William Hayward is the founder and CEO of Hayward Score as well as the CEO and Chief Sustainability Officer of Hayward Lumber, an over 100-year old California lumber and building materials supplier.

For more information, you can visit: https://www.haywardscore.com/

0 (1s):

This is the architecture and innovation podcast by CERACLAD, featuring one-on-one interviews with

designers, contractors, city managers, and civic leaders, as well as thought leaders committed to

sustainability, innovation and solutions that are attractive, affordable, and create healthy living environments.

Our podcast eliminates the challenges, breakthroughs, and proven solutions brought to industries,

organizations, and our communities from the office and manufacturer of Sera clad in Redmond, Washington,

and on location. This is the architecture and innovation podcast for our guests. Today. I'd like to welcome

and honor, Bill Hayward. Bill is the founder and CEO of Hayward score as well as the CEO and chief

sustainability office of Hayward lumber.

0 (49s):

And over 100 year old California lumber and building material supplier. For more information, feel free to visit

our website @ haywardscore.com. Again, that's Hayward score.com Bill, welcome and thank you for being

on the show. Always awesome and wonderful to see you. Really.

1 (1m 7s):

Tom, it's great to be here. Appreciate it.

0 (1m 10s):

Because we were saying in our virtual green room is I asked you what the backdrop, the painting and the

backdrop and share with your audience today. What, what it is it's fast. Yeah, it's

2 (1m 21s):

A great backdrop. It's St Mark's square in Venice with open air and fog. And they're the two statues there

and they were doing some reparations. So they had one of them down below. And I went down and saw the

guy with it and standing on an alligator, interestingly enough. And it turns out he's the patron Saint of fresh

air. And I thought, well, of course, you know, they didn't have as many medicines back then. Life was a little

bit more fragile. Of course you had to pay attention to your air and people did. The air was bad. You know,

they took medicines. They did, they protected themselves from bad air today. We don't do that. We just take

whatever air is in our breathing space. That's what we got to breathe. We're stuck with it.

0 (2m 1s):

That stuck with it is I shared with you before we started today, is there's technology. There are are many

proven ways to increase the fresh air in all of our dwellings. And yet it's not as ubiquitous yet as say an air

conditioning in a hot or humid city. What do you feel it takes or will take to where there's a tipping point to

where it's, it's just, it's not a matter of, oh, I think we have to think about it. It's oh, how well is it?

2 (2m 36s):

Well, I think we just had the tipping point. It was called the pandemic, right? As the pandemic yam begin, we

worried about what was on our elevator button that turned out not to be very important. And now we

understand that it's airborne and a hundred years of epidemiology and medical understanding has changed

overnight just weeks ago, the CDC and the who acknowledged it was airborne. I guess the rest of us knew

that, right? But they just, so that said, we are aware of what's in our air now. And we stayed home and we

noticed the odors in our home. We noticed it so much because we couldn't go to work. We had to fix it. We

moved, we got air purifiers. We opened our windows.

2 (3m 15s):

We found we felt better. And we are now distinctly aware of what's in our air. And as we go back into public

spaces, I don't realize we're sharing air with others. We're now entering a time where people want to know

what's in their air. The schools are in the process of spending lots of money given to them by the federal

government to fix the air quality in their schools. And there's been an outcry for that. And as we've seen

some schools go back, students, aren't getting sick. They're not getting the flu. They're not getting other

airborne pathogens. Now that's amazing, right? When we think about not just a pandemic, but beyond, we

can actually substantially reduce the spread of airborne pathogens by adding ventilation to our buildings, feel

better and think better.

2 (4m 0s):

So this is to me, is the tipping point or the accelerator towards the age of 80,

0 (4m 8s):

That ventilation and how vital that is. How do you feel? This is a personal question, but how do you feel

about unfortunately, the pandemic, but knowing that at least people's awareness? Is there and the actions

are now there as well?

2 (4m 26s):

So for me, it's, it's literally refreshing because, and Hayward score, we've scored 80,000 homes across

America and we tracked 23 medical symptoms. And we see how many people tell us. I feel better when I

leave my house only to feel worse when I return, it's a substantial amount of impact on human health, in our

schools, classrooms and homes from lack of ventilation. So as we were becoming aware of it, and we

moved to a time when we're putting now HEPA purifiers in our homes, we're doing it in our schools. We're

simply going to be a healthier population.

