March 12, 2025 • 34 mins
The Future of Efficient, Healthy Housing is Here!
Tune in to our conversation with Arman Mottaghi, CEO of Properate. With Properate’s innovative technology, homeowners can now pinpoint which improvements will truly make a difference, avoiding wasted money on ineffective upgrades. Together with Arman, we dive into how the return on investment for home energy upgrades extends far beyond utility savings to include increased property value, health benefits, and greater resilience against climate events. He also highlights how many Canadians are missing out on substantial government incentives—such as interest-free loans up to $40,000 for qualifying improvements—simply because they’re unaware these programs exist.
For those living in strata properties or multi-unit buildings, achieving efficiency presents unique challenges that require collective action. However, the greatest opportunities lie with single-family homes and townhouses, which make up the bulk of our residential built environment. Want to know more? Tune in now.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Site.
Visit Podcast Leadership andPerspective from Construction
with your host, james Faulkner,recorded live from the show
floor at BuildX Vancouver 2025.
Arman Muttaghi yes, I like thatname Really.
(00:28):
Oh, it's kind of like we saidlike Armani Armani, yeah, you
get that a lot.
So you are CEO of PropRate,yeah, and I said property and
operate and you're like norating, so, yeah, and you've
been doing this for six years.
That's correct.
Yeah, take me through thebusiness.
So again, you've been doingthis for six years.
That's correct.
Yeah, take me through thebusiness.
What's the main value?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
proposition.
So our work, as the namesuggests, property rating, is
around home energy rating andupgrade planning.
Okay, now, usually when I tellthis to people, I lose them.
So my whole goal today is todemonstrate to you, hopefully,
that this is the most importantthing we need to get right as an
(01:08):
industry.
As such an overlooked area ishome energy upgrade planning.
Okay, yeah, so one of mycolleagues.
What they say is failure toplan is planning to fail is
failure to plan is planning tofail.
Okay, and I'm going to pose achallenge to you.
Okay, that we have 25 billionsquare meters sorry, 25 billion
(01:35):
square feet.
Two and a half billion squaremeters of housing in Canada.
That requires an energy upgradein the next 20 years.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Okay.
So when you say energy upgrade,take us through what that means
.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, so it's changing insulation in the walls
.
That is not working really well.
It's windows.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Heating source.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, heating sources , yeah, heat pumps and furnaces
and all of that.
How would you solve thatproblem?
Do you think you have enough ofa workforce today, Like, is
there enough financing?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Hmm, well, how would?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
you solve it.
Yeah, so you're posed with thisproblem.
20 years from now, you need tohave retrofitted 25 billion
square feet of space okay, um, Idon't know.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
You're gonna tell me I I I'm thinking about my own
environment.
I'm thinking well, you know,it's got baseboard heaters, it's
got nine, nine glass panelseverywhere.
I don't know, maybe the windowsare 20 years old.
I don't know.
It sounds like a lot of moneyand a lot of time.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Okay, so give me what you would say.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I think the biggest challenge is that we don't have
any idea where to start.
What does matter?
The most immediate problem thatneeds to be solved and on the
other hand, what is in it foryou?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Okay, just one sec, though, in terms of the fact
that it's inefficient.
What is the effect of theinefficiency?
So what are we running awayfrom?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Okay, one thing that people hate about me is that I
answer questions with questions,and now you're stuck in this
with me because I'm going toanswer your question with a
question that is seeminglyirrelevant.
Have you ever smoked on anairplane?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
No.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Do you know people used to smoke on an airplane?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
I've seen it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
So I was on a trip with one of my family members,
and they were musing about howstupid it is that airplanes have
a no smoking sign.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
They were like why do they put that sign everywhere?
Why do they put that signeverywhere?
And I had to explain to them,as they were, like, increasingly
astonished, that that was anormal thing.
People used to smoke on anairplane.
There were like smokingsections.
The armrests used to have anashtray in them, and people like
today they're astonished aboutthat being normal 20 years ago.
(04:21):
I think in a decade or so weare going to be as astonished
about how little we know aboutour homes and the indoor
environment that we have and weare living in them as we are
talking about the smoking on ourplanes today.
So looking at survival showsthat I do.
(04:44):
From time to time they talkabout this rule of three, three,
three.
Are you familiar with that?
So it's if you don't eat foodfor three weeks, you are going
to.
You're not going to survive ifyou don't drink water for three
days okay yeah, you're not goingto survive, but for air.
(05:04):
If you don't breathe air forthree minutes, obviously that's
going to be the end.
We talk so much about our diet,going on different kinds of
diet.
We talk so much about nutrition.
We talk so much about our waterresources and filtering our
water.
Do we talk enough about our air?
Like, the first thing you saidwas like okay, so I have these
(05:26):
windows and I have you know the-.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Well, I don't have the windows.
The building has the windows.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
The building has the windows, yeah, and I don't see
them changing that.
