August 5, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode of Builders, Budgets & Beers, Reece sits down with Owen Drury of Bricks & Bytes to tackle the pressure from big-tech clients demanding lightning-fast delivery. They dig into UK vs. US timelines, the surge in HVAC/heat-pump installs, the chaos of forecasting & retainage, and how offsite prefab + AI-powered tools are turning 24-month schedules into predictable, profitable builds.
Show Notes:
Welcome & Quick Intros (00:00)
HVAC Boom & Heat Pump Surge (04:00)
From Trades to Quantity Surveying (06:28)
Forecasting Pitfalls & Retainage (09:46)
Design Deficits & Scope Creep (13:10)
Renovation Roulette & Hidden Hazards (18:06)
Why Lowest Bid Always Wins (25:05)
Tech Trends: Prefab, AI & Fast Builds (37:37)
Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano
Podcast Produced By:
Motif Media
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Everyone in the wholeconstruction industry is like,
(00:02):
no, it takes 24 months. They'relike, I don't care. I don't want
to wait 24 months you find outhow to build it. Quick.
Performance. Alrighty. Owen,we're live, baby. Thanks. Thanks
for jumping on, dude, Iappreciate you.
(00:22):
Thanks for Thanks for joining.
Yeah, it was in an interestingway, how this, this appearance
came up, speaking to you guysprobably two or three months or
so, few rearrangements, and nowwe're here. And I think that we
need the reciprocal you guyscoming on bricks and bites one
day, which we will do. But Iguess I'm here first. I beat you
to beat you to your podcastfirst. Yeah, exactly you. You
(00:45):
have the maiden voyage here.
Wait, what time is it in the UK?
Alex, 436 436Okay, so we're looking at like a
seven hour time, timedifference. I'm in Colorado, so
it's 930 Oh,that's significant. Hey, man,
maybe you'll find, maybe youraudience will find this
interesting talking of locationsand stuff around the world. So
(01:07):
Europe has been getting veryhot, yes, and in the UK, I think
that the only, oh well, this wasin 2020, this is as far back as
this research goes, which showsyou how unimportant This is
within people's lives, but only5% of households have AC air
conditioning. And that's mindblowing to American folk
whenever I mentioned that. Yeah.
(01:29):
I mean, it'scommon. So I'm actually getting
ready to move to Boston, andthat's a thing, like in Boston,
like the northeast, it was,like, historically, they didn't
need AC, but it is warming upthere, so, but it's 5% in the
UK? Is that what you said?
Yeah, 5% of homes in the UK hadAC this 2020, so maybe things,
it's definitely got cheaper morerecently. And I'm guessing that
(01:51):
percentage will increase willhave to because heat is becoming
a major problem for people overhere in Europe. And we discussed
last week on a podcast we doneabout heat related deaths within
construction. And it's quite abecause I think it's like the
big, one of the biggestindustries for heat related
(02:11):
deaths, which is something youprobably don't think about, but
has a major impact. And thereis, like, guidelines and stuff
which shows that at certaintemperatures you should only be
working moderate work at like,10 minutes and then a 50 minute
break, whatever, whatever theratio is. I can't remember the
exact figures, but I found itvery fascinating.
So, so it makes total sense,right? Of like the heat related
(02:34):
deaths, construction, there's alot of labor trades. You're
obviously building stuffoutside, but I had no idea, just
dumb American, no idea that itgot that hot in the UK. Like,
I'd never been to the UK. I'dlove to go, but I always think
it's like, overcasty, chilly,kind of rainy, and that's just
like, not the case. Like, Howhot does it get? Well, we,
(02:59):
we had recently, I'm gonna do aquick conversion degree Celsius,
because I always get cool out onthis. I feel like I should just
learn it. But of recent, we'vehad, like, consistent
temperatures of 86 ish, okay, 86to 88 degree Celsius, which is
hot for the UK. You have toremember, UK building stock is
(03:19):
not designed or built.
Did you just say 88 Celsius? No,no, Fahrenheit. Fahrenheit,
dude, I was gonna say that'snot, that's not even real.
There's no way that's real. Butokay, so 88 Fahrenheit, okay,
and that's like, again, that'swarm, especially with no air
conditioning. But you guys areseeing like, casualties because
of that heat.
(03:42):
Well, no, not specifically inthe UK. I mean, the stat I
mentioned earlier was global, ormaybe worse, okay, yeah, okay,
yeah, but, but to the point, Imean, yeah, UK housing is not,
it's not designed for such heat,so it gets super hot over here.
So, yeah. Anyway, that was myinteresting segue into this
discussion, dude.
No, I think it's good. I thinkit's good. Okay, well, cool. I'm
(04:03):
glad you're here. I imagineHVAC. We call it HVAC. It's like
heating and air conditioning isexploding in the UK. Is there,
like, a is there a trend there?
Like, if you're a guy that cando central air install, you're
going to make a killing. Is thatfair?
Interesting question. I can onlygo by the discussion I had. So I
(04:25):
literally had AC installed in myhouse maybe two weeks ago, so
ago now. And by the way, what amassive upgrade to life that is,
isn't that? Anyway, I wasspeaking to the guy who was
installing and for a trade, wecall them trade, yeah. You call
them trade contractors, yeah,yes. We call them tradesmen,
yeah, yeah, tradesmen, tradies,subs, maybe, maybe
(04:45):
tradesmen is not, like,politically correct, but,
well, we understand, we know,yeah, yeah.
And he said they had about 20jobs in the pipeline, and he was
working like, What time does heget to sign up? Hours past seven
quarter, 730 and leaving, like,literally 730 12 hour shifts, no
(05:06):
break, like they were grafting,grinding, as we say over here.
Yeah, and he said he had 20 jobslike in queue. So that's a
pretty good pipeline for a smallcompany of, say, five people
just installing these units. SoI guess it will start to
explode. You've definitely seenan increase in uptake of air
(05:27):
source heat pumps. Over there,of what pumps? Air source heat
pumps?
What is that? I don't know. Soin the UK, that the primary heat
source of residential and maybeeven commercial is boiler
systems. Yeah, okay, gasps, gas,electric boilers, but they're
now being replaced with heatpumps. I don't I don't know if
this would be the exact samething as a HVAC system. Perhaps
(05:50):
it is, and perhaps that's whyyou're not so familiar with the
term. But yeah, it's like themove to electric. It's a much
more sustainable way of heatingand cooling your house, and
phasing out of gas, lessreliance on the big beast in the
East, Russia, for Europe, yeah,the beast in the East. I love
(06:10):
it. Never said that before. I'venever heard I love it. It's
great. Okay, no, this is, thisis shaping up into a good
conversation. Okay? So actually,let's take a step back, give the
listeners a little background onyourself. Okay, you mentioned
you've been in construction,talked about your podcast, but
give them a little detail of whoyou are.
Yeah, I found that. I found howwe just spoke for six minutes
(06:32):
about AC fascinating, because weI did start telling you, then
you said I did telling you mybackground. And you said, let's
just hit record and do this. Andthen somehow we segued into AC
and heat and whatnot.
I think I do. I honestly. Ithink I listen. I think of our
listeners, and I think they'dlisten to this and be like, I
have never thought of it thatway. Or maybe I'm just an idiot.
Maybe I'm just an idiot, andthey're like, Risha, this is
(06:53):
pretty standard stuff. I thinkit's fascinating. So I'm glad we
talked about it.
I think a lot of people will notknow because I didn't know until
I had done some research andthen recorded that. But anyway,
my background, yeah, so I haveworked in construction for
around 15 years now, and Istarted my career in actually,
in the subcontractors, I don'tknow what the UK subs, yeah,
(07:20):
yeah, for carpentry, joinery andfit out, which is like the
second half of a build, so tospeak, with finishes, nice stuff
that goes in once theconstruction, the structural
work is complete. And I trainedas a quantity surveyor, so I
don't you can another thing thatdoesn't translate perfectly to
the US, but you're effectivelyresponsible for the financial
(07:43):
performance of constructionprojects. So you do procurement,
you do reporting on costs. Isthe project profitable? Is it
making a loss, paying othersubcontractors? Love it,
suppliers, purchase orders, soon and so forth. Yeah. So I
qualified as a as a quantitysphere, in as a subcontractor.
And what you know, what onething I loved about working as a
(08:05):
sub was your marching for erroris very low. I don't know if
you, if you and your listenerswould experience this, but you
have to have a very strongattention, strong attention to
detail. And I think it was agreat lesson for me, like
setting the foundation for mycareer. Because, yeah, if you
can't make a lot of errors andyou just by nature, become a
little bit more conscientious. Inever thought I would say that
(08:27):
about myself, by the way,because I don't see myself as a
truly conscientious person. Butmaybe I'm just harsh,
yeah, dude. Oh, I think that'sa, that's beautiful. I have no
idea. Okay, so a, you wereskilled tradesman, arguably,
I was, Oh, yeah. Well, nottrades as such, but
okay, you were in the skilledtrades, meaning like you were
doing carpentry work, finishedcarpentry stuff like that. And
(08:51):
then you jumped over into whatwe would call the back office. I
think you called it the quantitysurveying,
or small correction. I was neveractually on the tools. Always
went straight into themanagement side, into
the management side, okay, okay,but point being, you had the
background, so I think that's,like, massively applicable,
obviously, to this listeninguser base and like, I'm curious.
(09:15):
Well, I guess my curiosity andhow it differs is going to
require understanding what thatactually looked like for you in
the day to day, but indeed, interms of your comment of like,
the attention to detail, andwhat was your phrase, it was
like, the less room for errorrequired more conscientious
effort. Yes, is that right?
Something like that, somethinglike that. I love it, dude.
(09:36):
Let's hear about it like, let'stalk about what is it like
tracking the books and thefinancials in the UK. I'm
curious how it differs.
If it does,it's tough. I mean, well, put it
this way, construction and thepeople working in the trades are
not renowned or have not wonmany. Awards when it comes to
(09:59):
tracking their finances onprojects, I think as long as
there's more coming in than thisgoing out, then you're usually
on a good path. I don't thinkpeople are necessarily counting
the pennies and the pounds.
