Matthew: [00:00:00] All right. The next one I want to go to, I want to jump to, to actually just trades in general. So you, you on a project, you're going to actually have people working on this type of house for the first time. All [00:01:00] right. going to put people into two camps here.

They're either really excited for this project. Or they're a bit, they're a bit, oh, why are we doing this? I've always done it this way. Now, I will give you one bit of advice. If they're not wanting to come along for the ride, fuck off, find someone else. All right, really simple. You will find that they all want to come along for the ride.

What you'll find is the way that you build now is showcasing your skill as a trade. And if you go back to the, uh, A trade at their core. They wanna show how good their work is. No one as a trade goes out and says, oh, I'm gonna come out and install this. Like, shit. We wanna cut all the corners we can. They all wanna showcase what they can do.

So educate your trades. Maybe make a five minute video, send them a video on what passive house is, send them some stuff like you can send 'em Hamish, my content about like what we're doing. and just get them in the environment of feeling comfortable that they're not the only people doing this. I will tell you now that the trades from my plumber and my [00:02:00] electrician and my roofer find building passive houses so much easier to construct on site because essentially there's less work and it's a lot easier for them to do their rough ins and finish off things. Alright, Haim, do you agree there?

Hamish: I do, I do, I do. And there's just, there's a couple of little nuances that are kind of, jumping to mind too. we have a bit of a, a rule that any external present penetration from any trade gets sprayed with a pink, Bit of spray paint. 'cause we know that that's where all our external penetrations are.

Even if they've detailed it. We wanna know that there's a penetration there because when you are doing a blower door test, the pink stands out like nothing else on that white intel background. So you can automatically go to all of those different penetrations. 'cause you can see the pink. Just one other thing to note, you're probably used to putting, like a wool blanket on the top side of your battens and then your roof sheets go on top.

[00:03:00] Am I right in saying that? That's yeah. Okay. So you don't need that. Just tell your roof plumber to get rid of that because it

Matthew: Haim, I'm going to argue here with you, agreeing with you, I know we're on the same agreeance. Agreed. Some builders will still tell you that you need that to stop condensation on your roof. What's your thoughts? And Cam's spoken about this on our podcast.

Hamish: it's kind of designed to capture the condensation And then you're meant to actually run it into your gutters and like I don't know how it Magically appears into your gutters when it's kind of sags in between all your battens. You don't need it. It doesn't add any r value ironically

Matthew: totally.

Hamish: The NatHERS does include that R1.

5 in their assessment. So just make sure, and Talena and the team are all over this, just remove it and don't count it into your, um, You're gonna have to get a set a star rating for this project, regardless if it's passive hours or not, but just make sure you don't [00:04:00] install that

Matthew: And because it will also clog up your cavity, so the issues you're clogging up your ventilated drying cavity, now air can't move to dry out. Just tell your roofer when they turn up, just everything's battened, you only have to come do your roof. You're literally coming, just putting the sheets on and the guttering.

You do not need to worry one little bit about. Any insulation, any external wrapping, it is done for them. Watch them be like, we have more of these jobs.

Damien: Oh, and walking around on a ply subfloor up there by the sounds of it too. That

sounds awesome. But honestly, dream. be Our, our roofer, Ruben, like, I think so he does pretty much all of, a lot of our group's work. He does Dylan from All In Projects, he does Mark, he does Ryan Parks, he does, I think he does Ned from NW Builds work. he loves it. He loves it. Like, literally loves it. So much easier for him. He does Brad from Sanford. Like he's literally it's so easy. It's so easy for him

Hamish: I've had, I've had the same feedback, you know, from the roofers that we use, you know, you know, we had a, we had a new one start, [00:05:00] uh, a new roof plumber start recently. And he's like, Oh, can I, can I step on this? Is that okay? And I'm like, look, you can step on it, but here's a roll of

tape. If you see any nicks, just put the tape, just tape it. That's a dream. It's an absolute dream.

Matthew: why we're on roof Because this is exactly where I'm at the stage at my house today where our membrane on our roof is ready and we're battened and now we're ready for roofing There is a stage between putting your roof sheets on and once you've got post membrane, you need to get any service through that roof run through right now.

