[00:00:00] Dom Rybak: It's around the house. There's no matter

[00:00:08] Eric Goranson: that that's there. I mean, that's,

[00:00:10] Dom Rybak: yeah. So that was, uh, 397, uh, uh, pound of square foot, uh, worth of withdrawal. And um, that's like a, a couple hundred mile an hour. Hurricane wind. So

[00:00:25] Eric Goranson: you got way other bigger problems in the neighborhood when that's happening. Yeah.

[00:00:29] Dom Rybak: Yeah. If your sheer panels are flying off the framing, then I can't, I can't help .

[00:00:35] Eric Goranson: You'll know which panels yours cuz they'll still have a evolved stone hook to 'em.

[00:00:38] Dom Rybak: Yeah, does the stone. The stone will still be on it. You just, you know, if anyone's still a lot around, they can

[00:00:45] Eric Goranson: pick em back up and you know, found your wall two and a half miles away.

[00:00:48] Eric Goranson: It's still got your stone on it. .

[00:00:51] Dom Rybak: It's an unintentional breakaway wall. Exactly. Exactly. When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to [00:01:00] know, but we've got you covered. This is around

[00:01:03] Eric Goranson: the house. Welcome to Around the House with Eric G. This is where we talk everything about your home every single week.

[00:01:10] Eric Goranson: Thanks for joining us today. We've got a friend here in the studio that I worked with down in Florida that I had a blast with. Do. From a evolve stone, welcome to Around the House, brother.

[00:01:24] Dom Rybak: Thanks. Thanks a ton for having me. Yeah, it's, it was, uh, it was quite the trip down to the UHS EBC show and. I'm glad we connected and I'm happy to, happy to be on.

[00:01:33] Dom Rybak: Dude,

[00:01:33] Eric Goranson: we had a blast down there, up on stage, and I got to learn more about your product as well, of uh, what you guys are doing. Let's talk about you minute before we jump into a evolve stone. What, what got you into home improvement and construction and stuff. What's your history, man? Cause I can tell you got a deep one.

[00:01:48] Dom Rybak: I came outta school like a lot of people do with a my, my Bachelor degree and, and. , it was, it was a business degree and I, I didn't know where to go with it and what to do. And, [00:02:00] um, you know, my, my best friend's father had a contracting business, and I, I always thought about it. It was always in the back of my mind.

[00:02:08] Dom Rybak: And, and I finally, you know, I said yes, and I came board and, uh, and it, it didn't take very long for me to realize, Oh, there's, there's some money to be made here. Um, and, and the projects that they do are phenomenal. You know, one of the. High end builders in the, the DC metro area. Cool. You know, if you've got, uh, if you've got 10 billionaires in that area, five of them are, you know, building homes with, uh, horizon builders.

[00:02:36] Dom Rybak: And, and that's kind of where I got my start. Um, I became the defacto. Uh, waterproofing, um, an enclosure. Mm-hmm. , uh, guy over there. Nice. Um, and I was there for three years and I learned a ton. You know, George, uh, we call, I call him H two. No. He's, he's a huge hater of, of, of, uh, water and moisture and vapor and all [00:03:00] the things that, you know, that he's learned over his 40, ah, I don't know, 45 years of.

[00:03:06] Dom Rybak: Of doing it so nice. He downloaded a lot of that knowledge on me and we even had a, a lab that we're, uh, doing testing on, in, in, uh, in the, uh, greater Baltimore area. And I've just learned a ton. Just, you know, an absolute ton. And then, uh, took that knowledge with me into the, uh, into the manufacturing.

[00:03:27] Eric Goranson: Nice man.

[00:03:28] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Cuz you were handling tools up on stage. You know, I, I deal with a lot of guys up there that are, you know, more on the corporate side and you can tell the guys that have, uh, done it for real and the guys that have done it from the boardroom, if you know what I mean. And, uh, you can tell you've, uh, done this before, if you know what I mean.

[00:03:44] Dom Rybak: Yeah. Once or twice. So it's, it's funny because, you know, it stateside, um, you know, construction and contracting. There's, you know, there are plenty of opportunities for apprenticeship and journeymen and all this, you [00:04:00] know, you know, getting trained and honing your trade. Um, but a lot of times, especially with like smaller operations mm-hmm.

[00:04:09] Dom Rybak: um, it's trial by fire. You get out there and you pick it up and you pay attention and you observe, and the better you are at doing that, you know, the. Better your career will go. Yeah. And uh, yeah, there was no formal, there was no formal training. You know, you get yelled at a little bit and then you figure it out.

[00:04:29] Dom Rybak: dude,

[00:04:29] Eric Goranson: that's, but that's 75% of people that are, that are in residential construction. Right. That are in remodeling and building. I mean, electricians and plumbers sometimes if they're union, they've got a journeyman status and they've got a kind of a path. But, uh, So many people out there start, you know, maybe they didn't even start with college like you did, but so many people out there that I know started out hauling wheelbarrows and hauling stuff up onto the roof and then they got into going, Hey, maybe I can put a tool belt on.

[00:04:55] Eric Goranson: And they just learned and all of a sudden they're the master.

[00:04:59] Dom Rybak: [00:05:00] Yeah, you have to, sometimes you have to dig a couple ditches and, and you know, I got to do, I got to do a lot. Um, and it, as far as the waterproofing goes, like I remember at a certain point I had around my neck, one of those mill gauge, you know.

[00:05:16] Dom Rybak: Nice. So, so you're spraying the, you know, you're spraying the stuff below grade and you have to make sure that it's the certain thickness. And, you know, I had that around my nice people making fun, but I, you know, those kinds of things. But so spraying foam and. Um, spraying, waterproofing and understanding, you know, working closely with the other trades.

[00:05:36] Dom Rybak: Like we had a great, uh, a great roofer, uh, sub that did a lot of the work with those guys, and he had the understanding of the building science and, and, uh, as a, as the general contractor, you know, you're in charge of. Um, making sure any penetrations in the house are, are, you know, taken care of and all that kind of stuff was, you know, falling back on on me.

[00:05:57] Dom Rybak: So you had to learn. You had to learn quick cuz [00:06:00] those, you know, the tighter and tighter people are making these homes. It becomes a problem when it magnifies that problem of, of some kind of a leak or some kind of moisture intrusion. You know, it can, it can be very, very costly. When you're home so tight and you've got this hydrostatic pressure that you know is drawn all this stuff in, you have to pay attention closely

[00:06:22] Eric Goranson: to what you done.

[00:06:23] Eric Goranson: You can have a very unhealthy home really quickly. If, uh, if all the details were not covered from waterproofing to ventilation, you know, they all go hand in hand in that system.

[00:06:33] Dom Rybak: Yeah. And we have, we have a manual over at Horizon Builders now, Like something like that about the waterproofing details. Just making something that's repeatable.

[00:06:42] Dom Rybak: Yep. Uh, and, and, and almost common knowledge. Almost tribal knowledge. Yeah. But common knowledge for, for the, for the guys that are seeing that work, the, uh, the, the, uh, the supers, the supers on site, they are, are vigilant and paying attention to, you know, everything that has to be [00:07:00] done by this book,

[00:07:01] Eric Goranson: you know?

[00:07:02] Eric Goranson: Nice. Gotta have the book and that's how you keep everybody heading north. Well, let's talk a little bit about a evolve Stone Man, because you know, I've heard about it, I've seen about it in the trade shows and, and watching you work with it at the trade show up there is super cool. Let's talk about this cuz you know, there's, we have such a hard time finding trades out there to show up on job sites.