They're just looking and going,Oh, we're up this month. Oh no,
we're down. Like, what the helldo we do about this? So that's
one part to it, but second partto it is it's very difficult.
(10:24):
You're always forecasting. Younever really, you don't know
until you know, right? Like,even when you finished a
project, you could, you could beforecasting a profit margin. And
then suddenly there's a bigthing here in the UK called
retention, I think probably isretainage in the US, and
suddenly the client's like, 12months later, when you think
your profits coming in, they'relike, oh, you know, I can't pay
(10:45):
you that because I haven't beenpaid it. And there's a problem
with the something over there,which is totally unrelated to
you, I know, but look, we're notgetting paid, so we can't pay
you. And you're like, Well,okay, all the forecasting we
just done, it's kind of gone outthe window now.
Yeah, okay, go ahead. Go ahead.
Go ahead. It's amove. Yeah, it's a forever
moving target. So you can do, Iwould just do the best. You can
do something. But don't just,don't just pray and hope. Don't
(11:09):
just think that the numbers workthemselves out. Because, yeah, I
don't know where that will takeyou when it comes to really
building a sustainable business.
I think that's a wholeconversation. And like the fact
that you're like, I want to gointo what makes it challenging
again to see the assimilationsbetween the UK and the US. It
sounds like this is just auniversal problem in
(11:32):
construction, which makes allthe sense in the world. I did a
podcast with a builder inAustin, Texas A couple weeks
ago, Thomas Joseph, and he he hehad phrased it as like, and this
is primarily to the quality ofthe product that builders build.
He's like, when you take a stepback and you realize that who's
actually building the product,right? These are people that are
(11:52):
incredibly talented, incrediblyskilled, right? But there are
salt of the earth people, as wecall them in the States, right?
They are blue collar, they arelabor working. They are in the
elements. And for God's sakes,you're building a product
outside, right? So the nature ofwhat you're building is like by
(12:13):
design, variable, right? Thereare so many moving parts and so
many different components thatgo into it, but that's where
like, the challenges of businesscome into. The product that is
being provided is like business.
The best business is the mostforecasted, consistent, expected
business, right? That's alllike, the bigger you get, the
(12:33):
more you try to want to know,and you want to control, and you
want to prevent variables fromhappening. So then you can hit
the numbers, the P and Ls, thatthe profit margin. But when
you're talking about, like, thedifficulties of it, we're very
aware of that problem. Butspecifically for you, what makes
it difficult, in your opinion,to track project financials or
(12:54):
the quantity surveying on yourin your guys's world. What makes
it challenging?
Yeah, oh, man, you really openthe can of worms for those kind
ofquestions. Oh, I'm gonna do it.
Let's do it, baby. Let's say somuch. Well,
two, two things come to mind,primarily, one, maybe a few
(13:16):
people will, like, pull out theparty poppers here, but
inadequate design. Wait The whatthe PI popper party poppers.
Keep pulling the confetti. Yeah.
He said it Okay, okay,yeah. Inadequate design. So we,
we massively find over here inthe UK that, due to very various
reasons, client pressure. Clientwould be employer in the US, or
(13:42):
owner, should I say? Ownerpressure, like wanting to get
their projects down quickly,which doesn't give enough time
to the design team and to designprojects adequately. That design
is then packaged and sent off todownstream, to the contractor,
who then sends it downstream totheir their contractors. So, so
you kind of like, see where thisis going. Right? It spirals. You
(14:04):
have is 80% inadequate design,and it's, it's almost, it's
filtering down to the people whoare building it, at which point
they're just like, What the helldoes this mean? This doesn't
work. That doesn't work. Blah,blah, blah, blah, blah, and so
then change orders. Start flyingleft, right and center because
someone has missed something, orthe design just fundamentally
(14:25):
doesn't work. So that's issue, Iwould say number one, which
comes to it. And two, I don'tknow if you get this within the
world of within the US. I don'tthink it's such a major problem
there. But we work with a lot ofexisting buildings in the UK.
And dude, they are rest. Thereare, like, soon as you start
(14:46):
opening those things up, it's alottery, really, that you think,
you think everything isforecasted, and you know how
much something's going to cost,but you start taking down walls
and or the you. Have laugh andplaster over here, particularly
in the UK, which is like a pickto work with, and you don't know
it's there when you're doinginitial pricing, and things just
(15:07):
start to spiral and escalate,and costs just start going only
one way. So yeah, two thingsreally inadequate design and
existing buildings. I'm surethere is so much more, but the
list is probably as long as youcan imagine, totally
Well, no, and I think that thoseare like, two very identifiable
(15:29):
I think the one that struck meas the most interesting, that
makes a ton of sense in theworld, is the pre existing
structure, a lot of remodeling,a lot of retrofits in the UK,
like, I mean, we see thatprimarily. Okay, so I grew up in
central Nebraska. Do you knowwhere central Nebraska is? Or,
do you know where Nebraskais? Kinda sounds remote, very
(15:52):
desolate. There's, it's, like,it's, it's a, it's a sizable
state in the middle of thecountry, in the plains, and
there are like, 1.2 million or1.8 million people that live in
the entire state, massive state.
It takes like, six hoursto drive across the state, okay,
like the size of the UK, then,huh?
More? I guess I don't know. Inever been in the UK, but, yeah,
(16:12):
that makes sense. My point is,is so I grew up in like, a very
vast part of the country, okay?
It wasn't an issue to buildhomes. A lot of new
construction, okay, but as Istarted working more with like
the East Coast client base andbuilders specifically, like New
England all the way down toWashington, DC, really, it's a
(16:33):
very dense metropolitan area. Alot of renovations, a lot of
whole home remodels. A lot ofthe I think they call it like
popping the top, where they liketake the roof off and add an
extra, extra story point beingis that's like an East Coast
thing to whereas the UK, Iimagine, is like one of the
(16:55):
oldest countries. It has, like,some of the oldest
infrastructure, like cityplanning and urban sprawl. Like
a you're surrounded by water,correct, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And then, God, my geography isterrible. I got to look at a
(17:16):
map. But point being is, like,You guys only have so so much to
go so, like, the reality of yourworld of it's a lottery on
nearly every project. Stacks thedeck, not in your favor, right?
It's like, by design, like, it'snot like, you guys have, like,
all this space to go build thesebig Custom Homes, unless you're
tearing something down andbuilding something in its place.
(17:38):
But you guys are just like, areimmediately against like, okay,
we can design this thing, and wecan bid this thing, and we can
take years of experience toinsulate ourselves as best we
can against the reality, butthen start tearing into this
wall and it's out the window.
Scope creep like crazy. Loadbearing walls failing. We need
structural steel. We need toupgrade electricity. This stuff,
(18:01):
whatever it might be. Is thatfair?
Yes, you're also forgetting theunexploded bombs of World War
Two that may exist. Dude, what?
Building? What? Yeah, yeah.
Every now and then I get this,quite rare these days, but does
happen, yeah, you're someone.
We're doing a project, and thenthere's like, Oh, crap, we've
(18:21):
just, like, hit the top of anunexploded bomb. Like, there's
surveys that you do unexplodedordnance surveys to try and to,
like, the bombs have beenmapped. And if your project is
in one of these and you have togo and do some further
investigation. But it's quitefunny, yeah, you will, you will
come across these. And one of myfriends actually, he's, he was
in the British Army, and his jobwas to when there was an
(18:45):
unexploded bomb found in forwhatever reason, it could have
been a project that could havejust shown someone saw it was
digging in their car. I don'tknow, whatever the circumstance,
but you he would quite often goto these, like, call outs and
start, like, doing what they do.
And fine, it's just like acardboard box with like a and
see a logo of like the localbath store or something on it,
(19:07):
and be just a bath, not a bomb.
Don't worry, guys,dude, this, I never would have
considered that again. Like, Ithink it's, it's like the
challenges are, are quitedifferent, but there is like
similarities. What are you do ina situation when you find a
bomb, is it evacuate everybody,and you're like, we got to get,
like, someone to come in andtake care of this thing. Like,
what is it? Pretty much, yeah,luckily, I've never been
(19:30):
involved, but I've can recallpictures I've seen on websites,
through the news, where, yeah,the police and whatnot will come
and shut off a certain area, andthen they'll call in the army to
disarm it and get rid of it. Andyou carry on. How big are these
things? And hey, how do they getthere? And like, they're hidden
(19:52):
almost.
Yeah, I don't know that. Isuppose this ground has just
never been i. Like dog excavatedup to that point. And so it's a
new, it's a new, new piece ofland. Effectively,
insane, insane, yeah. Doyou know what's interesting?
Just one other thing to yourpoint about Nebraska, just so
(20:13):
people can understand. So yousaid Nebraska had 1.2 million
people in 1.8 I think it's 1.1point roughly, yeah, so that so
Nebraska is 80% of the size ofthe UK, and so the population of
London alone is is 9 million. Ithink that's insane. So think
(20:35):
about that. Yeah, that's justLondon, yeah, so 8.9 million
people in London. So you canimagine, like, the density of
population, which furthercomplicates how to do
construction over here. That'swhy everyone really is just
going up now, up, up. How highcan we go? Well, obviously not
like that, but like, Yeah, wedon't build so much horizontally
(20:57):
anymore.
Totally, totally, what, um, Imean, is that just like, taking
out old buildings and justbuilding skyscrapers, or is it,
or is there like, a componentof, like, trying to maintain the
historic charm of London? Like,how does all that get decided?
(21:21):
Ah, good question. A few ways.
Well, my break my brain goes afew ways on yours is so firstly,
we have this thing calledlisting. So if there's a
building of significant historicinterest, it will be listed,
which means you are restrictedto as to what works you can do
in it. And you have like,different grades. So you have,
(21:42):
like, grade two listed, gradeone listed. Maybe there's some
more as well, which I'm not toofamiliar with, but they seem to
be the two most common ones onprojects I've worked on. Grade
two is you can cut, you canalter, as long as you maintain
the appearance, and you get theright permissions, and you only
work within the parameters ofthe permission that you've got
but grade one, which would belike Buckingham Palace, or
(22:02):
buildings like Henry the Eighthtype mansions, or whatever that
for significant interest, you'revery restricted on what you can
do to those. You have tomaintain even stupid things like
floorboards. The floorboardsmaybe, maybe listed, so you
can't take off and throw out thefloorboards. People just build
on top of them.