So you need to get your, your stink pipe from your plumber to run through the roof. They just need to do a junction so you can then take that down with the roll flex from pro climber. It's a little grommet that can slip over the pipe and you can tape it down. So they will give you, so that means that junction is now water and airtight.

Yeah. You also need to run your solar cables now, so they can get that through from your, from your roof all the way back to where your [00:06:00] switchboard's going to be, or they can just loop it up in the ceiling and do that later. They just need to get that penetration through that section now. So in the future, once a roof is on, you're not having to take a sheet off, drill it, put a sheet back on.

The other thing you're going to need to worry about is your TV aerial as well. You're going to probably need to run a TV coax cable out through that roof now, so you can again, seal it up, tape it up.

Damien: Hmm.

Matthew: Alright, there is a mini stage that we have three or four trades come in at that stage just to get everything ready.

So then when the roof plumber comes, they aren't trying to, we're not like, we don't have to drill through the roof and rely on a deck tight. Yeah. We're not worrying about the deck tight to keep the water out where we're requiring, we're, we're now worrying about it being tight below and it's all.

It's all watertight, alright?

Hamish: Does that make sense?

Damien: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's,

Hamish: Oh, sorry. I was just going to say just, even if you aren't, I don't know, solar is specified, but there's some, I've almost bet my bottom dollar that it is. Even if they decide not to put the [00:07:00] solar on immediately, you definitely want to make provisions for solar and battery now.

Well, let's future proof these things because you don't want to be running, well firstly you don't want to be putting big dirty conduits at a later date, but you also want to make sure that it's pre wired. If you are doing pre wiring that everything's detailed because they're going to start punching through walls at a later date and you've got a certified building, like how are you managing that penetration?

Matthew: Now, can I, well this is literally jumped into my head. Hey, and I've got a good friend, Drew from Passive Tech yelling at me right now in my brain. One thing that when we go to services in your subfloor and when we have we're talking about these getting these services ready for later On and thinking ahead make sure that where your HRV pop your HRVs that you install a pipe for your condensation drain All right in a subfloor.

It's a lot easier You can put one in eat later slabs the amount of times that [00:08:00] I know that he jumps on site and where the HRVs There's no condensation pipe All right, I just, it just popped into my head and I can see him screaming at me because I haven't told everyone because I know the amount of pain that he has with that problem. that is something that you need to consider from the moment you get on site.

Hamish: and, and believe me, I forgot to put one in once and recently last year on a project,

I forgot to put one in once. Luckily, luckily we could, we could get back to a drain, uh, in the laundry. Uh, but I mean, that's, that's one of the other things too. Like we're gonna, we're gonna Drew's number, uh, cause he's going to be the one that'll do your HRVs, he'll do your ACs and he'll do your, reclaim hot water systems and your blower door testing.

So he's the guy that does, that wraps all of that up for you.

Matthew: yeah, exactly that, Hame.

Hamish: Yeah, he's a wealth of knowledge and, and loves to share his, he's super, super passionate. Yeah. And, and, and on top of that

[00:09:00] really late, love him really lean into these experts. So fan tech of no doubt are going to do your, your duck run, your, your HIV layer.

Matthew: Mechanical,

Hamish: Joel again is, is a, is a wealth of knowledge and is happy to jump on the phone and answer any of your questions. these are guys who have been in the space for a long time and just are super passionate and excited that more and more people are getting into this space. And you can feed off their energy. And how excited they are that someone else is getting into the space.

So don't be shy. Sorry, Joel. Don't be sorry to pick up the phone and get in his ear just to ask any of the questions that you, you may or may not know.

Matthew: Yeah. it probably could say, Hane, you've said Joel's name, so firstly, if you want, Drew, uh, is honestly someone in my building journey who's had a huge, impact on the way that I build homes. And as someone that's provided me with a lot of information, just listen to him. He will give you the answers, alright?

He's chaotic, just [00:10:00] take him out for a Negroni after you've finished the day's work. That will keep him very, very happy. Um, uh, but he is someone that is unreal to work with. Now, the one thing that you probably heard us say, look, Hamish and I, we're not went to products, but we kind of are. We've talked a lot about Proclimer, we've talked a lot about Zender Fantech, which is the HRV.

