Hey everybody, welcome back to the HVAC ADHD podcast. I'm your host Jeremy Begley and today's guest is somebody
0:1010 secondsI've respected in the industry for a long time because he lives at the intersection of architecture, building science, HAC design, and actual real
0:1919 secondsworld constructibility, not just theory on paper. Today we're joined by Chris Limer Giddens of LG Squared, Inc. out of
0:2727 secondsAtlanta, Georgia. Chris has one of the most unique perspectives in the high performance building world because he's not just an architect and he's not just
0:3636 secondsan HVAC designer. He's somebody who understands the entire building as a system. Architecture, enclosure design,
0:4343 secondsHVAC, moisture, constructibility, and how all those pieces actually work together in the field. What makes Chris
0:5151 secondsreally interesting to me is he bridges the gap between building science theory and practical execution. He's worked
0:5858 secondsalongside some of the biggest names in the industry, including Allison Bales and David Butler, two of my personal mentors. And he's become known for
1:061 minute, 6 secondssimplifying really complicated concepts around high performance homes, perfect wall assemblies, air sealing,
1:131 minute, 13 secondsdurability, and HVAC integration. And if you follow him online, you already know he's not afraid to challenge conventional thinking. Whether it's
1:221 minute, 22 secondsspray foam, building enclosure strategy, or the way the industry approaches performancedriven construction in general. This conversation gets deep
1:301 minute, 30 secondsinto building science, HVAC design, architecture, process management, and why simplifying systems is often harder
1:391 minute, 39 secondsand smarter than making them more complicated. So, if you're into high performance home, HUAC design, home
1:471 minute, 47 secondsperformance, architecture, or just love nerding out on building science with some really smart people, you're going to love this one. Let's get into it with
1:561 minute, 56 secondsChris from LG Squared. Hey everybody, welcome back to the HVAC ADHD Vodcast.
2:022 minutes, 2 secondsI'm your host, Jeremy Begley. I'm here today with a fellow I've known for quite some time now. Way, way back in the industry, dating back to when I first
2:112 minutes, 11 secondsgot into it. Chris Lammer's Giddon of LG Squared. He's based out of Atlanta. And as a matter of fact, when I first met
2:192 minutes, 19 secondsChris or first interacted with Chris, he was working as a HVAC designer for Allison Bales. I doubt many people even
2:262 minutes, 26 secondsremember that history, but he worked probably not that long and then went off and did his own thing. And then the next thing I heard about him, he was doing
2:342 minutes, 34 secondsall this really cool That's what we're going to get into today. Chris, welcome to the show. Introduce yourself.
2:412 minutes, 41 secondsJeremy, thanks for having me, man. Yeah, it's been a long like you and I have been interacting for years. I was started getting into social media thanks
2:492 minutes, 49 secondsto Allison. He's a master at it. He was back in the Twitter days and now he continues his awesome blog from there.
2:572 minutes, 57 secondsSo, I'm with LG Squared, a company that my wife started in 2006. Jody Lambergens. She started it as a
3:053 minutes, 5 secondsresidential renovation and new construction architecture firm in Tampa, Florida. And then 2008 happened and
3:143 minutes, 14 secondsFlorida was hit really hard. So we were forced out sort of and came to Atlanta because there were like four job offers
3:223 minutes, 22 secondsfor me. So I took one of those and we've been thriving here ever since. But after the first nine months, the economy
3:313 minutes, 31 secondscaught up to Atlanta and then so I had to jump ship there and that's where I met Allison. He was looking for someone
3:383 minutes, 38 secondsto design HVAC systems. I've been an architect since 20 uh about 99 2000 I
3:463 minutes, 46 secondsstarted working at an architecture firm and commercial and then did that for yeah until 2008 off and on commercial
3:553 minutes, 55 secondsmultif family residential was in Colorado and then Louisiana and then Florida and then we ended up in Atlanta
4:044 minutes, 4 secondsand so when I started with Allison I I had a lot of experience with you know construction construction because I grew up a builder's kid and my stepdad was a
4:134 minutes, 13 secondsbuilder and loved creating things and went off to college at University of Colorado. And so when I met Allison, he
4:224 minutes, 22 secondswas in the residential market and he looked for he's like, "Hey, we're we're going to see a lot of need for HVAC design and building science is a thing
4:314 minutes, 31 secondsthat's going to catch on eventually." So we got into it there and I just he's like hey we do you you know I said I don't know how to do that HVAC design.
4:414 minutes, 41 secondsHe says well you're gonna have to learn.
4:434 minutes, 43 secondsSo I spent hours and days with AKA accoft
4:514 minutes, 51 secondslearning their software learning the protocols. And then I also had a mentor really good mentor David Butler out of Arizona.
4:584 minutes, 58 secondsLove that guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Super smart guy.
5:015 minutes, 1 secondAlmost too smart. Sometimes that guy will I mean I call him for a quick yes we all have our own you know intelligence about
5:105 minutes, 10 secondsI mean and I say that in the best way possible like he's going to take you down you know you may get in some conversations you did not expect when
5:165 minutes, 16 secondsyou start asking him questions so I'll say that for sure I call I call I can never make it's never a quick conversation with David
5:255 minutes, 25 secondsyou never so it I mean I go for oh just one thing that turns into four hours you
5:325 minutes, 32 secondsAnd so David taught me everything about HVAC design really. And then I, you know, David taught me one of the most
5:405 minutes, 40 secondsimportant lessons that has nothing to do with HVAC and has everything to do with how we make our money. One time I was asking him a question and he wrote me an
5:475 minutes, 47 secondsemail and in the middle he answered half the question. In the middle of the email, he said, "And here I have to stop. If you would like to continue this conversation, I'm going to have to
5:555 minutes, 55 secondscharge you my hourly rate, blah blah blah blah." I said, "You know what, man?
6:006 minutesYes, I'll pay your hour hourly rate gladly. And like you taught me something that is the most valuable thing that I
6:076 minutes, 7 secondscould ever learn is like our time is our most important thing. Even people with the best intentions will suck your time if you let them. So like that is like
6:166 minutes, 16 secondsjust one of the best little lessons in like how to do business in this space that I ever learned from anybody was was in that conversation from him.
6:256 minutes, 25 secondsYeah. I mean, people will take advantage of you. If you open the door to just, "Hey, if you have any more questions, let me know." Yeah.
6:346 minutes, 34 secondsThat's a dangerous That's a dangerous thing to say, right? Yeah.
6:376 minutes, 37 secondsIt's just they'll just keep going and going and going and and in our position as architects, well, is what we do.
6:456 minutes, 45 secondsYou know, owners call and think that, oh, well, let me just pick your brain for a little while before I hire you to make sure I like you. Well, that could
6:526 minutes, 52 secondsgo an hour or two hours and they've already got design ideas by then. And so, we've started to charge for initial
7:007 minutesphone calls, you know, when when we know it's going to turn into something more than just, okay, let me
7:077 minutes, 7 secondssee what what do you want for a house and, you know, we'll put together a proposal. So, we're starting to get into
7:157 minutes, 15 secondsthat in some cases. But, yeah, David is one same thing. And what he's really good at too, and this is something I
7:227 minutes, 22 secondsreally need to continue to do, is he'll say he'll kind of say, "Okay, I'm starting the clock now." And then at the
7:307 minutes, 30 secondsend of it, he'll say, "Okay, I've lo I've logged in 1.75 hours on this call." Y I just love it. And so clients really
7:377 minutes, 37 secondslike that. You know, you can you can make a lot of progress and a lot of earn a lot of trust that way if you
7:447 minutes, 44 secondsjust say, "Look, I'm at 1.75. when it comes time to reaching that, you know, the limit that we set in the proposal,
7:527 minutes, 52 secondsyou're gonna know because I keep telling you how much time I've spent. So, that was really good. So, yeah, he's still a friend. He's going to come visit us in
7:597 minutes, 59 secondsFrance one of these one of these days and do a little traveling and so yeah he and then you know Joe Stebrick was a mentor mostly what he
8:088 minutes, 8 secondsdidn't know it but more re more recently I'm able to call him and email him and ask questions and he helps kind of go through some of
8:168 minutes, 16 secondsthe stuff that just you know of course I know the physics behind it but it seems like gosh couldn't we do it simpler do
8:248 minutes, 24 secondswe really have to do this and he'll just break it down for me and say don't don't overthink it, you know, and that's what I hear. I hear that a lot.