[00:07:23] Eric Goranson: I mean, I know. Right now people that are trying to get electricians off at one job site, I know somebody that's trying to get a, a drywall to show up at another, trying to get the mason out there as well. And you guys have come up with a solution that looks just like a mason was there, but it's a nail on option.

[00:07:42] Dom Rybak: Yeah, so the material has a, uh, a long history in the nineties. Uh, this stuff, uh, came about by a sculptor who was working up in, uh, New England in, in Southbridge, Mass. And he, uh, developed this material that. You know, he was creating [00:08:00] stuff like uht, taxidermy, mounts, you know, Uhhuh, his father was a, a big game taxidermist and nice.

[00:08:06] Dom Rybak: He just, he was like, I can make a better rock. Cuz they're buying these bases that are just shiny, you know, Roto formed Yeah. Stuff, you know exactly what it boring. Yeah. And so, you know, this material, um, as it was developed by those guys, You know, went from being this taxidermy, uh, uh, bases Yeah. To custom climbing walls.

[00:08:31] Dom Rybak: And now we're into the theming world, and now we're into the Smithsonian world and we're doing all this, uh, uh, stuff with, uh, adventure parks and, and even, um, you know, we have a, we have a playground business. So it, it developed into a bunch of these things. And when we came on, my CEO, Greg, he goes. Take a look at this material.

[00:08:52] Dom Rybak: I, he showed me some of this, uh, some of this stone. And take a look at this. He goes, You think we could do anything with this? And I go, [00:09:00] You know what? I bet we could. And uh, we went up to Southbridge, Mass, learned how to make the material. Um, we had to deal with him to, uh, uh, take over the playground line.

[00:09:13] Dom Rybak: Mm-hmm. . And we still have a, a thriving playground business today. Uh, evolve play. And uh, we went from that. Now that's back in, that's back in 2013. Wow. Um, and we, it took that long to develop. Test do all the ICC stuff and, and everything to make everybody happy to get this product onto the market. Nice.

[00:09:37] Dom Rybak: We've been able to make it for forever. Yeah. But all the development, I mean, that took, you know, about seven years

[00:09:44] Eric Goranson: time. You know, it's funny, the development stuff is the hard part. I mean, you think about even automakers, they spend seven to 10 years building a car to get it through its own process, just to get it out as.

[00:09:57] Eric Goranson: So the whole process on a vehicle [00:10:00] is no different than what you guys have to go through because there's, they have all these tests. You have all these tests, but when you, when you're done, it's a beautiful product. And, uh, if you guys haven't seen it out there, it looks like stone. I mean, if you stand there and you're looking at it looks like it's a piece of rock,

[00:10:15] Dom Rybak: man.

[00:10:17] Dom Rybak: Yeah. So the cool part is, so we mold off of it, that material that we make. We can make almost anything that, uh, natural replications, right? If I can mold it, I can color match it, I can recreate it. Uh, that is our bread and butter, uh, for, for the evolved stone, uh, product line. Um, Yeah, we, we mold off a natural stone.

[00:10:42] Dom Rybak: That's why you have those textures and those shapes and, and, uh, everything, uh, that makes it look so dang realistic. I'm, and I never get tired. I, I got, I saw it with you. I, I, I didn't get to see Walt's, uh, first reaction. But anytime you hand somebody the piece of stone, they go, Holy smokes, [00:11:00] cuz they're ready.

[00:11:01] Dom Rybak: You know, their body is ready to get, you know, piece of Yeah, you're, you're ready for this stone piece of rock. Yeah. And you check 'em a rock that weighs like, you know, so we're, we're like, uh, two pounds of square foot. You check em, you check 'em, a rock that weighs nothing. That floats legitimately floats and and the, the look on their face.

[00:11:20] Dom Rybak: I, I never get tired of that. And, and also it's, it's how realistic it looks. It, it plays a trick on your mind. And I can't tell you how many times that. Done these little one off projects where I have to match color for color, you know, a piece of slate or, or, um, or a tree or certain bark or something like that.

[00:11:40] Dom Rybak: And I get it to the point where I'll put three of them out there and say, All right, which one's the, which one's real and which one's fake? And everyone will. Uh, that one's the, Oh, that's the one that's the replication. And I go, No, they're all replications that I just made the real ones over here. Nice.

[00:11:57] Dom Rybak: You know what I mean? So, so you can, [00:12:00] the, the outstanding equality of that material is how naturalistic it looks. Yeah. And we get that by forming off of. Um, not just the material and the color process and the manufacturing process, but a, a lot of it is the fact in which we're, we're molding from the, from the natural stone.

[00:12:20] Dom Rybak: Yeah.

[00:12:20] Eric Goranson: It was fun when we did that seminar, cause I had you throw a piece at me like I was gonna catch it and then I pretend like I wasn't. Paying attention hit me in the chest. People are like,

[00:12:30] Dom Rybak: Whoa. Yeah, you, that, that is the reaction that you see. And, and that is, I mean, I've given the pitch a billion times and you can get, you know, worn out on something like that, but you never get tired of that.

[00:12:44] Dom Rybak: Look, I, there was a guy doing, uh, we're at a Exxon station, uh, in the, in this Virginia market, and there was a guy doing. He's doing stone columns around the, the pumps. Mm-hmm. , right. And he's working [00:13:00] over there and, and he's got his, uh, lick and stick stone in a pile there. And I, I just happen to have one in the truck and I take my stone and I tuck it over in his pile and.

[00:13:11] Dom Rybak: He looks at it for a second, you know, cuz the back looked different than the back of the things that he had. He looks at it, he picks it up and he almost hit himself in the face. Cause it didn't wait. You know, I went and had a, I went and had a conversation with him and he was like, you know, this is four years ago before we even really got out on the market out there.

[00:13:30] Dom Rybak: And I, you know, seeing that reaction as organic as it was, you know, that that's what, that's what makes you, you know, You know that that's what makes you really excited for the, for the product that you

[00:13:42] Eric Goranson: have. What I love about this is that you can absolutely transform everything from the front of your house to a living room, to a mailbox stand out in front.

[00:13:54] Eric Goranson: There are so many things you can do with this. And you're literally just using the same [00:14:00] tools you'd use around the house. There's no stone saws, there's no nothing. And as long as you do the construction process, right, you got something that's gonna last a heck of a long time.

[00:14:09] Dom Rybak: So here's what I've seen.

[00:14:11] Dom Rybak: Now that the product's been around a little bit and we're gaining some steam and some notoriety, and I'm talking to contractors every day, the. The siding guys love it. Right? Because now that, now it's now the siding guys can do the stone. Yeah. A lot of times the masons are, you know, They're hesitant at first, and then they can see that, Oh, I can do a fireplace.

[00:14:33] Dom Rybak: They, we have a Class B fire rated product. Yep. Oh, I could do a fireplace in a morning and a fire, Another fireplace in the afternoon. What with a finish nailer. Yeah. Um, and, and a chop saw with a vacuum. You can take the stuff right in the house. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. You're not making a mess.

[00:14:49] Dom Rybak: It's cutting like wood.

[00:14:51] Eric Goranson: Yeah. You're not outside and. 21 degrees outside with a wet saw trying to keep that thing from making a mess inside. You're in there just with a chops [00:15:00] on a dust collector, and you're knocking the thing out.