The reason why we use these is because there's a huge support system behind them and there's people that care and there's people that will actually go out of their way to help you build a better building. They have all the information. They're not just selling you a product and being like, here, work it out later.

They are there for the journey with you. Alright, that's why on my own projects, I will not work on a project where I can't use Proclymer and I won't work on a project where I have to use another HRV system. Alright, because it works. The systems work. They're tried and tested. They're the best on the market, but it's the service and care and expertise behind them that makes them so good.

It's the people and you'll find with building a passive house, it's the people that make it. Yeah, [00:11:00] this isn't, this isn't a project about you. Like, straight off, the project is the, the project is the champion and everyone that comes on site need to champion the project. No one's ego is bigger than the project.

And you have to communicate and you require good people around you to make that work.

Damien: Beautiful.

Hamish: What else do you got? Dana?

Damien: Well, I think you covered a lot of it. So, a lot of those things, yeah, access to, contacts for HRV and you've just gone straight into that. Another big part was, yeah, how do I communicate this project to trades and how do I monitor that quality? if maybe I'm building that from that understanding from

Matthew: barbecue. Have a barbecue. when the job site starts, you've got the site, every one of your trades, invite them over for a barbecue, give them a brief on the project. But this is what we do. This is what we're doing. Bring along for the ride.

Hamish: I'm going to get the impression Dana, like from, from the person that you come across as that you're going to have good people in your [00:12:00] corner and they may not have the experience in high performance construction. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you're going to have that support from your trades.

Now, there might be a bit of a learning curve for them, but I reckon they're going to be into it. I reckon they're going to be boots in.

Matthew: You've done the passive house course here.

Damien: no. So that was another big part of Oh, okay. You need to do the passive house trades course. I think it will find life a little bit easier to understand a few of these things. All right. I'm not gonna comment on where you should do it.

Hamish: go to Matt's building site. Um, I was just thinking. Next Friday, I've got a couple of people coming to my site in Mount Waverly, and we can talk offline about that if you want to come and have a look at it. Cause a lot of the things that we've talked about from Californian corners, starter strips, you know, offset blocks for your insert, but all of that is on show.

And that will make a lot of sense when you walk in and having Rory explain these things to you in a really logical method, I think it'd be incredibly valuable. So yeah, I'm happy to [00:13:00] extend the invite out to yourself as well. If you want,

Matthew: So window windows is the other one I wanna touch on. Han, now you have. What I would refer to. There's two people that we will work for when we use Windows for our projects. One is Bink and the other one is Logic House. Bink do our UPVC work, Logic House do our ALU Cloud work. All right. I will be really honest with you and say that ordering Windows through Logic House, which come from Poland is is the easiest method of ordering windows that you will ever find. it will blow your mind on the detail and the conversations you'll have with Harley and Jason when you order the windows on how easy it is. It's, it's an intense meeting where you are absolutely fucking exhausted at the end of it. But they go through you've had that. Yep. So,

Damien: I've had the meeting.

Matthew: so you want to just make sure with those windows that like taking into consideration the, the timber battening, thinking about your wall breakdown.

So if you've got a window, that's what we get a lot of the time with architects is they want that window and the tiles to run just in behind the window. Alright, so they want it to be the [00:14:00] full width of the room, but one side might be an external wall and one side might be an internal wall. So the internal wall, we just have our plaster and our tiles, which is roughly say 20 mil, but on the left hand, on the other side, on the left hand side might be an external wall.

So now all of a sudden I've got my 45 mil cavity. I now have my tiles and now I now have my plaster. the window is not actually there, yeah, you've got to think what's happening around those systems there. Your windows, the air tightness, Harley will go through, if you've got Logic House, he'll tell you exactly how to install the air tight details with the windows.

I'm not even going to bother going into detail on that. I think that's something that you'll pick up pretty quickly. but the one thing I will tell you though, with Windows, especially the Logic House ones, is they're heavy. They come from Europe. They're pre glazed. The benefit with UPVC with Bink is they can come site glazed, which means the frames are easy to handle.

They're easy to pre wrap. They're easy to install. the system of the Logic House Windows allow a lot of extra time in the sense of installing them. just to lift them [00:15:00] in. You might even probably want to allow for a crane for these bigger ones for maybe eight hours to plonk them around. All right.

Hamish: I would recommend having that as a provisional sum allowance.

