I haven't had that yet.

Have you had, um, have you had a building where, say everything's on

track and it gets to the last hurdle?

Air tightness is a good, there's something that.

You know, there's a, there's a detail that's missing.

Have you ever had a builder that has had to go back and undo

work or take plaster off or, um,

not undo work, but just cut open a, uh, membrane and take some, like get a tape

measure out and show Yep, that's it.

That's the product.

Yep.

In those cases, it, it was okay.

'cause it was, they could just seal it back up again.

Yeah.

Um, and there is some like movement there.

Like if, if everything looks good, but they've missed one-ish, like one detail

and they're happy to sign off on it, then, then that's, you know, the majority,

the vast majority of detailing, they've been able to prove it and show it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I just got

sent

this before.

I'm not gonna, I'm gonna kind of hide who it's from, but they're doing a

passive house and there's, I'm like, this is gonna be a huge problem.

Straight off.

I'm just screwing.

The in intelo directly, they plastered directly to the In Intelo?

Yeah.

Okay.

Mm.

Like, and you're like, guys, like, that's gonna most likely fail you.

Well, I mean, it depends on how well the, um, plaster's stopped up.

Yeah.

And where they're putting the services on a different wall, or

that's probably, probably on a different wall.

Something, but, but that, that could still get air tightness.

Yeah.

But my then thinking of you would be like, well, does that system work in a safe.

Like, is that gonna work from a wolf perspective?

'cause I know with our retrofit rifle range project is that you and Cam

would, it was like another language talking about ventilation in the

brick, cavity veneer, whatever.

Well, the, the, the, the plaster might in that scenario might be airtight, but,

but the intel at that point might not

be.

But you are proving us with no, WIB is a building going to be.

Yeah.

That, that was a slightly different case.

'cause it's, this is internal.

Um, so this is more, I guess more like.

If, if, yeah.

Where will services go and will it, the services keep penetrating through

that in Intelo and then you could

always use the role flex and stuff.

But I thought that like you could re potentially now have issues with a mold

or something getting caught in there.

That's right.

That's, I was thinking that's I'm

for, yeah, less, less.

So for that case with, with that project that was more around, it's

more probably on the external face where it's like, in that case we had

double brick or single brick veneer.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then like kind of looking at.

How well ventilated that cavity is.

It was literal another

language between him and Cam.

I

was, I was like, I love that.

Cam's got his handwritten notes out and I'm like, I'm,

I'm,

I'm just the builder here.

Yeah.

But yeah, so in that case, we wanted to make sure there was a good amount of

air flow behind the brick, between the brick and the weather as a membrane.

So if moisture does get there or rain does go there, then it

can still dry out sufficiently.

'cause if it's, if it's totally.

If there's no air movement, then that dry out's not gonna be very good.

Yeah.

So essentially just putting some drainage hos and something like that will promote

air movement and allow some, like, I think that's drying capacity in that cavity.

I think that's a photo every weep pole.

I think it was.

Yeah.

I love that.

Five minutes.

I love, I love that.

I love

that fact.

I wouldn't promise like just go around and

take the photos.

Like one thing I've really been trying to work on just to, just

to like kind of finish that.

Photo conversation was, um, as part of that, submitting that design stage,

assurance letter of being, um, putting together this, I dunno if I've.

Done that for years of you two, but like a, an Excel file, which just

kind of outlines like a checklist of photographic documentation.

Yeah.

It just syncs in with the PP. So it all kind of takes all that data

and then just gives it in a format.

Like these are the thermal bridges we need.

These are the in installation.

I've got

that.

Um, I Elsie does that.

Yeah.

Cool.

So

because I, my easiest method is we, I ask all my team to turn

their geo location on the project.

Just take photos.

I don't care.

Film it.

Do whatever you want.

I take photos and at the end I can just.

S go through and go, here, here, here, here.

Yeah.

'cause it's, you can just zoom into the spot.

Now there's twice at cams I've missed, like I forgot to take a photo of the

insulation, the ceiling at one job.

