Level Up with Duayne Pearce
I take on the role of an authoritative voice that fearlessly communicates truths drawn directly from my lived experiences. With a genuine sense of ownership, my insights are free from any hidden agendas – they truly belong to the audience. My stories and journey add remarkable value, the key now lies in harnessing its power effectively to help others.
My purpose is to create a new residential building industry. My mission is to inspire unshakable self-confidence in my colleagues in the industry, empowering them to orchestrate prosperous, enduring, and lucrative businesses that bring exceptional projects to fruition for our clients.
My goal is to foster a deeper comprehension among clients about the identity and functions of builders, redefining their perceptions.
Level Up with Duayne Pearce
What Lies Beneath: Understanding the Importance of Building Inspectors.
Join Wayne Gorman this week as we discuss the ins and outs of building inspectors.
check out Duayne's other projects here...
QuoteEaze
quoteeaze.com/Free-Offer.html
Live Life Build
livelifebuild.com
D Pearce Constructions
dpearceconstructions.com.au
Head over to revelsaunas.com.au and use the Coupon Code LEVELUP10 on checkout to receive 10% off any Revel products.
We're on a mission to elevate the professionalism of the residential construction industry, and help everyone enjoy building and renovating homes.
Easy to use Quoting software for Builders. Produce professional and accurate proposals. Quickly and accurately measure and markup plans in minutes. Win more jobs and track costs. 21 Day Free Trial.
Head over to Duayne's website here for other podcasts, merch and more...
duaynepearce.com
The other part that we've lost, too, is that the building surveyors have been smashed over the last dozen years, to the point now where, technically, their insurance companies won't let them give advice.
Speaker 2:G'day everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Level Up. We are still in Tasmania and I'll tell you what the podcast is just getting better and better down here. This community down in Tasmania, and I'll tell you what the podcast is getting better and better down here. This community down in Tasmania is absolutely incredible the way they work together and they definitely I can feel it in the air down here. There's definitely this big improvement coming when it comes to the build quality, building healthy homes, all those types of things. But our next guest this is this is going to be a whole can of worms and I've definitely been looking forward to this one since we spoke on the phone a couple of months ago.
Speaker 2:Um, our next guest, has a business called three-in-one building assessment which covers all your building inspections, your energy. He's known as the energy man. He looks after all your star ratings. Um does a lot of condensation and mould reports, is widely recognised and respected as an absolute I'm not sure on the word a bit of a gun when it comes to all this type of stuff, and he actually started the Australian Building Sustainability Association. So today we have with us Wayne Gorman. How are you, mate? Good, how are you mate?
Speaker 1:Good, how are?
Speaker 2:you Good, good. I hear that you're a very hard man to get to do something like this, so I'm pretty proud to have you sitting here and be able to have this conversation. Pleasure to be here. So let's dive straight in, because this is a topic I'm very interested in. So you obviously do building inspections. I think you don't just do them in tazer, you've done them all over the place, haven't?
Speaker 1:you, yeah, pretty well.
Speaker 2:In a lot of occasions, yeah, and also been overseas and looked at buildings overseas so you get to see all the stuff that builders do that they shouldn't be doing a fair bit of that yep yeah.
Speaker 2:So let's dive into this, because this is I'm a I believe there's a lot of clients out there that don't get the finished product that they should get, and a lot of the stuff that I'd imagine, you see, is stuff that gets hidden, covered by concrete, covered by wall linings, whatever the case may be, and the problem doesn't actually arise until possibly years down the track. And so, with the inspections you do, are they during the construction or are they more once the problems come?
Speaker 1:up Some of it's. When the problems come up, some of it the client's got a bit of an inkling that things aren't going quite right. And then there's always the sort of wobble side of it. In that alterations and additions, there is this concept that if you're doing an alteration in addition to a house that was built in 1940, it doesn't have to be spot on because the house is 1940 and sure but right. Mate and I usually go in hard on those because if you're building a brand new alt and addition to an older house, I don't care about the old house but the alt and addition has to be perfect and some of the stuff that goes through that's not quite there is quite substantial.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know where to bite my tongue in this one because I'm probably going to stir things up a little bit, but the first one I'll bring up. I don't know where to bite my tongue in this one because I'm probably going to stir things up a little bit. The first one I'll bring up external window and door installation. I remember they made some changes to the framing code up in Queensland. It was probably five, six years years ago and I went to us. They held a seminar timber framing Australia. I think it was put the seminar on and I went along and there was only I don't know there would have been over 100 people in that room and there's only myself and two other builders and all everyone else in the room was engineers, certifiers, inspector type people and I remember thinking to myself holy shit, like we're actually the ones that are on site doing this stuff. Why we all? So my feedback on the feedback form was every builder in australia it should be compulsory to do these seminars. And then, like I said, on their marketing now that that comments on the bottom of it but I learned things at that seminar like.
Speaker 2:So I found like for most of my career there's like we're always trying to improve things, do things better, but I was still doing things when it comes to tie down that I'd been taught by my builder or by my boss that were wrong. I didn't know any better and I was. I was shocked because I thought I was doing a good job and so, yeah, that that really sparked an interest in when it comes to specifications, building codes and stuff for me, and it's really like so my team and I talk a lot about this. Now we improve our systems and processes. I regularly go to these types of seminars to improve my knowledge, but we basically have an industry that's full of people that aren't taught like you don't know what you don't know, and so clients are all getting these houses and paying all this money for things.
Speaker 1:That isn't right but part of it too. I noticed in tassie that, um, illiteracy is a big part, um, and I remember going to a master builders meeting and there was some person from the government department saying, oh, we're going to teach you how to do this and there'll be a pamphlet on that and an app for this. And some old builder at the back piped up and said, mate, these boys can't read and write, they're not going to be able to do your stuff. And he goes yeah, and we'll have an app for this and an app for that. And it just went straight over his head. So, yes, you're right, we should be lifting the bar continuously, but if someone is illiterate and doesn't want anyone else to know, they're going to hide and they're not going to go to these seminars and be a part of it, which is unfortunate for them because they're missing out.