So, you know, say to the client, we might not need it, but let's put a chunk of money. The insulator that's having the, cause you want a crane operator, who's got the appropriate suckers for the windows. But I would just pop that as a provisional sum because you, you may work out on side a way to do it in another way.

Matthew: And they cut, they're going quicker

Hamish: slide.

Matthew: yeah,

Hamish: yeah, you're going to have a big lift and slide and those units are going to be a few hundred kilos like you don't want to be, you know,

Matthew: Oh, they're closer than a few hundred kilos. they're they're a lot heavier than that.

Hamish: whatever they are, they're going to be

fucking heavy. You don't want to be manually handling them around. So, do

Matthew: So to give you, to give you a reference on how heavy they are, I, my champion road passing house project, we had the team from fresh con. So he had his whole team. There, which was four of them at the time, and I had my whole team there, which was six of [00:16:00] them, and Jack and I had to go pick something up around the corner, and we just said to them, get that last window in.

We come back a half hour later, and Jack's like, what the fuck are you guys doing? Like, how come you haven't got this window in? They physically couldn't lift it off the ground, and Jack's like, oh fine, I'll help. And again, went to pick it up, and that was the moment of, these windows are heavy. Like, so, you need to get rollers, you need to get little track systems, Um, luckily for you, you've got a huge amount of space that you can plonk them.

You need to protect them, um, have some really good quality window suckers on you. Look, anything small you can handle by hand. It's just the big, the big boys that you need to really worry about. All right. windows, the easy one, have it, there's a huge amount of information out there on how to install and detail windows with back dams and tapes and taping and stuff.

Do a lot of research into that. That's not a passive housing. Again, that's a better building thing. Alright, um, there's so much information out there on how to install a window.

Hamish: we also

Damien: I've been through that with Harley. a lot of the

Hamish: on

Damien: and stuff

Hamish: [00:17:00] Harley Harley's going to Harley's going to be emphasizing this too, but your late times. So you need to factor in your late times of these windows in your construction schedule. to a frame stage

Matthew: I, so, oh, yeah, So just with your, with the lead times, I'll give you an example. I'll give you a thing. When they tell you they come, they come. the date they give you from the moment they give you is the date.

It is insane on how accurate that date is. from such a fair way out. Now they do, typically it was a 26 week lead time, um, with Logicast. I'm pretty sure I'm, can say that. They've now found a shipping route that goes directly, I think from Europe to Melbourne, which means it doesn't have to stop in Singapore, which can cut down, I think four weeks on the water.

So that just like, they will come, you have the space to store them on site. they will come the day they actually tell you to come in. They are, it's an insane process. You'll be shocked on how easy it is to get windows across from one side of the world to the other side of the world. Um, now the other thing I [00:18:00] just want to touch on is on insulation, alright?

the first project I had with the insulation is that the team that we were working with at the time, we'd worked with them for probably six years doing insulation. I said, we're going down this passive house road. I really care about the way it's installed. This is what needs to happen. This way we're changing.

They were super pumped for it. All right. They're like, yup, cool. I was like, guys, there's a huge market for this for you in the future. simply doing your job more. Yes, I know you're going to charge a little bit more because the whole installation game at the moment is just spit it out. Who cares? Whack it in.

We need to take a little bit more care. I also said, I'm going to go through this with a thermal imaging camera because sometimes what the eye, the eye can't pick up a lot of details. Now, I'm not going to tell you the company and who they were, but pretty much they tried to make it look like they'd installed it properly, but absolutely ruined it to a point where my team spent four days pretty much ripping the whole house out and fixing it.

All right. We use, and I'll give him a plug here. We use Stewie Dawson from Thermotech. that what it

is? I [00:19:00] think his business name is. Thermolux, Thermolux. So, Stewie Dawson from Thermolux, he will install it properly from the first time. I would suggest that you reach out to him and get a quote and detail it all through him.

It will make your life a lot easier for the first time for an insulation install. It will be done right. Alright, he's sort of becoming the person that does a lot of passive house installation for your insulation. such an easy, process. I would suggest someone that cares about insulation. And he, he, he's got the price.He knows exactly what needs to happen. All right. Um,

Damien: Matt, can I stop you there?