And I literally had to go through my Instagram stories and go find a video

from like archives, social media, and then like screenshot that it's in there twice.

I've had to do that and you will miss it.

So that checklist would come in hand.

That's that's entirely the point.

Yeah.

It's like, okay, well can tick that can tick

that and, and we get complacent because we kind of know it.

And you just think it's gonna, you just say, oh, I've got the photo of that.

I've got the photo of that.

Well, I think what Nick's doing on, um, I don't know, are you

certifying Ramston Street?

Uh, yes, I think so

actually.

Yep.

So Nick's going through and, um, just as, as the, as the de detail's

coming up, he's taking photo and sending it off straight away.

Just boom, boom, boom.

Now you, you actually dunno this, you've just bought a house, right?

I do know this.

Just congrat.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Just, just a few days ago.

Very

exciting.

Yeah.

Which is exciting.

Now you are in a position where I would say, uh, like many other first

homeowners, so you've bought a house.

Mm-hmm.

And you know so much about passive house, and I'm sure you want

to turn it into an elephant.

Yeah.

What are some of the low hanging fruit things that you are gonna do to this home?

Mm-hmm.

Because I think not everyone can build passive house.

Let's just acknowledge that for a second.

But I'm sure there's things,

or it might be a long term goal

or a long term goal, but there's things that you can do now that can help

with energy efficiency and health.

So what are some of the things that you are gonna do immediately?

Good question.

Um, it's.

As far as like moisture control goes, it's probably actually

like the worst wall buildup.

Okay.

Realistically, what type

of house do you wanna give us?

A bit

of a run.

Like it's a, yeah, like a small three bedroom house.

And I've got a very good price on a very, very happy, um, in Coberg North.

Yeah.

Um, and it's like on a subdivided property, but is detached.

Brick veneer or

brick or, uh, it's just timber framed.

Okay.

But then has like a couple of centimeters of rendered EPS on the outside.

Oh

yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

So from, yeah.

Not, it

could work really well for you though.

Yeah.

For nfit, like I'm thinking it'll be easy to upgrade.

That's my, that's my hope.

Okay.

But you could potentially open the walls out.

Yeah.

They're all awesome.

You start your.

Airtight insulated externally.

Yep.

Okay.

Maybe scrums some wood fiber and

beef

that up.

And

you are done.

That's exactly what I'm hoping

you're done.

Like, let's see

what Amy say.

Let's, so let's, so let's, let's go, let's go skip the nerdy part for a second.

So it's a new home.

This is down the track that you wanna get in n effort, but, so what are

some of the things you're doing now, but what, and what's some advice?

I guess it's more, what's some advice to the audience who can't afford

to build a brand new home with us?

Can't afford to like do a deep retrofit.

Can we, can I one pick you out there?

Can't afford to build a home with us.

Because, so

I can't afford to build a home.

Yes.

Not

us

just can't afford to build a custom home.

It's not, it's not us or the passive house, or the way

that we build makes, yeah.

It can't afford to build a custom

home.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's cut.

Yes.

I was

wanted to make that.

So in my project, yeah.

It'll definitely, definitely be a long term project.

Um, just paying off the loan will be, you know, take a while.

Yep.

Um, but I'm really looking at the step-by-step retrofit

that passive house does.

And like a probably most of the, the changes that I do will, will just

be livability rather than thermal at like for the, a few years probably.

Yep.

Because I'm gonna get some good data as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Might be able to certify with that, doing anything.

So when you say livability, like changing the layout inside?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like very, very minimally, but, um, just, yeah.

Yeah.

Like I'd love to just get heat pumps, for instance.

Yes.

Um, so.

Um, so probably just, yeah, non envelope related things for a few

years and like I figured it'd be cool to get some, um, existing building

data, a few years of that anyway, to be able to have a comparison.

We take off some plaster, screw some moisture sensors into the stars.

Oh,

that would be good.

I hadn't thought about like envelope monitoring, but that would be,

that would be kind of, well, that's

probably you probably, because to me that makes more sense than

the internal 'cause, you know.