Speaker 2:It is a shame and I do know that there's a lot of that in the industry and I actually I personally use that for an excuse for a very long time, like I'm look at my writing on this notepad here, mate, like I'm probably every second word's spelt wrong but it makes sense to me.
Speaker 2:But that's our industry, like most a lot of people in our industry. We see it with young apprentices coming through like they're. They're not good at writing or reading or spelling and all those types of things, but at the end of the day, that's that's no excuse. Like, if you want to be in this industry and you want to be a tradie or a builder, you you have to learn this stuff and um. So I'm a very visual person because of that, so I go to these seminars. I can't always keep up with the wording on the screen and stuff, but I can definitely visualize the pictures they show and and and hear what they're saying and I can pick up enough from that and then I can go away and do a bit more of my own time. But look, what's some of the main things you see on sites like main issues uh, it's a lot of.
Speaker 1:It's the the trade stuff. Uh, and over probably a decade I've seen the builders are still trying to keep their level of performance, but the trades have been slowly degrading to the point where some of the stuff I look at and I go why do you even bother getting out of bed?
Speaker 2:to come and do this Like what.
Speaker 1:I did an inspection on a brand new townhouse that was supposedly the B&E gold&e gold star. Blah, blah, blah, uh, and I come away with a list of about 20 items. Uh, that were. Some were fairly critical in that there was no subfloor ventilation at all for this building and it had prefab pine trusses holding up a lot of it, which would disappear in about five years. Uh, gaps in flashings that were big enough for a possum to get through iron not turned down.
Speaker 1:Gaps in construction changeovers from renders to some other cladding balconies, balconies that were just not right, and like waterproofing falls oh, the setup for the spigots for the, the glass balustrades, waterproofing especially if they're over at top of another room underneath the waterproofing was right and yeah, this just goes, yeah they all seem like very common issues or problems to me, yeah probably a lot of it.
Speaker 1:I've been in a fair few houses where I get in the roof, because I'm probably one of the few that get in the roof. Most building surveyors don't even carry a ladder, they just come in. They're looking for high-risk stuff. Is my glass right? Is there smoke detectors in the right spot? Tick, tick, tick, click. Let's get out of here.
Speaker 2:I've been in rooms where one third of the house wasn't even insulated and the rest of it just had bats thrown around to sort of make it look good, especially around the manhole.
Speaker 1:Yeah, put them where they can reach. Yes, yeah, if someone did that. Yeah, yeah, and it's just sloppy, bad, yeah, but the builder takes the risk and goes. Is anyone going to have a look in here in the next seven years? Probably not. I'll get away with that. And then the other one is you get trades like people that install air conditioner ducting, and they'll just. I've been in one place where they threw all the bats in a pile in the middle of the roof because they're in the way. Hmm, so there was probably three square meters of bats piled a meter high and the rest of the ceiling had nothing yeah, that's crazy, isn't it?
Speaker 2:and that, like the average homeowner wouldn't but the trailer, just leave the site, put the manhole cover back down and leave, and and the homeowner probably never sticks their head up there and checks what's going on.
Speaker 1:Never Even underneath if it's got a subfloor. I turn up for inspections and go, I've got to get in the subfloor. And they go have you got bolt cutters? The lock's rusty and we've never been in there since we've been here or built it. And I go in there and the waste pipe off the shower was disconnected 10 years ago and it's a swamp under there and people go.
Speaker 2:oh, I didn't know that, yeah, far out that sub-solar ventilation. One's a huge one, isn't it? And I must admit that got brought to my attention a long, long time ago because, again, through my apprenticeship, I didn't do any of that construction. Everything was slab on ground or very high off the ground. And it wasn't until well into my building career that we had some houses come up that were on brick bases and had enclosed subfloors. And I remember receiving one of the first ones we did, receiving a set of stamp approved drawings and the certifier actually had a note on it to make sure all the subfloor ventilation was correct, and that made me look at the building code and see what was required. But until then I I'd never been shown or told what the requirements were.
Speaker 2:Um, and then, yeah, obviously from then on you just know it's something that. But what I started to do, or I still do it now, is when I learn things like that, I push the architects, designers. I think it should be there. It's definitely my job to know it and install it and build it, but it should be their job to show vents or mechanical, whatever the case may be on the drawings. Yeah, and I think a lot of builders make those assumptions? That well, I just do what's on the drawings. But it's our responsibility as builders to make sure the building's built to code, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but there's also the mindset of because the Ncc says these are the minimum standards. So when you look at subfloor ventilation it says the minimum will be x amount of millimeters for the perimeter. Blah, blah, blah blah. But there's a little clause under there I don't know whether it's, you know, subclause b or c or something and it says if there is likely to be moisture under the dwelling in the subfloor, double the subfloor insulation. So it's not increase it by 10% or 20%, it's double the subfloor ventilation. And that's not minimum, that's just to handle a bit of moisture under there. And I look at that and go I wonder how many people have actually read that and know that that exists, especially at Tassie where you build on a bit of sloping ground and there's moisture comes down the hill I've just learned something I didn't.
Speaker 2:I didn't, I've never read that closet. You meant to double it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, double it, yeah, yeah and um jewsbury, uh, mark jewsbury from the building department in utah's, he, he just puts it all. He does architectural work as well. It's just standard for him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, work out the minimum and then double it yeah, simple, yeah, yeah, the way I look at things now is just because our building code like it's actually quite pathetic that we have to work to a minimum standard oh, no, it's, it's, it's the bar this is.
Speaker 1:I mean. Some people say, oh, if this is the the worst house you can build, if you want to build the worst house you can possibly build there, you go. There's the bar for it, um, but you've got to have a line in the sand somewhere.