2 (5m 7s):

Yeah. That healthier population.

0 (5m 8s):

What's your, if you don't mind sharing some of your most recent projects that were really exciting, that I'd

love for you to share with your audience today?

2 (5m 16s):

So, you know, COVID hit. And for us, it was pretty clear that it was airborne. So we started to communicate,

how do you open your windows? How do you, how do you just get more air in? How do you hack it with

HEPA filters, whether you're in winter or summer climates? Well, the schools started to get really good

attention, but the restaurant community where 7% of Americans work, wasn't getting much. And the, the

schools of environmental engineers, most of these guys and gals had become my friends. So I reached out

to Dr. Hernandez who opened a year ago, 200 Denver schools and said, let's do something around

restaurants. And we did here locally for, for the state of California.

2 (5m 56s):

We set up the post ranch restaurant, which is down at big Sur. And we, we implemented six effective air

changes per hour. And that number six effective air changes is when the risk of transmission becomes

equivalent to outdoor transmission. Right? So early in, in the pandemic, we knew we accepted the risk of

outdoor transmission. We said, let's slow. We can be outdoors. We, we couldn't endorse. But when we have

six effective air changes, which means a, an amount of air coming in from the outside fresh year, ma with an

additional amount of supplemental air cleaning with HEPA filters, we can get to that effective six air changes.

2 (6m 36s):

So we set it up Dr. Hernandez, and I spent two days validating it in early January. And it was covered in the

Washington post, you know, in a very significant write-up complete with fluid dynamic modeling of how air

moves and how you achieve proper mixing with the HEPA purifiers. Because in an indoor space, we often

don't have much outdoor ventilation if we do it often doesn't mix, right? Think about standing up in a room it's

hot above whole below what there's COVID or flu or cold floating in the air. And it's in that hot layer. You

stand up, you stick your head in a concentrated layer, but if you have a network of HEPA filters in the room

and in classrooms, it was usually to their cleaning air in between student, in between patron restaurant

patron, and it's blowing air upwards, which is causing the room to mix and equally dilute across the entire

space.

2 (7m 30s):

So that's going to be one of the new core principles of great indoor ventilation as we move forward. It's not

just bringing good outdoor area in, but we need some tools to make sure that indoor air is properly mixed

and equally diluted.

0 (7m 45s):

What's your experience in the last, say two, three years in, in being the authority, the leader and the

importance and the value of fresh air in buildings?

2 (7m 57s):

Well, three years ago, it was kind of interesting. Now I get calls all the time to do this show, this presentation,

this one, I think is the most exciting about it. It was, you know, I got sick in the house years ago in oh eight

oh nine, my wife, family, we were very impacted. And when we looked at found half, the homes in America

were impacting health. 70% of schools had bad air circulation that was impacting health. It seemed like a

worthy mission to try and change that and change health in America. Now with the attention the pandemic

has given to air and the impact of air on health, I think we're well on our way to a treat my dream, which is

healthy indoor air for all.

0 (8m 40s):

Yeah. Tell us about your dream. I mean, I know you touched on your experience, but in your third eye with

your third eye, what outcome would make you, if there's such a thing to just kind of sit, pause for a moment,

and go, Wow. This vision that I meaning you bill had is really in motion? I mean, it is now, but to where really

it's to a point of where it is just a standard?

2 (9m 10s):

Yeah. So when I think about it that way, Tom, my dream would be to change health by changing the air. We

breathe in our homes in schools, which is a kind of simple really, you know, today we understand that most

of our health impacts are either airborne or environmental exposures. And the first thing people do when

they say, oh, it's environmental exposures. I think, oh, environment, that's out there except we spend 90% of

our time indoors. So the delivery vehicle of environmental exposures is indoor air. And then again, we see

how it's all going to kill us. It doesn't feel actionable, but actually we can change the shell of our house. We

can add HEPA filtration to our house.