8:328 minutes, 32 secondsWell, I mean, and he's the master of that, man. He is the master of simplification. Like, he can make something that is so complicated be so
8:408 minutes, 40 secondssimple like nobody I've ever met. And that's why he is who he is, man. Because like he just, you know, he has that ability. David's the same way when it
8:488 minutes, 48 secondscomes to HVAC. Like David is basically the Joe Steber of Hback in my opinion.
8:538 minutes, 53 secondsYou know, like I make those type of analogies a lot. But like another thing is like building science the HAC symposium is basically the building
9:019 minutes, 1 secondscience camp of the HVAC world. Like those things are you know we have them in each world and they intertwine but it's not exactly the same thing. And I
9:089 minutes, 8 secondsfeel like Steve Rick and Butler are probably from their knowledge level in their space they're probably you know about peers as far as that that that
9:169 minutes, 16 secondsgoes. I one of the most innovative things and it's still something that could be applied today with these cold weather heat pumps but back in the early
9:249 minutes, 24 secondspush for heat pumps David you know is the one who wrote about and then Allison too to to a lesser extent u piggybacking
9:329 minutes, 32 secondsoff what David had come up with but basically we were calling it above ground geothermal where we were taking
9:399 minutes, 39 secondswall heater and pairing it with a hydronic air handler and then just basically taking a good old single stage heat pump and winding it out and getting every bit of juice for the squeeze that
9:489 minutes, 48 secondsyou can out of it and supplementing it with, you know, no less than 99% efficient backup heat, you know, at the same exact time supplementally and
9:579 minutes, 57 secondsincrementally just like, you know, a heat pump with resistance heat work. So, like it was a very cool thing and at that time it achieved something that you couldn't really achieve without that.
10:0710 minutes, 7 secondsNow we have the cold weather heat pumps so you can run them down through the temperatures. But in natural gas markets where it makes sense to have that sort
10:1510 minutes, 15 secondsof dual fuel situation, you can really do some cool cost effective stuff with that same setup still to this day.
10:2310 minutes, 23 secondsYeah.
10:2410 minutes, 24 secondsYeah. Yeah. David David is the one that helps me when I get into a little more of the advanced system. I mean I'm an
10:3110 minutes, 31 secondsarchitect back to who I am, but I'm an architect by training. I learned HVAC mid midc career and you know I do
10:4010 minutes, 40 secondsbuilding science, I do plumbing design now and I still and I was a GC for a while and so this is it's not my
10:4810 minutes, 48 secondsfull-time thing, right? So I know how to do I kind of have a baseline for some of this and of where my knowledge goes to.
10:5710 minutes, 57 secondsI mean, you know, like Ross Trthoule, if you know him, and some of the systems that you talk about and some of the, you
11:0411 minutes, 4 secondsknow, they're systems that I can design them, but they're so involved that having people like David to really just
11:1211 minutes, 12 secondslook over my shoulder and say, "Yes, that's the right direction." Because you don't do them every day, right? Those systems are complicated. And if that was
11:2011 minutes, 20 secondsmy full-time thing, full-on engineering, of course, I wouldn't have I wouldn't struggle with it, or shouldn't say struggle, but I wouldn't need his help.
11:3011 minutes, 30 secondsBut standard systems, you know, airsource heat pumps, ground source heat pumps, even the typical ones that we see
11:3711 minutes, 37 secondsin homes, doing those all the time, hundreds, thousands of them. Those are that's what he taught me how to do. But it's nice to have him as a backup. Now
11:4511 minutes, 45 secondshe's retired. He said he'll come out of retirement for me, which is great. That's wonderful.
11:5011 minutes, 50 secondsAnd yeah, so he does occasionally. He came out of retirement to help us design a mechanical system for a yoga studio.
11:5811 minutes, 58 secondsNow, that is something I didn't want to take on by myself. You know, that's complicated with steamers and trying to ventilate. We didn't do any AC in there because it was hot yoga.
12:0812 minutes, 8 secondsWow. Yeah.
12:0912 minutes, 9 secondsI mean, it was it was a very cool system.
12:1212 minutes, 12 secondsStill had to handle moisture though, huh? So that was that's probably a fun one there. Yeah. Gigantic fresh air. Yeah. And that was our air flow right there.
12:2012 minutes, 20 secondsBut it didn't have an air handler for heating and air. And it was it was infrared panels. Oh.
12:2612 minutes, 26 secondsSo this ERV was what was, you know, pushing air through there. And we had sensors all over. Oh my gosh. It was so much fun. I learned so much from that.
12:3612 minutes, 36 secondsAnd we didn't get to we didn't get to commission it. Unfortunately, the builder something happened with the whole process and they changed
12:4512 minutes, 45 secondseverything and they just stopped. They just said, "You know what? We're we we can take it from here." But it was an incredible system that would have worked would have been one of the most
12:5312 minutes, 53 secondsefficient most the like with the best indoor air quality yoga studios anywhere. It was amazing.
13:0013 minutesThat is pretty cool. What? So tell me just about your business model because I assume that you were designing the architecture and also doing the HVAC
13:0913 minutes, 9 secondssystems and sort of design build business model or something like that.
13:1213 minutes, 12 secondsSo what is it? How does it break down for you? Like what are you doing?
13:1513 minutes, 15 secondsYeah, anything to do with a house whether it's new or old or existing, we can make it happen. So if you if you
13:2413 minutes, 24 secondskind of stack up who you hire to get a house built from, you know, you got the architect, you got an interior designer,
13:3113 minutes, 31 secondsyou sometimes have HVAC designers when you're smart in a project, plumbing design is a good idea, electrical layout
13:3913 minutes, 39 secondsis good, structure. If you stack all those up, all the consultants there, and you just smash it into one, that's us.
13:4713 minutes, 47 secondsWe also were a GC. So now we we do more of a advanced construction administration which is almost like a
13:5413 minutes, 54 secondsowner's agent. But so the way we explain it to homeowners is we bring builders on
14:0114 minutes, 1 secondas early as possible ideally from day one and whether you know they may not put in a lot of hours towards the beginning but as the project as the
14:0914 minutes, 9 secondsdesign develops you know we're in charge of everybody on the team. Landscape is one thing we don't do. civil engineering
14:1614 minutes, 16 secondswe don't do. So we'll bring those in and we'll work with the builder and we'll just you know we have we control the
14:2414 minutes, 24 secondswhole process and we do that all the way through get to construction documents and we're designing every component of
14:3014 minutes, 30 secondsit HVAC structure architecture interiors all of it and then when it goes into construction the builder takes over and
14:3814 minutes, 38 secondshe manages us and we're part of his process but the owner has the assurance that we are involved and most of the
14:4714 minutes, 47 secondstime they pay us directly. So, we're a third party that the builder agrees to incorporate into the process so that
14:5614 minutes, 56 secondswe're there at scheduled intervals, scheduled milestones so that you know like a mockup wall at
15:0315 minutes, 3 secondsthe beginning and just making sure all of our design is executed properly because what we're doing is not imported. It's not anything complicated.