Yes.

By changing it, you're gonna what you're gonna get to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

To

me it makes more sense to look at the external and be like, well,

is that EPS actually doing much?

Or what humidity do we get to in that cavity?

And like, is it moisture?

I think that's very, if we, if we go back

to health, uh, and cost of living and energy consumption stuff.

You mentioned heat pumps, which I think is a great.

Mm, way forward.

So heat pumps are your hot water and they're also your acs,

the CO2 heat pumps as

you can, C two heat pumps.

Right.

So

Domestical water, I don't think they have CD two for split systems yet.

No, I don't.

But that would be pretty cool when they get that.

Yeah.

But, but e But even still, like your, your split system AC is,

they cost nothing to

run

400 times.

You know, efficient.

So one kilowatt in, four kilowatts out, or What's that?

So we other, my

passive house, we didn't, um, when that one of the hot days,

we didn't even consume a kilowatt of energy across the day.

Mm-hmm.

So, so this, this, I guess what, what I'm talking about.

So these are so fabric aside, you can, you can invest a few thousand dollars.

Yeah.

Put a heat pump in.

Put some assays on draft proof, some things,

if you could get some pv.

So I was just looking.

I was gonna say put

some

PV on.

Yeah,

the government is still incentivizing.

Yep.

Uh, yeah.

And they're looking at bat battery systems as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which I haven't really looked if

you

do the pv.

My also, look, it comes down to cost.

I would strip the roof off completely if roof's in No, not good condition and put

tin on.

Yeah.

I'd put it like, yeah, depending on what you can and can't, but if

you're assuming heritage or whatever.

But let's assume tin.

I'd wrap it completely batten it, get that system right and then you're set.

That means you're done, you're not touching.

The last thing you'd want it could stay on is put your PV on everything, crap.

Then you've gotta take it off and there's an just an inherited cost along the way.

Um, that, that's how I would approach that situation.

Be

interesting case data, I mean, to see should document iteratively, um,

you know, retrofit and existing home.

Yeah.

So

that's exactly what this step-by-step retrofit looks at.

Yeah, it's it's a completely, it's not even the PP, it's

like something different.

Yeah.

Which allows you to kind of do variants.

Across kind of then that way, that way you can kind of pre certify at

these different steps and say, okay,

ah, I get

you first.

I'm doing this, uh, like the heat pumps, and then I'm updating the windows.

'cause at the moment they're just aluminum frame, single glazing.

What's

wrong with them?

What

would you put

in?

Um, some beautiful, like the ideally, um, the

o

the Yo

or FSC Pine.

That's, um, yeah,

I actually like that.

Yeah.

From

Logic House.

Yeah.

That would be the, the gold standard for me.

Yeah.

Logic House.

You wanna come on as a,

um, um,

how about, but the other thing that I think we don't, uh, or we don't

consider enough is air purifiers in the home for indoor air quality.

I think that's something that we, how do they work?

Like, where do they purify?

I dunno.

Do

they, they go through filtering.

I think it needs to be, from my memory, it's gonna be ozone free.

Just That's

what I was ask.

Yeah.

It's be better than, it's gotta be better than not.

Like, or even some form of, so they're

just catching particles.

Yeah.

I dunno enough.

Well, maybe it's a question for Cam.

Yeah.

Um, but I think that like you've got, like, that's something that.

Improve the air quality and maybe take out some nasties, if there's any, any.

There is something

to, I doubt it's gonna do anything for CO2.

No, no, no.

I think it's like your P 2.5 or

particle get rid of Okay.

So that like, I'd like to know more and, and I'm, and I'm curious to

sort of, you know, check back in over the coming years because that

would be really interesting to kind.

Yeah, look at like a much like a zoomed out kind of five year

renovation because which is probably what's relevant for a lot of people.

Yeah.

Particularly your age first home.

Can't just spend a million bucks on upgrading it like that.

Yep.

Uh, yeah, that's an interesting

other one that I've, so it's kind of a very, I've put very little

thought into this, but 'cause it's so exciting, it's like, yeah.