[00:15:03] Dom Rybak: You're not worried about, you're not worried about your, uh, your scratch coat.

[00:15:07] Dom Rybak: You're not hanging the laugh. You know, I, I didn't, uh, get this experience in my contracting days, but, you know, cutting laugh. it, this, it's gotta be one of the most painstaking, uh, uh, uh, layout, pe you know, early stages of your project, uh, that exists. And then you're doing your, then you're doing your first coat, and then you gotta wait for that to, to cure.

[00:15:33] Dom Rybak: And then you gotta come back the next day and you gotta, you know, put that up and then, and then you can finally get started on your stone. Yeah. Um, for us, Is, is your surface ready, uh, for exterior? That means, you know, you and Wal had had a conversation about, um, uh, your weather-resistant barriers. Yep. So for us, yes, we, we absolutely want a, uh, a good superior type one, type two weather resisted barrier, and then we have [00:16:00] our own rain screen.

[00:16:01] Dom Rybak: Um, I like it because it's black. Mm-hmm. , uh, it's, it's got a hydrophobic facing cool. And then it's got the, uh, the drainage gap behind that and. First year you're ready to shoot your stone. Um, you find level, level around the house, pick a spot you can work left to right. You can work from the middle of a wall down or up.

[00:16:21] Dom Rybak: Uh, you can start at the el window, elevations with some sills. You know, we, we have a a, we have sills that just, you know, honestly just get face screwed. Right on. Yep. And, um, you can start there and, and put it on just like siding. What's

[00:16:36] Eric Goranson: cool is that this isn't like at click lock, so you don't have to worry about.

[00:16:40] Eric Goranson: Filling it in between. You can literally go one direction and then just go with it and not have to worry about, you know, going in a certain order, which I like. Yeah.

[00:16:50] Dom Rybak: So there, there's not, You get 14 and a quarter square feet right now are in a box, right? Okay. We've got four styles and four colors. What I recommend anyone [00:17:00] doing on their first job, and this is what I do on site when I'm meeting builders and installers or even dealers and what have you, anyone who's willing.

[00:17:08] Dom Rybak: Come see and learn about the product. I dump a box right out on a sheet of plywood and I just start clicking stones kind of randomly. But all I'm trying to do is, um, you know, stagger my, my vertical and, and horizontal scenes on most of them. The styles have a similar theme, right? It's a running bound.

[00:17:28] Dom Rybak: It's kind of like, like, uh, maybe like brick or flooring, even flooring. Great example. Yeah. Anything that, Or tile even. Yeah. Um, you know, these are just different shaped tiles and, and there's no grout. You're just shooting it up with the, uh, stainless steel finish now 16 gauge, um, right through the stone.

[00:17:47] Dom Rybak: And it counter sinks perfectly. And, you know, based on the color of the stone, you're, you're not seeing the nail heads.

[00:17:56] Eric Goranson: And that's why I think that I want everybody to, to [00:18:00] grab the tip that you just gave a minute ago. That black back layer I think is very important because, you know, with your w b that's up there being black, you don't have, you know, there's, there's a micro gap between each piece when it goes together.

[00:18:15] Eric Goranson: Now you don't have something back there that's got any color to it, or white or anything like that. You've got that black layer that's just now a shadow. .

[00:18:23] Dom Rybak: Yeah. And depending on the quality of your installer, you know, these guys are gonna go fast. So, um, and they know where they can get away with having a gap or a crack.

[00:18:33] Dom Rybak: Sure. You know, when, when you're 40 feet up in the air on a, on a, on a chimney, um, they might get a little bit gappy, but if you have that black, um, you know, rain screen behind it, or, or even a gray, I know. Uh, I know, uh, DuPont has, has one that's gray. What you don't want is, you know, if if Dow made one, it would be pink.

[00:18:52] Dom Rybak: Yep. And you're gonna see it. You're gonna see it. Or, or, um, you know, uh, Owen's Corning, what made one, It'd be pink. If Dow made one, it would be, [00:19:00] you know, baby blue and you'd see it. And the. Headlights would flash on it as you're coming down the driveway and you'd get, you'd get upset. Absolutely. So, so, so this black rain screen just happens to have our name on it and uh, it's part of the 50 year warranty is this system, right?

[00:19:15] Dom Rybak: Yeah. I got a type one, type two weathered barrier. Yep. My eighth inch rain screen. Uh, currently eighth inch with a hydrophobic facing mm-hmm. . And then, um, you know, cuz those gaps and cracks, we know that during a wind driven rain event, the water's gonna go through there a hundred percent. and now we're giving it that drainage plane somewhere to, you know, drain and rapidly dry when the sun comes back out.

[00:19:39] Dom Rybak: Yeah. Uh, you don't wanna hold that, You do not wanna hold moisture against your wall, as we've seen in these homes that are tighter and tighter every day. Not to mention we're putting, you know, fasteners in it just like you would with siding. So you don't want to create anywhere for hydrostatic pressure to build that is.

[00:19:56] Dom Rybak: You know, a page right from the book of, of Dr. Joe's, you know, [00:20:00] Perfect wall that, you know, this system has been tested and tested and tested and electively tested, and also forced, forcefully tested by icc. Yep. So, you know, everyone's very, very happy from a building science perspective. Uh, installers are happy because, you know, you're not having callbacks once when, when you have a rain screen and it's becoming code, you've, you're gonna see.

[00:20:23] Dom Rybak: Uh, IRC 2021 in June, uh, requirement for a rain screen. Now, you know that enforcing those things takes time, but you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna start to see that. Um, and that's gonna, needs, needs to happen

[00:20:38] Eric Goranson: because you've gotta give a place for that water to go. And this is all about controlling that moisture and giving it an out, getting it a place to get some air back there.

[00:20:48] Eric Goranson: Let it dry out and not just have something that's gonna sit there and get moldy and mucky and nasty in time. And now you've got a, now you've got an issue with a wall.

[00:20:59] Dom Rybak: Yeah. Not [00:21:00] just, not just water in the form of, of rain. Uh, but you know, this, this material is, you know, home based out of Massachusetts.

[00:21:08] Dom Rybak: Right. They're under four feet of snow for a couple of, a couple of months. They can be anyway. Yeah. And yeah, you don't want, you know, that snow piled up against the house without, somewhere to, uh, either turn into ice, expand and contract. You know, you have to give it a, you have to give it an out. And part of that is, you know, continuity in your control layers.

[00:21:32] Dom Rybak: You have to have it. Well, it's,

[00:21:34] Eric Goranson: it's no different than Portland, Oregon, where I'm at here, If we sit here, if I look November through April, we could have 50 days of. Every day it's raining. It is not dry out. It could be a missed one day, it could be a half inch the next day, but it is how you test stuff to see if it works or not.

[00:21:56] Eric Goranson: And uh, that's where that rain screen really helps out because [00:22:00] when we get into summer, I mean, we've, we've had probably in the last 75 days, one or two days of a little bit of rain, but that's it. So we're dry, dry season. Wet season. It's almost like a pool. It's just

[00:22:13] Dom Rybak: gonna be, It's around the corner too.

[00:22:14] Dom Rybak: Yeah. It, it, it starts for you right after Halloween, right? Yeah, sometimes

[00:22:18] Eric Goranson: it'll go, usually right after Halloween. Um, it could be as early as mid-October, but usually about Halloween it starts to get in there and that's when the raining season comes, and then it's boom and we'll get some snow mixed in.