2 (9m 54s):

We can protect the layer that brings the air through, into the Alison. It's an incredibly actionable, we can take

action in our own space. That leads to a better health outcome for us, leaves us in a better cognitive

condition, be able to optimize our lives. And then for me, the ultimate part of that story is I believe we can

heal the planet by healing our homes because when you take the steps to make a home airtight and bring

good fresh air in and reduce outdoor pollutants, your air sealing, you're adding insulation, you're putting

ventilation that makes your HPAC more efficient. Buildings consume 30 plus percent of energy.

2 (10m 35s):

So if we solve for reasons of health and make our buildings more efficient, now we're working on one third of

the global carbon footprint and it's an affordable method to do it. That has tremendous benefits, not only to

the planet, but to our own health. So we can heal the planet by healing, our homes. And when we sit in our

home and we realized that toxic chemicals, aren't good for us, are we going to keep demanding toxic

chemicals? No, we're going to start asking for the good stuff. And when we do that industry follows. So that's

part of healing, the planet.

0 (11m 11s):

Talk about the, the technology and the affordability. Let's say with the technology for now the technology to

make it as great as it can be the good stuff as you say?

2 (11m 24s):

Yeah. Well, I'll give you a quick parallel. Right? The last time building had a triggering event was the energy

crisis. Some of us remember waiting in gas lines. I was in my mom's car going to school, but we waited and

that triggered a move to energy efficiency. But the technology to go to energy efficiency didn't exist in 73 and

76 had to be invented. Now we're driving towards air and changing codes around air quality and ventilation.

Guess what? All that technology is invented. In fact, it's existed. It's available. It's been available for over 10

years, so we don't have to invent anything. It's all ready to go, right? So we know how to do air tightness and

we know how to do good waterproofing.

2 (12m 7s):

And we know how to introduce air into buildings with energy recovery ventilation. The challenge on that is

when you tell the HPAC industry about energy recovery ventilation, their memory of is of that. If they know

anything about it at all, is it's old, it's inefficient. It doesn't work so well today energy recovery ventilation can

bring outdoor area in at 90% energy efficiency. Okay? So it harvests 90% of the energy on the outgoing air.

And because it's energy recovery, it dumps moisture from the incoming year passively basically without a

big, big, heavy dehumidifier.

2 (12m 47s):

So in many of our climates around the country where you need dehumidification, you get dehumidification.

And so now on a 40 degree day, given that efficiency, the air is coming in at say 68 into the 70 degree room.

And we're dumping 70% of the humidity. So you need a tiny humidifier or that, or a two-stage air conditioner,

running it slow speed can now dehumidify enough that you don't actually need to even add a dehumidifier,

right? That's a hugely energy efficient package. It's delivering tremendously healthy indoor environment.

0 (13m 25s):

I love this, this is fascinating, you're listening to the architecture and innovation podcast presented by

CERACLAD. We're talking today with Bill Hayward. Bill is the founder and CEO of Hayward score as well,

CEO and chief sustainability officer of Hayward lumber. For more information, please visit Hayward

score.com. Again, that's Hayward score.com. Bill, if you could touch on a, go back to some of the most

recent projects what's in an investment to get up to, to the level that you feel is, is appropriate for people in a

dwelling, in a building, in a structure, private home, or in business?

2 (14m 8s):

Okay, so I'll quickly give it an a restaurant example. Post ranch is a five-star restaurant. Stevie's is a

Hispanic owned restaurant on the corner of two highways. A lovely woman owns it, five kids running around

while she's trying to cook. Right? Incredible food though. It's in Prunedale, California cost us about $4,500 to

do her restaurant that was on table HEPA filters, six on the ground HEPA filters to clean intra a patron, right?

So there were nobody downstream from airflow and a $400 exhaust fan and about $1,100 worth of labor

plus plus a monitor.

2 (14m 52s):

So now we're monitoring. We have filtration mixing and outdoor at the six air change per hour, $4,500, right?

