"The message that passive house is better, just isn't reaching people." 

We explore what actually happens when passive house ambitions meet the realities of Australian building sites - from the builder's perspective, the architect's challenges, and the client's concerns.

Today we’re discussing what it means to design and build a passive house with Sven Maxa from Maxa Designs: the learning curves, cost considerations, and collaboration required to bridge the gap between high-performance building theory and practical execution. We break down what changes for builders tackling their first passive house spec, how architects balance performance with design, and what clients need to know before committing to passive house principles.

This isn't about chasing certification badges - it's about understanding whether passive house standards can improve building performance without making life harder for everyone involved.

Whether you're a builder considering your first passive house project, an architect integrating performance requirements, or a homeowner exploring energy-efficient building options, this conversation reveals the real-world challenges and opportunities of passive house construction in Australia.

👇 CHAPTER MARKERS 👇

00:00 Introduction and Sponsor Acknowledgment

01:54 Discussion on Passive House Adoption in Australia

02:40 Maxa Design's Experience with Passive House

03:19 Global Adoption of Passive House Standards

05:36 Challenges in Marketing Passive House

07:46 Cost Analysis and Financial Considerations

14:55 Personal Experiences with Passive House

26:00 The Importance of Certification and Quality Assurance

29:39 Outdated Building Codes and Industry Challenges

31:13 The Cost and Value of Certification

32:56 Integrating Certification Without Client Awareness

34:12 Design Documentation and Additional Costs

38:55 Real-World Examples and Feasibility Challenges

41:51 The Importance of Builder Engagement

46:23 Sustainability and Passive House Certification

51:26 Practical Advice for Aspiring Professionals

55:02 Conclusion and Contact Information

LINKS:

Maxa Designs:

https://www.maxadesign.com.au/

Connect with us on Instagram:   @themindfulbuilderpod

Connect with Hamish:

Instagram:  @sanctumhomes

Website:   www.yoursanctum.com.au/

So we are recording again.

Performance Membranes, who are one of the distributors for our lovely sponsors.

Pro climber.

So

studio sponsors.

Yeah.

Well, no, no.

Major sponsor.

Major sponsor.

Major sponsor.

Um, so big thank you to Pro Climber for that.

Um, it's a pretty good, have you know who pro

climber is?

You've been living under a rock and haven't been listening

for the past two years.

And for the next year we're about to bombard you with a

ton more pro climber stuff.

Educational of course.

But anyway, we have ve from Max, the design with us again.

Um, thank you.

Joining.

Thank you.

Good.

And tag, we dunno what we're gonna talk about here.

I just like to No, we, we actually know

we, because we, we, when we're chatting before Ben called me up last week and

he's like, what are we gonna talk about?

And I said, I've got no idea.

So we were throwing a few ideas around and one of the ideas that

came up was, why hasn't passive house high performance been like massively

widely adopted throughout Australia?

Yeah.

And I've

got all the answers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which,

which is why we've, which is why we've got you on, and I think maybe I, I

guess the whole idea of this topic, and I've no doubt that we're gonna go down

so many different fucking rabbit holes as we are having this conversation.

Um, but then before we start, um, remind our audience who you are and what you do

and, you know, I guess what makes you an expert on why people aren't picking up

passive house in high performance homes.

And it's probably got nothing to do with your designs,

probably nothing.

No, no, for sure.

So we, uh, max a design, we specialize in sustainable high performance homes.

Um, and so we adopted passive house 10 years ago now.

And, um, and so our, our small team, there's about eight of us.

Um, almost everything we do now is passive house.

A couple are not certified, so technically can't call them passive house.

But yeah.

So we've, um, following

the principles,

uh, I really don't like that term, but Yeah, sure.

The passive house come up with the principles.

Yeah,

they, yeah, sure.

So, so I think, um, to, to delve into that topic.

Why it's not being widely adopted.

I think we probably should add a layer of context to that, that

it's not yet widely adopted here in Oceania or Australia in particular.

It is becoming far more widely adopted around the world and uh, and so we're

still in our infancy here, even though it's only, what, 10 years or whatever

it's been, or maybe 17-year-old.

When was the first one?

2013 I think.

2013? Yes.

Can, can

I jump in on that wide adoption?

So Barrett London, the capital division of UK's largest volume home builder,

have actually said that they're only gonna build passive houses from now on.

Mm-hmm.

So they are saying that the initial phase will be about 300 homes,

which is part of a la like larger collaboration, but they're expecting at

least 4,000 homes in the next decade.

Just in London itself.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

And there's, there's places in Ireland, in Canada, in America.

There are lots of places where they're adopting it.

More wholesale

isn't island now.

Did someone tell us Island was now only building passive houses too, or Portugal?

I think there's

some, some technical detail.

Yeah.

Not everything, but there are certain, um, housing typologies and things like that,

or, um, developers or estates or whatever.

It's, yeah, I don't, I don't remember the detail, but I remember

reading an article about that.

An island.

Yeah.

So over the last 10 years, you've, you've, you've seen, I guess, the

industry change quite a bit and massively you've, you know, been.

I guess a champion for sustainable buildings for close to 20 years now.

21. 21 years.

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Well done.

Congratulations.

Um, how have you seen, I guess, the lay the land change over the past 10 years?

Uh, oh, look, God, it's changed dramatically.

So I think we're, we're still riding the upside of the wave, like we're

still climbing our way out, so to speak.

Uh, when, when I started out.

We were doing mathematics on advocating for double glazing.

So we had to do thermal modeling using natters on, on a house with single glazing

and double glazing, and prove that the energy savings had a payback period.

Yeah.

So you go back, that was probably 15 years ago, right?

So did you have to prove 15 years?

Did you have to prove that the island bench had a payback period?

Yeah, no, see, this is a great point, right?

So people.

I think in our very, and I'm generalizing of course, consumerist society are

very attracted to the shiny things.

And so we don't see the value in those items that we don't touch and we don't see

every day and, and work with every day.

So passive house is the prime example.

It's all hidden.

You know, you, you feel it.

But it's not something that you, I mean, okay, there are exceptions.

Those people who are technically savvy will come see my H HR V system.

Isn't it cool?

And people go, oh, look at that.

That's crazy.

I

think, I think that's the problem though, because the people, and again,

all respect to the, the engineers and the, and the scientists and the, and

the nerds, the building science nerds, like they're, I feel like there's

such a small portion of our built environment, you know, the people that

are contributing to the built environment.

That's probably one of the reasons why we're not having such an impact,

because what they find sexy and, and, you know, um, they, they get excited about.

Yep.

I'd say more broadly speaking, um, people aren't, uh, people

don't look at it the same way.

They're like, oh, great.

That's a box that sits in your cupboard, whoopy, fucking do.

Yeah.

Um, you touched on a word before about feel, so it's really passive

house is all about the emotion.