Matthew: yeah,

Damien: Just clarify a few things. So it's like the word installation and insulation are coming across, funnily, similar timings. so will Stewie install the window or will I install the window and he will

Matthew: Yeah. So your, so your install installation of your window is completely separate to insulation layer.

Damien: Thank you. That's all

Matthew: That's all you need. So think about like you'd usually do a house, you put your windows in and then in the future, you're going to put your [00:20:00] insulation in. Does that make sense? There's two separate things

Hamish: just while we're on, just while we're on the Windows demo, you're going to have a detail, like a section detail. showing exactly how that window needs to be installed and there's a likelihood that they'll nominate like expand, expanding foam in that window, the cavity around the window. So, I will tell you right now, that's really important. the assessor is going to want to see that as built. So you want to make sure that you're leaving enough opening in your frame to allow to install that, expanding foam around the window. Cause that's all calculated in your PHP Pisa thermal bridge.

Damien: so just clarify, so, so we're talking between the stud opening and the window?

Hamish: Correct. You'll see your rough opening, your rough opening of the

Damien: Yeah,

so 15 mil, we're looking for 15 mil gap around it.

Hamish: 15, 20 mil. Yeah. Just enough to, I guess, allow for your, your deflection in Bruce Luttreworth loads and all that kind of stuff. But [00:21:00] you want to be able to get in there and insular and foam fill around that window.

Cause you imagine if you, if you, if you don't, if you don't do that. That's a thermal bridge. That's a cold spot.

Matthew: and it needs to be a closed cell foam from a spray foam. All right. So we use usually the Illbrook foam. It is a really important detail. Open cell foam has the ability to suck moisture in and create a highway for water. So if you had, for some reason on your external, there's a little pinprick and that starts to create a highway for water.

Since you pressurize and pull it in, you want to make sure it's closed cell cause that won't happen. It is a very, very important and you want it to be low expanding. The Ilbrook stuff's great. Speak to performance membranes. There's some foams they can give you too.

Hamish: Yep. so there are other products out there for that phone too. Just, I guess we'll give them a little bit of a plug. So there's, there is a company called Vapour Seal, which has, low expanding, foam tapes. You just need to make sure if you are installing them, that you do the double lay up because the single lay is not going to comply with your, [00:22:00] with your PHPP.

Um, but by perceived as something worth exploring. Um, we do, yeah. We're not on every project. We do not on every project.

Matthew: Yeah, I'm, I'm not a fan of them. I'm not, not Vapourseal themselves. I just, those tapes scare me a little bit. Don't, oh wait, when I say that, don't rely on those tapes, the Vapourseal tape from the, Uh, the expanding part as your water layer, as your water defense layer. They're great for insulating the space. Don't rely on them for your insulation layer, uh, for your water protection.

Hamish: Yeah, I mean, look, look, the jury's out with that. I can't comment one way or another. They do claim, and I'm not saying this doesn't happen, but they do claim that that can be airtight and water, impermeable. I just, from the way that I want to build my buildings, I'll install the tape. And I'll still tape how I normally would externally.

So look, we're kind of digressing just a little bit to minor detail, but, um, I think the tapes are great. but you know, [00:23:00] everyone's got their own opinions

we don't want to close the door on a VaporSeal sponsorship, Matt. So come on, we need to, we need to be, we

Matthew: No, no, no. I know. I'm, I'm, that's why I say, sorry, I'm not, I'm not suggesting because Proclimer also make the same tapes to the same expansion tape. Alright, I, I just, I'm saying,

Hamish: I don't that, yeah, and there's a reason why. Yeah, so just be, just be really cautious. The VaporSeal have some great products out on the market.

Matthew: it's great for insulating, it's not great for keeping moisture out. air tightness, air tightness is really, really easy. Just make, it's a bit of a game. Make sure the building's air tight. Think everything you do in the framing stage, think air tightness. Thanks. See, it's a ton of starter strips.

because you can't just run the big rolls through when your roof's on. trusses on and now you've got your internal walls bunning up to your truss with all your your shear blocks and your L grips and stuff. You've got to put your starter brackets on first, or your starter strips on first.

Damien: Yeah.

Matthew: Air tightness is just a game of fun.