(22:25):
So, but why the floorboards?
Okay, I pick I'm picking up whatyou're putting down. But like,
Is there, like, some type ofsignificance that they want to
maintain the now, or is it justgovernment bloat? Is what
we could call it, kinda, some ofit, yes, but some of it is like
they could have been theoriginal floorboards from 200
whatever, years ago. So they'vejust, they don't want people.
(22:47):
Don't want to get rid of them.
They just want to keep them. Soit causes major issues. That's
another thing why you could sodifficult to forecast costs on
projects, right? Because if youhave a load of that in and
suddenly you realize, like,yeah, you found something of
significant value, then you haveto consider what to do next.
Totally, totally well. And Ithink, like, again, that's the
(23:09):
similarity here between buildingin the United States and the UK.
Is just like the unforeseenstuff that's where, like,
primarily, when you talk tobuilders, like, if they're new
construction, right? They'rebuilding a new vertical product.
It's not as rampant typically,from my understanding of like
these changes, they're comingfrom like a builder variance,
(23:31):
right, an issue that theycreated, or a customer variance,
right? But they mitigate a lotof that unforeseen work that
comes in. But when it comes toremodeling in the United States,
I mean, that's like, that's whyyou hear guys want to get out of
remodeling and into newconstruction, right? Because
they're always like, they'relike, dude, like, you could, you
could walk into a house andthink it's a home run project,
(23:53):
and it's going to be great.
You're going to hit your 40%margin that you're looking for,
30% margin you're looking for,and then all of a sudden you
tear it out. It's like theelectrical isn't up to code, and
now you have to go to a customerand say, like, hey, it's going
to be this much more money, orwhatever it might be. So, yeah,
I mean, those are there, but I,I mean, obviously, like, through
the lens of adaptive, like,we're fairly bullish on what is
controlled being automated togive better visibility into the
(24:19):
forecasting, into the cash flowpositions in a knot, but like,
I'm actually curious, like, whatthe solution is going to be for
situations that you're talkingabout, because it's still
bizarre to me that it's like,truly global and like, there
isn't a like, it's bizarre tome, how Isn't this like, a
builder's like, Yeah, I'm gonnago and build a skyscraper that's
(24:41):
going to have 1000 residentialunits in it and 500,000
commercial square feet,whatever, million square feet of
commercial. And then they just,like, run into all these issues
that make it, like, totallybrutal to move a project along,
and they're just taking theseabsorbent risks for new.
Extremely low margin businesslike, how isn't this? How isn't
(25:02):
this a solution? What do youthink?
No, I 100% and I actually do notthink the solution exists or
will ever exist, because whenput in for projects, sometimes
the less you know, the better.
If you want to win it. So youmust be very familiar with the
term, like, if you price theproject, well, you're never
(25:24):
like, you're not going to winit, but because it's the person
that, it's the race to thebottom Exactly. So you could be,
you could be the, like mostprofessional contractor, you
could go in, you could allow forall of this risk within your
price, but it's going to putyou, like, 20% higher than the
guy that comes in from thestreet and is like, Yeah, I'll
do everything, and you'll,you'll sign up to a quote with
(25:46):
me, which is 20% cheaper, butyou won't. You'll still end up
paying the same price wheneverything is said and done. But
the irrational customer on theother end sees the price 20%
cheaper, is like, Yeah, I'lltake that because it's the
lowest price. I want that built,and that's it. So you can, if
you uncover all of these risks,then it does actually do you no
(26:09):
favor at the start. And so thesolution, if you found a
solution which could do all thisfor you, I don't think it will
break the fundamental traditionthat exists within the industry,
which is lowest price wins. AndI you could rant about that for
for hours. I think peopleprobably share that frustration
to think about like, luxurygoods, right? It's like, like,
(26:33):
It's the trend in handbags. It'slike, you're buying something
like a 2,000% markup because ofthe print that they put on the
bag completely inversed, right?
It's like, it's not the cheapestproduct wins. It's the most
expensive product wins, right?
It's the style, right? Yes. Soit's like, how do you flip that?
(26:54):
Right? I truly think and simple.
And I brought this up on thepodcast I was doing with Thomas
Joseph. I was, like, in theUnited States, there's a huge
inventory shortage for homes,residential. It's all the big
national builders are coming in,and they're building a ton of
product. Okay? I know friendsthat have bought these homes,
and they're like, six months, 18months into living in a new
(27:14):
construction home, and they'vegot some, like, pretty serious
issues, like, Oh my gosh. LikeHVAC catching on fire, right?
And like, and like, concretesplitting in a garage, right?
And like stuff, these are, like,decent capital expenditures,
right? Oh my god, yes. And soglad you said this well. And so
(27:34):
my take to Thomas was like, Ithink we're going to be coming
in with the shortage ininventory national builders
building a ton of product atvolume. That's not quality. The
first obnoxious thought is, isthis product? Is this asset even
going to outlast the life of theloan we do 30 year mortgages in
(27:56):
the United States, right? Like,is this even going to be an
asset in 30 years? Right? Wow,which I'm like, is that going to
drive a consumer to emphasize aquality product, almost
suggesting, like, that inverseof cheapest person wins into
someone saying, okay, the UnitedStates has been moving across
the nation like crazy sincecovid. You've got people from
(28:18):
Nebraska moving to Denver andCalifornia moving to Austin,
like a lot of sprawl andmovement. But with all of these
challenges, are they going tomove into a more quality,
focused product, not suggestinga low cost price wins, but a
high cost price wins? So you canget into 100 year asset that was
a lot. Were you tracking?
(28:39):
That's an interesting,interesting fool, actually. Hmm,
I don't know. He disagreed withme. He disagreed with me. Thomas
disagreed with me. I maybe Imight have lost you. Did I
lose you in there? No, youdidn't lose me. I think my point
to this would be, I don't thinkpeople really, when you, when
you're in that like emotionalstate, and you're trying to, you
(29:02):
want to buy your first time, orwhatever you don't consider,
really, the lifetime value ofthe asset that you're buying,
like, the lifetime cost, shouldI say, Sure, so if it is cheap
on on paper, and that's what youcan afford at that time, and
maybe, like, you have otherpressure, like you want to start
family, or you're you'll want toGet married and whatever,
whatever it might be, then Ithink that you will just go for
(29:25):
the asset and deal with theproblems afterwards, like it
shouldn't be that way, 100% itshouldn't be that way. It
shouldn't have problems. Youshould be able to move into
somewhere and it'd befunctional. But unfortunately,
that's the reality, and I don'tthink that, especially over here
in the UK, you don't get a lotof support from the government
if you do end up in one of thesenew build homes, or schemes
(29:45):
whereby, which you can't get outof, or where there's major
issues, because just profit,profit pushing companies and
like, you're a small fish, likeyour little house has a problem.
Sorry about that. I've got 400homes to build over
here, dude. I. Right. Okay, soyou're suggesting that and
correct me where I'mmisunderstanding, but you're
suggesting that a it's such anemotional decision that people
(30:10):
overlook the reality of whatthey're getting into. Am I
missing, or is that what you'resaying, not entirely,
but I think, ultimatelyaffordability and what you can
buy is the deciding factor. Soif you haven't got the money,
but you want, say, say, to takeyour hypothesis, if you want to
(30:32):
go for expensive price wins, butyou can't afford it, then you
can't afford it. Whereas, ifyou, if you, if you can afford a
cheaper house, unbeknowingly,that you will encounter
problems, then you will probablytake that option at the time
when you are thinking ofpurchasing a house. Does it make
sense? No,it totally does. What's the
average square foot of a home inthe UK to build
(30:57):
that someone lives? What's theaverage square foot of a home
of, like, the averageconsumer, like, 100 ish, I would
like to say I don't know thatfor certain, but just
thinking, I think that would beinteresting. And because this
is, like, kind of, my counter tothat is, and this is, like, just
from an American perspective,is, I want to say it's something
insane, like it like, from the1950s it was like the average
(31:19):
square footage of a home waslike 800 square feet. 900 square
feet. They were raising likefour or five, six person
families in these things nowyou're getting up. Go ahead,
yeah. UK, a it would be eight,yeah, 1000 square foot. UK,
average sizeis what it currently is, whereas
in these states, it's like 2000Yeah, and you're just like,
(31:40):
sitting there, and you're like,dude, the expectation of homes
is like, we gotta have a 2000square foot home with three
beds, four baths, and, like,we've got to have all this
stuff. And it's like, no, youdon't why? Like, if we're
talking about quality, right?
And it's like, I can't affordit. It's like, well, who in the
like, do you as a 28 year oldyoung family, need a 2500 square
(32:01):
foot home or a 3000 square foothome in Dallas? No, right? It's
like you need 1200 square feetof a well built product that you
could very likely hang on to for30 years and see the
appreciation of it run and it'sgoing to be a much better
investment than the 3500 squarefoot home that you want that's
got all the bells and whistles,but it's falling apart after 12
(32:22):
months. Yeah. Months. Yeah,you're just kidding. Rant. Go
ahead,when you mentioned about these
low quality new build homes inthe UK, I don't know how I came
across this, but man, it's likea I'm almost embarrassed to
admit this, but hey, I will doit. But came across a channel,
channel or page or whatever, ontick tock. I don't use tick
(32:42):
tock. Let me just, let me justclarify that. Protect my ego a
little bit. Yeah, that's a badgeof, yeah, just to protect my
ego, um, but there's this one inthe UK called home. Snag, home.
Snag, I can't remember that.
That's the tag, uh, let me tryand find this, because I think
people should check it out forthe entertainment. But home.
Snag, tick, tock, yeah.
Basically this guy goes roundof, do you call it like a spirit
(33:07):
level in the like a it's like alevel. So if you're trying to
install something flat, then youput the level on and it'll have
a little bubble. Oh, okay, yeah,yeah, yeah. Where he basically
goes around in these new buildhouses from the major developers
over here in the UK, which wouldbe companies like Taylor, wimpy,
persimmon, Barclay homes so andhe'll like, just go for a house
(33:33):
new build and be like, the brickwall is not straight, like the
brick plum, the brick wall, No,like from just like, a one meter
level. It's like a gap like thatbetween the bottom and the top.