So I think that the.

I think one of the biggest reasons why it's not being, um, having widespread

uptake is how it's being marketed.

There's a big part to that for sure.

So, um, I know when you go to the conferences and you're, you're

in the bubble, like we all are.

That's pretty much all we all talk about, but that message is not reaching.

You know, like, like the ripples in the pond.

It's not getting out further.

Yeah.

Is that region association

problem?

I feel like the association needs to be ahead of the curve on marketing,

possibly the association.

Yeah.

That's part of their role, isn't it?

To advocate and, and push

and it's hard 'cause like I'm not having a go at them here.

I'm actually just saying that they.

They've almost like, I've never understood why they haven't really tackled the

cost conversation and actually gone.

We're gonna own it, and if it says that it's higher, who cares?

Yeah.

In fairness, I think they're probably still trying to gather the data

because it's still so new here and we're still trying to understand

exactly where the additional costs lie.

We know.

What contributes to the cost.

But it's very difficult because all of the passive house

projects are unique projects.

It's not two homes side by side that are identical that we're comparing.

So our, our analysis in, in our practice, were two different projects

that we've, we've tried to do that where we've designed and documented as

a high performance home and then we.

Modeled it for passive house and looked at the upgrades required

to achieve passive house.

And then we've analyzed the cost variances between those two with the

advice and help of a builder, of course.

And so that's led us down the path of understanding what the cost variances of

those two projects in those two climates.

With those designs and those materials and specifications were, you can't

then multiply that out across the market and say, well, it's.

A 10% uplift on every job.

What, what, what I, what I think is missing in that, like little science

experiments there is like, what, what, what's the baseline cost?

So what's the code built cost?

So what, what would be really interesting in that scenario is

to design it to code cost that.

Cost high performance then cost passive house, the danger that's then

gonna give you

the

danger with days.

People always latch onto the lowest price.

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

I, I understand that.

All I'm saying is it's just this is really a data gather, gathering kind of

exercise as to, 'cause when people ask, oh, well how much more is it gonna cost?

You're like, well,

I just say between a five and 20% off.

No.

Reason why.

I will also say that there's probably jobs that, that it will save you

money to Matthew Carlan clients.

Yeah.

No, but no, there's also jobs.

It will save you money if you have a hundred and thousand dollars

hydronic heating system in your house.

Tell you what, it's a lot cheaper.

HRV and two split systems and their type building.

I mean, I, I personally think is a lot bigger than that.

It's the design.

Yeah, it's building design.

It's it's building for, it's designing for performance, like, and actually

understanding that they're not bolt-ons.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We, we are working on something at the moment.

I can't say much about it.

It's, it's top secret.

Ah, but we, I know pissing the sips industry off again,

is it?

But it's, um, it's sort of looking at how to get passive

house out to the broader market.

And, but do it in an environmentally sensitive way as well.

So with early days, you know, we'll all sort of know more about this probably,

you know, middle of the, of the year, hopefully maybe April, may sort of time.

But

are you talking about the, in the data, are you talking about the cost to just

builder or are you taking to account the running costs post and the health?

No, we're talking

just construction at the moment and we can do the theoretical

numbers on those things, but

essentially I feel that's easier.

Doing the projected operational costs is a lot easier than understanding

what you know the current market costs are for a project.

Yes, because there's also, so for example, with my house that I'm with Australia

Bank for the first five years of my home and it could be extended for longer.

I get a 0.4% saving on my interest rate, which equates to 26 grand

over the first five years.

And they might extend that.

So, man,

that's cool.

Like, so you, that, that doesn't get taken into account.

That's your HRV system, but also a hundred percent.

I also think good point on the H HR V system we're reating things like solar and

um, rebating things like, uh, batteries.

How about we also start reit?

Uh, and heat pumps, we rebate, uh, mechanical ventilation systems.

Yeah, it'd be cool, wouldn't it?

I, that,

that, that would make like, we've got a huge healthcare issue.

We can't find nurses, can't find doctors putting more burden

on the spending on healthcare.

And we've got a system that if you bailed correctly, can have a huge effect on that.

Yeah.

I mean, as we're sitting here talking about it, like you,

you do, you can't help but get.

Frustrated with politics, I guess how stale the industry has been

over the past however many years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, and I guess the biggest frustrating part for me is that we've

actually got the answers for it now.

Let's just agree that building a house, regardless if it's code,

regardless if it's custom, regardless if it's high, perform regardless

for passive hours, is expensive.

It's, it's an expensive exercise to do, and obvious and

probably not achievable for.

Large portion of

it and it's not getting cheaper.

Let's just also agree on that.

Yeah.

I mean, it'd be lovely to crack the code on it.

Um, look, and we we're personally in that same boat.

I, I've, it's been a dream of mine to build my own home for a long time.

Yeah.

And I, I, I can't get there financially and it's just got further

from me in the last few years.

Yeah.

You know, it's like a dream, like, okay, well I'm just going to make sure I can get

the kids through their schooling years.

And then maybe when they're done, you know, then I can afford to do it.

Yeah.

Maybe, maybe.

Depending what happens.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you've got a great job.

This is the other thing.

It's not like you're, yeah.

Yep.

It's,

I think I'm pretty bloody lucky with the job I got.

It's, it's

a, it's a, um, I feel it's a bit of a hard reality that the model has to change.

Mm. And the hard thing is we all sit here saying that we want housing to be lower.

I think that's also a, an issue because we can't compete

with the volume builder rates.

'cause we've gotta cut things out.

The thing is, we know what we've gotta cut out.

To get it there, but we don't want to.

Yeah, I think that's an interesting conversation because look, the volume

builder market, from my understanding, I don't work in it, but looking from

the outside in, it's very much, um, it aligned or very similar to the

prefabrication route in that it's a, it's a cookie cutter approach.

It's it's rinse and repeat.

You do the same thing over and over, and the economy of scale delivers the value.

So

there's your answer.

And

there, there is also some.

Perhaps, um, more strict management of, of, uh, costs and overheads

and labor rates and all these other things that bolt in, but, um.

Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, just imagine what if that, what if you could buy a

passive house in the volume builder market, A certified passive house?

I mean,

well, that's what we just spoke about at the start.

That's pretty cool.

That's the biggest builder in the UK doing.

Mm-hmm.

And watch them all follow.

Because if you're a homeowner and you can go, I can go with builder A

who's gonna gimme a house and builder B, who's also a volume builder,

and it can gimme a passive house.

What fucking idiots gonna choose the standard house.

Is that even with within 1% of the cost?

I think what, what then needs to be marketed then is the, the,

the cost, the running costs.

Like how much is the house gonna cost to live in it?

Yeah.

And I think there's a bit of that data out there now, so we could potentially, um.

Project that and, and, and vocalize that to, to the community.

Again, the data doesn't sell and this is the problem.