[00:22:31] Eric Goranson: But it's just usually the water driven and. Where we have a big problem with, with new construction here, cuz we, we'll see a multi-family unit that's five or six stories that's, you know, stick framed and by the time they get the tresses on that building, the bottom two layers of OSB are block just because of the water that's been sitting on 'em for three or four weeks as they frame.

[00:22:53] Eric Goranson: And so it's just like it was sitting in the dirt.

[00:22:55] Dom Rybak: It's just nasty. You have to consider either getting it wrapped up real quick or, [00:23:00] you know, I know, I know. Zip makes their, uh, Huber makes their, their product that their products. Well, that works pretty well for those, for those situations. But yeah, I, I took my clo, I flew into Portland to meet with dealers, contractors.

[00:23:14] Dom Rybak: Outside sales guys in that territory. I brought my golf clubs. What a waste of time. . Yeah. I think it was, I think it was November. And it just, every day it's like nonstop. You, you know, you'll

[00:23:27] Eric Goranson: see 'em out there playing golf, but they, it's, it's, it's like the guys out playing golf with a dark ball in the snow.

[00:23:33] Eric Goranson: You gotta be die diehard and know what you're getting out into.

[00:23:36] Dom Rybak: Yeah, I'm not, I'm not good enough for that. But yeah, it was, it was, uh, crazy to. it, uh, how much, how much precipitation, uh, and how, how gray the skies actually are. And, uh, it's encouraging for us because, you know, we're promoting this, uh, system, uh, which is perfect for not only your territory, but you know, the seven different, uh, building climates in North [00:24:00] America, right?

[00:24:00] Dom Rybak: That this, this, you know, sheer panel house wrap, uh, type one, type two, whether it's just a barrier rain screen and cla. , this is the way to do it. And it, and it works, you know, in the Arctic regions, it works in the, the hot regions humid. Uh, and it, it works, you know, in those regions that see four seasons,

[00:24:22] Eric Goranson: Yeah, this works great.

[00:24:23] Eric Goranson: If you're sitting in, if you're right now listening to us in Miami, Miami, or if you're listening to us in Anchorage, either way, yeah. This is gonna work for you.

[00:24:32] Dom Rybak: Yeah. Yeah. And, and that is the, uh, beauty of, uh, all the testing that we did. We did do, I mean, you, you also learn a ton about, uh, your materials, uh, limitations if you know, if there are any, um, by, by implementing these systems.

[00:24:51] Dom Rybak: Yeah.

[00:24:52] Eric Goranson: So let's start to kind of start to finish your, just so people can get an idea for all of our DIYers out in the crowd out there, if you've got, [00:25:00] uh, let's see. You're gonna do an exterior wall with. Where do you start? If you've got the, let's say you got your, uh, o SBS hanging out there, Maybe you took the old siding off and you've got some new os OSB on the wall up there, and you're like, I'm gonna do a, a stone looking wall right here.

[00:25:14] Eric Goranson: What's the best way to do that?

[00:25:16] Dom Rybak: Uh, step one. Uh, and this actually has nothing to do. Honestly with, with our product, but just like any siding, step one, how are my flashings? Right? Amen. So any, any detail, whether it's soffit, roof, drip, flash, head flashing on windows, uh, uh, si, pans, um, anything like that, you know, that has to be right and tight before.

[00:25:40] Dom Rybak: any kind of, before you can even open a box of cladding, right? Uh, before you even unload that truck. Are my flashings good? Um, am I relying on another trade for that? You know, if you're, if you're the one, well you said, you said for this example, DIYer, but you know, trades like [00:26:00] to. Perform the work that they're supposed to be performing.

[00:26:05] Dom Rybak: Right? Right. So, who, who is, who is the guy that, who is the guy that's, uh, responsible for the, um, for the flashing? Is that the siding guy? Is that the roofing guy? Is that the framer? You know, who's, who's in charge of the flashing and, and that changes from territory to territory? I've, I've seen framers that are responsible for the house rep.

[00:26:23] Dom Rybak: Um, . And in those cases, you know, they're working side by side with the siding guys who might be the ones that have the metal break and are making the flashing. You know, they have to, they have to be paying attention to the flashing. Flashing is the number one thing I think. Um, That, uh, can impact a, a good wall assembly.

[00:26:45] Dom Rybak: Uh, everything else is almost superficial, especially in an open cloud system with a rain screen like ours. Yeah, so step, step one, flashing, pay attention to it, know what it is, uh, make sure it's done right. Mm-hmm. , um, and, and make adjustments [00:27:00] if, if you know that you

[00:27:01] Eric Goranson: need to. And if you're doing a remodel, most of the time it's wrong.

[00:27:04] Eric Goranson: So assume that it is and make sure that you get it taken care

[00:27:07] Dom Rybak: of. Yeah, if you're doing a remodel and, and you've got, uh, , if you're doing well, this, this product, funny enough, is a, a remodeler's dream. Yes, because of the ease of ability of it going on. But you still have to start from a good, uh, uh, surface.

[00:27:25] Dom Rybak: Uh, you know, your substrate has to be in good condition. Your flashings have to be good. So step. Revisit all those flashings. You got old call, call holding stuff together. Get rid of it, you know, Uh, go is never, is never, you know, a flashing. Exactly. Uh, shouldn't, shouldn't be. So, um, you know, take, take that, uh, take that before you unload the truck full of all your siding materials.

[00:27:51] Dom Rybak: So that would be step one. In, in that vein of flashing is my flashing rate. Uh, having a good house wrap [00:28:00] on there. Um, nowadays these synthetic, uh, house wraps are getting better and better and better, and people are walking away from, um, you know, some of the felts of the world and everything like that. Um, and having that is very important because what you're about to do with this stone is put a bunch of holes in your wall.

[00:28:18] Dom Rybak: Yep. . And in order for you to be able to get, uh, by doing something like that, you have to have a quality, uh, weather resistive barrier. Right. Um, we did a lot of our testing with, uh, Like a, a Ty Par product. Yep. Um, DuPont has their Tyvec. Yeah. Uh, they also have a commercial grade. Um, funny story,

[00:28:43] Eric Goranson: you've got a house probably 10 ounces up the street for me that just got knocked down and they're putting a $2 million house in there and they're getting ready to start siding.

[00:28:51] Eric Goranson: And I walk by at the other day walking the dog and I'm like, Is somebody, somebody actually gonna tape the. The, the Tieback , [00:29:00] Nope. They're gonna sign right over the top. It, they, there's no taping on stuff. And I'm like, Really? Come on guys. I wanna throw, So I got tape here. I can literally throw it out my feet when I go by.

[00:29:11] Eric Goranson: I think I might just be that guy and throw a box of tape at 'em and go, Hey, you wanna wanna finish that?

[00:29:17] Dom Rybak: We're, we are critical because we've, you know, you've done however many, uh, remodels that you've done and opened up walls and just, it, it affects the bottom line too. You go, time out, this project is coming to a halt because there's, you know, we're, I'm seeing vertical mulch basically everywhere, right?

[00:29:35] Dom Rybak: We gotta fix this. We gotta step on, we gotta fix this vault. Oh. Um, And a lot of that is as simple as flashing in house wrap. You know, uh, we, you know, when I was working as a contractor, uh, we did fluid applied. Everything. Yeah. There wasn't a job that I wasn't, um, being called out there with a tractor trailer full of drums of, you know, go stuff.