It's insane. Like, the qualityof these things, yes, and yeah,
just check out a few videos.
It's ridiculous. It's app it'slike, criminal, almost.
(33:55):
That's, that's kind of my point.
And like, I again, like, we'relike, this, like, actually, a
has been, like, a very goodconversation, very interesting
conversation. But like, startingat the beginning of like, what
are the challenges to run thesecosts? Like, then you start to
talk about the pressure that youhad initially mentioned, with
poor design, right? Like, guysat the top are, like, we
committed to these timelines.
(34:16):
Like, this is what's gonna thisis what's gonna take. This is
what we have to hit. And thenyou just rush from the very
beginning of it, and then youstart getting into product like
that. And it's like, how couldwe be off 10 degrees on this
wall, or whatever themeasurement is, right? Like,
yeah, half an inch from the topto the bottom, I feel like, is a
big deal, right? And, and it'sjust like, I don't know, I don't
(34:40):
know who that's helping. Butthen it's just like, this huge,
circular, like, massive problemof, like, where do you start? Or
who's got the answer to preventthis type of stuff
from happening?
I don't know. Man, I reallydon't know what the solution is.
And then you've got to getpeople into them, like, who can
actually afford to buy them?
Then you've spent your wholelife trying to save and buy one.
Then you find out the brickworkis like endangering you somehow,
(35:01):
yeah, liabilities,brutal. Um, okay, this has been
a good conversation. I'mcurious. Do you? Do you have
anything that you feel stronglyabout bringing up on the
podcast?
Well, maybe people will findthis interesting. So a little
(35:25):
bit about me, perhaps that likeI don't I still, I don't really
work in construction anymore,like I do because, but my career
kind of took an interesting turnwhen I start. So I was in, like
I mentioned at the start thispodcast, at subcontracting
business. I then started my ownbusiness during covid, doing
owners, rep work that wasfollowing a small, small little
(35:47):
stint out like more corporatecompany. And then started my own
company doing it. And then, aswhilst doing that company that
started bricks and bytes. Bricksand bytes is podcast slash media
company was a podcast which westarted during or just after
covid, when everything wasonline, moved to online, and
(36:09):
that has slowly grown into mymain kind of focus now, which
has been which is like, strangehow if someone from construction
can go into media like half thetime, like, I have a fucking
clue I'm doing, but somehow it'sworking its way, working itself
out. Yeah, and you speak likeit's funny, you speak to people
from media and and they come upwith all these terms. And I'm
(36:31):
like, I have no idea you'respeaking about, but sounds good,
right, right, dude. Okay, sotalk about bricks and bytes.
What do you guys talk about? Ito my fault. Haven't listened to
it yet. I will.
Yeah, no, no worries. It's okay.
Well, first off, construction isvery fragmented, so you could be
in the industry and would neverhave heard about this, but we
really focus on tech withinconstruction, AEC sector
(36:52):
specific. So architecture,engineering, construction, we
speak to technology builders,solution, bit like adaptive
people, people building thesoftware or the hardware
robotics. And the people thatare buying and purchasing this
software and actually using iton sites are more of a corporate
level, and they're talking multibillion dollar revenue
(37:14):
contractors, ENR list, type ofpeople I've seen, just seeing
what's what in that world, andI'm seeing what's out there. How
are we going to build betterwhat the best products? Like,
where's the future going?
Where's innovation taking us?
So, yeah, we've been doing thatfor three years now, and it's
(37:35):
been interesting.
I love it, dude. Yeah, I guess.
Like, what's like your generalpulse, like, what is your
current synopsis of whereconstruction is going to be
going based on the technology?
And what's out there?
Yeah, two things. I think toalways have two things every
every question you ask, butthat's cool. Number one,
(37:56):
consolidation of technology. Sowhat you're finding is there
were ton Are you familiar withthe term point solutions? Yes,
yeah. So I'm not sure whetherit's just, like, applicable to
the world I'minside No, no. Point solution
is, like, widely used over here.
Yeah.
Okay, fine, cool. You get it. Soyeah, people have the large
(38:16):
corporate the large people, thelarge general contractors and
architecture engineeringcompanies have, like, whatever,
250 softwares on their currentIT system and so, like, they're
like, sick of it, so they'retrying to work out ways. Now
this is the consensus of how toconsolidate that down to, say,
50 or less arbitrary number.
But, sure, yeah, literallyreduce it by by 80% that's
(38:38):
interesting to see how that willpan out, and I think that the
it's either going to be donethrough artificial intelligence
and agentic workflows, but thejury is still out on that.
There's companies that are doingit, but I think a lot of them
are still yet to provethemselves, and there's also
this pressure from big tech soobviously the data center boom
(39:00):
is a bomb is among us. And thesebig tech companies, Tesla,
Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc,they don't want to wait 24
months for a data center like,even though everyone in the
whole construction industry islike, no, it takes 24 months.
They're like, I don't care. Idon't want to wait 24 months.
You find out how to build itquicker for me. So you have this
pressure now from big techcoming into the industry,
(39:22):
forcing big builders to thinklike, okay, how can we actually
deliver it for 18 months? Andthat's resulted in these large
companies hiring internal AI, asoftware slash AI engineers to
build custom solutions for theprojects, to speed them up, and
also a lot of off site and prefabrication. So it's good thing
about data centers is they'revery standard, generally very
(39:44):
standardized, so you canmanufacture a lot on, on off
site rather rather than relyingon too much site labor. And
hopefully that kind of effect ofthat translates to the rest of
the industry, where we can.
Start to think about, yeah, pushthe limit. How do we build
quicker? How do we get theinfrastructure? Housing is a
(40:05):
major issue, like you mentionedearlier, shortages. How can we
get these things done quickerthat's still to a good level of
quality, of course? So yeah,that's what. That's what's on.
And obviously, labor shortages,hardware, robotics, is a hot,
hot topic, totally for people.
And I think so, I think it's ait's a great, it's a great
(40:28):
synopsis point of view to have.
And I think, like, candidly,like, after hearing I think it
just, like, validates, at leastmy conviction that there will be
a solution out there that issolving the problems of the top,
feeling pressured to rushdesign, to then overlook pre
construction, that's creatingexpensive problems in the back
end, that is creating changeorders and all this stuff. Like,
(40:49):
I am bullish that there will beproducts out there that solve
those problems, and I think it'sgoing to come from the pressure
of exactly what you had justdiscussed, like, how fast this
world is changing and how muchof it is revolved around tech,
and what that tech is doing tothe infrastructure of our
communities. The one thing thatI'm just like, still hung up on
(41:10):
is like, do I think that they'regonna be robots walking around
job sites, tying in rebar forthe foundation of a data
warehouse or data center? Idon't know. I don't think so.
What do you think?
Yes, a good point. Okay, well, Ithink one day it kind of has to
(41:36):
happen. But we're not. I thinkwe'll be talking, in like 10 to
20 years time. This could be, wecould be like way beyond that.
And whether they would be in thetypical sense, which people
probably imagine when you sayrobotics like as a humanoid
form, I don't think so. It willbe like a very specific kind of
robot that's built which doesjust looks like a piece of
(41:57):
equipment, yeah, a car orsomething like as a stupid
example, yeah, yeah, sure. Soyou will, I think you will start
to see these being rolled out,but you still need humans. Yeah,
there's so much unpredictabilityand interfacing with robots that
needs to happen before all ofthis happens. But don't get me
(42:18):
wrong, there are, like, verysmart people working on this
issue and really trying tofigure out and running
simulations and putting tons ofmoney in to try and work out how
this can be done. I think whatmight be an interesting approach
versus robotics is more off sitemanufacturing. So we spoke to
this great company called Qb,and we actually done, like a
(42:41):
very interesting documentarywith them on this about mobile
micro factories, where,effectively, they build a
factory last mile, so within 150to 200 mile radius of a large
home development site, say, 234,100 homes, whatever it might Be,
they manufacture all of thecomponents within the factory
(43:03):
itself, and then deliver that tosite, flat packet, and deliver
it to site, and it can then beinstalled by very, very low
skilled labor. I think it takeslike one to two months to train
onto their system, to be likeIkea standard, basically, to be
able to put this stuff together.
And the amazing thing about themis they, because this, the
manufacturing process, bynature, is extremely systemized.
(43:25):
Their whole system, their wholefactories, are built to like
perfect precision, that it's alllike coordinated. So you could
put a humanoid roboticeventually within that factory,
which is then producing the flatpack, delivered to site and put
to put on, installed by labor onsite. Yes. Fascinating approach.
(43:47):
Totally, totally dude. I Yeah. Ithink when you start talking
about, like tech horizons andwhat this world's gonna look
like in 20, 3040, years, that'swhere I think maybe you are
right to the point like we willsee them. Is it going to be like
the Terminator robots? No,maybe, not, maybe. Who knows?
(44:07):
But no, I think we startedtalking about that, like the
prefabbed homes and, likemodular building and all the
stuff. Like, it's pretty popularhere, the printing homes. Like,
right now, it's extremely basic.
But there's a guy, there's abuilder in Austin, who's just
like, totally, like, sold hislife to 3d printing homes. And
he's actually, like, picking uptraction again, they look like
(44:28):
Star Wars houses, right? They'relike, these, like, dome
structures with, like, layersand layers of poured concrete,
whatever, yeah. But it's like,dude, what's innovation gonna
look like in 20 years with that,it's like, who knows? I don't
know.
No, I don't know. Yeah, pass Ithink it really will depend
(44:50):
ultimately, we humans, we need acertain way of living, so, yeah,
I think we'll always have that.
I. Uh, that esthetic andperformance that we want to
achieve, and whether you canachieve that through 3d printing
at an affordable cost, whichlooks guys, which performs well,
which is accessible. The jury isout.
(45:16):
There's time this, um, it couldbe just a different episode on
but I will say, I think we did ahell of a job at trying to solve
the world's problems. I think weput a little bit of a dent in
this thing. I thought it wasgreat. I appreciate you for
coming on the show, dude. It wasa great conversation. Great to
meet you. And yeah, if you everwant to be back on or you want
(45:36):
to want to have me on yours, letme know.