And Yeah.

And this, yeah.

I'm not saying that it's the, like I'm just saying what you need to tell people.

You need to tell it in a way that's digestible and that it's interesting

and it's not just numbers on a page.

It's gonna be relatable.

It's got, it has to be relatable.

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

No, I agree.

Which is why that, you know, you talking about the feel before, like.

That's emotion, that's a motive.

Mm. When you feel something that's a motive, you've got a connection to it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what's a home you live in now?

Are you, is it anywhere airtight?

Anywhere performing?

You, you would not be able to get a blower door to 50 pascals on my house.

Mm. No way.

I've, I've got actually gaps in my floorboards where I can send the dirt.

Yeah.

I had that.

So I've just gone into mine and it's, it's weird because my brain's now ticking on.

How can I, I get to feel it.

Mm. And it, I feel this is maybe a missing part because I remember at a

passive house conference a few years ago, someone asked, put your hands

over if you live in a passive house.

Like no, in the passive house.

Community lived in one.

Yeah.

So my thinking mo moment is I probably sit with my wife and be like.

Tell me about your experience.

Mm mm

Like what, what, what do you actually think about the home

and what's changed for you?

And then even people that come over, like, how does this feel different to a

normal house apart from the aesthetics?

We tried

this a little while ago, so we interviewed, um, the client on

Zoom and recorded it and posted on socials for our, one of our

very first passive house projects.

Yeah.

The one in, um, the Dandenongs and the client.

Summed it up beautifully.

He said he doesn't want to go anywhere.

He goes and visits relatives and stays in their house for a few days.

He can't wait to get home again because he doesn't wanna see his relatives.

He's freezing or he is boiling off.

He's the in-laws or he is sick there cooking.

I don't know.

But he didn't say that he was actually really passionate about it, and

it was quite refreshing for me to interview him and ask those questions.

It definitely works.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And, and look, I, I've never lived in a passive house, but we did

a, I would say a high performance home extension to our own home.

You might've known the designer.

I might've, yeah.

Yeah.

Max.

Max.

A max.

Is it Max?

A design?

Say again?

Max Design.

Max.

Where are they from?

Max.

Max.

A design.

Yeah.

So I, I remember coming home, you know, for, from, you know, we usually take

three or four weeks off at Christmas time.

And I, I, I remember distinctly coming into War Eye, you know, we're,

you know, three or four weeks of holidays behind us and pulling in,

and I said to Lu, you know what?

I'm actually really excited to get home.

Yeah.

Because it's so beautiful to be in that house with lots of natural light and

at the temperature is pretty stable for a, uh, renovated and extended home.

Again, not passive house standards, but we've followed.

I don't wanna say the principles, but we followed good building practice.

Yes.

And it was just a beautiful place to live in.

And it's, I can't put my finger on what it is, but it's just the feeling of being

in a nice, well put together home that is, uh, energy efficient and comfortable.

And you're not having that is while temperature swings

from one room to the next.

Yeah.

What

is comfortable, can we talk about, 'cause we say, ah, we

build a comfortable job home.

What is that?

Uh, or you wanna talk about the, the mathematics that sits in

the PP and we don't, we don't

actually wanna talk about that at all because that's the problem.

How,

how are you gonna talk to your, to your friends that come over?

And I always use this because the women in a lot of the decision makers

in the renovation or a build, how do you talk to their wi like the wives

about not this, like the build because they're like, oh, I like the stone.

And the, the, and this is, I can see this with Nicole that she

used the, the tiles, the micro cement, the timber, these things.

How do we have the conversation around the elements behind?

And this is where the marketing message I think, needs to be discovered.

It's how do you talk to them and how do you get them engaged in a conversation?

And that's why I talk about comfort.

Yeah.

So what is, what is comfort?

Oh, look, it's, what's that Dutch word?

Um, who, who.

Uh, who, who got, who, who got that, that

it's, it's sort of like a, an inner peace.

Yeah.

And calm, and I, I think it's all encompassing when we talk

about what's, what it's like to be inside one of these homes.

Right.

So, looking to be clear, I clearly don't live in one, but have

spent plenty of time in them.

And I think, I think the, the calm, the quiet.

Is really something else that our sensibilities don't recognize immediately.

It's weird.

Yeah.

Yeah.

First night I

was like, dunno if I like this.

Really, really, really honest.

I was like, so I made two mistakes.

The first one I messaged Cam the next day.

My hat passive house isn't working 'cause it was fucking cold.

Oh.

And I was like.

And Cam's like, have you turned the heater on just to heat it up

because you haven't lived in it yet.

You need to get heat into the house.

And I was like, yeah,

no, we, we, we turn our heaters on for a week, you know, before we hand over.

And I'm an idiot because I tell every client to do that.

And I didn't do it for myself.

So that was one checkbox.

The, the, the comfort's weird.

And I was like, it's so still.

Mm-hmm.

And it's so quiet.

Yeah.

And it's so controlled.

And you don't walk from one part of the bedroom to the living

room to upstairs and be like.

This area's cold.

I gotta put a jumper on, but now I've gotta put the puff of S on, but now I've

gotta put a single on 'cause I'm too hot.

But it's also, it's the noise and it's the inside to outside

thing that I've really found.

Yeah.

Um, different.

Yep.

I've, I've had the, um, privilege of staying at a project that we

worked on together up in Kit.

Yep.

Cat and Chris's place.

So good friends of ours, and Kat actually has summed it up really.

Succinctly because you know, cotton has big swing temperatures

from summer to winter.

So it could be minus two.

Yep.

Could be 40 plus.

Um, and she said, oh, during winter we forget how cold it is outside because

they're walking around inside with shorts and t-shirts and we go to leave the house

and we're all in shorts and t-shirts.

And we open the door and then we have to go back inside and change.

Mm.

Because we forget what it's like outside.

Mm. And to your point before about the, um, how quiet they

are, like these walls are 300 mil thick or something from memory.

Yeah.

They were, they were really thick.

Yep.

Thick walls.

Uh, just 'cause of the climate in kind.

Mm-hmm.

And it could be blowing a gale outside.

It could be pissing down with rain, but it could be really quiet

and even you have no idea when it

rains.

Mm-hmm.

That is one thing I've learned, like I have no idea when it's raining outside.

Yeah.

But so you

don't have the, um, I guess the, what am I trying to say?

You don't, you don't have the, the.

The signals to go, oh, it's cold outside because you can't hear it.

Mm-hmm.

You might, you just get to see it, of course.

Mm-hmm.

But you don't have the other triggers that it's windy or it's raining.

So when you actually do open the door to go outside, you're like, oh fuck.

It's weirdly windy outside and cold.

I've gotta go and prepare for a six degree temperature outside.

But it's 23 inside.

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah.

But I've rambled on for about two minutes.

Then how do you condense that into.