And you're not really payingfor the window per se.
You're paying for the airinside, You're paying for the
comfort you have inside thebuilding, right, yeah, that
makes sense.
So let's reframe thatconversation.
Which is that like are wereally like understanding what
the problem is in the firstplace, if I tell you that kids
(05:54):
the research have been done onthem shows that they are getting
higher math scores when you'reincreasing the comfort indoors
and you know, increasing thetemperature and the humidity you
increase the amount ofventilation that comes in, the
fresh air that comes in oh,fresh air Okay.
And you're tuning theenvironment.
It's not necessarily justgetting it warmer or colder.
(06:14):
You're radiating to your walls.
You know the night visiongoggles that show you like
you're glowing.
You're glowing to the walls ofthe building and the building is
glowing back at you and ifthat's not tuned you're not
going to be comfortable.
So all of these little factors,when you tune them, you are
going to have better attention,you're going to have better
(06:36):
health and so does your family,and when people learn about this
, there is really not going backto the smoking on the airplane
situation.
So when we are talking aboutthat upgrade and why it matters,
I think hopefully that answersyour question.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
No, it was more of.
When we say that we need tomake changes.
Yeah, is it.
What is the?
Obviously there's okay.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
So, on a new build, for instance, we have energy
energy of step code, energy ofstar rating, energy of whatever,
Exactly you?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
have all that stuff.
And that makes sense, yeah, butwhen it comes in, when it comes
to an existing building, let'ssay you need to go buy a new
washer dryer, well, it's goingto be energy star rated.
Okay, that's fine.
Let's say, your appliances,that's one thing, but when it
comes, maybe you have toiletsthat are lower flush toilets.
(07:44):
There's all of these thingsthat are.
There's programs that haveestablished the reason that
those things have these ratingsand these restrictions and the
way that they operate, the waythat they operate.
(08:04):
What macro system is thataffecting?
That is a cost, or is it justthe fact that in order to have
an appliance pass CSA orwhatever it is, it has to now
have a certain energy rating?
Well, it's because we're tryingto make everything more
(08:25):
efficient, but on a propertythat already exists.
What is the reason to theperson?
Besides besides their here inbc we call it their hydro bill.
Okay, the reason would be tolower that and be more efficient
, but what is the cost of that?
So if I get to replace myentire building has to replace
(08:48):
all of the duct work, has toreplace all of the glazing and
the entire envelope, I don'tknow how many multiples of
millions of dollars that is todo?
It's not going to attack thathydro bill.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
It's not going to be enough.
Yeah, it would not be close, butthere is an equation here.
So you have only talked aboutone part of the equation, which
is a return on investment, whichmakes sense for larger
buildings like industrialbuildings or commercial
buildings.
Yeah, but there is also otherparts In terms of the return on
(09:21):
investment.
It is your higher propertyvalue if you are owning that
place.
It is the betterment of justyour environment.
We spend a lot of money onimprovement for our own health,
right, and you know, nobodycomes to you and says, oh, like
you want to improve yournutrition, your environment.
We spend a lot of money onimprovement for our own health
and nobody comes to you and says, oh, you want to improve your
nutrition.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
What's in it for you Is there a return on investment
to eat better, but this is theair that's better.
Is that what you're suggesting?
The indoor environment for youis better.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
What are the factors of the indoor environment?
It's volatile compounds thatyou're breathing in, so as
you're walking on the floor,these compounds are coming out.
And your home?
I like to think of it as aliving thing Because, just like
how you talk about your gutmicrobiome, the home itself has
an environment inside it.
(10:07):
And even those things that aregetting airborne in the lab they
have tested them that they aresafe that are getting airborne
In the lab they have tested themthat they are safe.
But a moment that an ozoneparticle from a car passing by
your home comes into the space,this is volatile.
It is one of these things.
That element becomes volatileand then hits something else.
It's just these fireworks aregoing on in your air and you
(10:28):
have no idea, and you're pushingthem in the other part of it,
as we talked about glowingradiation.
So sometimes you find yourselfthat you're sweating but also
cold, and that is like a sort ofthing that happens when your
air is comfortable, but likeyou're, you're by radiation.
You are not comfortable, likeyour window is not radiating
(10:49):
back enough to you in terms ofheat, you're losing a lot of
heat to it and all of theselittle factors especially after
the pandemic, when you'respending so much time in your
home they have to do with all ofthe health stuff that you're
right now dealing with.
It gets exacerbated becauseyou're spending so much time in
(11:10):
the place.
Now I want to add one morething that's not in terms of
that return on investmentequation is that governments
utilities.
They have enormous amounts ofmoney that they are putting into
demand-side management.
As you mentioned theelectricity bill, I believe one
of our utilities is putting $600million in the next few years
(11:33):
just on demand site management.
But directing these funds rightnow is really ineffective.