Hamish: I'd say air tightness is the foreframe. Air tightness [00:24:00] starts now. Thinking about air tightness starts now. right now is it is all about air tightness,

Matthew: And it's easy. I'm going to be really honest. It's easy. Like, you probably agree that it's like, it's not hard to get a house airtight if you've got a fresh crack at it from a new building, especially with an Intello internal wall.

Hamish: I've had a hem crate house that I had a lot of trouble getting, uh, air tight,

Matthew: Yeah, Yes, straightforward construction principles, air tightness is easy. If you detail your external membrane correctly, you should be under one air exchange with just your external membrane. If you're doing, I think if you're doing it correctly.

Hamish: I genuinely hope that this, this conversation, I'm sort of more talking to listeners here has been interesting because we've like rambled on and, uh, like going in all different kinds of directions today. So I hope there's a lot of, uh, well, I'll ask you Damo, like, is this, is this

Matthew: or two

Hamish: Has this been informative so far?

Matthew: If he says no, it's like, f k you. Pricing

Damien: Yeah, exactly. Uh, yeah. Now look, and I think there's so many ways that this could have [00:25:00] gone well for myself. So after, you know, I blew wind up your guys ass for having a great podcast, you know, there's the pricing aspect of it. There's the, Communication aspect of it, this is like a big technical aspect and I think, you know, this is where we're at and this is, you guys, you guys are really blowing up on your, your technical understanding of this and, and those details and, and so in that, absolutely,

you blow my mind and there's a heap of stuff that I'm going to have to follow up

Matthew: and cash flow, Hayne. This is a good one now. I think we'll finish on these, these two topics. I think we start with pricing because cash flow will flow on from pricing. You're going to have to allow a lot, a lot, a lot more labor from your carpenters on these projects. All right. So battening systems externally, I would say, it takes two or three carpenters to batten external walls and ceilings for your air, air tightness layer, taking about a week and a bit, maybe because it's a time around the windows, running the easy battens is super easy.

All [00:26:00] right. It's the window detailing. If you've got a detail of a. Um, so there's a lot of time that gets spent in there. There's a lot of time spent with your trade. So you need to make allowances for your, for you. And I would say at least 40 hours just dealing with your trades for these airtight penetrations, having conversations because it's your first one.

I would also say there's obviously a time in your membranes, putting them all on, but that's usually part of the project anyway. and you'll get faster if you do the pro climate training that will make it faster for you. So it should, it shouldn't be too much. Um, where else do you see cost goes in a passive house, Hayne, from a construction labor point of view?

Hamish: I think this is the, this is the wanting to do it right aspect on your first couple. Now I'm going to be cautious when I say this, there is going to be some investment from you I think on your first couple of projects, which you're going to have to absorb. I don't think you're going to be allowed to allow for everything on your first project. I think it's [00:27:00] impossible. There are going to be like, let's talk about this builder's apprenticeship thing. You're, you're about to dive into your passive house apprenticeship on your first passive house project. And there's going to be a certain element of, I'll tell you, a financial commitment from a labor point of view that you're potentially going to have to absorb or will end up absorbing anyway, because it's not going to allow for everything.

Matthew: but we still do that now, Hayne. There's still things that

Hamish: Yeah, 100 percent 100 percent I would be annotating everything from the moment you step on side all the way through to the end and then reflect on How you can build better. Now I'm bringing this up now, cause I know Rory, who's, you know, a bit of a young jet from us, he's doing it for us at the moment.

He's actually learning in real time about how we're going to do it differently next time. And he can talk to that. If you catch up with us next Friday, like there are stuff on that particular project, we will do completely different next time because it is quite complex in its, in its [00:28:00] structure. so yeah, take that on board.

Obviously you don't want to lose money. But there is going to be some extra investment from your side and your team, even to the point where you're going to get a blower door. And I reckon every single one of your team is going to want to be standing there for three or four hours, watching the blower door and saying, do you know what I mean?

Like it's these things, cause you want that, you want that excitement. You want that, that buy in from your team. can I just slightly go down the path of a blower door for a second? you want to do more than one. I would say that you're going to want to do three, like do one, once you've done all those penetrations through your, internal and external air tightness barrier with your trades and then one just before plaster.