Three seconds to grab someone's attention, to convince them to build a passive house.

And

you can't use the words comfortable, durable.

And this is the, I think this is the problem.

'cause all three of us, between us have, let's just say 25 years of experience

in passive house between us, right?

Mm-hmm.

Over the years of us collectively, let's just minimum 25, right?

We can't put it into words and maybe that's the problem.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's the beauty of the open houses, isn't it?

People come in and experience it for a ble, I

feel like they're almost, I shouldn't say expired, they've

gotta be done differently.

Again, it's the same thing.

We come experience a passive house and most of the time now, the during

construction, which you get to feel a construction site that feels more

comfortable than your own home.

Yeah.

There's also a lot of insurance issues that come along with

bringing someone into an own home.

It's more about that.

There's more coming into

market too, mate.

Like there, there are rentals out there now, right?

Yeah.

That are passive house certified.

Really?

You go and rent in, stay in one property, there's Airbnbs, you can go and stay.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Right?

So you can go and experience it.

There's hotels and all sorts of stuff now, but we, I think the other

thing too is that, um, you know, we, we bang on about it and we all love

it and we're passionate about it.

Yeah.

And that passion can, can flow out.

Yep.

No, no doubt about it.

But at the end of the day, someone's gotta pull out the money outta their pocket.

Yep.

And, and take that leap of

time.

So this is something that I've got written here because it's a comment they

constantly I see on my social media that people are right and be like, uh oh.

They're just prov.

Like they're acting privileged, act any like living in a passive house so

people can't even afford to buy a house.

Mm-hmm.

So all of a sudden we're trying to.

Push the standard even further ahead when people are just

getting left behind even more.

Okay.

So I've got a coin about that.

Regardless of the affordability of homes, people are still gonna build homes.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

Yeah.

So let's focus on, well not focus on, but let's just talk to the people that

have the money, that have the means.

How do we get the people that are going to build regardless to build a

high performance or a passive house?

That's the question.

Let's, okay.

I'd love to solve the problem of everybody.

It should be equitable and everybody deserves a house and everyone,

yeah, it's a great, actually, a really good answer to that question.

I get that, but how do we convince the people that actually are

gonna build, that have the money?

Oh, well that's easy.

You said,

you said you had the All the answers.

I do

have all the answers.

Yeah.

That's easy.

You just send them over to Maxa design.

You, you, you bring the builder along, which is gonna be sanctum

homes or car and construction.

That's

right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And before they know it, they're, they've just given you the

blank checkbook and off you go.

No, we make up.

No, this is 10 homes

a year of the, how many of 50,000 need to be built?

Like it doesn't.

Yeah.

So it, look, it's all about balance, isn't it, at the end of the day, right?

Like these, these clients who can afford to do this stuff.

F probably just need some education.

Yeah.

Because they may not know as much or have read or learned

what we have over the years.

The clients that come to you though, mm-hmm.

Already know what they want.

I have actually, let me, let me rephrase that.

How many people that come to you dunno what a passive house is

now?

Probably all of them do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this

is where the marketing message needs to change.

How do we get more people coming to us that don't know about passive house?

So we have to reeducate them.

That's maybe the question that we need to be asking.

How do we actually attract the people that don't know Passive house?

Yeah.

So you've gotta get in front of them.

And so where are they getting their information from?

You know, which, is it media?

Is it tv?

Yeah.

Angela, on the Facebook group.

Angela.

Angela and

Dave.

Okay.

Yeah, sure Angela.

That make sense?

I know.

No, that makes sense.

That's gonna make sense when you listen to some podcasts.

So, okay, so here's, here's another, here's another question for you, right?

So.

And I can talk to this because, you know, we do a lot of work together.

So is it a question

for you or

me?

It's, I I'm gonna have a bit of preamble and then we can

talk about what I'm gonna say.

Alright, great.

I'll let you answer.

Great.

Um, so, uh, extension renovation, uh, clients had their heart

set on a passive house.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, we've done some preliminary, very sort of feasibility study costings

on it and have kind of realized that.

Maybe a certified building is probably outside of their means.

Mm-hmm.

How do we keep the, how do we keep the shine on the project if they,

if they've had their heart set on a plaque on the wall, and how do we

then demonstrate to them that if we maybe fall a little bit short of.

The metrics that the PHI mm-hmm.

Tells us needs to happen.

Mm-hmm.

How do we keep the energy and the shine in the project if we're not gonna hit that?

Yeah, it's a great question.

So I think ultimately, um,

the comfort yep.

Is, is a major factor.

And if you are hitting 31 kilowatt hours instead of 29, the comfort levels, you

probably won't know the difference.

You, you'll notice a slight energy shift in, you know,

energy consumption in keeping the temperature where you want it to.

I think you would still advocate that you use a certifier to check that

everything has been modeled properly because it may well be that, that.

31 is more realistically 40 or 45.

So, so, and so the difference between that and hitting the metric is suddenly 50%.

I, I want you

to expand on that a little bit because obviously we're getting

some data originally from the P hpp.

Mm-hmm.

And you are now saying, we need to bring a certifier to review that data.

That's right.

To validate it.

Yep.

So certification is all about qa.

And, and I've spoken about this in the past, that it has its flaws, right?

And there are ways to make certification better.

And we've just proven that recently on two projects.

Any, I can talk about that in a minute.

So you bring a certifier in.

They're not just checking that the builder has done what he needs to do.

Right.

They're not just, that's almost the easiest part, isn't it?

Well, it sort of, as long as the builder has done everything properly

and documented it sufficiently, we've had a number of projects and I've heard

stories where they've fallen over because the builder didn't execute properly,

even though really everything was done.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah, we wanna make sure that what we've done has been done

thoroughly and accurately.

Like that's what I love about certification.

I love having my work checked, you know, and it's not by my hand personally.

And we've got a, a team of people that have been doing this for a long time.

They all know what they're doing, right?

They can execute passive house blindfolded.

We're human, we make mistakes.

Yep.

So having a certifier on board is gonna bring the value to the client in that,

well, they're holding us to account now.

We are doing what we said we would do.

We are delivering what we promised.

Now the builder is gonna have the same value add because they're gonna have

someone checking what they've done.

The pH designer who's done the PHPP is getting validated and checked as well.

Right now, what we advocate and we, we send our clients this information

early in the process, is that then during the building process.

While the builder is making his best or her best efforts to execute, someone

should be going and having conversations and viewing what's happening on site.

And, and just, just to clarify, we're still talking about a project

that's not seeking certification.

Yeah.

Because um, imagine that you've built that fabric and you've missed a thermal bridge.

Right.

Let's just say one thermal bridge, and in five years time, there's a

bit of mold on that plasterboard.

You know, and I'm not saying that a thermal bridge equals mold.

Right.

I'm, I'm exaggerating.

Yeah.