So heat pump, probably then, then windows.

Yep.

If, if that's possible.

Yeah.

Then start looking at the envelope.

Um, yeah.

Yeah.

The

envelope's probably pretty good.

Of

s and 30 mills still probably,

yeah.

The walls.

But I get, yeah, there's probably nothing else there.

And there's certainly nothing under the, like it's a very small crawl space.

There's certain nothing under the ground.

Yeah.

The, the insulation in the, the roof is decent.

Yeah.

But I don't, like, I, it's just kind of, I doubt it's been installed in

any sort of, uh, nicely fitted way.

Yeah.

Um, but there is insulation up there.

You got a thermal imaging camera here.

Yeah, we do actually.

Yeah,

I take one up.

Grab a look, save yourself jumping in the roof.

The, yeah, I think the one that I really like, what I would love to

push people to do as a building and I dunno where else is the out it.

Have you done one of them yet?

Like a certified out it?

Um,

I saw it in the.

Passive House Institute online or something where they You do it

from everything from the outside.

Yeah.

Which is kind of like what you do to Cams.

We did that.

We were funding that.

Yeah, like a funding.

Yeah.

We've, we're actually doing a project, which we're working on with Cam at

the moment in Bri Hill where, uh, we, we get really close to Enit.

If we can get,

is this Alexandra?

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Um, I'll let Cam talk about that one.

This one's in Bri Hill.

We're, we're now just working through the risk involved in

having wood fiber outside that.

Um, so we've got timber frame, uh, OSB, peel and stick wood fiber.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then we're just trying to work out whether or not we need to move that,

whether is barrier to the outside of the wood fire for long term, I guess rodents,

bush bushfire, termites, et cetera.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um.

Tyco are saying it's okay to exist there.

Certainly on the roof we want with

without it on the outside.

Yeah, certainly on the roof.

You wanna cover it.

Well, Tyco also have a, there's a, they have a product that's

actually their membrane is in.

There's Yeah,

it's like a wax.

Yeah.

Impregnated.

Yeah.

No, they've actually got the, like a membrane on it.

I know.

I also saw the other day that, um.

Rockwell have like a Rockwell with an in inte, or it's actually in inte from Prolo.

It's called Smart Rock.

And so you just tape it all.

But I don't know, I think that's more from a double masonry internal perspective.

So rock.

So Rockwell, we could do rock will.

So our thought process around not using Rockwell as our external

insulation is one, it's a fucking pain in the ass to deal with.

Like work with itchy.

It's itchy as fuck, but it's also expanded rock.

Mm. So it is really energy hungry to produce.

Yes.

Um, wood fiber's coming from overseas at the moment.

There's, there's carbon moles in that, but the production carbon is a lot lower.

But why couldn't you just wrap on, my thinking is like, why can't you go

the rigid air, go forgo the rigid air barrier and just run mento over the

whole external and batten and off you go.

Yeah.

But you still, where's your extra insulation coming from?

No.

You, so you, you're just getting rid of the peel and stick membrane and now you're

just, just now moving it to the outside.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, that's one of the things that, that's, that's one of

the things that we're exploring.

Yeah.

I

love peel and stick.

It's one of my favorite.

But, but I, I, so, so that's the conversation we're having at the

moment with another project where cool spin's like, well, why don't you just.

Put the and mento on the outside of the wood fire, and I'm like, yeah, but,

and it's gonna be safer from a, like a moisture point of view as well.

Yeah.

Well I say you, you're obviously gonna know a lot more about it than

me, but my argument is from an air tightness point of view, this is a big

building and I know if we just monopoly built this house, no external 0.3

minimum

penetrations, if we then sheeted the entire building with a ML OSB

and put peel and stick everywhere and then externally insulated.

Like that is bulletproof air tightness.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like it'd be so easy to get.

Yep.

So that's, that's why I'm really pushing for these couple

of projects to explore it.

Mm-hmm.