It's based on a formula that isdone by some assumptions and it
doesn't really solve theproblems.
So the work that we are doingfinally getting there is around
(11:55):
solving the problems the way itmatters.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
So let me give you an example, more like an analogy.
You're going skiing, it'swinter, it's very cold and, for
whatever reason, you have put onshorts.
You have a jacket, you'refreezing.
You're uncomfortable.
You have another jacket.
(12:21):
You put it on Stilluncomfortable.
Put on another jacket, you'restill uncomfortable.
No matter how many jackets youput on, you will be
uncomfortable because you'reskiing in shorts.
Your home energy efficiencyworks in the same way.
If you have good atticinsulation and you're adding
(12:42):
insulation to that attic, it'skind of like putting on another
jacket while the bare legs arethe windows that are losing all
the heat.
So all of the money you arespending is going to base.
That makes sense.
All the heat.
So all of the money you arespending is going to waste.
That makes sense.
The work we are doing is that,by digital twinning the home, we
are figuring out what is thebest route for you to get that
(13:03):
unified, proper environment and,as you mentioned, it could be
the mechanical system, it couldbe ventilation, it could be your
insulation or windows, and thekicker is that the kind of thing
you have to do for your home isdifferent than the kind of
thing I have to do for my home,for sure.
Right.
But when you're looking atthose incentives I'm talking
(13:24):
about the $600 million they areputting the incentives in a
formula and our research hasshown that the formula is
actually missing what you haveto do?
Because when you get an average, the average is nobody right.
If we have like two sharedsizes and we get the average of
that, it's neither of us andthat means it's going to miss
(13:46):
both of us.
So what we are working on wehave three cohorts of customers.
I put these folks in the cohortof enterprise, so government
and enterprises and utilities.
We're working with them totailor this thing and instead of
like having one assumptionabout a home, like I close my
eyes and think that homes arespheres and they are floating in
the space, we are like no, youhave 1.3 million homes in BC.
(14:11):
In fact, you know we areworking with the BC government
on this front right now with theBC Home Energy Planner.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
What are you doing with them?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
What is?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
the specific task you guys are.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Let's go back to the question and the plan Two and a
half billion square meters ofbuilt space.
We need to upgrade it.
The first thing you have to dois to plan.
So what we do is that we arefinding where these buildings
are, we are looking at publicdata to create an idea,
(14:44):
essentially that digital twinthat I'm talking about, but with
some assumptions.
That says this one home is inthis scale in terms of already
doing well or having a potentialfor an upgrade, and then we map
all of these homes.
So the places you need to focuson are for the entire building
(15:05):
of stock.
Are these priorities?
For example, a lot of homeshave problem A, like they don't
have good attic installation, orproblem B, and guess what?
We have maybe like twocompanies in every town doing
that kind of work.
It needs to be like 200companies, like that's the kind
of problem we have when it comesto this scale.
(15:26):
So when it comes to workforceyou know workforce planning and
when it comes to understandingthe problem and routing the
funds, that's the kind of workwe do with the government.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
How do you route the funds?
Just give me the use case here.
If you identify a home inLangley, let's say single
dwelling house, detached home,and you do an assessment on this
home, you have single dwellinghouse like detached home, yeah,
and you do an assessment on thishome.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
So you have people who can go on site and do the
assessment.
Okay, so they do the assessmentand then give it a rating.
They give it a rating.
The problem is that there isnot enough of them nowadays and
there is like a lot of workforcedevelopment, there is like a
lot of training happening.
So what we do in the first stepis that we are using that
remote energy rating work tofigure out where, roughly, the
(16:21):
potential of this home is.
And the next step is that whenyou work with the government on
this front, you have to engagehomeowners, and I think I
shouldn't preach to the choirand tell you how hard it is to
talk to an audience about theimportance of just engaging them
when you are competing withother sources of information
(16:43):
that's coming to them to say,okay, now I want your focus on
this particular thing, that wethink your home has a high
potential for doing an energyupgrade.
And so these are the A and B andC that we need to care about.
Okay, so I'm going to get thereone second.
Okay, so the next thing we dois that we have a website.
You can go to this websiteRight now.
(17:04):
Across Canada, you can accessproprateio.
You go in there.
You put in your address.
Yeah, we get the data we havefrom satellite images and the
public information about yourhome and we ask you this stuff.
We don't know about your homeQuestionnaire.
It's a questionnaire, but it'sonly 10 questions and it's 10
(17:24):
questions that you can answer.
I don't ask you about what isthe R value of your home or of
your ceiling, or what is the airchange rates.
So it's like you know, whathave you changed in the last 10
years?
So when you answer thatquestion, I can give you a
report that tells you okay, thisis where we think your home is
and we think, maybe we think youshould get that onsite
(17:47):
assessment.
And also, this is a checklistof the things that you need to
be doing.