Well, I

mean, it could, it could, it could, but it doesn't necessarily always.

Yeah.

So, you know, suddenly that client's gonna look at that and go, shit, I

wish I had someone crosscheck this.

Yes.

You know?

Yep.

And yeah, okay.

You've got a HIV in there and that's doing the heavy lifting and you've

got some safeguards in place and it's highly unlikely, but the risk

is greater, so let's take risk away.

It's a whole reason our building codes have inspections in them.

You know, albeit

she or, or choose when they want the inspection to make or

worthless and, and very low value, but they're there.

Right?

And they exist and they will, I think, in the future, grow.

And there'll be more inspections on buildings as things

replace with new codes, which we would all agree is a good thing.

Yeah.

Oh, we can't have enough, right?

Because our codes are antiquated.

They're based on.

Systems and processes from 50 years ago, a hundred years ago.

We just keep adding another layer and it's based on supplies and what products

they wanna protect as well, so they don't actually have

to upgrade their products to.

Potentially look at the insulation code.

Like you can't have external insulation, you need a performance solution.

Although I'll never forget speaking at a home show years ago, um, again,

I have to be 15 years ago now.

Yeah.

One of the Harold Sun ones or whatever it was at Jeff Shed.

And um, and there was a guy in the audience, great crowd, PA, talking

about passive solar design and he's.

Straightaway, Bargen at q and a time, very vocal said, why have the codes

changed and why is ation no longer recognized as an insulation in our

flaws or whatever it was at the time?

I don't know what changed.

And he pulled out a sample out of his bag.

I represent so and so company.

It was one of those, he, ah, and he clearly had an ax to grind.

Right.

But I He took

you to one of the, the, the, the, yeah, the, yeah.

Okay.

The, uh, the piano accordion type.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, uh, and he was, his business had literally gone backwards because the

code changed on him so well, well,

he had a shit product is really the answer.

Well, ultimately, yeah, those products, we all would agree, are probably not.

Superior, but nevertheless, what, to your point about materials and suppliers

and companies, you know, pushing our codes, I think there is some truth,

but perhaps, um, it's not just that.

So certification,

what does it cost?

Because our building's so expensive.

I don't know if I can afford to build now I wanna certify building.

I don't like the question and sorry, I'm gonna add a little bit more to that too.

What you've just talked about before, with even having the certifier involved,

even if it's not being certified, 'cause you brought about them,

you talked about them checking the builder too, like you're almost there.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Yes.

So look, okay.

Yes, there is a final financial outlay for sure.

On a, on a residential project, it could be anywhere from say,

five or $6,000 to 10 or $15,000.

Right.

But I don't think we should be looking at it as we've just talked about.

It's not cost, it's value.

Yes.

Right.

What are we adding in and what are we getting back?

I agree, but I think this is the prompt.

People try avoid the conversation where you've clearly explained it in

a real positive way where people are like, oh, well it's just part of it.

It's like, well, it's not asking or answering the client's question that

wanna know how much it costs because Yeah.

Just own the fact that it's say, let's just use $10,000.

That's fine.

Just own it.

I, I don't see the problem with it because it's something you, you're

spending your money on so many points, and if most clients are

spending 1000001.5 for a custom and build, what's that as a percentage?

And, and realistically, if you, if you break it down and you go, okay,

so dear client, the cost of your home is $1.23 million to build that house.

Ah, sorry.

It's 1.24.

Yeah.

Whatever.

Yeah.

You know, 10 grand when you're talking about that money, it's not a, a

substantial shift, you know, but what they're getting in return is that

they're holding their entire team to account to deliver what they paid for

at the start and what they asked for.

I think it's a massive value add.

So consider it an insurance policy.

So, Hamish, question for you.

What if we just did certification and didn't tell the client, put it in our

costings, we'll pay for it, and we assume that it's gonna be low energy.

Let's not, let's not talk passive house certification or component method.

Let's, let's actually, just because we know it's gonna be low energy,

'cause hold on for a second.

'cause if we go through the, the process, every project to

me should be modeled in PHPP.

So you've already paid for that initial part.

So you already know roughly where we're gonna sit.

Then I then, where I think we should all projects is that lease should

be then sent out to a certified to do their first initial review.

That there's a cost there, so most of the time you've already paid for that.

You at least have guaranteed that what is being designed can work.

Now it's up to the builder to make sure that they're accountable.

Hmm.

Then we go from there.

Yeah.

I think there's some, some more to it though.

Like it's, it's, we're not talking about a box of vanilla or ice cream here.

Like this is Neapolitan now, because you're gonna have also some additional

costs in your design documentation if it hasn't been done well to start with.

So people like us, we do all the details anyway, right?

It's all there.

But some design teams may not provide that detail.

That's their

problem.

Okay.

So that's, that's an another cost that might into that.

Lemme ask

you let, well, let me ask you if, can you put a number on the additional work that's

required for the average new architect?

Well for to, to, to provide those details.

Because what we're talking about, we're talking about installation, we're

talking about thermal bridge, we're talking about potentially chasing it.

It's, that's

like saying, well, how much does it cost?

How much more does it cost to build a passive house?

What, what's our base, what are we saying?

And again, and

this, well, you've answered my question then it's probably hard to do, like, but

is it, is it between two and $5,000 to

do those additional details In, in our practice, if we're taking a

project to be passive house certified.

We'll usually have about a week's worth of drafting on top of our

normal time allowances to make sure we've got the thermal bridges

documented, all the membranes shown the insulation continuous, the windows

are documented properly, et cetera.

Okay.

You know,

so let's throw some, I'm, I'm actually just gonna rough run rough numbers, so

let's call that, that's probably about.

Roughly about 3000 of someone's labor.

I'm just not gonna, I'm just gonna,

yep.

So then you've got, again, from that, if you are gonna have someone like,

we'll go externally, someone like Cam that's gonna do his PHPP analysis.

Mm-hmm.

Assuming, know thermal bridge modeling, you're probably

looking at around six to seven

in total.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For, for preliminary and then a reconstruction check.

So

let's call that, let's just, we'll go in the higher amount,

so we're at 10 grand there.

Then you're gonna go to say, detailed green or hit V hype.

Mm-hmm.

What are they gonna cost?

About

eight?

Yeah.

Yeah.

7, 6, 8, 9. Is that for the full amount from start to Yeah, that's, that's a

pre and a post, so let's just call it

So,

and that includes the plaque?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is it spelled with passive house or H-O-U-S-C though?

So, alright, we're getting sidetracked anyway.

We're, we're sitting at 18, we're sitting at 18 grand here at the moment.

Now, Hamish, do you charge any extra for your passive house

documentation and backend stuff?

So it's, it's a hard one to say.

I'm gonna say broadly speaking, no.

If it's a passive house, we're just following the same process

that we do normally because we're documenting everything anyway.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, no, I'm gonna assume that, let, let's, let's just, let's

just say, let's say $2,000 worth of time to take some, I'll say

five.