[00:29:59] Dom Rybak: Um, [00:30:00] so, you know, that was, But, but that's also a project that has that budget in mind. Yeah. You know, they want, they want something that, you know, you couldn't, you couldn't put a hole in it with Abram's tank if you wanted to. So, You know, they're also using three quarter, three quarter, uh, plywood, you know, sheer panels.

[00:30:17] Dom Rybak: So, Exactly.

[00:30:18] Eric Goranson: It's different. Something we don't see much on. Slightly different work, but yeah, no,

[00:30:21] Dom Rybak: you're not, you might not be seeing that out there, but you know, if you're spending the money on these, uh, sheer panels that are three quarter thick, um, you might as well put that fluid applied on there to, uh, you know, protect that, have that stuff lasted forever.

[00:30:34] Dom Rybak: Yeah. , you know, house wrap being also tied into your flashing. Yeah, I, You were just mentioning the tape. So nothing's, nothing's more, you know, saddening to your soul than going on a job. And they've, they've got the house wrap, reverse, uh, shingled, , uh, just, just, just, just creating dams. , Yep. Just a dam after dam and, and all.

[00:30:59] Dom Rybak: [00:31:00] But, you know, the manufacturers, I can say this now, as a manufacturer, the manufacturer doesn't, isn't putzing around putting these manuals together. They've done the work, they've done the testing. I have spent. Years of my life, uh, dealing with engineers and, and going over, uh, you know, Specimen after specimen, after specimen submittal, after submittal, uh, knowing, you know, and we have a 30 some odd page manual right now.

[00:31:30] Dom Rybak: It's worth looking at. Yeah. You know, there, there's wrong ways to hang, house, wrap and . There's some guys out there that find every single dang

[00:31:38] Eric Goranson: one of 'em. So there's some that I go, I didn't even think of doing it that wrong. I mean, they had to be pretty dang creative. Cause I'm looking at it going, Really?

[00:31:46] Eric Goranson: How'd you do that? How did you do that? How did you do that? Why? What? You know, I, I, yeah. And it's bad cuz you know, you, you're probably no different than me. Uh, I'll be driving around with my wife and I'm running around and I'll see something get [00:32:00] built and I'm staring at it going, Oh, come on guys. Really?

[00:32:03] Eric Goranson: Is that what we're doing here? Yeah. So when the water fails, it's gonna go under the house, wrap around the window. Sweet, cool. . Great

[00:32:10] Dom Rybak: job. And I'm sure if that's done wrong, that the sill isn't pitched or anything like that. Oh, so you're just, you're just, you're just, it's a ticking time, Bob. I'm waiting for, um, you know, in the, in the nineties the big scare was mold.

[00:32:23] Dom Rybak: Oh yeah. Um, So, so now, now I'm pretty sure it's like VOCs or something else,

[00:32:28] Eric Goranson: but I, I think, I think there's a scare for everything now. I mean, really. I mean, it's mold, it's VOCs, it's, you know, there's, there's, there's a box, I think to be checked for everybody now.

[00:32:38] Dom Rybak: Yeah. Carbon monoxide right on. Let's, you know, all, all at it.

[00:32:43] Dom Rybak: But so, so you're flashing in your weather resistive barrier. They have to work together. Right. Um, and the products have gotten so much better just in my, just in. 10 years now of, of working with this material. I have seen the different type of [00:33:00] flashing tapes, you know, whether it's acrylic, bele or, or, uh, you know, bitch have been, they have gotten so much better.

[00:33:09] Dom Rybak: And you know, I had to back in the day, you know, not back in the day per se, but like, you know, call it 13 years ago, you know, we were mixing up part A, part B. Mm-hmm. , uh, You know, making a mess, making, making your custom over these, you know, uh, pipes and everything like that. Any kind of penetrations and it's a mess.

[00:33:32] Dom Rybak: But the products have gotten so much better. You know, the guys kind of have it, not easy, but it's better. Well, I mean, they could be so

[00:33:41] Eric Goranson: to be you. Were having to create that. Now they've got a roll of flexible flashing and they got a utility knife and a roller, and they're just getting it knocked out in 30 seconds.

[00:33:50] Dom Rybak: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I'm sure you guys have stressed the importance of the roller, but you know, all those pressure activated ones, they need the pressure. Yeah. [00:34:00] Don't go, don't go using your speed square. Trying to get away with your hand. Use back of that. You got the roller use, the

[00:34:05] Eric Goranson: I'd say I've seen the back of the hammer.

[00:34:07] Eric Goranson: I've seen the tape measure. That was always the good one. Um, the tape measure. That's good. Yeah.

[00:34:14] Dom Rybak: it's like, really, But, but we, we are making custom. You know, custom penetration, uh, um, flashings with, uh, you know, uh, bitchy thing, type, you know, masic and things like that. But like I said, the products have gotten so much better in that world.

[00:34:30] Dom Rybak: And then the rain screen, the rain screen is the most to our system. The rain screen's the most important. Now, that's a tough sell on a guy who's building in. Las Vegas and he doesn't want, he goes, Hey, I don't, we don't have any precipitation here. I'm in the desert. Uh, we're not going to get the rain green.

[00:34:50] Dom Rybak: Uh, two things for that. One is purely cosmetic. You want the black background so that you're not seeing the gaps and cracks and seeing your weather resistive barrier. Mm-hmm. . The other thing is when you do [00:35:00] have that ungodly amount of precipitation, if it rains for. Three inches in an hour, you're under water.

[00:35:07] Dom Rybak: Yeah. So you, you want to ha and that'll happen once every 30 years. Mm-hmm. and you'll, you'll be, you know, somewhat prepared. Um, and then so the rain screen is, is I, I. Couldn't stress it enough. That is the most important part to this system. And even that hydrophobic facing on it. If you take, I do it a lot of times at shows and whatnot.

[00:35:28] Dom Rybak: I take a bottle of water and I, I splash right on and instantly you see it beat up and run away and down sheets right off. Yep. Yep. And then anything behind that, you know, you've got a nice drainage and drying gap and it, it's, it belts and suspenders approach. You got the weather resistive barrier doing what it's supposed to be doing a gap, which is acting twofold for drainage and rapid drying.

[00:35:51] Dom Rybak: And then a, a hydrophobic facing that's, Preventing most of that, uh, bulk water from even getting, [00:36:00] uh, back to the wrb. Yeah,

[00:36:02] Eric Goranson: So now I think, I also think I have no data to prove this, so it's my personal opinion, but I also think that that rain screen gives you a little bit of a thermal break between products there too.

[00:36:13] Eric Goranson: So if you've got that, you know, desert heat hitting down on the side of the house, you've got a little bit of thermal break there that's between.

[00:36:24] Dom Rybak: Yeah, you do. That's not, that's not just a hypothesis, but what's happening behind there is convection, and convection is working in, uh, for you in most, uh, most instances.

[00:36:36] Dom Rybak: Um, and funny enough, our product is, is rated at R two in the, in the. Testing that they, you know, have to do for it. But again, you've got a bunch of thermal breaks between the stones, so how, how effective is that? Uh, it's, it's just a cool little, uh, benefit of our, our product, we think. But yeah, and then following your, you know, code and compliance type stuff, you know, [00:37:00] if you're in a flood zone and you can't have, you know, siding until this far up the wall or, you know, all those things, I get calls for that all day long and I go, I, I'm not familiar with code in your territory.

