“Wool is just an awesome fiber, and we’re proud to work with it here in our facility, and we’re even more proud when we get it out to people and let them experience it. It’s rewarding to help people understand there are better ways to do things. And, you know, the built environment is changing rapidly, and that’s a motivating factor for us on top of the products that we make.”
Andrew Legge, Founder & Managing Partner at Havelock Wool
While the building industry constantly experiences change and innovation, most of these solutions leverage cutting-edge technology. Havelock Wool diverged from the norm with their wool insulation, using a centuries-old product to bring superior performance to homeowners globally.
Andrew Legge shares insight into the science behind wool insulation, its many benefits, and the ultimate goal of Havelock Wool. Tune in for a discussion on wool vs. typical materials, the challenges of a direct-to-consumer business, and breaking into an established market.
Can a natural fiber like wool really compete with synthetic fiber? Find out in this episode highlighting another disruptive product.
Topics discussed in this interview:
- A brief history of wool insulation
- Why did Andrew start Havelock Wool?
- What’s unique about wool that makes it great insulation?
- The signature benefits of wool fiber
- Wool and indoor air quality
- Challenges as a direct-to-consumer product
- Wool insulation and chemical sensitivities
- Batt vs. blown wool
- Growing customer awareness
- Being in business to make an impact
- How many sheep supply insulation worldwide?
- Sustainability is the future, and wool plays a part
- Rapid fire questions
To learn more about the incredible properties of wool insulation and find out if it’s right for your project, visit havelockwool.com.
For more Construction Disruption, listen on Apple Podcasts or YouTube
Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn
This episode was produced by Isaiah Industries, Inc.
Intro/Outro:
:Welcome to the Construction Disruption podcast, where we uncover the future of design, building, and remodeling.
Todd Miller:
:I'm Todd Miller of Isaiah Industries, a manufacturer of specialty metal roofing and other building materials. Today, my co-host is Seth Heckman, also of Isaiah Industries. How are you today, Seth?
Seth Heckaman:
:I'm doing well. How are you?
Todd Miller:
:You know, I'm doing well. I discovered recently that one of my dogs is a genius.
Seth Heckaman:
:Really?
Todd Miller:
:Yes, seriously. So I asked her. I said, What's two minus two? She said nothing. Okay, so one.
Seth Heckaman:
:That is a better dad joke than Bard came up with. I'll give you that one.
Todd Miller:
:Oh my goodness. Our last episode we challenged Google Bard to come up with a, yeah, you got to go back and listen to the last episode, everyone, and hear what Google Bard came up with for a dad joke. It was not funny at all. So I will say too, one of my previous sayings, you know, when I was before I was in this business and I was was trying to get something going, I tried running a dating service for chickens. It didn't work out either because I was always struggling to make hens meet. Okay. Hey, we can also go on with the show here today and just keep rolling through. Enough frivolity, I guess, anyway. So, looking forward to today's show. Today's guest is Andrew Legge of Truckee, California. Andrew is founding and managing partner for Havelock Wool, a producer of wool insulation. From what I can tell, these folks are really disrupting construction by providing building insulation that is natural, sound absorptive, and high performance as far as insulation value. And also well known for its moisture handling characteristics. Andrew, welcome to Construction Disruption; it's a privilege to have you on the show today.
Andrew Legge:
:It's a privilege to be here. Happy Friday to everybody. Thanks so much for having us on.
Todd Miller:
:Well, we're looking forward to it. Thank you. And one thing I did forget to tell our audience, we are doing our challenge words this episode. So be on the lookout for strange words that any of us may pop into the conversation at any point. That may be our challenge word. There is no special gift if you guess the challenge word. But at the end we will reveal whether we were successful in working in our challenge words or not. So, Andrew, I'm kind of curious, seems like a very basic place for us to start this conversation today is for you to tell us anything you know about the history of wool insulation in general. Any ideas as far as when folks started thinking about it? I mean, I guess it was used for clothing and that was insulating. But as far as wool and buildings are is Havelock the first or were there others doing it before you?
Andrew Legge:
:Oh, yeah, so we're definitely not the first, and I think it would be hard to pinpoint. You know, the first sheep were domesticated about 10,000 years ago.
Todd Miller:
:Wow.
Andrew Legge:
:And so I think it's fairly safe to assume that there would have been folks, you know, literally going back thousands of years that were thinking about all sorts of usage for this incredibly high integrity fiber, which of course, is a wool fiber and then a coarse wool fiber. And I'm sure we'll get into the particulars here. But a coarse wool fiber can be particularly good at providing insulation, right. And and then we get into merino wool and we start to see a finer fiber. And that's, you know, what's touching our skin and makes us comfortable, you know, using wool as a base layer. But I would say that, you know, wool in structures would, would easily date back thousands of years and it's probably been refined a little bit and continues to be in the way that we manufacture. But I think that, you know, you can go back well beyond any kind of other form of insulation that currently exists.