And in BC there is the BC HomeEnergy Planner is doing this
work for the residents of BC inthe regions that is being
piloted right now.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Okay.
So then, so back to the usecase of the detached home.
Yeah, that they go to yourwebsite, they put in their
address, they put in theiraddress, they finish the
questionnaire, finish thequestionnaire and then they go,
and then you have a result whichsays we think that you are
(18:22):
eligible for an upgrade.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
We think these are the areas to focus.
We think these are theincentives that are relevant to
you, for example, for changingyour….
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Just take me through the incentives.
How does that work?
Where is this funding comingfrom?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
So the funding is coming from the government.
A lot of places in Canadafederal government has some
funding.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Okay, official places have funding, yeah, so what
would the typical use case be ona per home basis?
How much money are we talkingabout?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
So let's say, for example so when you're getting
an attic installation we justtalked about attics they give
you in BC, I believe they giveyou up to $900 for the amount of
installation you're adding, forthe amount of roof square
footage that you have.
We do all of that calculationfor you and we say, okay, we
(19:11):
think you're eligible for thismuch, but you can top it up with
a federal government program.
Now that program discontinued awhile ago but when it was
around you were pretty muchgetting the entire money in
terms of government incentivesfor a lot of homes Like I have
had homes that they pretty muchhad nothing to pay out of pocket
to do that kind of upgrade.
(19:31):
But again, like the medicinethat works on one home doesn't
work on another.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
I get that.
I mean the attic is like thelowest hanging fruit period
because a it's not typically notfinished and b you know you can
get up there and there's no arton the walls, there's no carpet
on the ground you would besurprised, james.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Let me tell you, there is like so many variables
that is coming in and there isso many homes that just haven't
done the upgrades like okay, youwould think you, you would be
so surprised that, oh, this issuch a no-brainer, but just
people don't know about it.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
But the question is let's say you get $900, but the
actual project's $2,500.
And there's usually somethingthat tips the scale for somebody
to do something.
What's the motivation?
The motivation is what virtue?
Signaling that, hey, my, myhouse is, is more efficient, my
(20:28):
hydro bill is going to go downlike what's the what's?
What's in it for thememotionally, financially.
What is that?
Speaker 2 (20:36):
so, yeah, a big part of that is just making sure that
you are living in a place thatis proper for you.
You're actually getting yourmoney's worth instead of
spending your utility bill onsomething that's just wasting
energy.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
But again, I want to go back to the equation, because
that's a financial incentive.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
I want to go back to the equation.
Right, it's the equation.
Part of it is financialincentives.
There's a part of it that hasto do with your own aspirations.
Right, it's the equation.
Part of it is financialincentives.
There's a part of it has to dowith your own aspirations, right
, and there's a part of it thathas to do with the broader
aspiration we have as a society,which comes into the government
incentives and the utilityincentives and the demand side
management program.
So the work we do is to getthis equation right and the work
(21:21):
is not done.
That's why we are in business,right?
There is a lot of that thatneeds to happen more and more.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
So how do you?
What's the revenue model ofyour company?
Speaker 2 (21:29):
How do you guys get?
paid so we have multiple avenues.
The one we didn't talk about isthrough the people who are
doing the upgrade work.
So we are helping them.
We are launching a new productin about a month that is helping
them size the equipment well.
So let's say somebody comes toyour home and they want to
(21:52):
upgrade your heating system to aheat pump.
Now, a lot of time the sizingof that heat pump happens with
just eyeballing and that's notgood.
Just like how you don't buy ashirt without looking at its
size.
If your heat pump happens withjust eyeballing, and that's not
good.
Just like how you don't buy ashirt without looking at its
size.
If your heat pump is oversized,it has some problems with its
longevity.
If it's undersized, it's notgoing to get your home
comfortable.
So we have crammed $35,000 worthof equipment into an iPhone,
(22:18):
into an iPhone Pro.
We call them hand warmersbecause we are just using every
single sensor and technologythat they have.
So you walk around the placeand you start 3D scanning the
place and it detects the windowsfor you, detects the walls,
detects different elementsinside the building, and then
this takes a ton of manual workoff of the plate of somebody who
(22:40):
is doing that kind of energyrating for you and in the
meantime, allows them to dobetter testing of your home and
have more time to just talk toyou and understand your
aspirations.
So that's one of our fields ofwork.
The other one is just workingwith the governments, working
with utilities at a massivescale, run projects and just
give the insights to theresidents and also to the
(23:03):
government to direct this moneybetter.
Again, I want to talk about theequation.
The first one is that youengage the people, give them
good advice, but also you arebringing the government and when
you look at that as a whole.
Now we go back to your questionof is that $2,500 to be spent
is worth spending?
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yeah, I mean, I think on the single family home, the
detached home, it's easy, on thestrata, it's a mess.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
On the strata.
It's a whole different ballparkBecause you can't even touch it
One person can't do it unlessthe entire strata is approved.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah yeah, I had to which is a lot of neighborhoods.