Yeah, sure, man. Thanks Reese.
Appreciate the performance. Andyeah, keep doing great things
that adapt it.
Cool dude. I appreciate it. I'lllet you jump to it. Enjoy your
evening. I'm going to enjoy therest of my day, and it was my
pleasure. Thanks for jumping on.
Thanks. You bet See you.
Everyone in the wholeconstruction industry is like,
(00:02):
no, it takes 24 months. They'relike, I don't care. I don't want
to wait 24 months you find outhow to build it. Quick.
Performance. Alrighty. Owen,we're live, baby. Thanks. Thanks
for jumping on, dude, Iappreciate you.
(00:22):
Thanks for Thanks for joining.
Yeah, it was in an interestingway, how this, this appearance
came up, speaking to you guysprobably two or three months or
so, few rearrangements, and nowwe're here. And I think that we
need the reciprocal you guyscoming on bricks and bites one
day, which we will do. But Iguess I'm here first. I beat you
to beat you to your podcastfirst. Yeah, exactly you. You
(00:45):
have the maiden voyage here.
Wait, what time is it in the UK?
Alex, 436 436Okay, so we're looking at like a
seven hour time, timedifference. I'm in Colorado, so
it's 930 Oh,that's significant. Hey, man,
maybe you'll find, maybe youraudience will find this
interesting talking of locationsand stuff around the world. So
(01:07):
Europe has been getting veryhot, yes, and in the UK, I think
that the only, oh well, this wasin 2020, this is as far back as
this research goes, which showsyou how unimportant This is
within people's lives, but only5% of households have AC air
conditioning. And that's mindblowing to American folk
whenever I mentioned that. Yeah.
(01:29):
I mean, it'scommon. So I'm actually getting
ready to move to Boston, andthat's a thing, like in Boston,
like the northeast, it was,like, historically, they didn't
need AC, but it is warming upthere, so, but it's 5% in the
UK? Is that what you said?
Yeah, 5% of homes in the UK hadAC this 2020, so maybe things,
it's definitely got cheaper morerecently. And I'm guessing that
(01:51):
percentage will increase willhave to because heat is becoming
a major problem for people overhere in Europe. And we discussed
last week on a podcast we doneabout heat related deaths within
construction. And it's quite abecause I think it's like the
big, one of the biggestindustries for heat related
(02:11):
deaths, which is something youprobably don't think about, but
has a major impact. And thereis, like, guidelines and stuff
which shows that at certaintemperatures you should only be
working moderate work at like,10 minutes and then a 50 minute
break, whatever, whatever theratio is. I can't remember the
exact figures, but I found itvery fascinating.
So, so it makes total sense,right? Of like the heat related
(02:34):
deaths, construction, there's alot of labor trades. You're
obviously building stuffoutside, but I had no idea, just
dumb American, no idea that itgot that hot in the UK. Like,
I'd never been to the UK. I'dlove to go, but I always think
it's like, overcasty, chilly,kind of rainy, and that's just
like, not the case. Like, Howhot does it get? Well, we,
(02:59):
we had recently, I'm gonna do aquick conversion degree Celsius,
because I always get cool out onthis. I feel like I should just
learn it. But of recent, we'vehad, like, consistent
temperatures of 86 ish, okay, 86to 88 degree Celsius, which is
hot for the UK. You have toremember, UK building stock is
(03:19):
not designed or built.
Did you just say 88 Celsius? No,no, Fahrenheit. Fahrenheit,
dude, I was gonna say that'snot, that's not even real.
There's no way that's real. Butokay, so 88 Fahrenheit, okay,
and that's like, again, that'swarm, especially with no air
conditioning. But you guys areseeing like, casualties because
of that heat.
(03:42):
Well, no, not specifically inthe UK. I mean, the stat I
mentioned earlier was global, ormaybe worse, okay, yeah, okay,
yeah, but, but to the point, Imean, yeah, UK housing is not,
it's not designed for such heat,so it gets super hot over here.
So, yeah. Anyway, that was myinteresting segue into this
discussion, dude.
No, I think it's good. I thinkit's good. Okay, well, cool. I'm
(04:03):
glad you're here. I imagineHVAC. We call it HVAC. It's like
heating and air conditioning isexploding in the UK. Is there,
like, a is there a trend there?
Like, if you're a guy that cando central air install, you're
going to make a killing. Is thatfair?
Interesting question. I can onlygo by the discussion I had. So I
(04:25):
literally had AC installed in myhouse maybe two weeks ago, so
ago now. And by the way, what amassive upgrade to life that is,
isn't that? Anyway, I wasspeaking to the guy who was
installing and for a trade, wecall them trade, yeah. You call
them trade contractors, yeah,yes. We call them tradesmen,
yeah, yeah, tradesmen, tradies,subs, maybe, maybe
(04:45):
tradesmen is not, like,politically correct, but,
well, we understand, we know,yeah, yeah.
And he said they had about 20jobs in the pipeline, and he was
working like, What time does heget to sign up? Hours past seven
quarter, 730 and leaving, like,literally 730 12 hour shifts, no
(05:06):
break, like they were grafting,grinding, as we say over here.
Yeah, and he said he had 20 jobslike in queue. So that's a
pretty good pipeline for a smallcompany of, say, five people
just installing these units. SoI guess it will start to
explode. You've definitely seenan increase in uptake of air
(05:27):
source heat pumps. Over there,of what pumps? Air source heat
pumps?
What is that? I don't know. Soin the UK, that the primary heat
source of residential and maybeeven commercial is boiler
systems. Yeah, okay, gasps, gas,electric boilers, but they're
now being replaced with heatpumps. I don't I don't know if
this would be the exact samething as a HVAC system. Perhaps
(05:50):
it is, and perhaps that's whyyou're not so familiar with the
term. But yeah, it's like themove to electric. It's a much
more sustainable way of heatingand cooling your house, and
phasing out of gas, lessreliance on the big beast in the
East, Russia, for Europe, yeah,the beast in the East. I love
(06:10):
it. Never said that before. I'venever heard I love it. It's
great. Okay, no, this is, thisis shaping up into a good
conversation. Okay? So actually,let's take a step back, give the
listeners a little background onyourself. Okay, you mentioned
you've been in construction,talked about your podcast, but
give them a little detail of whoyou are.
Yeah, I found that. I found howwe just spoke for six minutes
(06:32):
about AC fascinating, because weI did start telling you, then
you said I did telling you mybackground. And you said, let's
just hit record and do this. Andthen somehow we segued into AC
and heat and whatnot.
I think I do. I honestly. Ithink I listen. I think of our
listeners, and I think they'dlisten to this and be like, I
have never thought of it thatway. Or maybe I'm just an idiot.
Maybe I'm just an idiot, andthey're like, Risha, this is
(06:53):
pretty standard stuff. I thinkit's fascinating. So I'm glad we
talked about it.
I think a lot of people will notknow because I didn't know until
I had done some research andthen recorded that. But anyway,
my background, yeah, so I haveworked in construction for
around 15 years now, and Istarted my career in actually,
in the subcontractors, I don'tknow what the UK subs, yeah,
(07:20):
yeah, for carpentry, joinery andfit out, which is like the
second half of a build, so tospeak, with finishes, nice stuff
that goes in once theconstruction, the structural
work is complete. And I trainedas a quantity surveyor, so I
don't you can another thing thatdoesn't translate perfectly to
the US, but you're effectivelyresponsible for the financial
(07:43):
performance of constructionprojects. So you do procurement,
you do reporting on costs. Isthe project profitable? Is it
making a loss, paying othersubcontractors? Love it,
suppliers, purchase orders, soon and so forth. Yeah. So I
qualified as a as a quantitysphere, in as a subcontractor.
And what you know, what onething I loved about working as a
(08:05):
sub was your marching for erroris very low. I don't know if
you, if you and your listenerswould experience this, but you
have to have a very strongattention, strong attention to
detail. And I think it was agreat lesson for me, like
setting the foundation for mycareer. Because, yeah, if you
can't make a lot of errors andyou just by nature, become a
little bit more conscientious. Inever thought I would say that
(08:27):
about myself, by the way,because I don't see myself as a
truly conscientious person. Butmaybe I'm just harsh,
yeah, dude. Oh, I think that'sa, that's beautiful. I have no
idea. Okay, so a, you wereskilled tradesman, arguably,
I was, Oh, yeah. Well, nottrades as such, but
okay, you were in the skilledtrades, meaning like you were
doing carpentry work, finishedcarpentry stuff like that. And
(08:51):
then you jumped over into whatwe would call the back office. I
think you called it the quantitysurveying,
or small correction. I was neveractually on the tools. Always
went straight into themanagement side, into
the management side, okay, okay,but point being, you had the
background, so I think that's,like, massively applicable,
obviously, to this listeninguser base and like, I'm curious.
(09:15):
Well, I guess my curiosity andhow it differs is going to
require understanding what thatactually looked like for you in
the day to day, but indeed, interms of your comment of like,
the attention to detail, andwhat was your phrase, it was
like, the less room for errorrequired more conscientious
effort. Yes, is that right?
Something like that, somethinglike that. I love it, dude.
(09:36):
Let's hear about it like, let'stalk about what is it like
tracking the books and thefinancials in the UK. I'm
curious how it differs.
If it does,it's tough. I mean, well, put it
this way, construction and thepeople working in the trades are
not renowned or have not wonmany. Awards when it comes to
(09:59):
tracking their finances onprojects, I think as long as
there's more coming in than thisgoing out, then you're usually
on a good path. I don't thinkpeople are necessarily counting
the pennies and the pounds.
They're just looking and going,Oh, we're up this month. Oh no,
we're down. Like, what the helldo we do about this? So that's
one part to it, but second partto it is it's very difficult.
(10:24):
You're always forecasting. Younever really, you don't know
until you know, right? Like,even when you finished a
project, you could, you could beforecasting a profit margin. And
then suddenly there's a bigthing here in the UK called
retention, I think probably isretainage in the US, and
suddenly the client's like, 12months later, when you think
your profits coming in, they'relike, oh, you know, I can't pay
(10:45):
you that because I haven't beenpaid it. And there's a problem
with the something over there,which is totally unrelated to
you, I know, but look, we're notgetting paid, so we can't pay
you. And you're like, Well,okay, all the forecasting we
just done, it's kind of gone outthe window now.