Five grand admin.

Let's just say that.

Five grand admin.

Okay.

So I'm gonna add these up.

So that is $23,000.

But I would say at worst case, let's be extremely, you're not

chasing passive house certification is what it's gonna cost you.

You're probably gonna do it for a little bit less than that, I would say.

Is that

to get certified,

that's To get certified.

Yep.

So if we just put a blanket rule and say, Hey, certification's 25 up it

and be super big contingent on the, the num, like, um, lower your risk

on the number and say it's $25,000.

Like if you look at it from, I don't know, a 1.5 mil bill cost,

what's that as a percentage?

Fuck.

Yeah.

Point five.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I just guess that, so no, it's probably not right.

But, but then, but to my point before, you know, okay, there's a, there's

an uplift in professional fees.

No problems with that.

Someone's gotta be paid to do it, so there should be, yeah, that's

right.

The work has to be done.

But with the right design team and the right consultants,

you'll get that money back.

With the strike of a pen.

This is, you know, suddenly your triple glazing only needs to be double

glazing because your design team put the windows in the right place.

Yeah.

So

this, so this is where I actually about get back, this is where we're coming down.

Designing

for performance comes into it.

This is

the worst case.

Now, if you were to introduce you guys working together, that $25,000

is probably more like 15 to 18.

Oh, well, if we're working together, it's probably more like 35.

No, I'm joking.

I was wondering how you got your new BYD shark.

No.

Look, I reckon those numbers are, are, they're probably right.

Pretty good.

They wouldn't change a lot.

Yeah, no, I know.

But let's just own the fact that that's okay because I look at it and go, and

from my perspective with my own house, I just cut two pieces of joinery out

that I know I can do in the future.

Mm. And

in hindsight, I'm like, I actually didn't need those pieces of joinery.

Yeah.

Or it's the, I don't know, the change of a piece of stone or a, um, I dunno.

There's decisions you can make along the way.

And I think the other thing that we don't talk about passive so we can never

capture is there's a high level of, uh, collaboration very, very early on.

Yeah.

And generally you're bringing in an engineer that's like, we work

with Nik a fair bit, who are very switched on to using more timber.

Mm-hmm.

None of this, when you go through this process, takes into account the money.

We will save you.

On your construction buildability and the way the, the project gets

put together, and as you said, we will look at going you, instead of

you just assuming we put the windows wherever and now you need triple glaze.

Well, you might get away with double glaze, which is what we've got

in our Wellington Street project.

Mm.

So there's, there's a $15,000 saving, which automatically cuts that down.

That's 10 grand now it's costing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I think, okay.

I'm just gonna call it the elephant in the room here.

Alright, wait.

$25,000 is a lot of money.

Yeah.

$1.5 million is still a lot of money.

Yes.

And a lot of people can't come at that.

Okay.

I just said before though, that if you go with Australia Bank and you get

a 0.4% on your interest rate, okay.

And these are 26 grand and you just paid for it,

fine, fine.

But, or, and we're still talking about large chunks of money that

people still need to come up with.

Mm-hmm.

And if they're already immediately out of the gate making concessions for.

Joinery or size or views to the east or west or whatever, like they're potentially

already getting something that maybe is not what they imagine in their home.

So they might see that number and go, oh, well you know what?

Take that out because I do want triple glazing.

'cause I want to capture that view.

So.

But that's where the design skill comes in.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

Look, and, and, and, and I think that the, the, the reason I just

brought that up then though, is because it's so much more nuanced

than saying, well, this is the reason why people aren't building certified

buildings.

Exactly.

Yeah.

What, and, and look, we're talking about 23,000 in consultant fees.

There's the cost uplift in the building fabric as well.

Right.

And the HIV and whatever else.

So, yeah.

But

what's, what's Alice's saying from Y projects?

I can't, I don't wanna steal his analogy.

They're about when?

Oh, the, the, they're going in and

where did he go?

He was, oh, the frozen

yogurt.

So they go that one too.

So he's saying like, I'll go the first one where he's saying, if you go, if

you can go test, drive two cars and you go drive the Ferrari and then

the little Suzuki swift, you want the Ferrari, not the Suzuki Swift.

So why show them the Ferrari at the start?

Yeah.

The other one he uses is the, um, the frozen yogurt analogy where.

Going into it through a design process at the moment with most building

designs and architects is like, it's going to the frozen yogurt store.

You put all your toppings on, you dunno what you're getting as a price.

Alright, so you know what?

I don't,

that's, that's, that's the reality.

And it's not fair on you guys.

I'm not having Go architects.

No, no.

Because it's so hard.

I can't imagine how to design putting down a piece of paper and start sketching me.

Like, what's this gonna cost?

I don't usually.

Poke the designers and architects.

I usually leave that to my friend Matt over and I'm defending him

for, yeah, so, so I actually think that designers, architects, interior

designers, have a responsibility to their client to not show them the Ferrari.

If they know that, if they know that they can't afford it, don't fucking tell him.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's also, however, that's what the client asked for, that was their

brief, and it's on the architect or building designer to design

their, what they've asked for.

Like, it's like, it's like it's, there's no difference of a client.

I'm not saying I'm not, I'm not, well, I'm not putting the blame on No.

The design design side.

So can

offend architects here.

See,

the flip side is it comes back to what we're talking about earlier.

That, um, we want to get this out to the market.

We wanna spread the word.

So we are not obliged to educate clients who dunno better, but if educate

No, no, no, no.

I, I agree with you.

But, but don't show them something they can't afford, afford.

How do we know they can't afford it?

Well, look, I, my idea is the best way to do it is to get early

engagement with the builder.

Ah,

yeah.

But why?

I think the first stage is, I reckon almost, and you'd scare people off.

The ultimate would be like, go to your bank and tell you

we can borrow and show us it.

Yeah.

And we'll design within that limit.

But that's not also because then you've got people who would abuse that too.

It's,

it's hard.

And look, even as, look, we've, we've recently had a, um, a project where,

uh, we did feasibility and we've come outta the end of it and we've got

to a number, which is a lot higher.

Mm-hmm.

Um, now we've done a whole bunch of like, review on it and we've kind of.

We're working through how that happened.

Um, 'cause it's actually hand on heart.

It's the first time that it's happened that drastically.

Mm-hmm.

Was it the first

price or second price?

Uh, it, so it was second price.

So we did a feasibility costing and that was, yeah.

And then albeit like a, an old way of us doing it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

And now we're kind of over here and the numbers a bit higher

than what they wanna spend.

So now we're, it's, it's been a tough couple of weeks.

The

interior designer go bananas.

No,

no, no, no, no.

I think it's just, it's a combination of.

A lot of

things.

Everyone added their 5% of change.