Speaker 2:So that's, that's the line in the sand it's got to be like this, so that it protects the occupants so we, we, our rule in our business is that we always go bum beyond like if there's a waterproofing detail, flashing detail, whatever it is like put extra fall on on balconies, all those types of things.
Speaker 2:But I like the other one you mentioned there about um, expansion joints or where different surfaces meet each other. Um, because I know on our jobs even sometimes now it's up to myself, my supervisor or some of my lead carpenters to point out to the likes of brickies and stuff that hang on a minute like we need there needs to be a flashing behind that or there needs to be an expansion joint there, like um, and I really do feel that's where so many homes fall over is their lack of supervision.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, that's a big part of it. The other part that we've lost too is that the building surveyors have been smashed over the last dozen years, to the point now where, technically, their insurance companies won't let them give advice.
Speaker 1:Once upon a time the old building surveyor would come on site and he goes you've done a shit job there, you're going to need to tidy that up and if I come back and it's like that again, I'm going to kick you in the ass and they'd critique their work all the way through, whereas a building surveyor comes on site now and might issue a notice on them or whatever, but he doesn't tell them what's wrong. He might tell them what's wrong, but he doesn't tell them the rectification for it or best practice, or you could do it this way or anything else.
Speaker 1:It's sort of like a silence now and I think builders are missing out on that expertise and knowledge that a building surveyor has, because they've got a lot of knowledge and they look at buildings all day, every day, so they see what goes on.
Speaker 2:So like what happens when you find things that are wrong, like if it like when there is a registered trade or builder there, like what? What's the process? How does it work.
Speaker 1:It just becomes a negotiation. Um if. If they're not accredited or registered, you know they usually head for the hills stuck under the radar. Don't answer their phone, do whatever. My advice to the clients is usually try and get some document. Often, you know, especially in in a wet area. Get a waterproofing statement, even if it's a stat deck. Just get something with a name on it, on a date, so that you've got a starting point, a reference. If something goes pear-shaped later on, yeah, any, any piece of paper is going to help if you can get hold of it, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, like I would love to hope that most builders and trades out there doing the right thing, but I I know they're not. Um, like I said earlier, the the installation of external doors and windows is a shocking one. Like you see windows, I'm sure you see it. There you have a 2400 high, 2100 wide sliding door that's nailed in with eight finishing nails. Um, like waterproofing is obviously like.
Speaker 1:That isn't correct me if I'm wrong, but that's one of australia's biggest cause of issues in 80% of all dwelling failures are wet areas and the NCC and government have known about it since the 80s and now we've just had a change to the waterproofing standard but there still is no mandatory inspection.
Speaker 2:Which seems crazy to me, an issue that is would well, that is costing our industry a lot of money because, whether whether it's costing the homeowner or or through insurance, like someone's paying for that rectification work which would be playing a part in costing, pushing the cost of building up, we're all paying more insurances for it. Um, it just seems crazy that that isn't like. Obviously you have to do structural inspections foundations, slabs and, like some jobs, driveways, like why would you not add one more inspection to do waterproofing?
Speaker 1:there is a trend, it's it's sort of starting to pick up here. I went to a conference in america a couple years ago ashre conference and I was chatting to a bloke there who acts as a sort of like a mediator between the builder and the client, uh, and he's on site every day to check what's going on and he's the the gatekeeper, uh, and if something's not according to the plans or there's a variation or something needs checking on, he's there to do that on behalf of the client.
Speaker 2:And I'm thinking, well, that's interesting, that's sort of got a bit of a niche opening here in Australia, because Well, it seems crazy that a client's got to pay extra to manage someone that should be doing the right thing on site to begin with.
Speaker 1:Correct, but I can see the logic in it. If you've got a, you know, a several million dollar project underway, uh, and it's got different things, yeah, techniques or different buildings, type construction or whatever that it would be good to have someone there to have a look at it and go yeah yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 1:I mean, tradies make things up I've been, I've supervised some stuff and, and you can tell when they get in a little huddle down there down the corner, and you go, okay, what's going on here? They go down, they have a talk. You go, what's happening, boys? And they go, oh, this isn't going to work here. So we thought we'd do blah, blah, blah. And I go, nah, I don't think so. I think we're going to do this. Oh, that's going to take ages to do that. There's all this. And I go, that's why we're doing it. No, no, no, we'll do it our way. It's, it's quicker and better. And I go, well, we'll do it my way, or I'll ring your boss and he can come down and tell you how you're gonna do it. All right, we'll do it your way then. But if I had left him alone, it's like quick and easy, cover it up we're out.
Speaker 2:But again comes back to the dollars. Done that, like so many trades and contractors aren't pricing work correctly. Yes, so they're, so they're they are. They're always trying to shortcut things. Yep, um, is it compulsory to water? Test showers and wet areas?
Speaker 1:now there has to be a um, a membrane, an actual measurement of the membrane. So that's, that's supposed to be the new check.
Speaker 2:So what do you mean by that? The thickness, yes. So to me that seems crazy. How do you check that?
Speaker 1:You do as you're doing your waterproofing, you do like a test sample so that it matches what's going on, so that you can actually cut that peel and do a visual on it to make sure that it's got us good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, I'll have to look into that more. But yeah, for years now we water test all of our waterproofing, water test all of our waterproofing. Like, once it's dried and cured, put a blow balloon up, stick it in the, the floor, waste and flood the room and put a felt pen mark on the water and leave it sit for 48 hours. And I just think it's something that's so simple that and I told the same story the other day on another podcast we've had multiple leak. Um, it's nothing against the contractor's work, but one got one waterproof. We had thought we were having to dig at him but, um, he thought I was crazy. It was the first job he'd done for me and he thought I was crazy for water testing. It told me he's done hundreds of bathrooms, never had a leak, very first one he did for us.