Are entire strata is approved?
Yeah yeah, um, I had to, whichis a lot of neighborhoods are
now.
Are strata neighborhoods evenwith single like detached homes?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
you can't touch the exterior, not allowed to touch
it there is the hoas homeownerassociations uh, that's like
that's the stuff about theoutside, um, but you know what
goes inside the walls andwhatnot.
As you're saying, a stratus isa whole different beast.
But also, I think what we callis the biggest sin in
(24:07):
construction is that we forgetthe lowest hanging fruits, and
those are those single familyhomes, the townhouses, the owner
homes.
These are the vast majority ofour residential built space.
If I ask you a question, 25billion square feet we talked
(24:30):
about.
This data is a few years old,so forgive me about that, but
how much of that do you thinkare high rises in terms of
percentage?
Are high rises in terms ofpercentage?
Speaker 1 (24:44):
High rises.
What are we considering?
A high rise over A high?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
rise residential building Just just over what?
10 stories Over 10 stories 8stories, over 8 stories.
Let's call it that.
What percentage?
Of that 25 billion square feet.
What percentage of it is highrises 15.
3.6.
So, like Estrada buildings,whole different problem, like
(25:12):
all of this high rise Estrada.
But the big, big, big problemare those single family homes,
townhouses, this long tail ofconstruction that we have
overlooked for so many years.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
So what about townhouses?
Would be part of Strata.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Townhouses.
It really depends on your modelof ownership and the types of
things to do.
A lot of times you just don'tneed to.
You're basically limited fromchanging the exterior, but if
you band with your otherhomeowners around you, you can
get some government incentivesthat compound for everybody.
(25:56):
You also can do certain kind ofwork that has to do with your
shared amenities or the stuffthat you're doing yourself, like
, for example, a lot of timespeople have water heating that
is independent, yeah, and youhave to change that water
heating system.
So, um, when it's breaking down, what are you gonna do?
Are you gonna get somebody youhappen to know to come in and
(26:18):
tell you to put one thing oranother, or are you going to get
advice about that, for example,there?
Speaker 1 (26:30):
are heat pump water heaters now that just plug into
the wall.
So wouldn't it be helpful ifyour programs were subsidized
also by a property tax incentiveof some sort?
By a property tax incentive ofsome sort, I mean to me it seems
, you know, with people withmortgage rates super high,
people are like they're up totheir eyeballs in it.
(26:55):
This is the last thing they wantto think about Until until the
government says, hey, we cangive you up to $900 for X, and
once this passes with a companylike Proparate, once it's
approved and finished, thenyou're going to get a tax break
(27:17):
for whatever property tax,because getting people to do
things, depending on what it isit, can be quite disruptive too.
Like you've got a constructioncrew and they're doing stuff I
mean an addict sticking a bunchof pink insulation in there, big
deal, whatever, easy.
But if you're going to be doingsomething else where it's like
changing the windows, shit, Imean that's like it's not
(27:40):
depending on what windows it is.
It's like changing the windows,shit, I mean that's like that's
not depending on what windowsit is.
It's a single family home and,as you were saying, like if
maybe we were 3% are only highrises, eight stories and up, but
there's a lot that are sixstories, tons, six stories.
(28:00):
There's lots of those.
They're all townhouses, they'reall connected, they're all part
of a strata.
Even the high rises have 20townhomes attached to each, to
each.
uh development yeah, there'stons right.
Um, I think on the duplex sideof things I could see neighbors
getting together and be like,look, we got to you know because
(28:21):
that's basically.
You know it's a strata of two,but I think that, like anything,
you know, these programs needto be pushed by the government
even harder, because it wouldmake your job a lot easier.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So let me answer those one by one.
The first thing was about okay,why don't we do tax incentives?
Why don't we do that kind ofthings?
Question for you Will you takea $40,000 interest-free loan?
No, you won't do that.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
No, Would you take?
Not unless I knew that it wouldgrow the property value by that
.
No, would you take?
Not unless I knew that it wouldgrow the property value by 80.
Okay, if it doubled it.
I mean, that's just a math,because this interest-free loan,
you still got to pay it back.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Over many years?
Yeah, would you take incentiveson the mortgage insurance you
are paying if you are getting anew building?
Yes, okay, so these programsexist today.
Okay, you just don't hear aboutthem.
Yeah, you don't hear about them.
That's the problem, right, yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
So what's the 40 grand one?
Speaker 2 (29:29):
It's called the Canada Greener Homes Nome.
They used to have a grant aswell.
Can that be on an?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
existing home?
It can be.
Oh, have a grant as well.
Can that be on an existing home?
It can be oh, that's cool.
So that's exactly like.
Do you have a list of thesethings on your website?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yes, oh, that's pretty cool, you can go, yeah,
so when you get your report,yeah, this is how you can
execute, yeah.