15:1315 minutes, 13 secondsIn fact, we're trying to simplify everything and we have developed a foundation detail that people are freaking out about because it's too
15:2115 minutes, 21 secondssimple. They don't understand it because it's overly simple. We're trying to simplify this whole, you know, building
15:2915 minutes, 29 secondsenclosure, getting durable, resilient homes that for everybody. And so, even
15:3715 minutes, 37 secondsthough it's simple, there's still things they haven't done. So then we're incorporated into the construction part
15:4315 minutes, 43 secondsof it. And with our experience as a builder, we understand cost. We
15:5015 minutes, 50 secondsunderstand process. We we say, "Hey, you're going to need to order that now." And then when it also like we put on a
15:5815 minutes, 58 secondsfluid applied, you know, WRB, the builder may not have done that before.
16:0316 minutes, 3 secondsAnd we say, "Well, just get your painter. Give him give me 10 minutes with your painter and he will know how to do it." Same with continuous
16:1016 minutes, 10 secondsinsulation. So, we have all this experience with some of these methods, some of these materials, but it's all
16:1816 minutes, 18 secondsabout the process of construction. It's not about material versus material, you know, like and that's why that's what's so cool about what you're doing, dude. You get
16:2616 minutes, 26 secondsto manage every single aspect. Like, you're not dealing with the jack, you know? You know how it is. like one thing's out of place in one person's
16:3316 minutes, 33 secondssilo that they just put blinders on and forgot about the other guy that was coming before or after them and then they, you know, then your whole entire
16:4016 minutes, 40 secondsplan's ruined. So like what you're doing is really cool because you get to manage, you know, the process from the inside out plus you understand what
16:4816 minutes, 48 secondsactual high performance means. Like it's not a thing that's a green building certification. It's not a thing. You It
16:5516 minutes, 55 secondscan be, but a 100 times, you know, I've seen green building certified homes that have all the same problems that every other home built. So, it really is not
17:0417 minutes, 4 secondsany of that stuff. It is more the attention to detail and the attention to process like you said. And like I love
17:1117 minutes, 11 secondsthe fact that you have control over pretty much all the process. Even when you're working with the builder, by that time, they probably have been involved
17:1817 minutes, 18 secondslike you said, you get them involved as soon as possible. they already understand the goals in the game and what it is that you're doing and how you're trying to accomplish it. And so
17:2717 minutes, 27 secondsthen, you know, you're just in the background making sure that that gets accomplished, but it's their show. Like, I love everything about that particular
17:3517 minutes, 35 secondsprocess. And I don't think there's many companies that are doing it all the way through like that. It's very hard to be able to own every piece of that the way that you guys are.
17:4517 minutes, 45 secondsYeah, we're Yes, that's true. I mean, we we've been we've had marketing people ask us who is our competition and we
17:5217 minutes, 52 secondshave no clue who to give them. We have no idea like there's nobody. There are other firms who do I've seen architecture firms who also kind of do
18:0118 minutes, 1 secondHVAC design or incorporate it into their process or architecture and interiors.
18:0618 minutes, 6 secondsThat's pretty common. But having having the construction, the plumbing, the electrical, that's somewhat common with
18:1418 minutes, 14 secondsarchitects. But having control over that ent over the whole thing and being able to present to the builder ideas that
18:2118 minutes, 21 secondsactually work rather than an architect's idea who's never been in the field.
18:2618 minutes, 26 secondsWe're not there, you know, so we can present things to them and sometimes they call it crazy, you know, they say
18:3418 minutes, 34 secondsthat's an expensive way to do it, but it's pretty rare, you know, and so they give me another idea and I say, "Shit, I overthought that one." So yes, do it
18:4218 minutes, 42 secondsyour way because cool dynamic too when they feel like they have that type of input and it does work you know and you're like yeah you're right I probably
18:5118 minutes, 51 secondsfeel great about that and that type of process and that type of building to have that type of input probably feels really good for the builder to know hey
18:5818 minutes, 58 secondsI might think this is all new but when I start thinking about it it's not anything we haven't done before you know it's just doing it consistently is the only thing
19:0719 minutes, 7 secondsthat's exactly right and and I tell the builder I'm like you know this is I need your input because you're the one out there doing this. So, if I do something
19:1519 minutes, 15 secondsthat isn't some you you think you're going to have to charge more for because your trades are going to, you know, your guys are going to or gals are going to
19:2319 minutes, 23 secondssay, "This is nuts. I'm going to have to double charge you on this one because I've never seen it." Tell me that. We'll come up with something else. There are a million ways to skin a cat or whatever.
19:3319 minutes, 33 secondsAnd so, I that is like priority number one with a builder. I said look we have to come up with ways that you can
19:4219 minutes, 42 secondsexecute and you are comfortable with executing. So I need your input 100% of the way. So that's why we try to get
19:5019 minutes, 50 secondsthem involved early because I don't want to, you know, develop something that just makes their job harder and then
19:5819 minutes, 58 secondsthat that's a that's not a win for the owner because the owner is paying for that learning curve or you know the
20:0520 minutes, 5 secondschange orders or the complication and there's no need for that.
20:0920 minutes, 9 secondsSo I had a builder once I was doing a rain screen. This is 15 years ago. He was doing a speck house and I said, you
20:1820 minutes, 18 secondsknow, I had recommended a rainscreen product called Home Slicker. You're familiar with that one? It's this um
20:2420 minutes, 24 secondsit's a mesh. So, it's a stiff somewhat stiff mesh that you put over the sheathing over your WRB and then and then you just
20:3320 minutes, 33 secondsattach your siding through the mesh and it holds it off like a quarter of an inch, 316.
20:3920 minutes, 39 secondsSo, he was like, "Look, I don't want to have to buy that. Can I just take two layers of building felt, rip it into one
20:4620 minutes, 46 secondsand a half inch strips, nail it to the sheathing, and then attach my siding? And I'm like, that's totally brilliant.
20:5220 minutes, 52 secondsThat is and a lot cheaper than a brand name raincreen. I'm sure I'm not familiar, but I know all nothing's going to be as cheap as that method for sure.
21:0221 minutes, 2 secondsI mean, yeah. I mean that was that that's the kind of in the the that's the kind of builder that of course makes our
21:0921 minutes, 9 secondsprocess go well for the owner and for us is that a builder who's like okay let me think let me listen to what you're what
21:1721 minutes, 17 secondsthe goal is and I that's a huge part is I always try to explain the why why are we doing it absolutely
21:2421 minutes, 24 secondsand and that's our video all our videos I try all of it to say hey why is it
21:3121 minutes, 31 secondsthat we're doing this I don't always do that. Sometimes I'm just saying here's what we did, but I always try to say why because it's so important and that's
21:4021 minutes, 40 secondswhat my what the followers, the audience, they're that's what they're asking for. Videos are awesome, man.
21:4621 minutes, 46 secondsGet a lot out of them. I love it. I love watching them. Cool.