[00:37:13] Dom Rybak: Hold on a second. And I look a couple things up and I go, you know, a lot of times I have a contractor, like if I had something in the Pacific Northwest, youd get a text from me. Yeah. And, and, and I'd say, Hey Eric, this guy's trying to, um, trying to do this. He's trying to, Turn his gutter into a waterfall feature.

[00:37:31] Dom Rybak: How do, how do I convince him not to do that? And

[00:37:33] Eric Goranson: then you, you know, I, him the 10 reasons why Yep. . Yeah.

[00:37:37] Dom Rybak: The 10 reasons why, and, and three of them are ones that I miss so good. But yeah, following your, you know, your local building codes is important. And, um, that's all for exterior. Um, my recommendation to somebody who's in, in the DIY world or in the, um, Uh, you might be hesitant.

[00:37:57] Dom Rybak: Say they're a mason, and they're like, Okay, just another [00:38:00] stone product, yada, yada. But guess what? I see masons all the time on these, uh, remodels. You know, these, these, uh, along the interstate, there's so many of these hotels and gas stations that are just getting, uh, lick and stick stone. You go back a year later and there's piles of loose stones.

[00:38:18] Dom Rybak: Sometimes I, I'll, I'll, you know, I'll take pictures of it just to make myself. Feel good and say, Hey, you know, mechanically fastened, we're pretty spook. I'm on the wall there. But yeah, you know it, and they probably did it for the most part. They probably did it kind of right. Um, but they might not have the brain screen or there might not have been something in the ad mix that day.

[00:38:37] Dom Rybak: Or the temperature, temperature

[00:38:38] Eric Goranson: was off, tempera was too hot, too cold, whatever.

[00:38:41] Dom Rybak: Or they waited too long or, or they started too soon. What, what, what have you. The bond wasn't there. So we're not relying on that. Uh, Going over sheer panels and then, and then you got guys in Texas that go, Hey, I've got, I've got, uh, as my sheer panel, I've got basically, [00:39:00] Wax cardboard.

[00:39:01] Dom Rybak: It's, you know, and it's only, it's only in the corners of the house. And they sometimes these guys do what's, what I call structural siding, which is they nail the siding on 16 inches on center. Well, I have that on my house. Yes.

[00:39:15] Eric Goranson: 1977, you know, contemporary house with the T one 11 siding on it, and it's, there's studs tar paper and uh, you know, five eights siding on it.

[00:39:26] Eric Goranson: That's all she's. Yeah. But in the

[00:39:29] Dom Rybak: seventies, you know, everyone will say the, the homes from the seventies last you for good bones. Right, exactly. And, uh, and they'll, they breathe. They needed to breathe in the seventies, so, And they let 'em breathe. Yeah. And they let 'em breathe. For sure. Um, good question. Uh, so what I recommend for somebody that's looking at, Hey, I'm trying to.

[00:39:50] Dom Rybak: I'm trying to get familiar with this evolved stone product. Be that a Mason, a diy, or a siding installer, a general contractor, someone in design like yourself. Like [00:40:00] let me just get my hands on it and kind of play with it. The perfect project for that is, and interior accent while, or a fireplace, uh, using our Class B fire rated product.

[00:40:11] Dom Rybak: Yep. Uh, it's very simple. There's only a couple things to remember. One. Where can I or where can't I put the stone? That's, you have to respect your class. Um, your, your non combustible gap, which is usually a couple inches around the side of the fire box and, you know, maybe a foot or what have you. Uh, if you get, if you're using one of those gas inserts, They'll tell you right in the first two pages of that manual, whether it's vented or not, will impact the, uh, the non combustible zone.

[00:40:38] Dom Rybak: You can't put it in the fire box. You can't put it in the non combustible zone. Um, basically anywhere you can, anywhere that you have the drywall, uh, you can have the, uh, evolve stone and I just hang a sheet of lu on like that. Um, that sometimes it's flooring under lament. Yeah, what have you. The lu on, I put, I put that right over the dry wall if it's a, if it's a remodel.[00:41:00]

[00:41:00] Dom Rybak: Right over the drywall, paint it black or gray, and I start shooting my stone right on top of that. Um, and yeah, that's, that's a quick turnaround for a, that's a weekend project. Yeah. You know, um, and it goes on even faster outside when you have no interruptions and you can do a long run. You know, economies of scale.

[00:41:19] Dom Rybak: Say that, hey, if I'm, if I got a hundred square feet uninterrupted, no windows, no doors, no dryer events, no no funny business outside, I can just run with the style.

[00:41:31] Eric Goranson: So, And it's, it's smart and it looks so good with that. And, uh, and what I like is on the interior wall, it, it looks awesome. And of course you've got that durability.

[00:41:42] Eric Goranson: Durability inside with being that it's made to handle exterior. So even if somebody, something gets splashed on it, spilled on it, somebody spills their wine or cocktail, guess what? It ain't gonna hurt it.

[00:41:53] Dom Rybak: No, no, it's, it's really cool in that sense. And I can't tell you how much, how nice it [00:42:00] is to get away from mortar because every once in a while I have to do a project either at my facility or a side by side or something where I'm mixing up a bag of mortar and I'm tuckered out by the time, by the time I have to quickly get it on the wall, it's, it's just so labored.

[00:42:15] Dom Rybak: It is very labor intensive, and this is not replacing natural stone. This is just. An alternative for, for siding. There's always going to be that market that is wanting and willing to pay for and wait for, you know, natural stone and, and the skilled labor that is required to put that up. You know, we, we are a stacked stone for a reason.

[00:42:37] Dom Rybak: You know, we can't have Morgan, our material has no. Expansion and contraction. So you can't use mortar with it if you want it to. Yeah. All it takes is one freeze stall and all that mortar comes cracking away.

[00:42:49] Eric Goranson: Right off Right. Cause it, yeah, popping right off. A good place to go.

[00:42:52] Dom Rybak: It's part of the reason that it has a, uh, a dry stack look now I am working on, you know, synthetic mortars and stuff like that down the road for, [00:43:00] you know, Making a, making a more architectural line of product.

[00:43:05] Dom Rybak: But sure. For the time being, you know, that's, that's something that's important and I can't stress enough. Um, how the lightweight save the savings that you see from it being so lightweight. Here's an example. Guys working in York, Pennsylvania not too long ago. They're doing two massive columns on a, uh, commercial job.

[00:43:26] Dom Rybak: Mm-hmm. and. They have the manlift there and on that man lift, they have a couple boxes of a whole stone, uh, a chop saw and their nail gun. And they don't have to stop. There's no cut man on the ground trying to, you know, figure out how to, out to a rock up there from, to throw it up out tosser. And if you do drop one and he is not wearing his hard hat, it's not gonna kill him from 20.

[00:43:50] Dom Rybak: Right. So, So I, And that lets them just keep going. There's no hangups. Wow. You don't have to have crazy amounts of, you know, [00:44:00] if, if you have a fireplace, you don't have to have all these crazy amounts of, of, uh, steel, uh, for supporting this amount of weight. It, it, it doesn't weigh anything. Yeah. I was shocked

[00:44:12] Eric Goranson: the first time design wise we had done stone and.

[00:44:17] Eric Goranson: The amount of steel that was needed. I had a, probably a 25, 26 foot ceiling in there. I was shocked at the weight that we had going up on that thing and what the architect and engineer had built for that. Just to hold everything together.