Todd Miller:
:Wow, very interesting. Well, let's dive right in. I want to hear more about Havelock Wool, your company. You started, I believe, about ten years ago. What kind of stirred up this interest in you and what brought you to where you are today?
Andrew Legge:
:I was working for for a firm in Southeast Asia, and we were really focused on developing, you know, the capital markets and the investment opportunity specifically in Vietnam. And I worked for two guys who were really dedicated to the mission. They had been there a number of years before my arrival, and it was a really amazing experience. The learning curve was really steep. It was really interesting to be in another culture and I appreciated everything that I got to do there. But I also knew that it wasn't going to be forever. And it just so happened that at the time I was spending more and more time in New Zealand and I was looking at the country through a similar lens, which is to say that you're seeing all these great innovative products and brands and marketing stories, and they really weren't expanding offshore in any meaningful way, maybe a little bit in Australia, perhaps into Asia. And then, you know, maybe there was one success story in the U.S. So I sort of took the view that, you know, it might be fun to go take a closer look because I had been spending a lot more time there. And, you know, we'd built a house on the North Island that is literally is my favorite place on the planet. And so I arrived with my time and my interest dedicated to maybe finding something to do that was New Zealand-based. And I'm sure that I had a little bit of bias towards the food industry because they have some of the best food you've ever tasted. But nevertheless, I was happy to, you know, cruise around and, you know, sit in meetings and, you know, learn about what all of these opportunities might purport to be. And I ran into a discussion about the use of wool as insulation. I have a very outdoorsy background. And in in growing up, I had a real feel for wool, literally right down to the coarse wool that, you know, I used to have the itchy sweaters and think I was allergic to it. In fact, it was just the fiber but not allergic to it at all. And I was sort of, you know, excited to do something that would be more, you know, sustainable and, you know. Really get something towards a market that was begging for a better product. And, you know, when I initially heard about it, I didn't realize all of that. But it doesn't take long to go do some research and very quickly feel like, you know, you're an overnight expert, so to speak. And then, you know, you can start to expand on conversations from there. And once I understood the concept, I literally spent a couple of years talking to people, builders, architects, insulation installers, you know, friends, random people, associates, introductions, like it sort of. And, you know, I moved back to the U.S. by this point, and I was literally talking to everybody around the country too, not just, you know, certain places that, you know, I could get a meeting by, you know, driving my car within, you know, 30 or 40 minutes or 60 minutes. I mean, I also was very, very careful to avoid, you know, confirmation bias. I was looking for people to tell me why it wouldn't work. And the reality is, you know, we looked at this $17 billion, I think it's $15 billion marketplace at the time, which is US installation. And, you know, frankly, we're not here to beat up the competition. They're all bigger than we are. But, you know, the products are subpar. And I think there's a reason for that, which we can talk about or not. But essentially it was like, wow, there's an opportunity here to put a high quality, high integrity, high performance fiber into this huge market. And wouldn't it be fun to offer the discerning clientele that we think might want this product and option for something way better? Oh, and by the way, this is something back to your first question. You know, it's evolved in nature's R&D department across thousands of years as an insulator. So wouldn't it be literally supernatural to say to somebody like this, this is what this fiber was designed for?
Todd Miller:
:Yeah, interesting.
Andrew Legge:
:So here's an opportunity to put it in your structure. And so that thesis came together fairly quickly. The execution. I was happy for it to take a bunch of time, you know, sort of this notion of like, oh, I think it's a good day. I think it's a good idea today. But is it a good idea in a month or six months? And considering that it continued to be a good idea? It seemed like something that we should try harder at, so we launched the company in October 2013.
Todd Miller:
:Wow. So you mentioned that, you know, U.S. installation market, $15 Billion market. Number of different types of products in there. And you mentioned your wall has superior characteristics over all of them. What are some of the attributes and benefits of wall insulation? What does it offer that other products do not offer?