That's cool.
So you just don't hear aboutthem.
And then, if enough, peoplehear about them the people who
have there's a ton of money thatjust doesn't get allocated
because they don't have thatchannel of getting to people.
So that's a big problem, right,people are not hearing about
them.
Now, the other thing youmentioned was like it can be
(30:04):
really disruptive.
That's actually something wehave looked into very deeply.
Of course, you have your lifeand you don't want to be
disrupted.
Now I want to highlight twothings.
The first one is that what doyou do to avoid future
disruptions?
I think a lot of people wouldtake the fact that they can make
their home resilient towardsthe next heat wave any day.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah, that's the big one.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Right.
The other thing is that we aretrying to reach people at
certain points.
So you have a time of sale.
Rating, for example, is thatthe home is empty, right, but
you want to increase the valueof the home you touched.
Sale rating, for example, isthat the home is empty, right,
but you want to increase thevalue of the home.
You touched on that.
You know like getting an energyupgrade can be one of the
biggest boost you can have inthe property value.
So, when the home is empty, whydon't we upgrade it as it's
(30:51):
happening?
Time of replacement Well, yourheat pump is broken down or your
hot water system has brokendown or your roof is leaking.
You're going to have thedisruption anyway.
So would you rather dosomething that is going to cost
you more and you have to revisitin 10 years, or would you want
to get the best class advicethat is going to give you that
(31:12):
has more durability, isresilient against those next
heat waves or cold snaps, andit's going to be the same amount
of effort and cost?
Like people think that I'mlying about this, but in reality
, just the knowledge is notflowing around for you to
understand what is the bestthing you want to do, but just
people, because they're doingthe same thing over and over
again and they're using outdatedtechnology, they end up paying
(31:34):
more and they end up not reallyimproving on those resiliency
metrics.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
That's cool.
Okay, so people go to yourwebsite to do this.
So what's the website address?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
It's called proper8.io.
If you're familiar with it'sPapa Romeo, oscar, papa Echo
Romeo, alpha Tango, echo dotIndia.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Wow, that's exhaustive.
Yeah, Jeez, I think people gotit.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
So, proper8.io.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Proper8.io, that's cool, okay, cool, and then
people can find you on LinkedIn.
Have they got any questions?
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Yeah, if they got any questions and if you are around
in BC, just stay tuned in theBC Home Energy Planner Folks in
the government.
They are doing really amazingwork there, getting a ton of
resources together that peoplecan easily see and they have all
the right things in the book.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
All right.
Well, thank you very much, andalso thank you for I keep seeing
people keep waving to me asthey're walking behind you.
I'm like hi.
So, yeah, there's lots ofpeople here that I know.
So anyway, thank you very much.
Best of luck for everything,and it's pretty cool what you're
doing.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, I feel like I could make an impression on the
questions because you wereasking me hard questions and
that's always welcome.
But you know, I was at the COPconference a few months ago.
I can tell you that we inCanada are the front runners on
this front and I think if we getthis right, if we get the
equation right and we get theincentives right, then we can
(33:00):
start exporting this technology,because people everywhere in
the world are going to deal withclimate change effects and
they're going to woke up to thefact that we have all of these
problems.
So I know there is a lot ofthings that today are not
incentivizing people to makechange.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
But there is so much opportunity that I think we will
look at it as a smokingairplane that I was looking to
you about.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
That was a good bookend.
Okay, Well, perfect.
Thank you very much.
All right, man, Thank you.
Well.
That does it for anotherepisode of the Site Visit.
Thank you for listening.
Be sure to stay connected withus by following our social
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You can also sign up for amonthly newsletter at
(33:46):
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Sitemax is also the engine thatpowers this podcast.
All right, let's get back tobuilding.
Welcome to the Site.
Visit Podcast Leadership andPerspective from Construction
with your host, james Faulkner,recorded live from the show
floor at BuildX Vancouver 2025.
Arman Muttaghi yes, I like thatname Really.
(00:28):
Oh, it's kind of like we saidlike Armani Armani, yeah, you
get that a lot.
So you are CEO of PropRate,yeah, and I said property and
operate and you're like norating, so, yeah, and you've
been doing this for six years.
That's correct.
Yeah, take me through thebusiness.
So again, you've been doingthis for six years.
That's correct.
Yeah, take me through thebusiness.
What's the main value?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
proposition.
So our work, as the namesuggests, property rating, is
around home energy rating andupgrade planning.
Okay, now, usually when I tellthis to people, I lose them.
So my whole goal today is todemonstrate to you, hopefully,
that this is the most importantthing we need to get right as an
(01:08):
industry.
As such an overlooked area ishome energy upgrade planning.
Okay, yeah, so one of mycolleagues.
What they say is failure toplan is planning to fail is
failure to plan is planning tofail.
Okay, and I'm going to pose achallenge to you.