Speaker 2:We come back the next day and all the water was on the in the. It was a renovation. All the water was gone through the ceiling. It was on the. It was a renovation. All the water was gone through the ceiling. It was on the floor downstairs.
Speaker 2:Um, like something just so simple. Yes, it adds a couple of days to your program, um, but just something so simple gives me confidence that it shouldn't have an issue like the. The only um, the only room for error with that is the tiler coming in or another train scratching it. But we've got a process now where our tiler is very passionate about it, so he's now the waterproof, he's done all his licensing, he's very, very good at it, so he's in control of the entire process, does all the waterproofing, lets us do the water tests and then his team do the bedding, do the tiling. So they're all aware of the possibilities and the results and, obviously, what can happen if things go wrong. And that's been working really, really well. But I do a lot of videos on our socials and our job walkthroughs and so many builders message and say what are you doing that for? What's the point of it?
Speaker 1:To make sure it doesn't leak. It's the acid test, like to make sure it doesn't leak. It's the acid test it leaks, for it doesn't like. It's like doing a blower door test on a building is it airtight or not?
Speaker 2:yeah, blower door test will tell you yeah, yeah, there's no, we're just talking about this with a, the last podcast guest um, with the blower door test and certified passive house, like there's. It seems like it's really ramping up now, like everybody's talking about passive house in australia and there's a passive house conference and all this, all this stuff, but I'm going to find out the numbers, but there's actually not a huge amount of certified passive houses in australia, is there?
Speaker 1:no, there's a. There's a fair few people building to a passive house principle. Um, there's a gentleman in south australia, jim woolcock. He he did a project where they designed a house, built it and and followed it all the way through, tested it and he his conclusion in the end that the sweet spot for an efficient house was between eight and eight and a half stars. He said after that you just, the incremental improvements are so small and the dollars you gotta throw at it to try and get there, it's just not worth money.
Speaker 1:All you get is the badge at the end to say, oh yeah, it's a passive house yeah and if you want that, fine, um, but yeah, the sweet spot's between eight, eight and a half yeah, and so that's part, like you do the star rating stuff you get involved with with that.
Speaker 2:So is there more testing in the jobs that are trying to achieve that, like, do you do more inspections on them?
Speaker 1:No, Unfortunately it's turned into a bit of a political football, going from six to seven stars. Is it was just shoved through quick because someone needed to satisfy something somewhere. It had not much industry discussions, the Rizzes weren't real crash hot and it's more politics than anything else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and in Tassie that's the way with most of the rules we have to follow yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's sort of very blatant with energy efficiency In Tassie. The government here said no, we're not going to seven stars, we've got a condensation problem. We need to handle it first, otherwise we're just gonna make the problem times ten and hope they're gonna review it again next year and hopefully they sort of put the pause button on it again so that we're not creating more problems. And and our style of construction is adding to it, because there's this trend for flat roofs. Yeah, in the Northern Hemisphere you don't build anything under 15 degrees. If you do, it has to have massive, massive tests and engineering and woofy tests and all sorts of things to make sure it's going to perform.
Speaker 1:Here we just chuck them up a dime, a dozen and go yeah sure, all right.
Speaker 2:I think it's yeah, I'm not a fan of it. And again, it's only been through me doing more education and personal development that I yeah, I'll put my opinions forward now to designers and architects and I'll walk away from a job if it's, I know the design's going to give me grief.
Speaker 1:It could be high risk, very high risk, to take on some jobs.
Speaker 2:Oh, it definitely is. Another conversation we were having the other day with Frank from Prime Design. Like box gutters Everyone wants these flat rows and parapets and things, and then they put these minimum standard size box gutters in. Where's the water going to go when it can't go anywhere? Straight into the ceiling. Like just, there's got to be more thought put into this.
Speaker 2:Like I really push back, like we won't do a house now if it um, doesn't have any some sort of eve on it. Yep, like the same thing, I think. I think the eve's a little bit of a safety device. Not only does it shade the house and all those types of things, but obviously if you have an eve and the gutters back up and all the client doesn't clean their gutters and then the gutters flood, it's nine times out of ten, it's the water can never get to a height that's going to enter back into the house. But, um, so what? What's so? What's other things, you see, matt, because I think if we can talk about things that you physically see people doing wrong, it'll help people understand what they should be doing better, because I think a lot of. I know one of my pet hates that I see on social media all the time is concreters pouring concrete and they're walking on the mesh and the mesh is touching the ground.
Speaker 2:It doesn't come back up does, does it once the concrete goes on it? No, there, no, none of them have hooks anymore. Yeah, pull it up as you go, yeah, yeah, although, uh, my worst one is you see, the concrete is laying the mesh for a driveway and then they back the truck on it and they, they, they think that the hook, like pulling it back up a little bit here and there as they go along, is going to make all the difference. But we do renovations and you pull driveways up and all the mesh is laying in the dirt underneath.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the ones that's cropping up recently is because we've got new livability rules for some builds and you're not supposed to have steps above this and blah, blah, blah. There is now and I don't think the concrete is aware, but they're concreting up over all the weep holes or something relation to meet whatever is required and that's a bit of a trap. Peter Lawrence 06134-0168. Let's come back later on and probably be a problem. Peter Lawrence 06134-0168. The other ones pro. Main one for me is is insulation, that's it's the critical part of making a building perform. It's given to the people that have the least amount of knowledge to put it in and have the least sort of attitude as to doing it. It's the plaster as a apprentice that gets to shove it up there somewhere, and I've got photos. I've got a Facebook page and I've got photos. I've probably put up a couple of months of bags of insulation still in the roof. Jeez, that's lazy.
Speaker 1:And insulation has a date on it that a lot of people don't know because I don't know if it's, if it's not installed within a certain date, it doesn't fluff up to its full depth, which means it's not performing as it's meant to be. And when the insulation program was on years ago, people were importing it by the container load from China because it was just selling like hotcakes. And then, when the government crunched it and virtually shut it down overnight, I had phone call after phone call from people saying oh, I've got container loads of insulation, I've got to move it before the use-by date. It's like, oh sorry can't help you.