Andrew Legge:
:One of the really cool things about wool, of course, wool fiber in particular, is its inherent construct is unlike anything you can create in the lab. And so the easiest way to think about it, if you had a picture under a microscope and you look at a coarse wall fiber, you would see a very dynamic fiber with five follicles and a lot of things happening versus, say, a cotton one or a synthetic one, which would look like a hollow piece of spaghetti. And you know, the easiest way to explain this function, I think, for a lot of people is to think about it as like a base layer. You know, if you're skiing in the winter or, you know, you're trying to stay warm, I mean, frankly, wool's great even when it's hot out. But, you know, think about that in terms of a couple of things. One, if you're comparing it to capilene, which is a synthetic fiber, the capilene and the lack of, you know, the the shape and the construct means that it'll work well a couple times, but then it will stop working the same way. It will start to smell because you can't get it clean versus a wool fiber where it's got so much going on and it's designed to keep you warm even when it gets wet. You know, think about a cotton T-shirt when you sweat, so you're playing tennis and you walk into air conditioning, you're freezing to the bone until you get that shirt off. That's because a cotton fiber looks like a synthetic one. There's just not a lot going on. It's not capable of doing that much to help you from an insulating perspective. And so that's one place to really start. And where that leads to is moisture management. And that's becoming really important with the way that we build now. Structures are becoming more efficient. What's a way of being more efficient? It's built tighter. You know, old buildings had this ability to where the walls would bake dry, right. Because they weren't super tight and there was air moving through there. So if you had moisture buildup, you know, as the seasons change, you could you could have the walls sort of reform themselves and reform and add back the integrity because they could get rid of the moisture. Nowadays, these things are so tight that moisture becomes this big issue where a lot of times it's coming from the inside and for sure it's making its way into your walls. You know, don't think that the wallboard is protecting what's inside the walls from from vapor drive because it's not. And so having that moisture management is a huge, huge, huge add on for a fibrous insulation because there's nothing else that does that like wool does. It'll manage moisture against 65% relative humidity absorbing and desorbing and it's a keratin like your fingernail, it's protein-based. So it's not going to support the growth of mold, which is obviously another huge issue in a structure. And we see this all the time where mold develops and now you're breathing it and so you've got air quality issues as well, is also the amino acids that will irreversibly bond with harmful chemicals like formaldehyde, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide. These are all things that are in our structures. They're either in the materials or there's something that we create through running the home. And so there's some huge air quality advantages. Wool has a high nitrogen content around 14%. So it doesn't, it's naturally self extinguishing. It doesn't want to burn. And so this is what happened to me. And, you know, I'm of course, I'm an evangelist for wool. But, you know, this is not about, you know, promoting what we do. This is this is about all of the the the science and all of the studying that I did when we were thinking about putting this thing together. And it was like, wow, I mean, this really is the most dynamic fiber on the planet and it does all these amazing things. Oh, and guess what? It's been evolving on the back of the sheep to protect it from the elements. So why don't we take that and put it in our walls? Because in the end, why do we build anything? To get out of the elements and protect ourselves. And that's always been the mismatch for me with insulation. We take this horrible fiber that is basically measured on one thing, which is cost. And we jam it in our walls. Like, if you're going out skiing in the wintertime, you're not going to wear a cotton jacket when it's snowing. You're not going to, you know, wear some terrible protective layer to help you avoid dealing with the elements. You're going to get the best jacket you can get and you're going to follow the technology so you can stay warm and you can do more. You know, in this case, recreating. And so we're just trying to take these very basic principles that to us make a lot of sense and help people that want to employ them in their house, put them into the space. And so that's what we've done as a business. And the inherent characteristics of wool have made it pretty easy to do, to be honest.
Todd Miller:
:How friendly have building codes been to wool insulation?
Andrew Legge:
:Fine. I mean, to be honest, you know, you go to an ASTM T518, and that gives you a measure of your, you know, thermal conductivity. And, you know, that obviously ultimately equates to a resistance value. And, you know, the higher resistance value, the better. Air is a terrible conductor, so trapping air in a cavity can be quite effective to raise resistance values. And wool does that incredibly well. And it's not just how we make our products, but it's also, you know, that helical nature within the fiber. So it's trapping air and therefore it's not becoming a good conductor, which is great for resistance value.
Seth Heckaman:
:Very interesting. You know, all those attributes are incredibly compelling. I was curious, going back to what you said about indoor air quality. So those harmful compounds with names, with every letter of the alphabet I can't pronounce. But so but what you said, I wanted to clarify. So not only, I guess I came into the conversation assuming that wool would have an advantage in terms of not having some of the nasty off-gassing we can get with other products. But what you said indicated it can even help clean the air that's in the structure of some nasty compounds by binding to it.
Andrew Legge:
:Yeah, yeah. It's the amino acids in wool. And so literally it's it's a polar bond that's created and there's some really cool studies out there that that make it very easy to understand, you know, how wool functions in this capacity. And to be honest, a lot of them were done, you know, at the end of the last century and they were focused around the wool carpet industry. But there was also a study done. I forget when it was now, but it was a young girl that I've spoken to a number of times. She did her graduate work at UT Austin and she built a sort of forced air filter and she was looking for a way to get formaldehyde out of the air. And she found the most effective medium to do so was wool. And I'm allowed to say it. It's not secret. It's public information. And Jennifer Wang did the studying and you can find it you know, if you look on the Internet and it's really an interesting read to see exactly how wool functions. And you know in particular, it's interesting, it's a polar bond, so it's not going to break down unless it's in extreme temperature, extreme moisture. So basically, if you submerged in in water, the bond would break down. And this gets really interesting in the air filtration side, which, sidebar something we're looking at is you could actually clean the filter and put it back if you submerged in water. So again, it's just it's one of these things where it's just a magical fiber. Right. And, you know, I try to make this point all the time. It's not Havelock Wool that's cool, it's wool that's cool.
Todd Miller:
:That's cool.