Yeah, okay, go ahead. Go ahead.
Go ahead. It's amove. Yeah, it's a forever
moving target. So you can do, Iwould just do the best. You can
do something. But don't just,don't just pray and hope. Don't
(11:09):
just think that the numbers workthemselves out. Because, yeah, I
don't know where that will takeyou when it comes to really
building a sustainable business.
I think that's a wholeconversation. And like the fact
that you're like, I want to gointo what makes it challenging
again to see the assimilationsbetween the UK and the US. It
sounds like this is just auniversal problem in
(11:32):
construction, which makes allthe sense in the world. I did a
podcast with a builder inAustin, Texas A couple weeks
ago, Thomas Joseph, and he he hehad phrased it as like, and this
is primarily to the quality ofthe product that builders build.
He's like, when you take a stepback and you realize that who's
actually building the product,right? These are people that are
(11:52):
incredibly talented, incrediblyskilled, right? But there are
salt of the earth people, as wecall them in the States, right?
They are blue collar, they arelabor working. They are in the
elements. And for God's sakes,you're building a product
outside, right? So the nature ofwhat you're building is like by
(12:13):
design, variable, right? Thereare so many moving parts and so
many different components thatgo into it, but that's where
like, the challenges of businesscome into. The product that is
being provided is like business.
The best business is the mostforecasted, consistent, expected
business, right? That's alllike, the bigger you get, the
(12:33):
more you try to want to know,and you want to control, and you
want to prevent variables fromhappening. So then you can hit
the numbers, the P and Ls, thatthe profit margin. But when
you're talking about, like, thedifficulties of it, we're very
aware of that problem. Butspecifically for you, what makes
it difficult, in your opinion,to track project financials or
(12:54):
the quantity surveying on yourin your guys's world. What makes
it challenging?
Yeah, oh, man, you really openthe can of worms for those kind
ofquestions. Oh, I'm gonna do it.
Let's do it, baby. Let's say somuch. Well,
two, two things come to mind,primarily, one, maybe a few
(13:16):
people will, like, pull out theparty poppers here, but
inadequate design. Wait The whatthe PI popper party poppers.
Keep pulling the confetti. Yeah.
He said it Okay, okay,yeah. Inadequate design. So we,
we massively find over here inthe UK that, due to very various
reasons, client pressure. Clientwould be employer in the US, or
(13:42):
owner, should I say? Ownerpressure, like wanting to get
their projects down quickly,which doesn't give enough time
to the design team and to designprojects adequately. That design
is then packaged and sent off todownstream, to the contractor,
who then sends it downstream totheir their contractors. So, so
you kind of like, see where thisis going. Right? It spirals. You
(14:04):
have is 80% inadequate design,and it's, it's almost, it's
filtering down to the people whoare building it, at which point
they're just like, What the helldoes this mean? This doesn't
work. That doesn't work. Blah,blah, blah, blah, blah, and so
then change orders. Start flyingleft, right and center because
someone has missed something, orthe design just fundamentally
(14:25):
doesn't work. So that's issue, Iwould say number one, which
comes to it. And two, I don'tknow if you get this within the
world of within the US. I don'tthink it's such a major problem
there. But we work with a lot ofexisting buildings in the UK.
And dude, they are rest. Thereare, like, soon as you start
(14:46):
opening those things up, it's alottery, really, that you think,
you think everything isforecasted, and you know how
much something's going to cost,but you start taking down walls
and or the you. Have laugh andplaster over here, particularly
in the UK, which is like a pickto work with, and you don't know
it's there when you're doinginitial pricing, and things just
(15:07):
start to spiral and escalate,and costs just start going only
one way. So yeah, two thingsreally inadequate design and
existing buildings. I'm surethere is so much more, but the
list is probably as long as youcan imagine, totally
Well, no, and I think that thoseare like, two very identifiable
(15:29):
I think the one that struck meas the most interesting, that
makes a ton of sense in theworld, is the pre existing
structure, a lot of remodeling,a lot of retrofits in the UK,
like, I mean, we see thatprimarily. Okay, so I grew up in
central Nebraska. Do you knowwhere central Nebraska is? Or,
do you know where Nebraskais? Kinda sounds remote, very
(15:52):
desolate. There's, it's, like,it's, it's a, it's a sizable
state in the middle of thecountry, in the plains, and
there are like, 1.2 million or1.8 million people that live in
the entire state, massive state.
It takes like, six hoursto drive across the state, okay,
like the size of the UK, then,huh?
More? I guess I don't know. Inever been in the UK, but, yeah,
(16:12):
that makes sense. My point is,is so I grew up in like, a very
vast part of the country, okay?
It wasn't an issue to buildhomes. A lot of new
construction, okay, but as Istarted working more with like
the East Coast client base andbuilders specifically, like New
England all the way down toWashington, DC, really, it's a
(16:33):
very dense metropolitan area. Alot of renovations, a lot of
whole home remodels. A lot ofthe I think they call it like
popping the top, where they liketake the roof off and add an
extra, extra story point beingis that's like an East Coast
thing to whereas the UK, Iimagine, is like one of the
(16:55):
oldest countries. It has, like,some of the oldest
infrastructure, like cityplanning and urban sprawl. Like
a you're surrounded by water,correct, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And then, God, my geography isterrible. I got to look at a
(17:16):
map. But point being is, like,You guys only have so so much to
go so, like, the reality of yourworld of it's a lottery on
nearly every project. Stacks thedeck, not in your favor, right?
It's like, by design, like, it'snot like, you guys have, like,
all this space to go build thesebig Custom Homes, unless you're
tearing something down andbuilding something in its place.
(17:38):
But you guys are just like, areimmediately against like, okay,
we can design this thing, and wecan bid this thing, and we can
take years of experience toinsulate ourselves as best we
can against the reality, butthen start tearing into this
wall and it's out the window.
Scope creep like crazy. Loadbearing walls failing. We need
structural steel. We need toupgrade electricity. This stuff,
(18:01):
whatever it might be. Is thatfair?
Yes, you're also forgetting theunexploded bombs of World War
Two that may exist. Dude, what?
Building? What? Yeah, yeah.
Every now and then I get this,quite rare these days, but does
happen, yeah, you're someone.
We're doing a project, and thenthere's like, Oh, crap, we've
(18:21):
just, like, hit the top of anunexploded bomb. Like, there's
surveys that you do unexplodedordnance surveys to try and to,
like, the bombs have beenmapped. And if your project is
in one of these and you have togo and do some further
investigation. But it's quitefunny, yeah, you will, you will
come across these. And one of myfriends actually, he's, he was
in the British Army, and his jobwas to when there was an
(18:45):
unexploded bomb found in forwhatever reason, it could have
been a project that could havejust shown someone saw it was
digging in their car. I don'tknow, whatever the circumstance,
but you he would quite often goto these, like, call outs and
start, like, doing what they do.
And fine, it's just like acardboard box with like a and
see a logo of like the localbath store or something on it,
(19:07):
and be just a bath, not a bomb.
Don't worry, guys,dude, this, I never would have
considered that again. Like, Ithink it's, it's like the
challenges are, are quitedifferent, but there is like
similarities. What are you do ina situation when you find a
bomb, is it evacuate everybody,and you're like, we got to get,
like, someone to come in andtake care of this thing. Like,
what is it? Pretty much, yeah,luckily, I've never been
(19:30):
involved, but I've can recallpictures I've seen on websites,
through the news, where, yeah,the police and whatnot will come
and shut off a certain area, andthen they'll call in the army to
disarm it and get rid of it. Andyou carry on. How big are these
things? And hey, how do they getthere? And like, they're hidden
(19:52):
almost.
Yeah, I don't know that. Isuppose this ground has just
never been i. Like dog excavatedup to that point. And so it's a
new, it's a new, new piece ofland. Effectively,
insane, insane, yeah. Doyou know what's interesting?
Just one other thing to yourpoint about Nebraska, just so
(20:13):
people can understand. So yousaid Nebraska had 1.2 million
people in 1.8 I think it's 1.1point roughly, yeah, so that so
Nebraska is 80% of the size ofthe UK, and so the population of
London alone is is 9 million. Ithink that's insane. So think
(20:35):
about that. Yeah, that's justLondon, yeah, so 8.9 million
people in London. So you canimagine, like, the density of
population, which furthercomplicates how to do
construction over here. That'swhy everyone really is just
going up now, up, up. How highcan we go? Well, obviously not
like that, but like, Yeah, wedon't build so much horizontally
(20:57):
anymore.
Totally, totally, what, um, Imean, is that just like, taking
out old buildings and justbuilding skyscrapers, or is it,
or is there like, a componentof, like, trying to maintain the
historic charm of London? Like,how does all that get decided?
(21:21):
Ah, good question. A few ways.
Well, my break my brain goes afew ways on yours is so firstly,
we have this thing calledlisting. So if there's a
building of significant historicinterest, it will be listed,
which means you are restrictedto as to what works you can do
in it. And you have like,different grades. So you have,
(21:42):
like, grade two listed, gradeone listed. Maybe there's some
more as well, which I'm not toofamiliar with, but they seem to
be the two most common ones onprojects I've worked on. Grade
two is you can cut, you canalter, as long as you maintain
the appearance, and you get theright permissions, and you only
work within the parameters ofthe permission that you've got
but grade one, which would belike Buckingham Palace, or
(22:02):
buildings like Henry the Eighthtype mansions, or whatever that
for significant interest, you'revery restricted on what you can
do to those. You have tomaintain even stupid things like
floorboards. The floorboardsmaybe, maybe listed, so you
can't take off and throw out thefloorboards. People just build
on top of them.
(22:25):
So, but why the floorboards?
Okay, I pick I'm picking up whatyou're putting down. But like,
Is there, like, some type ofsignificance that they want to
maintain the now, or is it justgovernment bloat? Is what
we could call it, kinda, some ofit, yes, but some of it is like
they could have been theoriginal floorboards from 200
whatever, years ago. So they'vejust, they don't want people.