Speaker 2:Well, you learn something new every day, don't?
Speaker 1:you yeah. Yeah, that's something I've never considered, but as soon as you said that it makes sense because, yeah, obviously the performance of insulation is it can't be too compact and it can't be pulled apart, yep.
Speaker 2:So yeah, obviously, if it's in an airtight like vacuum sealed in a bag and compressed too compact and it can't be pulled apart? Yep, so yeah, obviously it's in an airtight, vacuum sealed bag and compressed. Yeah, that makes complete sense.
Speaker 1:And the old rule of thumb with the installation of it is that if you've got 10% gaps, you've got 50% loss.
Speaker 2:Sure. So, 10% gaps. So if you're installing it between your studs and your rafters and you've got 10% gaps, you're losing 50% of the performance.
Speaker 1:So you picture in your head how many roof spaces you've seen, where there is half a metre around air conditioning ducts, half a metre around downlights A bit missing here a gap. There Doesn't take long to get to 10%.
Speaker 2:No, I'm going to. I'm writing that down, Matt, because what the hand does, the mind remembers. So 10% gaps is a 50% loss, Loss in performance.
Speaker 1:I'll be using that one with my team on site, so it's critical to get it right. And the other thing that we can do that we don't do because the R value in the roof space is now increasing all the time. But what we can do, if it's feasible, is to actually buy your roof insulation in half values. So if you I've had houses- where they've, you know, got r7 in the roof, simply because that's what's been specified.
Speaker 1:So if you bought two lots of uh 3.5 bats, you can run one with the trusses or the joists and then you run the other one in the opposing direction. So you get full coverage and really good efficiencies. But it comes back to the numbers. Is that feasible to do that from a dollar and a labor content? Yeah and you won't get your plastered.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, yeah, the second layer's got to go on from above, so, but it's like insulation, I think I believe is another one that should have an inspection. Should you, um like at a point where a house is all roughed in, it's lined on the outside and it's ready for internal wall linings? I believe that should be another inspection because at that point you can inspect the insulation. You can also inspect the fixings in all the external windows and doors, um visually, but you can also um check like your electrical wiring requirements are, is lighting fixtures, are certain distances from taps and all that type of stuff like. Yeah, so like I, I think our industry would improve dramatically if those like waterproofing and a pre-internal lining inspection was added to the requirements.
Speaker 2:Like it's going well. For a start, it's going to help builders and trades more accountable because they know someone's going to be checking things. Number two, clients are going to get what they should be getting. And number three, it's just helping our industry Like people are actually taking pride in what they do, because if we don't have inspections, there's always going to be trades and builders that are trying to cut corners. That's just reality.
Speaker 1:But there's also the people that don't know as well, so it sort of fills that void.
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, the installation one one. I'll put my hand up like we again. That was something that towards the end of my apprentice actually no, I think when I started subbing and I was working for other builders it's we started that became one of our tasks, like we had to start putting that in. I I could name you hundreds of jobs where we put the insulation up to the soffit so you had this whole. Generally it was a 300 mil gap around the building.
Speaker 1:That wasn't, um, that wasn't insulated, and that's the most critical point, because hot air rises and it's going to push out wherever there's a weak spot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I still see it now. You drive around, especially a project, home, volume, home, housing estate. You look around and you see the building part will be up to soffit height and the insulation's only up to that and there's a clear hole straight through the top. But yeah, it was only from me, I guess, having interest and starting to get more educated. And well, the number one drive was my whole thing is about. I take my job seriously. I want to make sure I'm always delivering my client the best I can. Um, and now it just comes back to something as simple like my. My whole building business now is built around. Every single thing that we do has to be done as per manufacturer specification, like everything we do, everything our trades do, like that's. That's our bare minimum, because I know something like that that most homeowners would think is a standard isn't happening you mentioned.
Speaker 1:Sorry to cut you off. You mentioned volume builders there and they're probably one that's driving down rather than lifting the bar, and I always remember going to a an awa glass conference one time and uh, she was. I think she was the ceo at the time. Anyway, they had complaints about window installations in this big subdivision out the west of melbourne, somewhere where they're building, you know, acres and acres of houses and they pulled up outside this house that was had was the person was installing windows. So there was three of them. They just sat in the car and they watched the bloke. Anyway, he picked the window up, he ripped the rubber seal off the bottom of it and pick it up and shove it in the hole and bang, bang, bang and pack a ball into the hole and head off the hole.
Speaker 1:Anyway, he's just a little bit of a Went over and said oh, excuse me, we wanted to ask you a couple of questions. And he goes yeah, what? Anyway? They said oh, we noticed you ripped the rubber seal off the bottom of the window frame. He said, lady, you're costing me time. I only get paid 30 a window. Get out of my way. And that was his response.
Speaker 2:That was quite a good example of how volume homes are done we like, when I started building myself, um, definitely not the current brick we use, but we used a brickie. That that's what he did. Like I turned up the site and he's all the rubber seals on the ground. I was like, what are you doing, mate? He's like, oh, that's, that's what we do. So why? Because? Oh, because it it the layout, like we get our bricks up tight, seals it off better. And I said the whole reason it's there is to seal it up. Like what are you talking about? Like so it all a lot of like. Everything we're talking about comes back to um, education, and again it's it's dollars. Like one is rushing to try and make money out of their, their job instead of putting more time into educating clients on how long it's going to take to do something correctly. Um, I'd imagine the cladding installation like that would be another big problem. You see, yeah, yeah that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably when eps was expanded, polystyrene was in its heyday. Lots of sills that were either level or actually negative, rolling back towards the window frame, yeah, and just bad installations or left out in the weather. Yeah, most of the brickwork isn't too bad, probably for some reason, everyone seems to leave the expansion joints open. It's like you're supposed to weather seal it. Yeah, and I go to houses now.