21:4921 minutes, 49 secondsThanks, man. And you know that's when I started doing it I was like well this this sharing thing is kind of cool you
21:5621 minutes, 56 secondsknow and and since then I've learned that both Risinger and Joe well Joe started it years ago with he's like his
22:0422 minutes, 4 secondshis mentor told him he's like share everything that's what you I mean you need to just everything you learn
22:1122 minutes, 11 secondseverything you put on paper everything you do just share it that's how we're going to progress because then people are out there kind of pushing that needle
22:2022 minutes, 20 secondsmoving that needle. And if if more than just Joe is doing it, it's only going to make everything a little bit easier to
22:2822 minutes, 28 secondsget to accomplish because if he's on an island doing this thing, things are going to cost too much and he can't do what he wants to what he needs to do for
22:3722 minutes, 37 secondsthe best result. So, and then look at what Matt does. I mean, look how much content he has out there for totally
22:4422 minutes, 44 secondsfree. ence. Yeah, you you could ed you could get a whole entire building science education if you just went through all his videos, organized them,
22:5222 minutes, 52 secondsput them in, you know, put them in some kind of organized learning fashion and just went through them. There's enough to chronologically learn what you need to know to get into the building science world and start making a business of it.
23:0323 minutes, 3 secondsFor sure. Yeah. Of course, there's there's there's a risk in that, too, because we get a lot of homeowners who come and say basically they've gotten
23:1123 minutes, 11 secondstheir YouTube building science degree either from Matt or just a combination.
23:1623 minutes, 16 secondsThey've watched all of our videos, Matt's videos, and they come to it and say, "Okay, I'm thinking about this, that, and the other." I said, "Well, all
23:2323 minutes, 23 secondsthree of those things that you just mentioned don't work for your house in Atlanta, Georgia." Yeah, that is the problem. there is
23:3023 minutes, 30 secondscontext that it's not there without without knowing what you know about weather and things like that for sure like and
23:3923 minutes, 39 secondsthat's I mean we're just going to have to learn how to deal with that because now Chach GPT they can get a million wrong answers and feel like they know everything it's chat will have them
23:4823 minutes, 48 secondsconvinced or any of these AI things will have them convinced you know that what you're hearing is 100% the correct thing and like I use that stuff extensively
23:5623 minutes, 56 secondsbut you also have to train it to go find the information that is in the context of what you you're talking about and looking for or else you're going to get
24:0424 minutes, 4 secondssome answers that sound confidently correct that are a thousand% wrong from that thing. So, I just think it's the world we're in now, man. We got to be
24:1224 minutes, 12 secondsable to like know our business better than we ever have before because you're going to probably be defend there. I am 100% sure that somebody is going to get
24:2024 minutes, 20 secondsin a room with a homeowner and the homeowner is going to say something.
24:2224 minutes, 22 secondsThey're going to be like, "Dang, I didn't know I didn't know that." and then they're gonna find out. They didn't know it because it is 1,00% not a real
24:3024 minutes, 30 secondsthing, you know? So, like, yeah, they're Yeah, it's just it's a brave new world for sure with the AI.
24:3624 minutes, 36 secondsIt is. And I I'm I'm kind I am using chat a lot and I do it a lot to um mostly mostly for because as an
24:4624 minutes, 46 secondsarchitect you're not most architects aren't good writers like we just we struggle with wi with our creative brain
24:5424 minutes, 54 secondsor whatever. I mean everybody has creativity in their brain. That that sounded that sounded elitist, but the way my
25:0125 minutes, 1 secondbrain works and architects are notorious for this is that we just can't seem to fluidly just write because we're
25:0925 minutes, 9 secondsanalytical and we have to everything has to be perfect. And so, like Mark Twain said,
25:1625 minutes, 16 secondsI would have written you a shorter letter if I had more time.
25:2125 minutes, 21 secondsIf I when I was writing a blog regularly, it would take me a week to get one blog post done because I'd have to come back to it and come back to it
25:3025 minutes, 30 secondsand edit edit edit because I would just sort of spit it out once and then come back and just hack it up.
25:3725 minutes, 37 secondsYeah. And then I would send mine to a friend and have them edit it to make sure it didn't sound crazy or dumb or anything too. So it would literally is at least a week turnaround for anything
25:4525 minutes, 45 secondsI ever wrote. That's why I was never consistent at it. I never had the time to like sit and be Allison where I could just write, you know, something and spit
25:5325 minutes, 53 secondsit out and get it out there and sound like the god of, you know, uh, building science or whatever like Allison has the knack to do. So, like I value I think
26:0226 minutes, 2 secondsyou're saying the same thing that I value it the same way and dump a diarrhea of ideas into it and it can logically organize them and help me get, you know, my stuff out a lot quicker.
26:1126 minutes, 11 secondsI'm writing blog, you know, a couple blogs a week now with that thing and it's all my thoughts. It's just helping me review, edit, and organize the thing a lot better, you know, a lot quicker.
26:2126 minutes, 21 secondsThere's no there's no there's no it's not any different from having an editor or having an assistant or having someone to help you write something. It's, you
26:3026 minutes, 30 secondsknow, there's there's a kind of a, you know, people look at it a weakness or a cheating way
26:3626 minutes, 36 secondsto to get to Well, but it's the same. We do this. we go to a library and we read some text and that helps us organize our
26:4426 minutes, 44 secondsthoughts or you know so it it's a good way and I always vet it. It's I spend a lot of time vetting what it spits out. Right.
26:5226 minutes, 52 secondsI because in the beginning like I've been using it since beta and I was trying to do some of my training presentations with it and it would give me formulas and I'd be like it would
27:0027 minuteslook so close to the actual formula where I'd almost be like okay but it just something would be weird. I'm like I need to check that and it would be
27:0727 minutes, 7 secondsabout 100% wrong. So like that's what I learned way on early on like if you don't know it's right you better check and make sure it's right because you know it could be really wrong.
27:1827 minutes, 18 secondsYeah. So I want to say something about or back to Allison for a minute because just about this subject about writing and how how he writes.
27:2927 minutes, 29 secondsSo he would write a a post every day essentially for for a while ear in the early days he was just cranking that stuff out. He was a machine right. Yes.
27:3727 minutes, 37 secondsSo, I would get to the office um you know, probably 7 a.m. or something like that. I rode my bike across town. I'd
27:4527 minutes, 45 secondsget in there and he would come in, you know, around 9:00, but he had been up by like 4 or 5 a.m. And he had written that
27:5327 minutes, 53 secondsblog in those hours at home. He's with his laptop and he'll write for hours there and he comes in, but he does it all in a single day. But, but because
28:0228 minutes, 2 secondshis because he's such a good writer, right? he can get his thoughts on get them on the on the screen in a more
28:1028 minutes, 10 secondsorganized way from the start. So by 10 o'clock or whenever I think it was 9 or 10 o'clock he had a scheduled time. He's
28:1728 minutes, 17 secondslike I got to get it out by this time because he was understanding all the algor algorithms and he was you know blogspot or something. Is that what the
28:2628 minutes, 26 secondsname of that was? There was a that is what it was. I think blogspot I think I had something on there too at one time. Yeah.
28:3228 minutes, 32 secondsYeah. So he had learned a lot from them and he was just he was good.
28:3628 minutes, 36 secondsThat's what you're talking you're talking about. Hotspot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one. Yeah.