(22:47):
Don't want to get rid of them.
They just want to keep them. Soit causes major issues. That's
another thing why you could sodifficult to forecast costs on
projects, right? Because if youhave a load of that in and
suddenly you realize, like,yeah, you found something of
significant value, then you haveto consider what to do next.
Totally, totally well. And Ithink, like, again, that's the
(23:09):
similarity here between buildingin the United States and the UK.
Is just like the unforeseenstuff that's where, like,
primarily, when you talk tobuilders, like, if they're new
construction, right? They'rebuilding a new vertical product.
It's not as rampant typically,from my understanding of like
these changes, they're comingfrom like a builder variance,
(23:31):
right, an issue that theycreated, or a customer variance,
right? But they mitigate a lotof that unforeseen work that
comes in. But when it comes toremodeling in the United States,
I mean, that's like, that's whyyou hear guys want to get out of
remodeling and into newconstruction, right? Because
they're always like, they'relike, dude, like, you could, you
could walk into a house andthink it's a home run project,
(23:53):
and it's going to be great.
You're going to hit your 40%margin that you're looking for,
30% margin you're looking for,and then all of a sudden you
tear it out. It's like theelectrical isn't up to code, and
now you have to go to a customerand say, like, hey, it's going
to be this much more money, orwhatever it might be. So, yeah,
I mean, those are there, but I,I mean, obviously, like, through
the lens of adaptive, like,we're fairly bullish on what is
controlled being automated togive better visibility into the
(24:19):
forecasting, into the cash flowpositions in a knot, but like,
I'm actually curious, like, whatthe solution is going to be for
situations that you're talkingabout, because it's still
bizarre to me that it's like,truly global and like, there
isn't a like, it's bizarre tome, how Isn't this like, a
builder's like, Yeah, I'm gonnago and build a skyscraper that's
(24:41):
going to have 1000 residentialunits in it and 500,000
commercial square feet,whatever, million square feet of
commercial. And then they just,like, run into all these issues
that make it, like, totallybrutal to move a project along,
and they're just taking theseabsorbent risks for new.
Extremely low margin businesslike, how isn't this? How isn't
(25:02):
this a solution? What do youthink?
No, I 100% and I actually do notthink the solution exists or
will ever exist, because whenput in for projects, sometimes
the less you know, the better.
If you want to win it. So youmust be very familiar with the
term, like, if you price theproject, well, you're never
(25:24):
like, you're not going to winit, but because it's the person
that, it's the race to thebottom Exactly. So you could be,
you could be the, like mostprofessional contractor, you
could go in, you could allow forall of this risk within your
price, but it's going to putyou, like, 20% higher than the
guy that comes in from thestreet and is like, Yeah, I'll
do everything, and you'll,you'll sign up to a quote with
(25:46):
me, which is 20% cheaper, butyou won't. You'll still end up
paying the same price wheneverything is said and done. But
the irrational customer on theother end sees the price 20%
cheaper, is like, Yeah, I'lltake that because it's the
lowest price. I want that built,and that's it. So you can, if
you uncover all of these risks,then it does actually do you no
(26:09):
favor at the start. And so thesolution, if you found a
solution which could do all thisfor you, I don't think it will
break the fundamental traditionthat exists within the industry,
which is lowest price wins. AndI you could rant about that for
for hours. I think peopleprobably share that frustration
to think about like, luxurygoods, right? It's like, like,
(26:33):
It's the trend in handbags. It'slike, you're buying something
like a 2,000% markup because ofthe print that they put on the
bag completely inversed, right?
It's like, it's not the cheapestproduct wins. It's the most
expensive product wins, right?
It's the style, right? Yes. Soit's like, how do you flip that?
(26:54):
Right? I truly think and simple.
And I brought this up on thepodcast I was doing with Thomas
Joseph. I was, like, in theUnited States, there's a huge
inventory shortage for homes,residential. It's all the big
national builders are coming in,and they're building a ton of
product. Okay? I know friendsthat have bought these homes,
and they're like, six months, 18months into living in a new
(27:14):
construction home, and they'vegot some, like, pretty serious
issues, like, Oh my gosh. LikeHVAC catching on fire, right?
And like, and like, concretesplitting in a garage, right?
And like stuff, these are, like,decent capital expenditures,
right? Oh my god, yes. And soglad you said this well. And so
(27:34):
my take to Thomas was like, Ithink we're going to be coming
in with the shortage ininventory national builders
building a ton of product atvolume. That's not quality. The
first obnoxious thought is, isthis product? Is this asset even
going to outlast the life of theloan we do 30 year mortgages in
(27:56):
the United States, right? Like,is this even going to be an
asset in 30 years? Right? Wow,which I'm like, is that going to
drive a consumer to emphasize aquality product, almost
suggesting, like, that inverseof cheapest person wins into
someone saying, okay, the UnitedStates has been moving across
the nation like crazy sincecovid. You've got people from
(28:18):
Nebraska moving to Denver andCalifornia moving to Austin,
like a lot of sprawl andmovement. But with all of these
challenges, are they going tomove into a more quality,
focused product, not suggestinga low cost price wins, but a
high cost price wins? So you canget into 100 year asset that was
a lot. Were you tracking?
(28:39):
That's an interesting,interesting fool, actually. Hmm,
I don't know. He disagreed withme. He disagreed with me. Thomas
disagreed with me. I maybe Imight have lost you. Did I
lose you in there? No, youdidn't lose me. I think my point
to this would be, I don't thinkpeople really, when you, when
you're in that like emotionalstate, and you're trying to, you
(29:02):
want to buy your first time, orwhatever you don't consider,
really, the lifetime value ofthe asset that you're buying,
like, the lifetime cost, shouldI say, Sure, so if it is cheap
on on paper, and that's what youcan afford at that time, and
maybe, like, you have otherpressure, like you want to start
family, or you're you'll want toGet married and whatever,
whatever it might be, then Ithink that you will just go for
(29:25):
the asset and deal with theproblems afterwards, like it
shouldn't be that way, 100% itshouldn't be that way. It
shouldn't have problems. Youshould be able to move into
somewhere and it'd befunctional. But unfortunately,
that's the reality, and I don'tthink that, especially over here
in the UK, you don't get a lotof support from the government
if you do end up in one of thesenew build homes, or schemes
(29:45):
whereby, which you can't get outof, or where there's major
issues, because just profit,profit pushing companies and
like, you're a small fish, likeyour little house has a problem.
Sorry about that. I've got 400homes to build over
here, dude. I. Right. Okay, soyou're suggesting that and
correct me where I'mmisunderstanding, but you're
suggesting that a it's such anemotional decision that people
(30:10):
overlook the reality of whatthey're getting into. Am I
missing, or is that what you'resaying, not entirely,
but I think, ultimatelyaffordability and what you can
buy is the deciding factor. Soif you haven't got the money,
but you want, say, say, to takeyour hypothesis, if you want to
(30:32):
go for expensive price wins, butyou can't afford it, then you
can't afford it. Whereas, ifyou, if you, if you can afford a
cheaper house, unbeknowingly,that you will encounter
problems, then you will probablytake that option at the time
when you are thinking ofpurchasing a house. Does it make
sense? No,it totally does. What's the
average square foot of a home inthe UK to build
(30:57):
that someone lives? What's theaverage square foot of a home
of, like, the averageconsumer, like, 100 ish, I would
like to say I don't know thatfor certain, but just
thinking, I think that would beinteresting. And because this
is, like, kind of, my counter tothat is, and this is, like, just
from an American perspective,is, I want to say it's something
insane, like it like, from the1950s it was like the average
(31:19):
square footage of a home waslike 800 square feet. 900 square
feet. They were raising likefour or five, six person
families in these things nowyou're getting up. Go ahead,
yeah. UK, a it would be eight,yeah, 1000 square foot. UK,
average sizeis what it currently is, whereas
in these states, it's like 2000Yeah, and you're just like,
(31:40):
sitting there, and you're like,dude, the expectation of homes
is like, we gotta have a 2000square foot home with three
beds, four baths, and, like,we've got to have all this
stuff. And it's like, no, youdon't why? Like, if we're
talking about quality, right?
And it's like, I can't affordit. It's like, well, who in the
like, do you as a 28 year oldyoung family, need a 2500 square
(32:01):
foot home or a 3000 square foothome in Dallas? No, right? It's
like you need 1200 square feetof a well built product that you
could very likely hang on to for30 years and see the
appreciation of it run and it'sgoing to be a much better
investment than the 3500 squarefoot home that you want that's
got all the bells and whistles,but it's falling apart after 12
(32:22):
months. Yeah. Months. Yeah,you're just kidding. Rant. Go
ahead,when you mentioned about these
low quality new build homes inthe UK, I don't know how I came
across this, but man, it's likea I'm almost embarrassed to
admit this, but hey, I will doit. But came across a channel,
channel or page or whatever, ontick tock. I don't use tick
(32:42):
tock. Let me just, let me justclarify that. Protect my ego a
little bit. Yeah, that's a badgeof, yeah, just to protect my
ego, um, but there's this one inthe UK called home. Snag, home.
Snag, I can't remember that.
That's the tag, uh, let me tryand find this, because I think
people should check it out forthe entertainment. But home.
Snag, tick, tock, yeah.
Basically this guy goes roundof, do you call it like a spirit
(33:07):
level in the like a it's like alevel. So if you're trying to
install something flat, then youput the level on and it'll have
a little bubble. Oh, okay, yeah,yeah, yeah. Where he basically
goes around in these new buildhouses from the major developers
over here in the UK, which wouldbe companies like Taylor, wimpy,
persimmon, Barclay homes so andhe'll like, just go for a house
(33:33):
new build and be like, the brickwall is not straight, like the
brick plum, the brick wall, No,like from just like, a one meter
level. It's like a gap like thatbetween the bottom and the top.
It's insane. Like, the qualityof these things, yes, and yeah,
just check out a few videos.
It's ridiculous. It's app it'slike, criminal, almost.
(33:55):
That's, that's kind of my point.