Um, so I guess what

I'm saying to your comment before about what's the solution, I

wanna say get a builder on early.

And I think history or our recent history has shown that our feasibility does

work, you know, within some parameters.

Yep.

But some, I guess sometimes it can come back with surprises.

Can falter.

Yep.

Yeah, it can falter.

There are no guarantees.

So, so I guess I'm, I'm, I guess what I'm saying before is.

I'm not putting on the blame on the design team.

No.

Sometimes it can come down to some of the data that we're putting out

as well and we're we're absolute rubbish in, rubbish out, mate.

We're absolutely doing our best to try and show you guys and the client, our

best guess is probably the wrong word, our best idea of where the budget's

gonna land because there's no point us getting all the way over here.

Putting, putting them in a, I'm.

Creating a timeline with my hands here.

Like Yeah.

You know, a few months down the track and saying, well, we wanna start

in four months time, giving him a number that we've gotta do like four

months worth of value management on.

Yeah.

Like that, that's, that's not our intention as a builder.

Yeah.

Because it's a waste of everybody's time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's, that's part of the challenge we face.

We know historically, through all of our projects that the

budget and the brief never align.

You know, and that's one of the hardest things to navigate for, for all of us.

Oh, it sucks.

And even when you get to the end, right?

So you've got feasibility done, you've had cost analysis done,

you've done your design development.

In good faith, you do more cost analysis then with your builder

and, and it's tracking, okay?

But they still need to pull a bit of money out to make it more viable.

And then you get to the end of the documentation and the numbers are still.

Different and aren't where you want them to be.

And so then you gotta do value management.

There's this whole process and it happens almost every

time, almost a hundred percent.

And we educate our clients on that.

At the start, we say, this is the trajectory that projects follow

historically, and we don't like it and we're trying to fix it.

And we're trying to work with builders to do so, and most clients will take that on

board and say, great, let's work with the

builder.

So I wanna pick on builders for a second because I feel like

there's a lot of education, which is awesome on builders right now.

Like you can go anywhere and learn how to run a building business because

there was nothing, and all of a sudden there's heaps, which is huge.

Amazing.

The problem I have is that so many builders now jumping on this pre.

Construction process early, which is a good thing, but

they don't know how it works.

And I feel, and I've seen, and I've lost out jobs because they just

throw a number out there with no validation on their, their number.

And I lose the project because I've said it's gonna be 1.3.

The two builders have said, oh, it's 800.

Mm, they've done their first RH of price Pricing is 1.3

mm.

And so I feel that you've got to, when you pick your builder to work

with, it's like, what have they, how have they done it before?

How accurate have their past experiences?

Talk about a time where it didn't work, like in Hamish's example,

and go, what happened then?

Um, speak to other clients and how they found it.

I think that's something that we probably get overlooked because every

builder is offering it right now, but I don't, I'd say a very small

percentage actually understand how and it should feel and look like.

Yeah.

And, and making it a valuable process as well.

And don't be a

gatekeeper of the information, like goes so like.

Everything.

It's gotta be a hundred percent transparent.

Anything new come through, you should feel comfortable to be able to show

everyone the piece of paper and go, Hey, this is what, what we found.

Um, whether that's a price, a quote, a conversation, don't

gate keep that information.

So how can we convince more people to build high performance or passive house?

Give them away for free.

Okay.

Like lollipops?

Yep.

At the zoo.

Yeah,

I've never got a lollipop at the zoo.

No dentist.

And the dentist.

Dentist zoo.

That makes

no sense.

You go to a dentist, get your teeth cleaned.

Well, it actually kind of makes sense 'cause you gotta come back again.

Have a lollipop.

Have a lollipop.

Yeah.

Uh, look, it's a great question and, and no doubt it is kind

of an elitist thing, right?

It's certified passive house is certainly the premium product in the market.

I feel

like custom homes, just generally speaking,

are probably something that's.

Arguably elitist.

Mm-hmm.

Well, from a sustainability perspective, I'd like to think that building re

stretching and building a custom home, while it might cost you more upfront,

is a, is a great investment because ultimately you're gonna use one less

or two less houses to get to where you want to be and where you're comfortable.

Yep.

So, you know, I, I'd argue that, so, um, that might be a stretch of the

imagination for a lot of people, but.

Um, sustainability is kind of why I, why I sort of pursued this

game and what, what really made me start chasing passive house.

You can build an unsustainable passive house.

There's no two ways about it.

How.

We are using petrochemical based products and unsustainable materials

and you know, wrapping 'em in plastic, like it's not the best thing for the

environment when you break it down, right?

So the ultimate sustainable home is the one that you don't build.

So we're all a little bit flawed in that logic in some way, shape, or form.

But, you know, I'd love to build hemp straw rammed earth mud brick.

You know, entire homes, but like, you can afford that genuine times.

I've tried to do a, a composting toilet in a house and I've, I've,

you know, in 20 years I've, I've got one over the line maybe if I'm lucky.

You know, like it's just, there's a, there's a, it's a

step too far for a lot of people.

This is a good conversation 'cause I was at the sustainability summit the

other day and they're talking about these new words for sustainability,

like bio something and whatever.

And Liam from Hippy Height kind of made a good point.

He's like, can we just stick on sustainability and get that right first?

Yeah.

Before we jump into these new words.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because you've seen it, right?

You've seen the biophilic, this and that, right?

Like we, we love that.

It's all great, but at the end of the day, we're just trying to make

comfortable, beautiful homes that aren't damaging our environment relentlessly.

You.

You know?

Yeah.

It's just

pushing thing people further and further.

'cause now there's four words they've gotta worry about

and instead just like, yeah.

Yeah, I don't know.

I think that I

actually really like that.

Just, just focus on getting that thing right first before you start

jumping on the next buzzword.

And I, it was

like I saw the earth ship on grand designs a few weeks ago.

Yeah.

It had a beautiful rammed earth wall as a sort of, um, spine wall, as a heat

bank, you know, do all this thermal mass.

Fantastic.

Oh, that condensation in that front room trying to

kill me

and Yeah.

And it's an Earthship, right?

Yeah.

So they're building this wall out of earth.

I'm like, this is, this is great, right?

And, you know, the Earthship brand is and how that works, but using

waste to build homes, et cetera.

Anyway.

And then they, they membrane the wall.

Yes.

With a, with a bitumen membrane.

Right.

To waterproof it.

'cause they wanted to be a retaining wall.

No engineers ever let us use Ramed Earth as a retaining wall.

I don't think they did either.

Anyway, so, yeah.

And so then they'd go and clat it in EPS foam and put another

plastic sheet up to try and.

So that it doesn't then follow.

Yeah, I, I had anxiety on that when I'm like, that ain't working.

Yeah.

So I'm thinking that's just not an earthship anymore.

Right.

Like we, we take an ideal and we then squash it, extrapolate

it, twist it, rotate it, and we come out with something else.