Andrew Legge:
:And, you know, we we, we thought that we could just sort of step into the market, make some products and offer it to people. And, you know, they would understand all these advantages and become buyers overnight. Well, that most certainly did not happen. This is an education game. This is an awareness game. And you really have to help people learn. And, you know, one of the things that we really focus on here is whether you choose wool or not, at least make an informed decision because, you know, there's so much that goes into this process. A lot of times people do it maybe once in their life. And you know, what we see is that, you know, there are not a lot of advocates for the ultimate occupier of the space. You know, they they hire an architect, they hired a builder. And like each of those groups have their own playbook and they don't like to deviate from them. And so we've had a lot of fun. This is a question I know we're going to get to. We've had a lot of fun on setting our business up to be direct to consumer. And, you know, we talk to homeowners all day, every day, and it's it's a really rewarding thing. Of course, if they end up using wool, great. But it's really rewarding to help people understand, you know, there are better ways to do things. And, you know, the built environment is changing rapidly and there's really cool stuff happening. And so that's really a motivating factor for us on top of just what, you know, the products that we make. But being involved in the discussion all day, every day.
Todd Miller:
:So with the direct to consumer approach, I mean, I assume that there's also times you're talking to contractors as well, but it is largely a direct to consumer approach that you're taking, is that right?
Andrew Legge:
:It is. And, you know, we started following the traditional path to market, which are architects and builders. We just didn't get anywhere. You know, we had great conversations, but we didn't sell any products. Yeah. And so at the same time, we were talking to friends and family and people building things and great things were happening every single time that happened. So we just sort of, you know, huddled up internally and we were like, you know, let's go make the phone ring, because if we can talk to people, you know, we can help them appreciate this incredible advantage that this fiber offers. And then it just morphed into this direct to consumer play where the hope was always that the building community would come back around once we created some real demand. And that's happening. But, you know, it's taken us four or five years.
Todd Miller:
:Yeah. And it's an industry that doesn't change quickly. We live that every day also, that's for sure. So I'm curious, as you work with consumers, have you gotten into folks who deal with multiple chemical sensitivity looking for? I mean, that's got to be a natural, I would think.
Andrew Legge:
:Tons and very proudly, we haven't failed yet.
Todd Miller:
:That's awesome.
Andrew Legge:
:We get calls all the time. And like, extreme cases of, you know, people coming home and having to build a house and put like a full sort of clean room shower set up in the garage.
Seth Heckaman:
:Hmm.
Andrew Legge:
:So anybody who's entering the house has to go through that process before they can go in, because the chemical sensitivities by some of the occupants are so extreme that that's what's required. And we had a great scenario where another form of insulation was ordered. They thought it was a natural fiber and they thought it could be tolerated. It has a higher propensity to burn than wool does. And so it had more chemicals on it and they couldn't be tolerated. And so they were really devastated because they're building this house and they're like, oh my gosh, Like, we're not even sure we can live here. And luckily for us, we got the phone call, We sent samples out. They were tolerated and we became the provider for for that house to get built, which is, of course, a really proud moment for us.
Todd Miller:
:Oh, yeah.
Andrew Legge:
:And I you know, I'm a little bit removed from our from our daily sales these days. We've got a refrigerator in the office that's got all sorts of handwritten notes on it of, you know, people thanking us for what we do and, you know, loving our product. And I put on Instagram the other day, the verbiage from somebody who left us a message saying that, you know, their power bill had come down because of, you know, using wool in their house and how excited they were. And, you know, frankly, like if they used that for of insulation, you're it's a good chance your power bill would have come down as well. But, you know, it's just an awesome fiber. And we're really proud to work with it here in our facility, and we're even more proud when we get it out to people and let them experience it. And there's probably no more joy than the chemically sensitive folks who are struggling to live in their home. And then on the air quality side, kind of the favorite thing for us to do wherever we can is to get into the school systems. You know, when you got little kids in there and, you know, Harvard has done lots of studies and made it very clear that there's a direct relationship between air quality and cognitive function. And, you know, if we can keep particulate emission down and and, you know, add to, you know, a high quality air quality environment inside of a structure, then, you know, that's sort of a major reason for being for us.
Todd Miller:
:Well, all the while reducing the potential for mold inside of walls and so forth as well. So I'm really captivated by this idea of a product that, you know, goes from nature into a use. But what sort of processing do you have to do to the wool? And and what does the formal or the final product look like? Is it in batt form or blown in or what? What does that look like as far as what you folks do?
Andrew Legge:
:So the process we source in New Zealand, one of the major reasons why we do that is because the Kiwis are arguably the best cleaners of wool or scours in the world. And it's a big part of their economy, albeit a shrinking one. But they're constantly innovating. And so, you know, what's, what's typically left over in wool is something called vegetable matter or VM and like a sort of standard amount of VM left in our wool is 0.1% or less.
Todd Miller:
:Okay.
Andrew Legge:
:When you scour in the U.S., you're talking your expectations are about 1 to 1 and a half percent VM.