28:3928 minutes, 39 secondsSo he was he was really in he really understood all that all those metrics and things and that's what he taught me and then when I went out on I did a
28:4728 minutes, 47 secondscouple of posts while I was there but then when I went when I left there started my own blog and and it was just
28:5428 minutes, 54 secondsyou know the magic of what he was teaching you know it was like oh this is great. He understood that and he and man that guy could just I mean he had all
29:0329 minutes, 3 secondsthis stuff in his brain, right? And he'd learn it. Maybe he'd read one of Joe's papers or he heard something somebody else said, he's like, "Ah, I'm going to
29:1129 minutes, 11 secondstake I'm going to kind of spin off from that and write this thing." He had excellent at that. I've seen him so many times like further explain something
29:1929 minutes, 19 secondsthat was already tremendous and still do a good job of adding so much value to the thing that was already there in the first place. Like Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
29:2729 minutes, 27 secondsYeah. Yeah, talk about a talk about a someone who can really make things simple. I haven't read his book, but I
29:3429 minutes, 34 secondshave recommended it more, you know, many times because I know that it will simply almost like my father-in-law was a is a
29:4329 minutes, 43 secondswas a historian and the way he wrote books was like a novel. So when you write when you're reading this real
29:5029 minutes, 50 secondshistory, he would quote people based on their journals. So he was typing he was
29:5729 minutes, 57 secondswriting a Florida war history and he a seinal war history and he would so he'd
30:0430 minutes, 4 secondsfind these journals from the soldiers and whatever they wrote in there he would he would from that be able to use
30:1130 minutes, 11 secondsthat as a quote. He said, "Oh yeah, so and so said this today." Well, he then used that character to then tell the
30:1930 minutes, 19 secondsstory, but he literally quoted it. And I think, you know, and he made it made it more readable, more like, oh, now I'm really interested in this because it
30:2830 minutes, 28 secondssounds like I'm reading a novel and those are more interesting than pure history, right? The way pure history books are typically written. And so
30:3730 minutes, 37 secondsAllison is like that where this is for everyday people, you know, it's everybody can read this. And yeah, he
30:4430 minutes, 44 secondsgets real nerdy. Of course he's a physics prof retired physics professor and now he's a building science dude guru.
30:5430 minutes, 54 secondsYeah. And so he's like but he's and he uses a lot of those terms but he still makes it really readable which is
31:0331 minutes, 3 secondsadmirable and I want to be like him with that.
31:0631 minutes, 6 secondsI think everybody does. Anybody that's on the internet trying to create content probably wants to be like Allison because like you said before, he's like
31:1331 minutes, 13 secondsearly on the master of cons consistent content creation and and um followers
31:2031 minutes, 20 secondsand everything that goes along with um putting your knowledge out there for everyone to partake of. He's really really good at it and so good.
31:3031 minutes, 30 secondsYeah.
31:3031 minutes, 30 secondsSo, let's get uh let's talk about spray foam. That's been a big conversation that's been going around the the internet. Um, I don't hate it. I don't
31:3931 minutes, 39 secondsnot hate it. Um, I think that it has its place. What are your exact thought?
31:4531 minutes, 45 secondsLike, do you are you 100% like we should never use spray foam? Where do you stand? I you know, I saw we've been back and forth and we had a little bit of uh
31:5331 minutes, 53 secondsconversation on LinkedIn, but like what is your actual stance on the whole entire spray foam thing? there's always a better way or it has its place or how do you feel about it?
32:0332 minutes, 3 secondsWe don't need it. We don't need it. It doesn't solve anything that something else can't solve
32:1132 minutes, 11 secondsthere. There I don't think there's a place for it at all. I don't it's to me we don't need to be building our
32:1932 minutes, 19 secondsbuildings with plastic. We are getting away from where we were. We were building homes before insulation. The
32:2832 minutes, 28 secondshomes that are lasting now, the ones that are still standing from a hundred years ago or more, didn't have insulation.
32:3532 minutes, 35 secondsThe air moved through the building assemblies and dried. When we started adding insulation, things changed. The
32:4232 minutes, 42 secondsthe heat heat energy, the heat flow changed, the physics. Joe in 1980 in the
32:4932 minutes, 49 seconds1980s uh um covered he was he was told he said go out there and figure out what's happening with the paint you know the
32:5732 minutes, 57 secondspaint peeling on our sighting he says well I already know he says well you need to go out there and show and prove it right so he went out there and he
33:0533 minutes, 5 secondssaid oh all I have to do is lift this this lap sighting and give it a gap and everything works fine well that led to
33:1233 minutes, 12 secondshim explaining the perfect wall and and how that system works. It's not his idea.
33:2033 minutes, 20 secondsHe'll tell you that's not my idea. I just gave it a name is what he says. So with the perfect wall, we have a vented
33:2733 minutes, 27 secondscavity behind our cladding. What whatever that cladding is that and then the vapor permeability and the insulation. If you put the insulation to
33:3633 minutes, 36 secondsthe outside, then you have controlled you control the temperature of the sheathing, which is what you want to do.
33:4333 minutes, 43 secondsAnd that thickness changes. But we know how to build walls and with insulation now and we need to yes we need to make
33:5033 minutes, 50 secondsthem super airtight get them insulated properly or else the insulation doesn't work right. So we know how to do it but
33:5833 minutes, 58 secondsbecause of what happened in the 80s and the peeling paint because of insulation we started coming up with these products
34:0634 minutes, 6 secondsthat would uh stop air flow or like vapor barriers. They put those in the walls. That was the other issue. But we
34:1434 minutes, 14 secondsstarted coming up with nonrot materials building. We don't want things to rot.
34:1934 minutes, 19 secondsWell, it wasn't the material that was that was the cause of the rot. It was the process, right? Like we weren't we weren't giving it a gap when we had the
34:2634 minutes, 26 secondsinsulation with the and so here we are getting away. We're sort of reacting, which is what America is really good at.
34:3434 minutes, 34 secondsWe react. We're more of a reaction society than a proactive society. So, we're reacting to this with all these
34:4134 minutes, 41 secondsproducts and materials and that are supposed to fight against rot and mold.
34:4934 minutes, 49 secondsSpray foam came into the picture because we wanted air sealing and insulation and something cheap and easy. Well, that started to come in and then we started
34:5734 minutes, 57 secondsalmost immediately seeing problems, right? I mean years years years in it didn't hold up very well and then they
35:0435 minutes, 4 secondsstarted to develop the right the mix and then it started to trap moisture because they didn't do the process right. Spray
35:1135 minutes, 11 secondsfoam technically can work if it's done in a if it's done in a lab under the right conditions and it fills up every
35:2035 minutes, 20 secondssingle crevice and the cavity is perfectly airtight. We need to have products. We need to have a process that
35:2735 minutes, 27 secondsis more forgiving to the way the building moves, the way we do renovations and additions because spray
35:3635 minutes, 36 secondsfoam hides our mistakes 100%. It hides our mistakes. It creates mistakes.
35:4235 minutes, 42 secondsThere's never been a single spray foam install or any type of foam. This goes for all foam plastics. It all should go
35:5035 minutes, 50 secondsaway from the industry 100%. I tell my crews foam is a four-letter word. It's an f word. Don't don't use it.
35:5935 minutes, 59 secondsSo, we've started to What's your preferred air like continuous air barrier product besides the weatherwise air barrier on the
36:0736 minutes, 7 secondsoutside or how are you guys handling that I guess like what the spray foam is used for? What people say they use it for?
36:1236 minutes, 12 secondsSure. Well, it if you back to the quote the perfect wall, um the the air all of
36:2036 minutes, 20 secondsyour control layers are at the same spot. It's all on the exterior side of the sheathing. So, our air barriers are
36:2736 minutes, 27 secondsat the same where the WRB is. So, it's on the outside of the sheathing all the way around or on the outside of the structure all the way around the
36:3536 minutes, 35 secondsbuilding. And then we cover that with our insulation. And whether it's 2 in or four or eight, you you can balance that
36:4336 minutes, 43 secondsand have some cavity insulation, but you have enough out here to control the temperature of the sheathing the way you
36:5036 minutes, 50 secondsneed to. Then you can put some in here, but you can't put too much because then that changes the energy flow and you could get condensation still. So you
36:5936 minutes, 59 secondshave to be careful. You have to have the right ratio of these things. Everything to the outside 100%. And I can't I don't know that anybody can argue that it's
37:0737 minutes, 7 secondseasier to air seal from the inside of a building than it is from the outside because I've done a lot of it and I
37:1537 minutes, 15 secondswouldn't think so. So my one thing so I get all that in from a new construction standpoint. But here's my butt about all
37:2137 minutes, 21 secondsthat. I've been upside down, inside out, in some compromised positions where I'm trying to air seal something in an
37:2937 minutes, 29 secondsexisting house and because of the expansive properties of the foam, it expands six times its normal size upon application, if you're doing it right, I
37:3737 minutes, 37 secondshave been able to air seal some buildings that I don't think I'm going to air seal any other way without unless I have spray foam, unless there's some
37:4437 minutes, 44 secondsother expansive product where I can get up where I'm not even looking at the thing and stick my hand in there and shove something back there and pull a
37:5237 minutes, 52 secondstrigger and let it fill a cavity that I know needs to be filled to stop air.