She said, it paid for itself in two weeks, her arrest, her patron count went up. She had more people in and

she saved a ton of money on our propane. Cause now she had people inside and out. That's an amazing

story. The post ranch and we're in, you know, temper, California. So she didn't need per se energy recovery

ventilation. The post ranch opened their economizers added nine HEPA filters, 16 tabletop. They spent about

$9,000. They also spent another 20,000 to add a energy recovery ventilator, which they have to lift over the

roof of the crane there, our top restaurant they paid for in three days, their guest count went back up and

people were ordering more wine and food.

2 (15m 45s):

The chef says, it's the future of the future of dining to have air that we care for. We care for our food. Now we

care for our air, right? The dining experience was stunning in that restaurant.

0 (16m 1s):

Yeah. Is there a, an acknowledgement of a, I'm not sure what the, what you would call it a place. That's the

restaurants where it's just like, this is a sanitary restaurant. Is there one, that's an acronym or a symbol of

this where you can be shortened that this is a 100% clean air type of acknowledgement or certification.

2 (16m 22s):

Tom, you almost said it! You almost said clean air restaurant. So after we did the post ranch, it was written

up in the Washington Post. We're launching this Wednesday, a new website called Clean Air

Restaurants.com. And it puts, it makes all of this information available in a free 20 minute, how to, you don't

need to hire an air quality specialist to do it. Cause we're trying to spread the word, but it also reviews

energy recovery ventilation, and it's going live. We also on that, that peace offer a clean air restaurant

certification. So you asked and you didn't know that, right?

2 (17m 3s):

And so that, that you can, you, if you set your restaurant up Sandy and photographs of what you've done

and give us a link to the live monitoring so we can monitor it, we can then certify it.

0 (17m 19s):

That's almost as important as like a Michelin rated. Because I can see choosing, if I do not want to go in

here. Right?

2 (17m 29s):

I've heard senior people in the restaurant industry say, you know, as we return, I don't think I'm ever going to

want to go into a public space with people. I don't know and share their air. If I don't know something about

the air inside the space, I think that's right. I mean, people are returning, but there's skepticism. There's

concern. There's people sitting out doors and all of a sudden I'm hearing recently, I got the cold. I haven't

had a cold in 16 months. Right? Well, that's going to happen in doors, in unventilated spaces. So I think we

really will start to get tuned into, I want to go into a place that can prove to me they're ventilated.

0 (18m 13s):

There's just no end clean air restaurant, clean air office, building, clean air, home, clean air. Every single

facility is going to, I don't see how it's there is an end to this Bill.

2 (18m 25s):

I think there's a lot of opportunity because we all breathe air.

0 (18m 27s):

Yeah, we do but we want to make sure that it's as clean as possible and then clean it. That it is. So, yeah. I

don't know if you've heard it first here about the clean air restaurant. Have you shared that with any other

media platforms?

2 (18m 43s):

I have not, yet Tom, It doesn't go live until midnight, Wednesday.

0 (18m 47s):

Geez. Wow. That's fascinating. So will you have a complete, like a certification that, where they can affix it to

their front window or door upon entrance? Oh, that's a major difference. As I said, the only thing I can

compare it to is like a Michelin rated restaurant? Right? Right? And, was that by design?

2 (19m 9s):

We'd been thinking about it for a while. Before the pandemic started, we were thinking about certifying

hotels. Most hotels didn't think it was necessary and then pandemic yet. And like, how do we tell guests that

we have a healthy indoor environment? You can't make this up? No, no. So we helped a local art museum

do the same thing, same principles, right? Six air changes per hour maximize the outdoor air and HEPA

filtration. It's the Monterey museum of art has the oldest collection of California art in the country. And it was

not a pleasant smelling museum. So they bought 30 HEPA filters.

2 (19m 50s):

They added more fresh year. They did all the right. It's now lovely in there. It smells really good. And the staff

is so appreciative about it. That's what I think that I've seen at the restaurant industry. You know, half of the

people work in restaurants, went into construction because as you notice, construction is going off the hook.

So restaurants can't hire and they're having trouble retaining well, whose restaurant are you going to work

at? The one with the clean, fresh air where you feel protected and taken care of or the one that doesn't care.

I know which one I'm going to work out. If I'm in the restaurant is

0 (20m 21s):

Yes. That's for sure. And about that care. Why is it that you care so much, Bill? I mean, maybe it's a deep

question. If it's too personal, tell me, Hey, let's move to something else, but you care a heck of a lot.