Speaker 2:What do you mean when they're finished or during construction? No, no, when they're finished, yeah.
Speaker 1:I go to houses now where they're 15, 20 years old and still got open expansion joints, never been sealed.
Speaker 2:You're kidding, yeah.
Speaker 1:Jeez, that's an easy one. Yeah, it is an easy one, but it just gets left. And if you're on a weather side like you get a predominant weather side of the building and it's got a couple of expansion joints, well, weather's going to drive the moisture in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a no-brainer.
Speaker 2:And so they're just relying on some crappy foil-backed sarking that probably hasn't been installed correctly behind the joint to catch the water and run it down to the wee poles that are probably full of mud because the brick hasn't cleaned them out now you're talking but these like these conversations need to be, because that's like you see brickies throwing these, throwing bricks up, and just you can hear the mud falling down the back onto the damp course and you're just like guys, like that water's got to be able to flow out of that. Oh no, it's fine. It's fine, we'll go back through at the end of the day. And so the other, like I, have a lot of pet hates actually you bring it all out. Then you see them at the end of the day. This was way back.
Speaker 2:So my last year of my apprenticeship, my boss got quiet on work, so we went from doing custom homes to smashing out frames for volume builders, and so we'd go to a street and then and I did I actually did a bit more of it when I became a contractor we I built up a large team we would go into whole streets and just like, smash up 20 frames for a volume builder, and so you're always working closely with the next trades that were coming through. And yeah, so the brick, you'd be laying the bricks and you'd like I didn't know at the time. I knew it wasn't right because I've always been big on putting in that extra 1% and doing my job correctly. Like we'd go through and do all the sarking and the window installation and they'd come through, pull the rubber seals off. If the window was close to the corner and they couldn't get bricks in, they'd be tearing the damp course off the window.
Speaker 2:But you would see them at the end of the job going around putting their bar in and cleaning the weep holes in and they're just jamming it in and you could hear it pushing through the damp course. So they thought they were doing the right thing by cleaning the weep holes out, but they were pushing everything through so hard that they're going right through the dam course and creating a hole where any water that comes down the inside cavity is just going to go straight through and soak into the well. I guess it's going to seep into the footing and the slab edge. So there's a lot of room for education, isn't there? Like in that example, educating the bricklayer about why it is so important for him to minimise the mud that falls down the back and why it's important for him to clean the wee poles out carefully?
Speaker 1:I think that's the key is explaining the why. If they've got an understanding of the why, it makes sense. But if someone comes along and goes, oh, don't do that, it's like well, I've always done that or I'm going to keep on doing that, but the why, if you go, this is going to cause a big problem, blah, blah, blah, blah. Show them an example. And it's like okay, that makes sense, we can change. Most people are quite open to change, but the why is the important part of it. Otherwise it just becomes a mystery and it's going to act on a mystery.
Speaker 2:It's going to keep on doing what they do so like. Another one of my pet hates is cladding getting smashed on with nail guns. Even if you can, I just think it's such it's well for me. From my point of view it's a really bad finish. You generally end up with the scratches from the prongs on the nail gun. It penetrates the cladding too much, like well, you would see it from bracing. Do you do frame inspections? A bit, not a lot, but yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's the same thing like with frame inspections like the nails penetrate and apply, like the bracing sheet becomes useless.
Speaker 1:Or worse, they're near a sea environment and they're all using bright nails or something that's not good for a salt environment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably the other big one.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's huge and it's something that I definitely. We do quite a lot of coastal work and I point out to my clients like I will not be the cheapest builder but I will do the best job I can. And one example I give them is fixings. Because we know from our data now, if you do a 300 square metre home on the ocean lightweight construction with all lightweight cladding, lightweight construction with all lightweight cladding your tight end and fixing allowance can go from, say, $3,500, $4,000 for a build that's not near the ocean to over $10,000. By the time you buy all stainless fixings, stainless or galvanized fixings and again it's another pet item of mine you drive past a house that's been built in a salty environment and it might only be two or three months old and you can start to see the rust marks running down the wall where the nail heads are rusting like for a for a homeowner. They would just expect that the correct fixings are getting used. How do we resolve just something as simple as that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, as you said, back to education. And then I think the examples, or stories and examples, are really good for trades and if the education was pictorial mostly pictorial it would be really good. You show a picture of rust stains down the side of a building. It's like okay, I get that, it's pretty easy to look at. I've been to places, uh, on our coastal areas and they've used the wrong bugle screws for for decking and everything. And and all of a sudden you know there's one tread on a step that's a bit loose and I lift it up and there's nothing there, it's just a little rubble of rust. It's it's actually gone. And I look at the rest of the deck and I go, that's not gonna hold up for another six months. And then all of a sudden you got a can and start putting in proper fixings and and the other thing is that with imports, you know, if you start using Chinese stainless steel, it's not gonna last any longer than anything else.
Speaker 2:We're definitely starting to notice that across the board, like the quality of materials even when you're paying for some of the better ones just the actual quality of, like you said, stainless steel or even some epoxy coatings and sealants and things they're just not what they used to be. It just feels like everything in our industry is just being cut back further and further and further to increase profits, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and sometimes we don't know. I mean, it's like going to the supermarket and buying a box of something that used to be 300 grams and now it's 250 grams and it looks like the same box as before, but you're paying a little bit more for a lot less. There was a infamous case in victoria where some rich person built a big mansion down on the coast, right on the edge of the coast, and had rendered exterior and after nine months the the render was going all dark brown. So they called the builder back and said now you've got a problem. Anyway, they tracked it back and it was the windows were bought from china, the upvc windows but all the mechanisms and hinges and everything were just raw steel and it was actually a rust that was running down the side of the building. So they had to pull out. It was like eighty thousand dollars with the windows. Wow, that's the way of putting you on there so they've.