37:5637 minutes, 56 secondsLike, I don't know where else I get that from without spray foam. Like, unless we're going to take the building apart and put it back together, then we're
38:0438 minutes, 4 secondstalking about something different than what we were actually doing there.
38:0638 minutes, 6 secondsEspecially like in weatherization where the budget is the budget is the budget and like you know what your objective is. Like there's got to be if there's
38:1438 minutes, 14 secondsanother thing and another product that can do that that way, I'm open to it.
38:1838 minutes, 18 secondsBut I don't see like just because of the world how I got here to where I am, which is through a bunch of existing houses for a very long time, you know, like fixing them from the inside out.
38:2838 minutes, 28 secondsLike I don't see a way. Sure, if you get somebody to pay for deconstruction and reconstruction, which if you're doing
38:3638 minutes, 36 secondshome performance or permanent load reduction or any of these things, like you are going to be doing some deconstruction and reconstruction or else you're not going to be
38:4438 minutes, 44 secondsaccomplishing much of anything. But like the extent to which you can get somebody to pay for that in a residential
38:5138 minutes, 51 secondssituation is not always conducive to being able to take something apart to the point where you could put it back
38:5938 minutes, 59 secondstogether in an air sealed manner and feel good about what you did. Like that is where I the only place that I see spray foam. But in new construction,
39:0639 minutes, 6 secondssure. I mean, if we have control of the design and we have control of of everything, then there's better ways to do it's the same way with heat pumps and
39:1439 minutes, 14 secondsall this other stuff. Sure, I can put a heat pump on any new house because I can guide you to where what we need to do to make sure that heat pump's going to work
39:2239 minutes, 22 secondsthe way that we want it to work 100% of the time, but like on a older home that exists, I don't know that I can put a
39:2939 minutes, 29 secondsheat pump on there just straight away as a replacement and feel great about what it's going to do in the heating season in particular. and probably even in the
39:3839 minutes, 38 secondscooling season during the humid most humid times of the year. So like though and even if we designed it and sized it and all that, I still don't think that
39:4539 minutes, 45 secondswith certain buildings it's going to do what you want it to do without complaints and without degrading the building worse and stuff like that. So
39:5339 minutes, 53 secondslike that is sort of where I'm at with the spray foam conversation. Like I get the new construction, sure, we can design it out all day long, but like
40:0140 minutes, 1 secondwhen it comes to existing buildings, like what's the better way? like what is the substitute for what we do with spray foam there?
40:0840 minutes, 8 secondsFirst of all, expansion isn't the same as reach. So, if you can't if you can't get that foam, it it's going to expand.
40:1640 minutes, 16 secondsYes, I have no I I I don't doubt that at all. I don't But it does not necessarily reach the areas that you're trying to
40:2340 minutes, 23 secondsreach by relying on the expansion. So, and then you don't know you don't know if it got everywhere that you want to
40:3040 minutes, 30 secondsget. Well, what if you leave enough of a gap back there? Because if you had trouble getting to it, the spray foam
40:3740 minutes, 37 secondsprobably has a similar difficulty getting to every little crack and crevice in that wherever you're spraying
40:4440 minutes, 44 secondsthat in that tiny, you know, low space, right? So, the issue there is just you can't rely on it's not a magic thing.
40:5440 minutes, 54 secondsThis is this is not it's not about this as a product. It's about the system. you know the insulating it's an insulation
41:0241 minutes, 2 secondssystem and so in the case of old buildings we had one recently 1930 I
41:0941 minutes, 9 secondsbelieve beautiful architecture like was it was an architect who designed it for himself simple in the high-end
41:1841 minutes, 18 secondsneighborhood of of Atlanta and on the back they had a cricket uh that you know they had two valleys coming together you
41:2641 minutes, 26 secondsknow that's your architect for you so they had the the two the two sorry two gables coming together and then they had a valley that they needed to put a
41:3541 minutes, 35 secondscricket on that was all part of the attic the attic shape. So from the inside, what what I was proposing is
41:4441 minutes, 44 secondslet's get everything to the roof line, encapsulate your attic, get all your mechanical equipment inside your your
41:5141 minutes, 51 secondsbuilding, your thermal envelope, and this is going to help you. I mean, that the windows were single pane metal or steel, super leaky and really conductive, right? You're losing a lot.
42:0342 minutes, 3 secondsAnd it's just But they're beautiful.
42:0442 minutes, 4 secondsThey're made in England. They're just gorgeous. And I didn't really want to get rid of them. So I was like, "Okay, well, let's do something really good with the attic." Well, that cricket was
42:1342 minutes, 13 secondsa ter was a pain in the ass, right? And so we couldn't get in there with my strategy was to put a blownin insulation
42:2242 minutes, 22 secondsor even a bat could work, but we would fur down, you know, their old 2 by sixes back in the day, like for the roof rafters. So we would
42:3142 minutes, 31 secondsYeah. So, we'd probably have to do some sistering and furring down, you know, for that roof structure to hold this new this additional weight because it wasn't
42:3942 minutes, 39 secondsdesigned for that. It was already not designed to hold up the slate roof that was up there. But, it's it's um it's hanging on. So the 2 by six, we'd fur it
42:4842 minutes, 48 secondsdown so we get some better depth and we fill that up with insulation, but we put a ventilation or put a a baffle above
42:5642 minutes, 56 secondsthat, an insulation baffle that of course is is air sealed at the bottom at the top plate. But to do that in that
43:0243 minutes, 2 secondsvery low Cricut area, almost impossible like getting in there and even if you could crawl in there, which you couldn't, it was going to be like that.
43:1143 minutes, 11 secondsIt was going to be a nightmare. And I I even with a spray gun, a spray foam gun, I I couldn't have seen how you would
43:1843 minutes, 18 secondsinsulate all of that that whole attic area. So, what we did as a combination, we actually insulated from the outside.
43:2643 minutes, 26 secondsWe redid that cricut, added a little slope to it, put on some continuous exterior on the outside, and then that
43:3443 minutes, 34 secondsthermal layer was connected to the thermal layer inside. There was a continuity. It went through the sheathing. Yes. But we accounted for
43:4343 minutes, 43 secondsthat. And so we did we did just that one little cricut area. So if you got a whole roof that's like a Franklidd
43:5143 minutes, 51 secondsWright really low pitch prairie style home and you're trying to insulate that attic.
43:5643 minutes, 56 secondsWell, one you nobody would do that to a Franklidd Wright home. I had somebody ask me to try.