And like, I again, like, we'relike, this, like, actually, a
has been, like, a very goodconversation, very interesting
conversation. But like, startingat the beginning of like, what
are the challenges to run thesecosts? Like, then you start to
talk about the pressure that youhad initially mentioned, with
poor design, right? Like, guysat the top are, like, we
committed to these timelines.
(34:16):
Like, this is what's gonna thisis what's gonna take. This is
what we have to hit. And thenyou just rush from the very
beginning of it, and then youstart getting into product like
that. And it's like, how couldwe be off 10 degrees on this
wall, or whatever themeasurement is, right? Like,
yeah, half an inch from the topto the bottom, I feel like, is a
big deal, right? And, and it'sjust like, I don't know, I don't
(34:40):
know who that's helping. Butthen it's just like, this huge,
circular, like, massive problemof, like, where do you start? Or
who's got the answer to preventthis type of stuff
from happening?
I don't know. Man, I reallydon't know what the solution is.
And then you've got to getpeople into them, like, who can
actually afford to buy them?
Then you've spent your wholelife trying to save and buy one.
Then you find out the brickworkis like endangering you somehow,
(35:01):
yeah, liabilities,brutal. Um, okay, this has been
a good conversation. I'mcurious. Do you? Do you have
anything that you feel stronglyabout bringing up on the
podcast?
Well, maybe people will findthis interesting. So a little
(35:25):
bit about me, perhaps that likeI don't I still, I don't really
work in construction anymore,like I do because, but my career
kind of took an interesting turnwhen I start. So I was in, like
I mentioned at the start thispodcast, at subcontracting
business. I then started my ownbusiness during covid, doing
owners, rep work that wasfollowing a small, small little
(35:47):
stint out like more corporatecompany. And then started my own
company doing it. And then, aswhilst doing that company that
started bricks and bytes. Bricksand bytes is podcast slash media
company was a podcast which westarted during or just after
covid, when everything wasonline, moved to online, and
(36:09):
that has slowly grown into mymain kind of focus now, which
has been which is like, strangehow if someone from construction
can go into media like half thetime, like, I have a fucking
clue I'm doing, but somehow it'sworking its way, working itself
out. Yeah, and you speak likeit's funny, you speak to people
from media and and they come upwith all these terms. And I'm
(36:31):
like, I have no idea you'respeaking about, but sounds good,
right, right, dude. Okay, sotalk about bricks and bytes.
What do you guys talk about? Ito my fault. Haven't listened to
it yet. I will.
Yeah, no, no worries. It's okay.
Well, first off, construction isvery fragmented, so you could be
in the industry and would neverhave heard about this, but we
really focus on tech withinconstruction, AEC sector
(36:52):
specific. So architecture,engineering, construction, we
speak to technology builders,solution, bit like adaptive
people, people building thesoftware or the hardware
robotics. And the people thatare buying and purchasing this
software and actually using iton sites are more of a corporate
level, and they're talking multibillion dollar revenue
(37:14):
contractors, ENR list, type ofpeople I've seen, just seeing
what's what in that world, andI'm seeing what's out there. How
are we going to build betterwhat the best products? Like,
where's the future going?
Where's innovation taking us?
So, yeah, we've been doing thatfor three years now, and it's
(37:35):
been interesting.
I love it, dude. Yeah, I guess.
Like, what's like your generalpulse, like, what is your
current synopsis of whereconstruction is going to be
going based on the technology?
And what's out there?
Yeah, two things. I think toalways have two things every
every question you ask, butthat's cool. Number one,
(37:56):
consolidation of technology. Sowhat you're finding is there
were ton Are you familiar withthe term point solutions? Yes,
yeah. So I'm not sure whetherit's just, like, applicable to
the world I'minside No, no. Point solution
is, like, widely used over here.
Yeah.
Okay, fine, cool. You get it. Soyeah, people have the large
(38:16):
corporate the large people, thelarge general contractors and
architecture engineeringcompanies have, like, whatever,
250 softwares on their currentIT system and so, like, they're
like, sick of it, so they'retrying to work out ways. Now
this is the consensus of how toconsolidate that down to, say,
50 or less arbitrary number.
But, sure, yeah, literallyreduce it by by 80% that's
(38:38):
interesting to see how that willpan out, and I think that the
it's either going to be donethrough artificial intelligence
and agentic workflows, but thejury is still out on that.
There's companies that are doingit, but I think a lot of them
are still yet to provethemselves, and there's also
this pressure from big tech soobviously the data center boom
(39:00):
is a bomb is among us. And thesebig tech companies, Tesla,
Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc,they don't want to wait 24
months for a data center like,even though everyone in the
whole construction industry islike, no, it takes 24 months.
They're like, I don't care. Idon't want to wait 24 months.
You find out how to build itquicker for me. So you have this
pressure now from big techcoming into the industry,
(39:22):
forcing big builders to thinklike, okay, how can we actually
deliver it for 18 months? Andthat's resulted in these large
companies hiring internal AI, asoftware slash AI engineers to
build custom solutions for theprojects, to speed them up, and
also a lot of off site and prefabrication. So it's good thing
about data centers is they'revery standard, generally very
(39:44):
standardized, so you canmanufacture a lot on, on off
site rather rather than relyingon too much site labor. And
hopefully that kind of effect ofthat translates to the rest of
the industry, where we can.
Start to think about, yeah, pushthe limit. How do we build
quicker? How do we get theinfrastructure? Housing is a
(40:05):
major issue, like you mentionedearlier, shortages. How can we
get these things done quickerthat's still to a good level of
quality, of course? So yeah,that's what. That's what's on.
And obviously, labor shortages,hardware, robotics, is a hot,
hot topic, totally for people.
And I think so, I think it's ait's a great, it's a great
(40:28):
synopsis point of view to have.
And I think, like, candidly,like, after hearing I think it
just, like, validates, at leastmy conviction that there will be
a solution out there that issolving the problems of the top,
feeling pressured to rushdesign, to then overlook pre
construction, that's creatingexpensive problems in the back
end, that is creating changeorders and all this stuff. Like,
(40:49):
I am bullish that there will beproducts out there that solve
those problems, and I think it'sgoing to come from the pressure
of exactly what you had justdiscussed, like, how fast this
world is changing and how muchof it is revolved around tech,
and what that tech is doing tothe infrastructure of our
communities. The one thing thatI'm just like, still hung up on
(41:10):
is like, do I think that they'regonna be robots walking around
job sites, tying in rebar forthe foundation of a data
warehouse or data center? Idon't know. I don't think so.
What do you think?
Yes, a good point. Okay, well, Ithink one day it kind of has to
(41:36):
happen. But we're not. I thinkwe'll be talking, in like 10 to
20 years time. This could be, wecould be like way beyond that.
And whether they would be in thetypical sense, which people
probably imagine when you sayrobotics like as a humanoid
form, I don't think so. It willbe like a very specific kind of
robot that's built which doesjust looks like a piece of
(41:57):
equipment, yeah, a car orsomething like as a stupid
example, yeah, yeah, sure. Soyou will, I think you will start
to see these being rolled out,but you still need humans. Yeah,
there's so much unpredictabilityand interfacing with robots that
needs to happen before all ofthis happens. But don't get me
(42:18):
wrong, there are, like, verysmart people working on this
issue and really trying tofigure out and running
simulations and putting tons ofmoney in to try and work out how
this can be done. I think whatmight be an interesting approach
versus robotics is more off sitemanufacturing. So we spoke to
this great company called Qb,and we actually done, like a
(42:41):
very interesting documentarywith them on this about mobile
micro factories, where,effectively, they build a
factory last mile, so within 150to 200 mile radius of a large
home development site, say, 234,100 homes, whatever it might Be,
they manufacture all of thecomponents within the factory
(43:03):
itself, and then deliver that tosite, flat packet, and deliver
it to site, and it can then beinstalled by very, very low
skilled labor. I think it takeslike one to two months to train
onto their system, to be likeIkea standard, basically, to be
able to put this stuff together.
And the amazing thing about themis they, because this, the
manufacturing process, bynature, is extremely systemized.
(43:25):
Their whole system, their wholefactories, are built to like
perfect precision, that it's alllike coordinated. So you could
put a humanoid roboticeventually within that factory,
which is then producing the flatpack, delivered to site and put
to put on, installed by labor onsite. Yes. Fascinating approach.
(43:47):
Totally, totally dude. I Yeah. Ithink when you start talking
about, like tech horizons andwhat this world's gonna look
like in 20, 3040, years, that'swhere I think maybe you are
right to the point like we willsee them. Is it going to be like
the Terminator robots? No,maybe, not, maybe. Who knows?
(44:07):
But no, I think we startedtalking about that, like the
prefabbed homes and, likemodular building and all the
stuff. Like, it's pretty popularhere, the printing homes. Like,
right now, it's extremely basic.
But there's a guy, there's abuilder in Austin, who's just
like, totally, like, sold hislife to 3d printing homes. And
he's actually, like, picking uptraction again, they look like
(44:28):
Star Wars houses, right? They'relike, these, like, dome
structures with, like, layersand layers of poured concrete,
whatever, yeah. But it's like,dude, what's innovation gonna
look like in 20 years with that,it's like, who knows? I don't
know.
No, I don't know. Yeah, pass Ithink it really will depend
(44:50):
ultimately, we humans, we need acertain way of living, so, yeah,
I think we'll always have that.
I. Uh, that esthetic andperformance that we want to
achieve, and whether you canachieve that through 3d printing
at an affordable cost, whichlooks guys, which performs well,
which is accessible. The jury isout.
(45:16):
There's time this, um, it couldbe just a different episode on
but I will say, I think we did ahell of a job at trying to solve
the world's problems. I think weput a little bit of a dent in
this thing. I thought it wasgreat. I appreciate you for
coming on the show, dude. It wasa great conversation. Great to
meet you. And yeah, if you everwant to be back on or you want
(45:36):
to want to have me on yours, letme know.
Yeah, sure, man. Thanks Reese.
Appreciate the performance. Andyeah, keep doing great things
that adapt it.
Cool dude. I appreciate it. I'lllet you jump to it. Enjoy your
evening. I'm going to enjoy therest of my day, and it was my
pleasure. Thanks for jumping on.
Thanks. You bet See you.
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