2 (20m 34s):

I care because I was oblivious to the topic until LA I knew a lot about buildings and my wife and I bought our

dream house. And when we moved into it here in the Monterey peninsula, we started to get sick and I'll go

quick on this, but we'd run the heat. We'd sneeze. We wouldn't feel good. Next thing you know, we're tired,

exhausted, and falling asleep. And we have a, we have a new baby, so we blame it on the new baby. But by

Christmas I can't hold a 10 digit phone number in my head long enough to dial it. I'm literally falling asleep in

meetings. I can't think that I can't remember words. And I'm writing words backwards. I'm like, what is wrong

with me? Where we finally test the house after 16 months find it's got a tremendous mold problem and we

move out.

2 (21m 15s):

Okay. So, wow. This happened to me. I'm a building insider. I didn't know that it could really happen. Cause

I, you know, you've seen it a little bit on 60 minutes. So I look at the EPA and they say, oh yeah, half the

homes at schools and commercial buildings in America have an indoor air quality problem. That's affecting

our health. And now we see that on the rise. As we understand that the homes and indoor environment are

where environmental pollutions in our system. And so we really have to do something about the air. We

breathe to, to be healthy and to optimize our lives because there's the, I got sick part. And then there's, well,

what happens when you have really good air? Oh, you sleep better.

2 (21m 57s):

Oh, cognition improves anywhere between 60 and 260% based upon the Harvard studies and productivity in

a business environment goes up 12%. Right? So if I've got a million dollar payroll in my office building, this is

a very inexpensive investment to create morale. So I did this to my lumberyards three years ago, I started to

add fresh air. So we had that level of fresh air and we saw morale change. We saw less mistake rates. I

knew our guys were probably exposed to chemicals from the inside of the Harbor store. We reduced that

when COVID hit, we knew about proper mixing and Hapa. So we added all those. So we had probably the

safest retail environment in the country got through COVID well, but what I saw in my people is genuine

care.

2 (22m 42s):

Like thank you, bill. Thank you for giving us permission to be safe. Thank you for letting us come to work.

We don't feel exploited. We feel like you've given us the ability to come to work by our choice and feel safe.

We even bought two HEPA filters for every employee at Hayward and let them take it home as a part of, you

know, so that if someone got it in the household, it would reduce the potential for inter household

transmission. But what we're now seeing from HEPA filters is that small investment makes a tangible impact

on the health in, in private homes, right? Private homes don't have good ventilation, but this really cleans the

air up. And the sense that we cared and took care of our people has been so powerful there.

2 (23m 28s):

I mean, when I visit they're so engaged, appreciative, outspoken, the wives we sleep better, I feel better. It's

amazing.

0 (23m 37s):

I love this, you're listening to the architecture and innovation podcast by CERACLAD. We're talking today

with Bill Hayward. Bill's a founder and CEO of Hayward score as well as the CEO and chief sustainability

officer of Hayward lumber. For more information, visit their websitev@vhaywardscore.com. Again, that's

Hayward score.com. I know bill you've touched on a tremendous amount already, but with business and

commerce constantly evolving the expectations for results and the outcomes for cleaner air has seemed to

have accelerated, as well. What's changed in your experience over the last eight.

0 (24m 17s):

Well, let's, let's make it really short over the last say even couple of months?

2 (24m 28s):

So I think the acknowledgement that it's airborne the acknowledgement by CDC and the who, that kind of

response of the average person saying Katie didn't. We know it was airborne a long time ago. How did you

guys not know? And then we were spending money on schools. We're starting to see from the schools that

are opened. People didn't get sick and we're looking at the legacy benefit. We're saying, okay, beyond the

pandemic, what is this going to do for us? And every day I think the American public or the global public is

expanding their thought process on what healthier air would do. I think that's a really powerful change in the

way that medicine and the environment of the home will be determined to be part of our medical package.