[00:44:33] Dom Rybak: Yeah, we did. One of the first examples there was the, uh, we did something similar to Evolve Stone.

[00:44:39] Dom Rybak: It was a prototype product, but the, uh, there was a house out in Maryland. that needed, uh, a veneer on these chimneys, uh, to match, um, for the historical society. Mm-hmm. and in order for them to. The real stuff they needed 33. It was a change order for [00:45:00] $30,000 worth of steel work. Yeah. And then we came in there and said, Nah, just shoot this stuff.

[00:45:05] Dom Rybak: Yeah. Up over that and be done with it. And, uh, you know, saved them a ton of money and, and a ton of time. And that, that weight, you know, you're getting. Getting away from tiebacks grade beams, you know, stone, uh, stone ledges, all that kind of disappears when you're working in the weights that we are. And also, you can fill your pickup truck or your work van or whatever with a ton of square footage, right?

[00:45:32] Dom Rybak: I mean, it, you can load it up and you're, and, and you're, you're not, you're not gonna be riding too, uh, too low. It's

[00:45:39] Eric Goranson: not like you're having to get the flatbed trailer and putting. Six pallets of rock on it to bring out to the job site. I mean, right. And you got 20,000 pounds sitting there. It's, it's so much better than that.

[00:45:51] Dom Rybak: And with that comes, you know, with that weight, a lot of times that you'll see the cementitious product or even natural stone, you'll see, uh, [00:46:00] fracturing when in transit, like a crazy amount. I, we had a, a sales rep in, um, the Carolinas that used to work at a. a lumber yard that had, you know, some stone products and, and the biggest complaint that he would see is people would come in and say, Hey, can you find me a box that's not broken, please.

[00:46:20] Dom Rybak: You know? Yeah. Could, could you please set aside three boxes that aren't cut, uh, or broken up? Um, so it's not that we don't see any breakage, Uh, I'm sure we do, but, um, you know, it's gonna be minimal. Yeah. And then the other cool part is, if we haven't touched on it yet, the. The scrap, right? So even if you do open that box and there's a piece that's got, you know, cracked or busted, whatever, you just lap off two square edges and boom, you've got, now you've got two other pieces.

[00:46:51] Dom Rybak: So that's the beauty. And you're not Yeah, you're not seeing the scrap that you are in some of these other, you know, masonry, uh, products. Um, the [00:47:00] cool part is, you know, if you're running, say it's a big exterior job, you're running left to right, you're only making cut. At a window, at a intrusion or the end, you know, at a or or at the end.

[00:47:13] Dom Rybak: So save those pieces. The example I give all the time is you run up to a door or a window. Say, say you're on the porch. Mm-hmm. , uh, front. Say it's a front porch entrance. And you're going left to right and you come to the door, save that cutoff part because that is going to fit on the other side of the wall.

[00:47:30] Dom Rybak: It's just how math works out. So, so have two, have two piles. You know, have your cutoff pile and have your scrap pile. And funny enough, at the end of a, at the end of a day, you know, if you're being material conscious, your, your scrap can fit in the size of a shoebox. I mean, it's. It is minimal. That's awesome.

[00:47:51] Eric Goranson: Now, let's talk a minute about, uh, climbing walls and play sets. You guys have that whole other business with that. Do you guys end up doing big climbing walls on the commercial [00:48:00] stuff, or how does that work? I know that's not a DIY project, but you know what I mean?

[00:48:04] Dom Rybak: Yeah. So that's kind of where I, you know, my career was birth, right.

[00:48:09] Dom Rybak: I was the guy that, um, you know, I used to run production for. The play company. Mm-hmm. . Um, and then I used to, you know, pm slash install these, uh, you know, a lot of these custom projects. So, you know, we'd have clients like, uh, like a university somewhere or maybe one of these, um, adventure parks. Like a, like a sky zone or, Yeah.

[00:48:37] Dom Rybak: One of these tra trampoline parks. And, and you know, they needed an attraction for a climbing attraction, so, We get their overall dimensions. I work with an engineer for their steel super structure and then I've got molds basically, uh, of different cliff faces from around the country and how cool that I can.

[00:48:57] Dom Rybak: It's so cool. Well, making them is, [00:49:00] making them is a task. You gotta go camping for a couple weeks with a couple buckets of rubber and a couple of guys to go. Yeah, I was gonna say that can't be. now, and then you gotta get permission from whoever's property that that is to go do that. Yep. And then you gotta lu this thing back into town and you gotta figure out how to color match it and all that other craziness.

[00:49:20] Dom Rybak: But you know, if the, if the, if the budget is there and somebody's willing to, uh, work with us on that, you know, we can, we. Pretty easily, pretty quickly get them a, a, a custom climbing wall to their parameters. I've built, I've built custom climbing walls, and I'm not an avid climber, but I, you know, I know how to get around on a climbing wall.

[00:49:41] Dom Rybak: Yeah, we, we've built some climbing walls at . Certain, certain sections of it are very challenging. I mean, you've gotta be, you've gotta be a, a, you. Uh, every week type of climber. Yeah,

[00:49:54] Eric Goranson: you're that person versus me getting up there and who's bla certified. But I got up there and I'm like, All right, [00:50:00] this is kicking my butt.

[00:50:02] Dom Rybak: There, there was a job that we did actually locally in Virginia at a gym. And, uh, we had, we had to wait. I think we had to wait for another trade to come through before we could punch the job out. So I waited for that, them to come through. But everything else had was, you know, The place was fully upholstered, so I had to climb up and over that wall, I don't know, maybe 20 times in an afternoon.

[00:50:26] Dom Rybak: And, and I was not in climbing shape at that point. And I mean, parts of your shoulders, you know, are just burn muscles that you didn't know you had,

[00:50:36] Eric Goranson: could hurt. You didn't move for four days, did you?

[00:50:39] Dom Rybak: Ah, this is the worst . It was the worst. And it's after hours and it's dim and you're behind a, you know, climbing wall.

[00:50:47] Dom Rybak: Really everything, so, So yeah, the climb, that's kind of where, that's kind of where we started to really take this material and develop it out from what it was traditionally used right in the nineties. [00:51:00] Um, and you know, the projects got bigger, our teams got a little bit larger. Mm-hmm. , we got smarter about working with, you know, we have a, uh, we have a steel subcontractor now.

[00:51:12] Dom Rybak: We we're not trying to do stuff in house that we're not good at or don't have room for. That's its own world, man. . Oh yeah. You know, we're not, we're not a, we can fabricate a little something here or there, but it's easier for someone who's set up for it. Yeah. And I'll, I'll send my couple of trucks. You know, if this climbing wall takes two or three trucks, we cut it down and this mountain down into a couple of trucks and, you know, ship it out across the country.

[00:51:36] Dom Rybak: The steel guy does the same thing, loads up a couple trucks and they, they meet each other on the job site. We all fly out and, uh, try to knock it out as quick as humanly possib. , That's

[00:51:47] Eric Goranson: fun. But that tells you about the, the durability and the realism of this product that you can turn around and build a, a high end climbing wall out of it.

[00:51:55] Eric Goranson: And people still look at it and go, Wow, that looks like

[00:51:58] Dom Rybak: rock up there. [00:52:00] Yeah. I, There's nothing that looks, uh, quite like it. And, and you think too, I mean, we've been featured at places like SeaWorld. Uh, Cabellas Dick's Field and Stream stuff where they got, uh, you know, we do, we do some work on, uh, insane Paul's with Lucas Lagoons, where they got these grottos that are seeing hundreds of gallons per, you know, just dumping over the edges of these things.