So you're doing two of those preliminary ones. Also, this is one of the things that we're really doing, focusing now, and I know Maddy does it, now a couple of other builders do it, do your external, membrane, insulate internal membrane, [00:29:00] do all your external penetrations through those two barriers before you put your external cladding on.

Damien: Hmm.

Hamish: once that external cladding goes on, you could be chasing your tail to try and find out any air leakages. Now, if you do have an air leakage through those, penetrations, even if you detail the penetration internally, you still might have a leak externally, which could potentially have moisture egress at some point.

So, We've now shifted our entire business model to do those elements before we do the external cladding. So just something to sort of sequencing. And that then flows into our next comment around cashflow.

Matthew: can I just one more thing, one more thing. Do not do your blower door test until you have all your external wall battens on your intellerate and on your ceiling because you will blow it off the walls.

Hamish: Yes.Yes.

Matthew: one minute of cash flow. we have about 10 stages [00:30:00] in our contract to 15 stage payments. All right.

Damien: Uh, thank you.

Matthew: There you go. Sim It's really simple. So we do a window, we do a window order, we do a window manufacturer. We, uh, the, usually about 2% and 2%, we do a joinery or deposit.

We do a, instead of a lockup, we do a watertight. So that's your membranes externally. and the windows in. We did into a cladding one. We do it like, and then your frame stage, like you can pretty much add the rest in around that I'd say. Hey, you'd be pretty close to that.

Damien: come

Hamish: Hey,

it's been amazing chatting. Thank you. I hopefully that's been informative. We've been talking for an hour and 37 minutes.

Matthew: Happy days. Thank you for coming on. Hey, stick around for two seconds.

I think it's really important that people, when they're building their first passive house or going down this thing, there's not enough education, there's no education out there on the extras and the changes.

And I think what people need to do is like what Damon has done and reached out to us to ask for help is totally okay. didn't have that luxury when we built our first.

Hamish: mate. No, no, no, I mean, I guess this is just the evolution of the space, [00:31:00] which I think is amazing. Like, I think way back when, when we first started getting into it, we were reaching out to, you know, the likes of Devon and, And those kinds of guys, obviously Devin's from Performance Membranes now, Stewie, Stewie Lee a little bit.

but now we've got this data of dozens of builders who have built high performance and passive houses, where people can learn from the mistakes of all of us, just like what Damo's learned today, uh, which I think is incredibly valuable. So maybe we could even think about doing a podcast about Cashflow on a high performance home.

Matthew: we've got a great one. And the other thing that we've got as well, we've got our websites up and running. The MindfulBuilder. com. so what I, we have on that, Hamish and I are going to do episodes every now and again of just, Pretty much right in. You can send us a question via our DM through Instagram or through our website, and we're just going to pick them and start answering them.

All right, you can ask whatever you want. and then we might break them down if they're about architects, we might bring in an architect to help us answer those questions. Brad from [00:32:00] Samford Build Co. will also be joining us on a lot of these conversations. They can be, um, technical about one small little junction in the building.It can be, yeah, Cam,

we can make these as technical as you want them. It might be simple as, uh, should we tilt a windowsill on our frame? And we might dive into that for 40 minutes. There's no question off, off top that we won't try and start. We won't obviously get to them all, but we're going to do our best.

But I think it's also important that Hamish and I also have a bunch of stuff that we've been planning in the background for the future to make sure that we can educate you guys on this. We're going to bring a ton of content. From an educational side of things through webinars and detailing and giving our knowledge back to you guys because we think it's important.

Um, we know that we have it and it is something we get a lot of questions asked, not through the mind, not just the minefield builder, but through Sanctum Homes and Carlin Constructions on how we build. So we are, we are looking at doing that to educate architects. building designers, interior designers, engineers, carpenters, trades like we're going to try [00:33:00] every single market to try educate you to make sure that we can get the best information out there that we know and learn from our mistakes because at the end of the day we just want a better building industry.

Hamish: And just further from that, there's actually a selfish element as well. Because there's so much stuff that I don't know, that I want to know. So I want to get guests on that I can learn from.

Matthew: Yeah, that's it. definitely going to be, definitely going to be. Yeah, true, totally. Alright, Matty, I'm going to go because it's Saturday and I'm going toThank you. Enjoy. See fun.

Hamish: you

dude. Bye. Bye.