2 (25m 15s):

If you think about the book that Joe Allen wrote at Harvard called healthy buildings, the premise is that your

building manager has more to do with your long-term health than your doctor. Well, that's talking about

commercial buildings. We really spend more time in our homes and often we don't have the same budget

that the commercial building has to maintain the hall. So if we can find simple, affordable ways to do that,

which is one of the things that we did at Hayward score, we really focused on after we had 80,000 homes in

23 medical symptoms. So our just study of health and housing ever done, we focused on what are the

affordable, portable, and transportable, easy to do, hacks things that impact human health in a positive way

before we have to go and spend real money and add energy recovery ventilation.

2 (26m 3s):

Now, if you're at the point where you're about to replace your HPAC system and spend a little bit more for

that, you can get the health benefit and cut your energy bill by at least half. So it has a payback, but not

everybody's ready to do the retrofit on their private home.

0 (26m 19s):

How do you address the, if there's such thing as isn't sound like there's a fear, it's just more of an awareness

and the, just the decision just to decide, look, I'm going to demand clean air in my home or building. I'm

going to demand clean air and expect not demand it, but just expect it in my workplace, in my workspace. Is

there a way to do that or present that without being offensive or, ownership not seem like they're caring as

much

2 (26m 54s):

Again, going back to the example of the book that Joe Allen at Harvard produced, he did it in conjunction

with the Dean of the business school. So they documented the business case. And that's what we did with

cleaner restaurants. I don't know that CDC is going to require it in the short run of restaurants, but when

business owners look at that and say, oh, I can fill my restaurant up. And my competitors, isn't duh, I'm going

to do it. And that's what the carpet group documented. These buildings are, are getting better rent. They

have higher occupancy people don't move out, right? And I'd like to see the business case and leadership

drive the change. I am sure legislation's coming, but leadership is going to be a lot better way to do it.

2 (27m 39s):

So I think as we see demand for these things and people start to rent and make decisions based upon the

air in the building that they're renting. And then the other side of it is this whole social equity story. And

generally speaking, outdoor air is in worst condition in neighborhoods where people have less financial

capacity. And so the, the burden falls higher and this country is very focused as it should be on social equity,

both in health and quality of life. And when the economics work like lower cost of insurance, well, that's, that

is the payback. Then, then we can now afford to create the social equity that we, we need to have.

0 (28m 22s):

Bill, what else would you like to share with your audience today that we may not have touched on?

3 (28m 33s):

No, we did.

2 (28m 34s):

I would say the, a formal survey for Hayward score where we surveyed say 20,000 people about how much

their healthcare costs was. If they thought their home had impacted their help. And we're estimating that the

annual cost of unhealthy housing, not just schools and restaurants, but unhealthy housing is 700 billion a

year to the U S healthcare system. And if we change the air, we breathe in our indoor environments. We'd

be able to put that money back into our economy, to finance the retrofits, to do a whole bunch of things. And

we know because of our planet talk, our economy will get choked by the rising cost of healthcare.

2 (29m 20s):

The built environment is essential to both affordability and combating the rising cost of healthcare

0 (29m 23s):

Bill. We can talk a lot more on this. I hope you come back, you want to come on again soon because I just

feel like we're just each time we've discussed this it becomes more and more important. I hope you consider

coming on real soon again.

2 (29m 36s):

Yeah, I'll come back on and it's always fun to get wound up cause you wind me up with these questions!

0 (29m 44s):

Thank you, Bill! It's an honor and pleasure having you on, on our show today. Thank you very much.

2 (29m 50s):

Thanks Tom. Thank you.

0 (29m 52s):

Our guest today has been Bill Hayward. Bill is the founder and CEO of Hayward score as well as the CEO

and chief sustainability officer of Hayward lumber. And over 100 year old California lumber and building

materials supplier for more information, feel free to visit Hayward score.com again, Hayward score dot com.

You've been listening to the architecture and innovation podcast by CERACLAD. The architecture and

innovation podcast features one-on-one interviews with designers, contractors, city managers, thought

leaders and sustainability leaders providing innovation and solutions that are attractive, affordable, and

create a healthy living environment.

0 (30m 38s):

The podcast illuminates the challenges, breakthroughs and proven solutions brought to industries,

organizations, and our communities will look forward to join us again next time. I'm Tom Dioro. Thank you.