We may land on something different, but I'm like, nah, let's keep pushing and

try and find out if it's, it's feasible from a cost and practicality point

of view and a safety point of view.

Before we just put a big cross on that.

I still think if you wrap the whole house in Oh, on wood fiber

and then did say your mento.

Because you've gotta follow planes.

You can just literally now see where your wood fiber goes.

Yeah.

Obviously we pre dam airtight just because you, you'll visually see now.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think it's, it's when you don't, you're open tru with,

without the, in intelo is that

Well, yeah.

You

just do everything from the outside.

Yeah.

So, so we are, we are exploring putting Mintel in Intelo on the roof

in one of the projects because you've obviously got the most vapor drive up.

Oh, so you've done in Intelo instead of, oh, that's such,

we're not, we're not doing intello on the walls.

Well, and I'm trying to get rid of it ceiling, so it's 90 mil frame insulated,

uh, OSB, peel and stick wood fiber.

Yep.

So my, my air tightness and WIB sort of in the middle of the wall, but on

the roof we are gonna be putting, uh, in intelo because you've got much more

Sure.

Vapor drive and then you're actually slowing the

permeability through that wall.

Do you have

any insulation on the inside then of the intel?

Or is everything that No, no, no, no.

So in the roof, it's Intel insulation, it's osb Conventional, yeah.

Okay.

But just Just the roof.

Yeah, probably.

Yeah.

Like have you done an analysis getting

done at the moment?

Marcus is doing, oh, not Marcus Mar. No, no.

Marcello's doing it.

Marcello's doing it.

Yeah.

Great.

Mar, that's the, I think that's the only thing with, yeah, if you're like in.

I've seen that done a few times in Sydney.

Yep.

Um, where they've not had an internal air membrane and, and that's, that's worked.

Yep.

Well, cam, I, I, I go off, I go off what Cam says.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cam's saying it's fine.

We're about to, and that's,

that's what we did with the, the range for the, um, yeah.

Rough range.

But I'm about to do one, which I think is about to come across your desk

any second is we're having a crack at a passive house without any intel.

At all just from the outside extra sauna and we are gonna strip it back.

Yeah.

Like my thinking on this,

and it's risky

from my perspective, from the air tightness, but we want to build buildings

to be better, is the ultimate goal.

Just remove passive house and it needs to be somewhat affordable.

If we keep adding these extra layers to it, which the bees

knees a Ferrari is the intel.

How do we then bring that back to potentially the average person,

get that back to an average level and give confidence to say the new

builder that's doing a spec home that you can get air tightness from the

outside through just this method.

Well, I'm just gonna just stop for a second.

So, Pro Clima are a big sponsor of this podcast, and we're not trying to

advocate for removing layers of No, no.

'cause this is tri like Proclama have a system.

It's tried and tested and use it.

I'm, I'm thinking retrofit projects.

And other projects where maybe they're more, this is a new build by the way.

Yeah.

Okay.

Maybe they're cost, they're they're cost sensitive.

That I think you need to explore.

Alternate ways to get air tightness where the resistive,

healthy, low energy buildings retrofits a no brainer, in my mind.

No brainer is dangerous, like getting from the outsides,

get everyone involved instantly.

But Prolo have a certified system.

Yep.

No, no.

Which agree.

I, I, yeah.

And that's, as I said, that's the Ferrari, that's the way we should build.

Um, but as we wanna push more of this, and again, they are a sponsor.

Uh, but we wanna see widespread adoption of better buildings.

So how do we just maybe give everyone the confidence that, hey, wrap

your house in the extra sign, or externally, let's just start there.

Yeah.

Okay.

Cool.

Everyone's got that.

Yeah.

Now let's go into internal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Like you, it's just like, maybe we've gotta go back to, so throwing four,

five new concepts down people's throats.

And I listened to the SBA podcast the day where they interviewed the guy from HIA.

Yeah.

And I never thought of, and I'm being very vocal about the issues and

the changes and freezing the nccs.

It is hard when you've got five different changes or usually

each NCC there's one change.