44:0144 minutes, 1 secondIt's a story for another day. There's a fella named Tom Lori that is in Cincinnati, Ohio and he an architect and
44:1044 minutes, 10 secondsbut he is so obsessed with like lead and green and stuff. He owns I don't know if he still owned it but he did at the time a legit Frank Lloyd ride house and he
44:1844 minutes, 18 secondshad me come out and say tell me how to insulate it. I walked out of there like I don't know what to tell you bud. Like there ain't nothing we can do here that's not going to totally ruin this
44:2744 minutes, 27 secondsthe aesthetic of the whole entire house, you know, cuz one there's so much glass and then there's a clear stories and then like you said the roof basically
44:3444 minutes, 34 secondsdoes not exist. Like it just is Yeah. Yeah. They weren't.
44:3844 minutes, 38 secondsHe didn't I mean they weren't designed to be insulated back then.
44:4244 minutes, 42 secondsThey definitely were not. They just it was just like, okay, this house is always going to have air going through it, so it's all fine, you know, and just
44:4944 minutes, 49 secondsblock the main wind with the walls and drapes will keep the sun out, but my window his windows were terrible. But that's what that was the standard at
44:5844 minutes, 58 secondsthat time. So, so when you have those low pitch areas, yeah, it's tough. And if it's historic architecture, which we've dealt with before, you have to
45:0545 minutes, 5 secondsdeal you have to respect the profile, right?
45:0945 minutes, 9 secondsSo, we did we had an 1835 a farmhouse that we moved. Well, we didn't move it, but the owner had it
45:1645 minutes, 16 secondsmoved three miles to a new location. It was super cool. I have a video from way way back. It's on my other my personal
45:2445 minutes, 24 secondschannel showing how we moved it. It was really cool.
45:2745 minutes, 27 secondsYeah, it looked like it looked like it was cuz the cotton fields they were in bloom and so the it looked like it was floating
45:3745 minutes, 37 secondsacross the top of the cotton fields. It was pretty neat. I'll send you the video. That's cool. That's cool.
45:4345 minutes, 43 secondsSo we moved that and and of course being an 1835 it still had its cornice but it had to be rebuilt. So the the the whole
45:5145 minutes, 51 secondsthe the trim detail up at the top of the roof had to be in some areas had to be rebuilt because it was 1835 and kind of
45:5945 minutes, 59 secondsabandoned for a while. So in that process of rebuilding that we also added
46:0646 minutes, 6 seconds3 in of insulation to the roof. And so there's a, you know, we did a historic preservation field school in Hawaii um
46:1546 minutes, 15 secondsbefore we went out into the world. And part of that, I mean, you have these distances between the cornice, between
46:2346 minutes, 23 secondsthat trim and the top of the the upper floor windows that you have to respect, right? So when you add three inches, you
46:3046 minutes, 30 secondseither have to expand that trim so you get that same relationship or you just move it up and and maybe make the trim
46:3746 minutes, 37 secondslarger. But all of it has to be in to respect that period of time, that architecture, that style. Right?
46:4546 minutes, 45 secondsSo the beauty of that is and and this is where having that being able to control all of the the
46:5346 minutes, 53 secondssystems of the house, the building enclosure and the architecture is that we can control how this thing looks.
46:5946 minutes, 59 secondsI've heard I recently was listening to a podcast um they were the great
47:0647 minutes, 6 secondsarchitect, great designer and he was he mentioned this whole section. I posted about this on on Instagram. Well, I
47:1447 minutes, 14 secondsposted about it this this week and he was saying like look the people who really weigh you know like uh lean into
47:2247 minutes, 22 secondsthe building science their buildings are ugly, right? And so he kind of deferred to other people to do the building
47:3047 minutes, 30 secondsscience saying okay well that's for other people to do but there was no mention of we make sure we incorporate
47:3847 minutes, 38 secondsthem into our designs every single time even though we don't know it we need to bring them in that's control right so in our case we control it because we're
47:4647 minutes, 46 secondsdoing it inhouse but in his case it was like it was a dismissive approach to this and this is so so critical it's our
47:5447 minutes, 54 secondsopportunity Architects are control freaks. This is Allison Bale said this is be a control freak. It's our opportunity.
48:0248 minutes, 2 secondsI always say the architects are the third control layer, right? You got you got your control layers that we know about, but the architects are literally a control layer in the building process.
48:1148 minutes, 11 secondsLike they they 100% are. And that's one of the cool things about understanding building science. When you're architect, you have a chance to control a lot of
48:1948 minutes, 19 secondsstuff if you understand what it is. Like a lot, you know, a lot of the way the building performs and everything.
48:2548 minutes, 25 secondsWell, you can use it to your advantage also. Exactly. I I I always look at it as an opportunity to I think I said in
48:3448 minutes, 34 secondsthe post about like depth and shadows and these are things that architects love to talk about. It's like look at look at the the shadows that we can
48:4348 minutes, 43 secondscreate on that window. I mean that's from you know continuous insulation.
48:4848 minutes, 48 secondstake advantage of these other these this way of building, understanding this perfect wall and incorporate it into
48:5448 minutes, 54 secondsyour design. And you'll be surprised at how much better your buildings can look with it. Rather than letting the builder
49:0249 minutes, 2 secondsdecide after you've done your drawings, hey, we're going to use some sort of insulated sheathing or continuous stone
49:1049 minutes, 10 secondswool. Well, they're not going to redo their drawings. they're going to probably figure it out in the field and most cases if it's really custom, you know, the architect makes the changes.
49:2149 minutes, 21 secondsBut a lot of projects, they're like, well, you're going to lose your architecture if you don't incorporate
49:2849 minutes, 28 secondsthis stuff and decide on every single layer and stop using by others, right?
49:3549 minutes, 35 secondsThat by others thing that we put, I don't know if you know about this, but it's very common in in architectural drawings, especially commercial. You see
49:4349 minutes, 43 secondsthis note? It says insulation by others or you know flashing by others.
49:4949 minutes, 49 secondsIt just Yeah. It's like we're not accountable for that. It's like Yeah.
49:5149 minutes, 51 secondsIt's basically a way to get out accountability. We do it a lot and I This is the same thing in HVAC like with our very specific verified process that
50:0050 minuteswe've created. Like we don't allow people to do the normal thing which is the same thing in the HVAC world or or mechanical engineering world where
50:0850 minutes, 8 secondsthey'll be like or comparable. Like no, there's no or comparable. Like it's, you know, like the these systems all have different performance profiles and the
50:1750 minutes, 17 secondsreason that we selected this system is because it works with this house. If we go do an or comparable, then we're going to probably lose something in the
50:2550 minutes, 25 secondsdesign. So like we definitely don't, you know, like and we've got some push back.
50:2850 minutes, 28 secondsLike guys are like, well, it's our brand. like, "Okay, well then you're going to have to pay us to put it all the way back through the equipment selection process to make sure that your
50:3750 minutes, 37 secondsbrand works for this design because that is not the brand that we agreed on when you paid for the design." So, like, you know, it's a it's one of those things
50:4450 minutes, 44 secondslike I've been through a lot of um processes where people want to say this or that is your fault and then it's not
50:5350 minutes, 53 secondsimplemented the way the design was or there's a piece of it. So now I have learned over the years like we have a very specific process that we use and if
51:0151 minutes, 1 secondyou're going to ask us to stand on our design then we're going to ask you to install the thing that we designed. I mean I think you know tip for tat pro that's pretty acceptable you know.