Okay, that we have 25 billionsquare meters sorry, 25 billion
(01:35):
square feet.
Two and a half billion squaremeters of housing in Canada.
That requires an energy upgradein the next 20 years.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Okay.
So when you say energy upgrade,take us through what that means
.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, so it's changing insulation in the walls
.
That is not working really well.
It's windows.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Heating source.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, heating sources , yeah, heat pumps and furnaces
and all of that.
How would you solve thatproblem?
Do you think you have enough ofa workforce today, Like, is
there enough financing?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Hmm, well, how would?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
you solve it.
Yeah, so you're posed with thisproblem.
20 years from now, you need tohave retrofitted 25 billion
square feet of space okay, um, Idon't know.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
You're gonna tell me I I I'm thinking about my own
environment.
I'm thinking well, you know,it's got baseboard heaters, it's
got nine, nine glass panelseverywhere.
I don't know, maybe the windowsare 20 years old.
I don't know.
It sounds like a lot of moneyand a lot of time.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Okay, so give me what you would say.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I think the biggest challenge is that we don't have
any idea where to start.
What does matter?
The most immediate problem thatneeds to be solved and on the
other hand, what is in it foryou?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Okay, just one sec, though, in terms of the fact
that it's inefficient.
What is the effect of theinefficiency?
So what are we running awayfrom?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Okay, one thing that people hate about me is that I
answer questions with questions,and now you're stuck in this
with me because I'm going toanswer your question with a
question that is seeminglyirrelevant.
Have you ever smoked on anairplane?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
No.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Do you know people used to smoke on an airplane?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
I've seen it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
So I was on a trip with one of my family members,
and they were musing about howstupid it is that airplanes have
a no smoking sign.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
They were like why do they put that sign everywhere?
Why do they put that signeverywhere?
And I had to explain to them,as they were, like, increasingly
astonished, that that was anormal thing.
People used to smoke on anairplane.
There were like smokingsections.
The armrests used to have anashtray in them, and people like
today they're astonished aboutthat being normal 20 years ago.
(04:21):
I think in a decade or so weare going to be as astonished
about how little we know aboutour homes and the indoor
environment that we have and weare living in them as we are
talking about the smoking on ourplanes today.
So looking at survival showsthat I do.
(04:44):
From time to time they talkabout this rule of three, three,
three.
Are you familiar with that?
So it's if you don't eat foodfor three weeks, you are going
to.
You're not going to survive ifyou don't drink water for three
days okay yeah, you're not goingto survive, but for air.
(05:04):
If you don't breathe air forthree minutes, obviously that's
going to be the end.
We talk so much about our diet,going on different kinds of
diet.
We talk so much about nutrition.
We talk so much about our waterresources and filtering our
water.
Do we talk enough about our air?
Like, the first thing you saidwas like okay, so I have these
(05:26):
windows and I have you know the-.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Well, I don't have the windows.
The building has the windows.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
The building has the windows, yeah, and I don't see
them changing that.
And you're not really payingfor the window per se.
You're paying for the airinside, You're paying for the
comfort you have inside thebuilding, right, yeah, that
makes sense.
So let's reframe thatconversation.
Which is that like are wereally like understanding what
the problem is in the firstplace, if I tell you that kids
(05:54):
the research have been done onthem shows that they are getting
higher math scores when you'reincreasing the comfort indoors
and you know, increasing thetemperature and the humidity you
increase the amount ofventilation that comes in, the
fresh air that comes in oh,fresh air Okay.
And you're tuning theenvironment.
It's not necessarily justgetting it warmer or colder.
(06:14):
You're radiating to your walls.
You know the night visiongoggles that show you like
you're glowing.
You're glowing to the walls ofthe building and the building is
glowing back at you and ifthat's not tuned you're not
going to be comfortable.
So all of these little factors,when you tune them, you are
going to have better attention,you're going to have better
(06:36):
health and so does your family,and when people learn about this
, there is really not going backto the smoking on the airplane
situation.
So when we are talking aboutthat upgrade and why it matters,
I think hopefully that answersyour question.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
No, it was more of.
When we say that we need tomake changes.
Yeah, is it.
What is the?
Obviously there's okay.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
So, on a new build, for instance, we have energy
energy of step code, energy ofstar rating, energy of whatever,
Exactly you?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
have all that stuff.
And that makes sense, yeah, butwhen it comes in, when it comes
to an existing building, let'ssay you need to go buy a new
washer dryer, well, it's goingto be energy star rated.
Okay, that's fine.
Let's say, your appliances,that's one thing, but when it
comes, maybe you have toiletsthat are lower flush toilets.
(07:44):
There's all of these thingsthat are.
There's programs that haveestablished the reason that
those things have these ratingsand these restrictions and the
way that they operate, the waythat they operate.
(08:04):
What macro system is thataffecting?