Speaker 2:So they've, they've paid for a good quality window, like because the up's use pvc window is not cheap. But yeah, like that's well. Again, like just through this conversation, like you've got to ask those questions, don't't you? Because something as simple as the fixings within a product have now cost that builder a lot of money. I just want to touch on responsibility for a bit. I'm not sure if you'll know more about it we talked about it before but I'm not sure what it's like down here for. But I feel like I'm not sure what it's like down here, like up in brisbane not, definitely not the ones we use but there's a lot of trades that you hear, a lot of stories that trades cut corners because they just know, at the end of the day, like, try and come back at me, they'll just give you the finger and walk away, because they know that the responsibility lies with the builder. Is that the same down here?
Speaker 1:yes, unfortunately yeah so.
Speaker 2:But with builders at one point I really try and get across is builders are responsible. I personally believe that builders are responsible for the life of the home and because there's been plenty of stories and cases around where this has become the truth because if something goes wrong with the home, that's serious enough. And I hear it now that when insurance companies come in to assess things, if the assessor believes that the problem has come up because the house wasn't, or the product or the house or material, whatever the case wasn't built or installed to the building requirement at the time the house was built, the insurance company won't pay it. They'll just go after the builder. And there's definitely stories around where even builders have been retired years, 10, 15, 20 years. The house might be 30 years old and they've come in, they've done a scientific investigation and they've chased the builder and they send the builder broke and he's retirement. So we've got to take this stuff more seriously, don't we Well?
Speaker 1:I've heard of a builder up the coast that had problems. The house was going to be for himself and he ended up selling it to someone else and there was problems and the new owners wanted it fixed and it just kept on going and going. It was a condensation problem and it was built to code at the time and in the end the builder bought the house back at an absorbent rate, after paying 300,000 in legal fees as well.
Speaker 2:But yeah, to just negate the whole thing, he bought the building yeah, well, condensate, correct me if I'm wrong, but like, basically, with the new rule changes last year, it is the builder's responsibility, isn't it? So you and it's a trap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a real trap I know we like we when we do renovations and stuff. I always tell to my team, especially younger guys, like when you're pulling things apart, look around you and see, look for signs of moisture damage or water ingress and let's have a chat about like, how's it got there, what could they have done better, like, and that will help educate us on what we need to do better when we're building new buildings.
Speaker 1:But I'd imagine, uh, like the mold and the condensation is is a lot worse down here and yeah, well, it is a big problem here in tazzy, but it's also a problem in the far north as well.
Speaker 1:It's just yeah the opposite type of um trying to get in whereas I was trying to get out, or vicky versa, um, it's. It's such a variable because there is also the occupants of the building that can be adding to the problem or creating the problem and doing all sorts of things as well. So I've I probably get called out half a dozen times during the winter from real estate agents management department saying oh, we've got a complaint from this rental property and they've got black mold and they're all going to die and they're going to sue us and blah, blah. I go, yeah, yeah. So I'll go to a property and open up the door and go.
Speaker 1:You know, 30 degrees and 98 percent humidity comes roaring out when it's the middle of winter and I go in, there's the tumble dryer going flat out in the laundry with no exhaust or window open, and it's the doors open. It's in the rest of the house and they've got a split system running at 28 degrees. And I politely ask them questions. They go. And last time you opened the window and they go oh, we don't open windows. They've got three dogs and two cats and six kids running around. It's like whoa and it's just. You can feel the moisture hanging in the air and I go, I know why you got a mold problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nothing to do with the construction, it was all about the occupants yeah, and I think that's something that um builders probably need to be more aware of, because if they do get called back for these types of problems, that it's not always the way the house was built. No like, I've heard stories of um people having large fish tanks in houses and those rooms the walls are just saturated.
Speaker 1:There's mould in the ceiling simply from the moisture that's getting sucked out of the fish tank and it's a very, very hard conversation to have because if a builder goes, if there's a problem, and a builder goes back and goes oh it's the way you're living. That just raises the heckles on the people straight away. It's like don't you tell me that I'm living badly or whatever. So it has to virtually come from a third party and it's a very delicate, polite conversation that you've got to have to say you know you're living.
Speaker 1:The way you're living isn't quite contributing to a good environment in the house.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And education again.
Speaker 2:What's the number like? Is it's I'm trying to think like? Is it something like the average four person family can? Um, is it 200 liters of moisture a day or something?
Speaker 2:yeah, something like that yeah yeah, so even just general living in a home, um, when you take into account your cooking and the washer and dryer and just the moisture that we give off as humans, that's also a contributor. So that, like a lot of the new rule changes um designed to deal with that. Aren't they like that's having correct ventilation and all those types of things?
Speaker 1:yeah, but it's interesting because the the ensuite that I went to for this ventilation problem, the uh exhaust fans that were put in were rated fans as per the ncc 25 liters or whatever. Uh 25 or I think it was 25 liters per minute or whatever it was. But they't working. I got a tissue and held it up against the exhaust fan and the tissue just fell down. There was nothing going anywhere. And when I got in a roof the ducting had been shoved up into an old cowling system that went through the roof and it was just locking it off. So you can install the correct things but if they're not working the way they're supposed to. And then I've had a conversation with um one of the condensation gurus, clarence mcallister, and we both agree that, um, the other big problem is that whoever's installing the exhaust fans, if they buy a roll of six meters of ducting, they never trim it off they just get the whole lot and they just throw it out into the roof.
Speaker 1:So if the roof cools down over a cold night and there's warm air, warm moist air going through the ducting, it's going to condensate in the first two metres and sit there.
Speaker 2:It's not going to go anywhere.