51:1251 minutes, 12 secondsYep. Yeah. Yeah. I had an HVAC contractor, really good friend of ours that we'd used for many projects and known for years. And you know, we were
51:2151 minutes, 21 secondsbecoming even friends on the side, you know, going hanging out. And he was at one of the jobs that we designed
51:2851 minutes, 28 secondseverything mechanical, all of it. And he showed up and they had put a duct in a different place. And I approached, you
51:3551 minutes, 35 secondsknow, I brought it up to him when I came to visit the job. And he went through like, why did this go here? And D. And I said, "Well, but you know this this
51:4451 minutes, 44 secondsisn't I put it there for a reason." And he turned to me and said, "Chris, these are just a suggestion." You know,
51:5251 minutes, 52 secondsthat's how I think I mean, most of most mechanical engineers are saying have some note in there that says they can change stuff in the field. That is a
52:0052 minutesvery common thing with mechanical engineering. Like they're basically like this is not set in stone. It is a suggestion. You need to field engineer
52:0752 minutes, 7 secondsbecause we don't know what you're going to run into out there. like we do not take that well I will take that approach if people don't want to pay for CA that's another one of the things that
52:1552 minutes, 15 secondslike the whole David Butler thing is like yeah I'll write up a whole entire commissioning plan I will make sure that this design will work exactly like we
52:2352 minutes, 23 secondssay it will but you will have to pay us to do that because that costs money and time and that's not free service we offer it like I did used to make the
52:3252 minutes, 32 secondsmistake of not offering up front and then people would be like oh well you never told us that or you never said that so like now it says it right in our
52:3952 minutes, 39 secondscontract like you can here we'll sell it to you in blocks of time upfront or you can pay for it, you know, after the fact. You can come back to us and ask us
52:4752 minutes, 47 secondsto open the contract back up and help you get this thing right. But like we definitely feel like a the design is not
52:5552 minutes, 55 secondsthe design if anything all the way down to the commissioning is done different than what we specified and b any and all
53:0253 minutes, 2 secondsthat costs time and money. So it does. Yeah. And the rest of that story that I probably should have said at the beginning was I I was running the
53:1153 minutes, 11 secondsjob. I was a builder at that time. So I was running that job. I was the architect. I was the HVAC designer. So I
53:1853 minutes, 18 secondsknew where I I knew so well where all the framing was. I knew exactly where these things going. And he had his own
53:2653 minutes, 26 secondsidea of where it should go that it's better. And I said, "No, it's like that because it will affect the performance of the system. I will lose some static
53:3553 minutes, 35 secondspressure. I will lose a throw in that room or whatever I was designing for.
53:4053 minutes, 40 secondsAnd at the bottom on every sheet of every time we do an HVAC design, it says no changes at all are allowed unless
53:4953 minutes, 49 secondsthey're reviewed or that unless you ask LG squared. Like you can't don't make any changes. follow it to the T if and
53:5753 minutes, 57 secondsif the information is not in there because I even tell them what line set sizes to get and I do the DSB file if you know Mitsubishi does the DSB.
54:0754 minutes, 7 secondsYeah. Yeah.
54:0854 minutes, 8 secondsYeah. Yeah. So I give the DSB file output and I say that tells them the length and the size of. So we're very specific, but there are things that are
54:1754 minutes, 17 secondsjust like accessories that I don't, you know, I don't really put those in there because they kind of come with these
54:2354 minutes, 23 secondsthis equipment. I say what size the duct is and I say that it's metal and things like that. I mean, I I speck everything that I can and there are some things,
54:3254 minutes, 32 secondsbut it's pretty specific, you know, and so for them to have any doubt. It's like this is most contractors love it. And
54:4154 minutes, 41 secondsthis job we're doing now, the passive house we're building right now, that attic is beautiful because the contractor followed the design to the
54:4954 minutes, 49 secondstea. Um, okay. He may have put one air handler a little bit too far to one side and now we can't put our dehumidifier
54:5854 minutes, 58 secondsduck down the chase. That's okay. we can pivot because I designed it and I'm out in the field and I know what to do now
55:0655 minutes, 6 secondsthat so if things happen which he got he understood after that whole experience because we had a conversation but he
55:1555 minutes, 15 secondsunderstood he's like there is a reason everything is exactly where it is and so for him to do that one shift of like 8
55:2455 minutes, 24 secondsin it changed our dehumidification plan you know the way we were doing dehumidification it's fine It worked out. I didn't make him move it back
55:3355 minutes, 33 secondsbecause I was able to pivot and say, "This will still work. I'm going to do it this way. I prefer it. It's less duct work anyway." So, it worked out. But for
55:4255 minutes, 42 secondseverything else, he followed it right on. And yeah, and that that that process there, like you said, most people contractors
55:5055 minutes, 50 secondscome to value that. I've had guys that say like when we were doing a lead for homes and they were forced into it and stuff like that and they'd have to go by the design, you know, it's not their
55:5855 minutes, 58 secondschoice and they're not hired by a builder that said this is what you're going to do or whatever. Like they I had guys tell me I hated you. That's what they would say. I hated you for the
56:0756 minutes, 7 secondslongest time, but now I would not do it a different way. Like I love being able to have a plan in hand and they're still my clients today. But I've heard had them tell me, you know, like in the
56:1556 minutes, 15 secondsbeginning like we hated you because we were forced to do this and we had to follow this plan and it wasn't our plan and we couldn't change it and like
56:2356 minutes, 23 secondseverything about it just felt weird to them because it's not the way that they're used to doing business. But once they get inundated into it, it feels
56:3056 minutes, 30 secondslike the most natural thing ever. Like we'd never go back, you know, we'd never go back to doing it a different way. So it is a little bit of a learning curve for those guys, but like you said, they
56:3956 minutes, 39 secondsdo end up loving it a lot of times. We are running up on our time. I got two things I want to do with you real quick here. I ask every guest at the end of
56:4656 minutes, 46 secondsthe show to tell us if the world ended today and you had to write a message on the wall, what's the message for the next civilization that may or may not come after you?
56:5656 minutes, 56 secondsBe kind.
56:5756 minutes, 57 secondsBe kind. I love it. That is a very simple yet potent thing. And if everybody practiced it, the world would be a much much better place for sure.
57:0757 minutes, 7 secondsYeah. I had an anecdote that I was going to tell about the contractor in the field when I was building. I was trying
57:1357 minutes, 13 secondsso hard to be to not be mean to this person, you know, he was an aat guy. I was like, "Look," because I noticed they
57:2157 minutes, 21 secondshad left some stuff, some trash around, and I just wanted him to clean up and I was trying to be so soft about it. And he turned to me and he says, "Dude, be a
57:3057 minutes, 30 secondsdick. Tell me to clean my up." Oh, is that how it works? Yeah. And is that really being a dick?
57:3857 minutes, 38 secondsBecause cleaning up is not being a dick. You know what I mean? Like that's not that's the farthest thing. Like you want to be a dick. I've seen some of
57:4657 minutes, 46 secondsthat. I can tell you where to go look for that. But yeah.
57:4957 minutes, 49 secondsOkay, man. Thank you very much, Chris, for jumping on. Before we leave, tell everybody where they can find you at.
57:5457 minutes, 54 secondsAnything you want to tell any of this audience about how to watch you or find you or or, you know, follow you, let them know.
58:0158 minutes, 1 secondYeah, we're on YouTube and Instagram.
58:0358 minutes, 3 secondsThose are our primary spots. LinkedIn as me, Chris Lmergiddens. YouTube is LG Squared, and at Instagram it's LG Squared Inc.
58:1458 minutes, 14 secondsYeah. Okay, perfect, man. Thank you very much.
58:1758 minutes, 17 secondsThis was a rock show of episode, and it was a great conversation. We lost track of time. We could have probably kept going for another hour, man. So, maybe
58:2558 minutes, 25 secondswe'll have you back on again at some point. Part two, baby.
58:2858 minutes, 28 secondsTake it easy, buddy. Thank you. We'll see you soon. See you, Jeremy. Bye. All right, man.