That episode is great.

That was very interesting episode actually, that

the guy, I think nearly.

I'll be honest with you.

I mean, just digressing a little bit.

I really liked that house.

I was, it was probably my, it was lovely.

The house was looked beautiful.

Probably my second favorite episode of the year.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it, it, the other one, my favorite hasn't come out yet.

It, it will be my second favorite episode of the year.

Yeah,

that's right.

I'm allowed to talk about it.

When do we get to see our favorite one?

Hopefully by the time this would be be already on tv.

I know a. At the moment, I can't say it.

Um, I know it.

Can I say it?

No, but you I, but also it could come on A, B, CIU anytime now.

Oh really?

And the reason how I'll find out is problem.

Someone will come to me and go, Hey, you tv your episode's out.

Yeah.

I love it.

That's legit how we'll find out.

So

I'm literally watching, I view every single day, find out.

But there's been some

great episodes in this season of ground design.

And the good thing about it, there's been a number of.

Passive houses Yes.

That have, um, been talked about and they've kind of

championed that side of things.

Um, how

many, how many episodes has Drew now been on?

Five.

So the funny thing is, I was chatting with Anthony, the host and I, and

Drew somehow got on the final reveal.

I'm gonna spoil if we haven't watched it.

Um, and I was like, so you had Peter Madison who was the first

host, so if you'd went on IMDB account, you'd had Peter Madison.

And Anthony Burke and then be Drew Croker.

It's like five episodes.

So he, I don't know how he's weasel himself into and he was all upset 'cause

his shirt wasn't ironed and he's like, oh, I look Sy he had his still managed

to get his fresh, fresh haircut up.

I'm gonna,

I'm gonna, I'm gonna give him so much shit when I say,

um, anyway, we've gotta wrap this up, but Mindful full moment, sponsored by

MEGT Australia's Apprenticeship experts.

Um, we're gonna just throw to Finn.

You got an idea or something?

A bit of advice to anyone trying to get into the field or anything

you'd wisdom you'd like to pass on?

Oh, I, I got lots of, lots of advice.

Um,

if you haven't listened to the advice

for people wanting to get into the field, that's a, that's a great one.

Um, door knock.

Yeah.

So don't send emails.

Um, they get deleted.

Um, one of our, sorry.

You go.

I was just about to say like, I, I think, um, and it's probably

related to our business relationship.

Yep.

You, um, emailed me.

This is, this is on that sort of idea of always that sort of learning mentality,

like always wanting to be better.

And you know, we are pretty candid with our feedback on, you know, how we

would like things to be done and Yep.

Learning from our mistakes.

And I think you took that to a next level by contacting us and

saying, Hey, I'd really like to get our team on your building sites.

Yep.

Um, and, you know, testament to your team, they've gone and done their white card.

So they're all, um, oh, that's a riveting course.

It is a riveting course.

That is so exciting.

Exciting.

But I guess, you know, but, but, but it's, it, for me it's the, that

investment like, yep, you know what?

We're serious about this, yet the team are gonna go and do it.

And um, yeah, we've had a couple of your team out on one of our building

sites now, and I think for me, that just shows the fact that you are listening.

To our feedback.

Working.

Yeah.

Like actually for example, installing windows.

You're not just coming on and be like, oh my God, why is that like that?

No, no, no, no.

Being actually active on site.

No,

no, no, no.

And, and like Ro r and also down are backwards in coming forwards

with like things that they wanna see different on the next one.

And I guess the really great thing for us is, um.

Actually seeing that then play out on the next set of drawings.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And actually seeing, um, your team, I guess penny drops on Oh,

that's what they're talking about.

Yeah.

Because they're actually there doing the thing.

So,

yeah.

So that, I mean, I, I've, I grew up on building sites as a kid, you

know, so I, I kind of have this.

Understanding of the tangible aspect of it.

How heavy is a beam to lift and maneuver into place?

You know, how hard is it to work with a sheet of iron in the wind

and, and those sorts of things.

I, I've got some context there, but.

I didn't know if my team had that.

Some had some bits of experience, but, so I thought getting 'em onto the site

would be a really great way for them to, to get that feeling and that they know now

when they're working on a set of plans.

Oh, hang on.

I'm not just drawing a line.

I'm actually placing a member or a membrane or a fabric or a material.

I'm doing something in, in real terms here.

Um, and I know you guys, you know, look at our drawings and throw them in the bin.

They don't mean anything.

But hopefully that's gonna change.

Right.

So, but it was the same reason we came down here to performance membranes and

we all did the training course together.

You know, like it is just the easiest, simplest thing to do.

We did it a couple of years ago now, and everyone walked away just

going, that was fantastic, you

know?

Yeah.

But

the time you spent the investment, yeah.

You probably spent, I know, two, $3,000 of team time being here.

But you would've got that back so quick on the speed of the drawings

changing for future projects, when we talk about that $5,000 for the,

your team spend detailing stuff.

Mm. Over the 15, 20, 30 projects.

Yeah.

You've probably saved how much?

Mm.

Like knowledge is power.

Hope so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean that's just, everyone's doing professional develop development

and, and, and in trying to improve.

That was just one way we thought, thought we could help.

That was, ah, that's

honestly like rather than, I think architects and designers, engineers.

Going and doing a James Hardy, uh, online presentation.

Do their CPD point, maybe go on site and reach out to any builder and be

like, can we come install a window with you guys and understand it?

Or when you do it before pre-lab, can we have a look at what

you've done to insulate it, or a frame or something like that.

You know what's

really interesting, and it's kind of maybe slightly off topic.

For Sustainable Build Alliance, we always thought that our market,

our target market was builders.

Mm-hmm.

But we get so many designers and architects coming along to our

webinars and our events mm-hmm.

Because it's like, we just don't have this Mm.

Yes.

We don't have that sort of practical, you know, we're, we're, we, we're,

we're often getting sold products or, you know, trying to, trying to.

Push an agenda.

Whereas we're like, no, we just wanna give information.

Imagine if

there was another movement that could have done that.

Imagine that just didn't capitalize Anyway.

Um,

anyway, then I've been well behaved.

This episode have been, anyway, fan, thank you for coming on again.

How do we get onto you?

Anyone that wants to reach out.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Uh, so max design.com au.

Uh, socials, Instagram, Facebook.

Into Webs.

What's the other one?

What's other one?

What's the other one?

Hamish.

And

if, uh, if you do get a, uh, like a lead from this, just make sure that you

are putting me in front of them, okay?

Sure.

As the, as the only builder.

All

new homes in Yarraville buy sanctum homes.

Yarraville?

Yes.

Buy Sanct Homes isn't shuffle that far.

I'm not, I'm not traveling to Yarraville.

Um, awesome.

Thanks

Ben.

Thank you.

Thanks guys.