Todd Miller:
:Oh, wow.
Andrew Legge:
:So the delta is significant, right? You know, you're talking 10x and it's a big deal, particularly for the machines that we run, which are old carding machines, and they can come out of tolerance very easily. 1,000th of an inch makes a difference. And we may or may not get to this, but the manufacturing process is evolving, too, which reduces that the importance of that a little bit. So, you know, the other thing that that plays into that is, you know, New Zealand is hugely pastoral. Basically the way it works and this is the fun part of our renewable sustainability story is, you know, basically grass is fed by rainfall. Sheep eat the grass, sheep grow wool, they get a haircut, it gets cleaned and packaged and sent to us. The largest component of our power bill is the heat in the winter. So it really is kind of amazing how small our footprint is for creating this product. We're max density. When we ship across the ocean, we literally put 19,500 kg into a 20 foot container. We have to use special trailers to move them up here. Tri-axle chassis, it's called, because they're so heavy. So we're literally at sort of the bottom decile for logistics costs. And then this was always a thing for me is like you'll see certain installation manufacturers, particularly newer alternatives where they make one product or the other, meaning batts or loose film. And for me, it was really important that we would offer both. I didn't want to be in a discussion with somebody saying, you know, you need to use loose though because it's a better product. It is a better product. But I want you to be able to choose, right? Because my argument kind of stinks if I'm telling you that loose feels a better product and it happens to be the only one that I sell. And so for us, it's about, hey, there's lots of ways to use wool, there's lots of advantages. It doesn't matter which form you use it in, you'll get a higher value out of the loose fill or the blow in. But there's some there's some ease of installation that goes along with that. And so for us, it's been working on for both. We're going to try to help you make that informed decision, and we're going to hope that it include wool, but then how you actually put it into your walls, that's up to you.
Todd Miller:
:Very interesting. So, you know, it's really neat having you here today to talk about a disruptive product. And that's kind of what our show is about. But what do you see as the future for wool insulation? Do you see any obstacles to growth? Do you think it's going to continue to grow? Is the biggest challenge just getting the word out there? I know even for our products, which you know, are maybe a little more common than wool insulation, our biggest challenge is getting the word out there.
Andrew Legge:
:You know, 100% that's been the case for us. And, you know, I think, you know, four or five years ago when we started talking more to the consumers, it was a real sort of, you know, live or die moment for us. And so, you know, again, we had this experience of knowing that it would work well, when we you know, we're talking to homeowners, but we weren't having the conversation enough and there wasn't enough awareness and education. And so, you know, now I think that we know that the product is well received. It's commonly referred to on the installation side as borderline fun. And there is no insulation that gets that tag, right?
Todd Miller:
:Ha, no.
Andrew Legge:
:And we really do have a following. And again, it's on the back of this amazing fiber. Right? And for us, we're just trying to be good stewards of this incredible opportunity to make insulation out of wool and offer it to people. You know, are we going to take 10% market share in the $17 billion market in the U.S.? Absolutely not. There isn't enough wool. You know, are we going to grow into what we would hope to see as a very fun business where it's a fun place to work, we're dealing with the fun product, we're offering people, you know, this much better option and can we grow significantly from where we are today? For sure. Can we expand to grabbing different wool clips around the world and maybe producing there? Yes, that is a hope. But really, you know, you know, one of your questions is what do I do with my my time? Sorry to sort of front run it, but.
Todd Miller:
:No, you're good.
Andrew Legge:
:What do I do with my time to stay busy? And I've always had a lot of interest in the sort of impact space, you know, in terms of running a business that's impactful. And, you know, we think about Ben and Jerry's and Patagonia and, you know, Dr. Brenner's Soap and like as that has developed over the last ten years, I just think it's really fun to sit in that space now and think about, you know, the the old days of, you know Wall Street barbarians at the gate, you know, get big corporate takeovers, you know, rah, rah, rah, rah. Like, you know, I grew up in that space, you know, outside of New York City. And, you know, there's been so much evolution now to more of this like, let's run an impactful business and let's be profitable, but let's really enjoy, you know, everything that goes along with that. And, you know, there's plenty of businesses out there these days that that have have given us a path to follow. And so I think it's really interesting to be going through that, that line of thinking right now. And so for me, there's a long runway, back to your question, for us to run against and to build a business of certainly much more significant size than than we have today. But we're not trying to be a billion-dollar company. We're not trying to, you know, replace the the big incumbents in the insulation market, like that's we don't see that as our job. You know, is there an opportunity to do that and, you know, bring other natural fibers into the equation and, you know, build around that? Yeah, probably. But, you know, we're ten steps shy of thinking like that. You know, right now we're just really excited about some new equipment that we bought, which is almost fully arrived. And, you know, this stuff travels in 17 containers and occupies 15,000 square feet of space. And that's almost all here. And we're going to set that up and we're going to start adding to our suite of products as a result of that. And then we'll kind of see where that takes us. But, you know, on the one hand, you would look at this like, Wow, we've been doing this for ten years. That's a long time. You know, what's taking so long? And on the other hand, you know, we've been very practical and conservative in, you know, sort of stair stepping our way through this. And, you know, we've created a backlog in our production and our sales because demand is running ahead of what we're capable of doing, which is why we've now brought in this new piece of equipment. So I think for us, we can grow significantly. I think we can add a lot more to, you know, the integrity of structures being built and that will continue. That's been our goal and it'll continue to be our goal, you know, until we really press into, you know, needing more raw material.