Speaker 1:So then the next time you use it, there's another lot, lot of warm, moist air going into the ducting. And guess what? You're going to start growing things in that first two meters, because it's being fed every day by nice, warm air, moist air. And I've had a few where one issue said oh, we've got a problem. The ensuite exhaust fan, because after we finish having our showers and everything, about 15 to 20 minutes later it starts dripping back through the exhaust fan onto the floor and leaves a big puddle on the floor. I go yeah, I know what's happening and that's what it was like six metres of ducting, just sort of tossed around the roof. The actual physical line between the exhaust fan and the eave where it was going out was probably a meter and a half. Yeah, but it had to try and push through six meters of ducting to get there and it wasn't doing so. You could have, you know, you'd probably have to up it to a 85 liter fan to try and push through that resistance.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that all makes sense. That's I'm gonna uh, I'm adding that to my list. I'll be talking to team team about that when we get back, because I definitely know the scenarios where the electricians just, yeah, thrown a huge amount. We luckily, in my opening business generally, my only team that does the final fit off, so we'll cut the hole in the outside, pull it out, trim it off and put the vent on there. But it's, yeah, like you just educating me on that, it's actually something that they should be doing with our thing, like installing the correct length of ducting.
Speaker 1:But again, it's an education thing, because it is assumed that a fan that has a litre rating is going to push that air. No one educated on the fact that you get resistance. The the longer the tube, the greater the resistance. Yeah, to the point where it's not pushing it yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:so, mate, before we, um, before we wrap it up like what I guess some advice you give to people in the industry, keep learning, go to conferences, take the time out and go to conferences.
Speaker 1:What I do is I pre-COVID. What I was doing is a couple of websites that you can Google for conferences around the world anything and you look up building and construction and usually I hone in on energy efficiency. How about we go to Singapore? This year? There's a conference on it in Singapore and we tack it a couple of days on at the beginning or the end Tax deduction work trip it is.
Speaker 1:It's a business trip and just going to expos also, Even for builders, if they went to a building surveyors conference. There's one in every state every year. I'm going to Brisbane in May for Brisbane.
Speaker 1:So surveyors and certifiers conference Yep, I'm going to look into that, so you get get like eight, eight cpd points or something I don't know cpd points, but just the, the, the conversation, the, the, the topics that are discussed, even stuff that you wouldn't even think. I like that big, big conversations in the building surveysors at the moment are about electric vehicles. Yeah, and what do you do in that situation where you've got a fire in a garage that cuts off your exit from upstairs or something else?
Speaker 2:If you ask me, that should be banned. It's the worst, biggest con in a long time, I think they'll face it.
Speaker 1:It was an interesting comment by the head of the honda motor company and he said, uh, we're not even interested in going down this path. He said, we'll simply buy the credits to get through this phase. And they're, they're looking at, uh, all sorts of other every, every, most, yeah, most.
Speaker 2:Um, most manufactured around the world are selling production and getting getting out of it. Like it it was never, ever going to be Like for me I was. My thing is I don't like to be told something and then jump on a bandwagon, so I like to do my own homework and look into things. It amazes me that more people don't but, like with lithium, like you, investigate the damage that that's doing to the planet. By the way that's mined, like the villages that have been hunted out that have been there for centuries, the destruction it's doing to deserts and rainforests.
Speaker 2:Um, one of my mates is in quite high up in mining and I actually didn't realise. He's been doing some consulting work for a lithium mine over in Western Australia and the lithium so it's underground but they have to. They break it down and screen it and do as much as they can with it here. But there's no processing plant for lithium in australia so that it then has to be trained and trucked from the mine to a cargo ship, shipped to china and refined. That out of all that material they ship over there, only three percent of it ends up being usable. Like that just doesn't make sense. Like all that time, money, energy, just wasted resources. Yeah, I could go on all day about that, but I find that very interesting that that's a topic that's getting discussed at a vein and certifying level, because you see all the horror stories. Now I know one of my mates is in the fireys. Fireys now when they go to a house fire have to be accompanied by an electrician, because if there's an EV set up there.
Speaker 2:So the reason that started to happen I don't know if that's the same everywhere, but up in Brisbane is because the lithium They'd put a house fire out during the night and the next morning the house would be back on fire because the lithium, like they'd put a house fire out during the night and the next morning the house would be back on fire because the lithium would be so hot it'd catch fire again. So during, like, if there's a house fire, an electrician or an energetic someone has to attend the house and actually cut the main power off to the house because lithium, yeah, is so dangerous.
Speaker 1:The other surprising thing is that the NCC jumped on it very quickly and there's now provisions where car parks have to have a certain amount of infrastructure in place for charging and solar on the roof and everything else. It's a strange push, but the populace will determine how it works, as to whether they sell or not.
Speaker 2:It cannot last. I saw the figures the other week. Actually, the sales of electric vehicles around the world has declined. It had this huge spike. It was just growing and growing and growing and then in the last six or eight months it's declined like 28% or something. Um, that's a conversation for another day. But, mate, really appreciate your time. Um, and yeah, I think these conversations need to be had because builders might think they're doing the right thing and if we're not having these conversations about waterproofing and testing your showers and installation of insulation following manufacturer specifications, our industry won't last. So it's just going to get worse and worse and worse. So, really appreciate your time. Thanks very much for coming on. Is there anything you want to say before we get out?
Speaker 1:thank you for the invitation no worries.
Speaker 2:Oh, look, guys, if you uh like the conversations we have and uh the value that we give you during these podcasts, please like, subscribe, share, comment all those things so that we can continue to deliver you australia's best traction podcast. Cheers everyone. See you on the next one. Are you ready to build smarter?
Speaker 1:live better and enjoy life, then head over to live like buildcom forward slash elevate to get started.
Speaker 2:Everything discussed during the Level Up podcast with me, dwayne Pearce, is based solely on my own personal experiences and those experiences of my guests. The information, opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only, and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. We recommend that you obtain your own professional advice in respect to the topics discussed during this podcast.