Yeah, we added five, so maybe thinking passive house.

Yeah.

Let's just make, let's just start with outside air tightness.

Everyone's got that.

Let's now add mechanical insulation.

Everyone got that?

Yeah.

Maybe we should start mechanical insulation first.

And the bigger,

the biggest failure in the NCC changes is the lack of education.

Oh, that's what I think.

I

still don't even know what they're, and I spend time reading it, updating.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll probably just add, yeah, from the passive house certification certifiers

perspective, like, uh, yeah, so I've like, I've definitely done like many

hundreds of wfi analysis on just like that typical passive house Yeah.

Assembly where we've got weather's, membrane and te and yeah, like we were

saying, that's BE'S knees, and we're definitely happy with that, that that's

safe from a moisture safety point of view.

But then if we, if we're taking off assemblies, then you just want

have that confidence through doing what the analysis for, for that

specific project you're looking on.

'cause it depends on the, no, the, the climate, the, the color of the cladding,

which wall, if

it's out, is it

shaded or it's not,

how much sun's it gonna get?

Yeah.

And it all, it's all parameters.

So, yeah, you just want, if you're, if you're, if your listeners.

Thinking about that.

Probably just, yeah, thinking about if that train, that cost saving, but

then still having some in there for some sort of hydrothermal analysis

to make sure we're all happy with it.

And, and the thing I think like the hydrothermal analysis that you can

make pass, if you, what all input data,

isn't it?

Hydro growth, thermal,

hydro, whatever.

Hydrothermal.

There you go.

Sorry, not hydro.

Um, but if you get the, that's why I call it wolfie.

Can you pronounce it?

What does it actually mean?

Uh, vama.

Uh, institution.

No.

Hey, we had a

crack foer.

I can't even remember.

I was, I was wound, uh, yeah, Foer, uh, man.

Yeah, sure.

He would say,

you know what?

You could have said anything with, and I be like, yep, that's what it is.

But they, but.

You could pretend what's input data depending on what you input.

Like we looked at one with Cam the other day and he is like a could chuck

on the west wall that's exposed to a ton of light and yeah, that's probably

gonna be fine, but let's take the most conservative courtyard south.

No sun.

Yeah, exactly.

Like let's take that wall because that is what will fail first.

A

hundred percent.

And I think that's what we need to, like anyone out there just wanting to throw

something the wolf for you to get it to prove that's not what it's there for.

It's there to kind of do the opposite and disprove what you want.

So yeah, absolutely.

We have a segment.

Every, uh, episode, and it's called the MEGT Mindful Moment,

and I'm gonna lead this one and I'm gonna bring everyone into it.

So MEGT is a, um, their apprentice training provider.

Um, they've come on as a, as a sponsor.

And I guess the whole idea of this segment is to, I guess.

Encourage apprentices to be better.

Like they're doing their apprenticeship, they're doing a certificate three.

So what we are trying to do with this, uh, with this segment is to

encourage them to take that next step.

And my moment today is if you are working for a builder, you should

have agency to challenge the way that your builder is doing things.

In my opinion, you should be saying, Hey, have you thought about this?

Now do it in a really respectful way.

I don't think you should.

You know, call your, call out.

Your six

saw this on Instagram, this builder's doing this.

Like,

don't go that way.

That way.

No, don't do that.

Just, just do approach it with a level of, um, I dunno, open-mindedness and

say, Hey, I've seen this on Instagram.

Why don't we try this?

Or why don't we look into doing this way?

And ex a really good external membrane is a really great example.

Super low hanging fruit.

Everyone's doing it anyway.

You've got people like performance membranes.

You've got people like us who share a whole bunch of stuff on social media.

The information's out there and encourage your employer to look at these

resources to then improve and get better.

Just tell 'em to ask why, why are we doing this?

Like, as, as the, the apprentice go, the builder, like, go home

to your, like say your bill.

Just think about what, why are we building this way?

Yeah.

Like why I find why to be an extremely powerful word or question

to potentially unravel some problems, but you, you just get to di you