Seth Heckaman:
:You mentioned there not being enough wool. That was a question I was kicking or, you know, bouncing around in my head. How many sheep does this take? I don't even know what the metric would be, but sheep haircuts per house or, you know, one haircut per lineal foot of a 16 inch on center you know, studs. I was just curious how far this goes.
Andrew Legge:
:Good question. I mean, I can give you some some, I can't draw the line for you and I should be able to. So my apologies. But, you know, a haircut happens every five months, so just call it twice a year. That tends to be about 5kg or 10lbs. And then it varies between batts and blow-in. But you're, you know, think about like one and a quarter pounds per cubic foot is our density. So, you know, New Zealand has 30 million sheep and those numbers are coming down. Eastern Europe has a lot of wool. Australia has a lot of wool. China has a lot of wool. North America has a very little bit of wool, but there is some here and we would love to be processing it. And that new machinery that I mentioned will allow us to be a little bit less particular about the consistency of the wool, right? So if there's a little bit more vermin there, as long as our clientele can tolerate it, we can make it. And we expect I mean, we get calls from around the world, you know, probably twice a week these days saying, hey, can we do something with you guys and we want you, but we need to be careful and we need to, you know, be good at running in this facility and then grow from here in a, you know, practical and manageable way.
Todd Miller:
:So I want to back up a little bit. And we touched on it earlier, as far as the moisture handling characteristics. And, you know, that's a topic that we end up talking to folks a lot about as a roofing manufacturer. We're talking about ventilation and moisture. So how does wool handle moisture? I assume it; tell me a little bit about that, how that works.
Andrew Legge:
:Yeah. I mean again it's the follicles in the construct of the fiber and you know one, that allows for the moisture management to occur so effectively. It's also great for sound, right. Because every time sound bounces off something it's dispersed right. And so literally it goes flying into that fiber and bounces around versus, you know, back to that spaghetti where it might bounce into the fiber and bounce right back off. And then literally the the moisture piece, you know, it's yes, it's moisture. But, you know, it's think about the elements, you know, hot, cold, wet, dry like this fiber has been on the back of a sheep evolving literally over thousands of years to protect from all of these elements. So like I'll wear like a long sleeve wool base layer to go hiking in the summer. You know, I live in Tahoe and it can be really hot when you get up on the on the hillside. And I'm still incredibly comfortable. So wool is literally managing this for you, you know, whether it be something next to your skin or a blanket that you're throwing over yourself to stay warm on the couch or if it's in the walls of your house.
Todd Miller:
:Very interesting. Well, it's apparent to me that, you know, your whole ethos about your company is to do things right and and do them well. And that is your goal and I love that. Great to hear that and you're right. Lots of leading companies out there taking a similar tact. And so that's fantastic. Well, this has been really informative. We're close to wrapping up sort of what we call the business end of things. Is there anything we haven't covered yet today that you would like to share with our audience?
Andrew Legge:
:I think sustainability, you know, is is forever becoming a part of our discussion in the built environment. And you know what? What really is the life cycle of these products? And, you know, the built environment is obviously a huge contributor to greenhouse gases. And in turn, one would assume climate change. You know, that conversation can get political, which, you know, is never our goal. Right. But we are very aware of, you know, the weather and extreme weather events and the fact that they're on the rise. In fact, I was in New Zealand in February right after the cyclone hit, and it was absolutely devastating to see what happened there. So I think that, you know, as sustainability, you know, more and more washes on shore. I tried to get to Europe at least once a year. It's very prevalent in the discussion there, you know, in life, but certainly in building. And every time I come home, I'm, you know, I pound the table and say, we need to do more. We need to do more. Well, I think that's happening. You know, we've been really focused on this for a long time. But I was literally reading about a ski jacket the other night made by a company that I'm a big fan of called Mammut. It's a Swiss company. And I mean, three times in a little blurb to explain the jacket, they're talking about, you know, the environment and sustainability. And I just think that that's where a long, long run demand is going. And I think that, you know, people are becoming more and more aware of that. And it's really great to see it start to make its way into the conversation that we're a part of, not because it serves our interests, but because that's why we got into this. And when you look at, you know, environmental product declarations, I mean, they're still skewed and they're unfair and they, you know, cater to, you know, the companies that don't have as much of a sustainability story. But it's okay because they're going to figure it out, you know, or they're going to go away because I think that demand is going to require that things change. And so for us, you know, that doesn't happen, you know. Every hour of the day that we sit here and we have conversations. But it is cumulative and it is adding up and we can really feel it in what we do. And it's really fun to see more and more companies come into the fold. And frankly, I think it just makes our job easier. So, you know, we're not sitting around saying, okay, great, we've been out ahead of the wave and now the wave is catching up so we can just keep put our feet up. You know, quite the opposite. We're trying to push further into the discussion and become more aware and understand better, you know, new building practices, you know, But, you know, for example, Passive House and, you know, the adoption of what's going on in that type of building. And so I just I think it's really inspiring to see that, you know, the world is changing and people are trying to do better. And we are one very small component of that, you know, proudly were were part of the discussion. But it's much bigger than us. And I think it's really cool to see that people are starting to pay attention. And sure, you know, it's not mainstream, but it's becoming much easier to find ways to build better. And, you know, we see it happening every day and I think that's inspiring.