[00:52:26] Dom Rybak: And, and, uh, Yeah, the, the materials just insanely, it's got some crazy attributes to it. The fact in which it's lightweight, um, and it, and it weathers perfectly. Um, it's easy to maintain. You know, I, I saw somebody, uh, uh, did the first cleaning of their evolve stone cuz it's in the, you know, shady side of the house and they called me up about it.

[00:52:49] Dom Rybak: You just take some dawn. Mix it up with some water, spray it on, wipe it off simple. No, you could, you could lightly, lightly power wash it. It if you wanted to. [00:53:00] Um, you could seal it honestly, if you wanted to seal it for a little bit more, uh, uh, ease of cleaning it down the road, you know, it's, it's super, super easy to maintain.

[00:53:12] Dom Rybak: That's the great part. Um, at the, one of the other things, I don't think we even got into it. Um, Its ability to stay on the wall is fantastic. We did a negative pressure test. Part of what the ICC required was they wanted to know the failure point. Like sure, how, How much hurricane can this wall assembly take is basically the test.

[00:53:34] Dom Rybak: Mm-hmm. , it's the A S TM E three 30, and what they do is they take four by wall assemblies that you make and. Point in time of testing, I was making the stone by hand one a couple stones at a time. Mm-hmm. , and I'm putting 'em on these four by eight walls and we bring this assemblies to the testing site.

[00:53:54] Dom Rybak: and they ramp up this machine to try to pull the stones off. It's in a big acrylic and steel chamber. [00:54:00] It's okay. I got a two by four wall, uh, with seven sixteens osb, and then there's a big poly bag on it where this, all my stones have been nailed over and they're trying to pull the bag off of the wall and take the stones with it.

[00:54:13] Dom Rybak: Wow. And uh, the, the first time we ran that test without a single stone coming off, we bent the os. So far that it drug the, uh, three and a half ring shank nail right out of the center, Stu Wow. Yeah, so that was, so they, they had us make a more spook and wall assembly, so I had to go home, make a couple more stones real

[00:54:36] Eric Goranson: quick.

[00:54:36] Eric Goranson: You're like glu and screwing and you're just trying to make it all hold together. I'm just like, guys,

[00:54:41] Dom Rybak: So they put a three quarter gusta plate at the top of plywood threequarter gusta plate at the bottom, uh, two by six studs, 16 inch centers, glu gorilla, glued and screwed the entire thing off every eight inches,

[00:54:54] Dom Rybak: And this was the last test I think that we did and. They draw a vacuum on that wall [00:55:00] and we snapped the two by six stud and half lengthwise on the outer side before the stone came off. So the stuff is on there.

[00:55:09] Eric Goranson: Yeah. You know, there's no mess around with that. That's there. I mean, that's, yeah.

[00:55:14] Dom Rybak: So that was, uh, 397, uh, uh, pounds, a square foot, uh, worth of withdrawal.

[00:55:22] Dom Rybak: And um, that's like a, Couple hundred mile an hour sustained hurricane wind. So you got if way

[00:55:29] Eric Goranson: other bigger problems in the neighborhood when that's happening. Yeah,

[00:55:32] Dom Rybak: Yeah. If your sheer panels are flying off the framing, then I can't, I can't help you you'll know which

[00:55:39] Eric Goranson: panels yours cuz they'll still have evolved Stone hook to 'em.

[00:55:42] Eric Goranson: Yeah, the

[00:55:43] Dom Rybak: the still be on it. You just, you know, if anyone's still a lot around, they can

[00:55:48] Eric Goranson: pick 'em back up and you. Found your wall two and a half miles away. It's still got your stone on it. . It's

[00:55:55] Dom Rybak: an unintentional breakaway wall.

[00:55:56] Eric Goranson: Exactly, Exactly. Tom, thanks for [00:56:00] coming on today brother. What did we not cover today that we should probably touch?

[00:56:03] Eric Goranson: Did we get it all?

[00:56:05] Dom Rybak: Um, moisture and permeable was a big, Yeah, it was a big deal. The color is infused all the way throughout, so when you cut it, you know, a lot of times when you cut. Certain siding products, you know, anything that's prefinished, you've got the, the core of that product. Mm-hmm. and it's a different color or a different material than the outer our color isn impregnated all the way throughout it.

[00:56:29] Dom Rybak: So, um, you know, if you cut a, a stone, you know, square and flush, and you've got that lighter. Edge, you could actually take a little bit of Thompson's clear water, seal, and a spray can. Mm-hmm. spray that edge and it kind of just brings that sheen back to it. And you can put that right in the wall. No one, it'll be any of the wiser, You could texture it up.

[00:56:49] Dom Rybak: I always keep a waffle faced, drywall hammer on me. Yep. And I kind of touch, touch up the edge of that stone and I'll put it in place. Um, you know, we, we talked about [00:57:00] no, you know, specialty tools. Uh, I, you, you saw my setup. I mean, I had everything. Basically on me. Yeah. Um, minus, minus the saw. And a lot of times siding guys will even forego the saw they like to work with, you know, whatever they like, you know, four inch angle grinder.

[00:57:17] Dom Rybak: Yep. You know, whatever, whatever they want to use, uh, or feel comfortable with. I feel most comfortable, you know, I'm not a exactly a, a trades guy. I don't claim to be. Um, and my skillset is, Uh, particular because I've been doing this for such a long time that my skill set is turned into installer of a evolve stone.

[00:57:37] Dom Rybak: Yeah. But you know, my chop saw, I got a little battery operated. Chop, saw that thing's perfect. Um, staging, scaffolding, you don't, you know, you don't need a ton of it for the, for the weight of the stone. I mean, we could go on and on for days, but, You get the idea. I mean, we have spent a lot of time, We haven't talked about the website or Instagram or [00:58:00] Facebook.

[00:58:00] Dom Rybak: That's where I

[00:58:00] Eric Goranson: was gonna go next, brother. That's where I was gonna go next. How do we find this stuff? We wanna put it on our house.

[00:58:06] Dom Rybak: Evolve stone.com. That's the, that's the best place to take a look. We have, uh, basically national distribution. Um, and, and Canada's also a big market for us because you can put the stuff on, Uh, I, I, I was on a job in.

[00:58:22] Dom Rybak: I wanna say Commerce Township. Mm-hmm. in basically, Detroit was about, it was about negative five when we woke up. Um, so 7:00 AM on the job. It's, you know, uh, high for the day of like eight degrees and we're putting this stuff up. So, you know, the Canadians are in a pinch, you know, nobody wants to be working out that kind of crazy cold.

[00:58:44] Dom Rybak: But when he got to you got to, Yep. So, , you know, distribution basically. Uh, if, if you're listening to the show, you can probably , you're probably in a territory where you. Uh, get your hands on it.

[00:58:57] Eric Goranson: Perfect. Perfect, Brother Don, right back. Thanks [00:59:00] for coming on today, brother. Evolve Stone. Gotta check this stuff out and, uh, we'll be doing this again soon.

[00:59:07] Dom Rybak: Perfect, Eric. Thanks. Thanks the time. I appreciate it, man. Thanks

[00:59:10] Eric Goranson: brother. You've been listening to. Around the house