Todd Miller:
:Oh, absolutely. And I love what you guys are doing. And we will do all we can to tell the story of have like all out there. So.
Andrew Legge:
:Well, yeah, we don't need to, you know, you know, we don't need to create some phantom environment where, you know, we're, you know, obfuscating the truth. The reality is, you know, we continue to see people build. They continue to think about cost as a main driver. And so, you know, the education part is really, really, really important because, you know, these things do get cheaper as adoption goes up. You know, we've seen that with solar panels. You know, we see that in, you know, forget about the products, like a contractor if you want to build, you know, to a passive house standard or something close to it, it can be very hard to find somebody to even do the work. And that's all changing. So things are very happily, sorry I'm being redundant, but I'm just, I get so excited about it and things are moving in the right direction and there are great avenues and places to learn. So if people want to do a better job with their building, like the opportunities are there.
Todd Miller:
:Very good. Well, thank you so much. Before we close out, though, I have to ask you if you are interested in participating in something a little fun we do at the end of every episode called our rapid fire questions. These are seven questions. Andrew has no idea we're going to ask. So are you up to the questions?
Andrew Legge:
:Oh yeah, for sure. I love this stuff.
Todd Miller:
:Let's do it. We will alternate asking. Seth, you want to ask number one?
Seth Heckaman:
:Sure. Question number one. Rob, what product have you bought in recent memory that has been a disruptor or game changer for you?
Andrew Legge:
:A company called Reel. I buy paper towels and toilet paper from them. They're made out of bamboo and they deliver them on a schedule that I choose directly to my house.
Todd Miller:
:Very good. Shout out to Reel. I'll check that out. Question number two. What would you ultimately like to be remembered for?
Andrew Legge:
:Ah, I have a background in curiosity and I find myself typically going against the flow. So, you know, I'd like to be remembered as someone who was, you know, unafraid to try to change things for the better.
Todd Miller:
:Love that.
Seth Heckaman:
:Fantastic.
Todd Miller:
:Love that.
Seth Heckaman:
:What was the first car you ever owned?
Andrew Legge:
:An Isuzu Trooper.
Seth Heckaman:
:That's easy.
Andrew Legge:
:If anybody's trying to break into my bank accounts, I think that's one of the questions. But sadly, I'll tell you, there isn't much there, so I wouldn't waste much time on it.
Todd Miller:
:The Trooper was sort of a truck, wasn't it?
Andrew Legge:
:Yeah, it was like a SUV, early stage SUV, and it was five speed.
Todd Miller:
:Okay. I remember it now, sure. Very good. Okay, next question. Is this me again? Okay. Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Andrew Legge:
:Morning.
Todd Miller:
:Very good.
Andrew Legge:
:Although living in Asia, you learn to burn the candle at both ends because there's a lot of work and a lot of fun to be had. But for sure, both my wife and I are morning people.
Todd Miller:
:Very good.
Seth Heckaman:
:You've traveled a lot of places. What is one place you would most like to visit again?
Andrew Legge:
:Hmm. Yeah, I have been very lucky to see a good portion of the world. My wife and I actually are in somewhat of a competition, and we're both right around, we're just over 40 countries.
Todd Miller:
:Wow.
Seth Heckaman:
:Wow.
Andrew Legge:
:New Zealand is my easiest answer here, because it's my favorite place on the planet. But, you know, of all the trips that I've been lucky enough to do, the one that really stands out is like, if I had to choose tomorrow, like, what trip would I redo? I guess a few years ago, I got to go skiing in Alaska and it's next level amazing up there.
Seth Heckaman:
:Very cool.
Todd Miller:
:Very good. Next to last question, I'm going to change it up here a little bit, Seth. This is one of my favorites. So you are trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. Who is the one person you most want to make sure is on your team?
Andrew Legge:
:I have a friend who is Australian who became a very good friend in the days living in Asia, and he's now actually in Portugal. We were just over visiting last summer and I just always describe him as the guy. Like if you needed somebody standing next to you within the next 24 hours and you know you were going to war, so to speak. I've never been to war, so I'm not really allowed to say that. But let's just say hypothetically, you know, and you had one phone call and you needed the person to be there within 24 hours. Who would it be? It's this person.
Todd Miller:
:Very interesting. It's like a Swiss Army knife human.
Andrew Legge:
:His name's Andrew. I'll just say that. It's another Andrew.
Seth Heckaman:
:Last question. Do you prefer the top or bottom half of the bagel?
Andrew Legge:
:Oh, wow. What a great question. Every once in a while, my son and I get bagels and I always debatte, you know, Oh, which one am I going to give to him? And it's this debatte of like, should he get the better one or should I get the better one? And I think that the view is that the top half is better.
Todd Miller:
:Yeah, that's where I am, too. Not everyone feels that way, though.
Andrew Legge:
:I like the bottom too.
Todd Miller:
:Good deal. Well, we need to recap our challenge words. Seth, did you get yours in?
Seth Heckaman:
:I did. I think I was first.
Todd Miller:
:You did.
Seth Heckaman:
:I had Alphabet.
Todd Miller:
:Were you really?
Andrew Legge:
:You were, you were. You talked about some form of the alphabet.
Todd Miller:
:See how good you were. I didn't even catch it. I worked mine in. My word was captivate. Andrew, you were also successful. Your word was...
Andrew Legge:
:Phantom. And I had to really stretch. That was a tough one. And I'm not really sure it was relevant, but I went for it anyway.
Seth Heckaman:
:I want to point out Andrew did his challenge word phantom in a sentence that also included naturally obfuscate. So he's one-upping us. Yes. So that's a yes.
Andrew Legge:
:Well remember that I thought about throwing out heteroskedasicity.
Seth Heckaman:
:I'm very grateful you didn't. But, yeah.
Andrew Legge:
:It was in jest. So, yeah, no, that that's a great thing you guys do. And literally, I sat here thinking the entire time, like, how am I going to say phantom?
Todd Miller:
:Well, you worked it in perfectly.
Andrew Legge:
:Oh, that was fun.
Todd Miller:
:Andrew, this has been great, very eye-opening. Fantastic to hear about your product and what you're doing. So for folks who want to get in touch with Havelock Wool, how can they most easily do that?
Andrew Legge:
:You know, as a direct to consumer play, we really have evolved the way we do things such that, you know, we try to be very informative on our website. We encourage you to look at it because we we get all sorts of questions all day, every day. And we literally, you know, it's not real time, but we try to make sure that those things find their way onto the site into places that are easy for people to find so they can get their questions answered. Because the reality is a lot of the questions are the same, you know, with the slightest deviation and so on. The, we hope that you can find what you need there. But if you can't, there's lots of ways there to figure out how to contact us. And we're very happy to to answer your questions and you know we'll do our best and hopefully that leads to us being able to provide a product that you're interested in. And maybe it's just a conversation about cool ways to build and you end up doing something else. But we're here trying to offer ourselves, you know, as an educational resource, we will stop short of, you know, saying what we can't say, right? We're not building scientists. We're in the discussion all the time. We get questions that are building science related. We have resources that we lean on and we connect the dots or we help with the answer. But we try to be very informative, but we don't step out of our our comfort zone and and, you know, try and be something that would be misleading, potentially.
Todd Miller:
:Fantastic. Well, the website is havelockwool.com, is that correct?
Andrew Legge:
:That's correct.
Todd Miller:
:it's a great website. I have been on it. I loved it. I love the whole feeling that you created with your brand. Just top notch. Good stuff. And you're right. You are just putting the information out there. And I love it. So.
Andrew Legge:
:Yeah. Thanks. We're trying hard and we really appreciate it and we really appreciate being here. You know, we say all the time we need a bigger microphone. And, you know, you guys are helping and both of your microphones are bigger than mine. I can see by this.
Todd Miller:
:I can't hide behind it a little bit.
Andrew Legge:
:So we really do appreciate it. And, you know, we're here doing our best to have fun every day. And anybody who wants to stop in is always welcome. And otherwise we'll just keep at it and hope that, you know, we can we can keep, you know, expanding the realm of those who are informed.
Todd Miller:
:Well, this has been great. Very, very informative and fantastic discussion. Thank you so much. And I want to thank our audience, too, for tuning into this episode of Construction Disruption with Andrew Legge of Havelock Wool, disrupting construction as a manufacturer of wool insulation. Please watch for future episodes of our podcast. We're always blessed with great guests. Don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Until the next time we're together. Keep on disrupting, keep on changing things out there. Don't forget to have a positive impact on everyone you encounter. Make them smile, encourage them. Simple yet powerful things you can do to change the world. God bless and take care. This is Isaiah Industries signing off until the next episode of Construction Disruption.
Todd Miller:
:Intro/Outro: This podcast is produced by Isaiah Industries, manufacturer of specialty metal roofing and other building products.