That is a cost, or is it justthe fact that in order to have
an appliance pass CSA orwhatever it is, it has to now
have a certain energy rating?
Well, it's because we're tryingto make everything more
(08:25):
efficient, but on a propertythat already exists.
What is the reason to theperson?
Besides besides their here inbc we call it their hydro bill.
Okay, the reason would be tolower that and be more efficient
, but what is the cost of that?
So if I get to replace myentire building has to replace
(08:48):
all of the duct work, has toreplace all of the glazing and
the entire envelope, I don'tknow how many multiples of
millions of dollars that is todo?
It's not going to attack thathydro bill.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
It's not going to be enough.
Yeah, it would not be close, butthere is an equation here.
So you have only talked aboutone part of the equation, which
is a return on investment, whichmakes sense for larger
buildings like industrialbuildings or commercial
buildings.
Yeah, but there is also otherparts In terms of the return on
(09:21):
investment.
It is your higher propertyvalue if you are owning that
place.
It is the betterment of justyour environment.
We spend a lot of money onimprovement for our own health,
right, and you know, nobodycomes to you and says, oh, like
you want to improve yournutrition, your environment.
We spend a lot of money onimprovement for our own health
and nobody comes to you and says, oh, you want to improve your
nutrition.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
What's in it for you Is there a return on investment
to eat better, but this is theair that's better.
Is that what you're suggesting?
The indoor environment for youis better.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
What are the factors of the indoor environment?
It's volatile compounds thatyou're breathing in, so as
you're walking on the floor,these compounds are coming out.
And your home?
I like to think of it as aliving thing Because, just like
how you talk about your gutmicrobiome, the home itself has
an environment inside it.
(10:07):
And even those things that aregetting airborne in the lab they
have tested them that they aresafe that are getting airborne
In the lab they have tested themthat they are safe.
But a moment that an ozoneparticle from a car passing by
your home comes into the space,this is volatile.
It is one of these things.
That element becomes volatileand then hits something else.
It's just these fireworks aregoing on in your air and you
(10:28):
have no idea, and you're pushingthem in the other part of it,
as we talked about glowingradiation.
So sometimes you find yourselfthat you're sweating but also
cold, and that is like a sort ofthing that happens when your
air is comfortable, but likeyou're, you're by radiation.
You are not comfortable, likeyour window is not radiating
(10:49):
back enough to you in terms ofheat, you're losing a lot of
heat to it and all of theselittle factors especially after
the pandemic, when you'respending so much time in your
home they have to do with all ofthe health stuff that you're
right now dealing with.
It gets exacerbated becauseyou're spending so much time in
(11:10):
the place.
Now I want to add one morething that's not in terms of
that return on investmentequation is that governments
utilities.
They have enormous amounts ofmoney that they are putting into
demand-side management.
As you mentioned theelectricity bill, I believe one
of our utilities is putting $600million in the next few years
(11:33):
just on demand site management.
But directing these funds rightnow is really ineffective.
It's based on a formula that isdone by some assumptions and it
doesn't really solve theproblems.
So the work that we are doingfinally getting there is around
(11:55):
solving the problems the way itmatters.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
So let me give you an example, more like an analogy.
You're going skiing, it'swinter, it's very cold and, for
whatever reason, you have put onshorts.
You have a jacket, you'refreezing.
You're uncomfortable.
You have another jacket.
(12:21):
You put it on Stilluncomfortable.
Put on another jacket, you'restill uncomfortable.
No matter how many jackets youput on, you will be
uncomfortable because you'reskiing in shorts.
Your home energy efficiencyworks in the same way.
If you have good atticinsulation and you're adding
(12:42):
insulation to that attic, it'skind of like putting on another
jacket while the bare legs arethe windows that are losing all
the heat.
So all of the money you arespending is going to base.
That makes sense.
All the heat.
So all of the money you arespending is going to waste.
That makes sense.
The work we are doing is that,by digital twinning the home, we
are figuring out what is thebest route for you to get that
(13:03):
unified, proper environment and,as you mentioned, it could be
the mechanical system, it couldbe ventilation, it could be your
insulation or windows, and thekicker is that the kind of thing
you have to do for your home isdifferent than the kind of
thing I have to do for my home,for sure.
Right.
But when you're looking atthose incentives I'm talking
(13:24):
about the $600 million they areputting the incentives in a
formula and our research hasshown that the formula is
actually missing what you haveto do?
Because when you get an average, the average is nobody right.
If we have like two sharedsizes and we get the average of
that, it's neither of us andthat means it's going to miss
(13:46):
both of us.
So what we are working on wehave three cohorts of customers.
I put these folks in the cohortof enterprise, so government
and enterprises and utilities.
We're working with them totailor this thing and instead of
like having one assumptionabout a home, like I close my
eyes and think that homes arespheres and they are floating in
the space, we are like no, youhave 1.3 million homes in BC.
(14:11):
In fact, you know we areworking with the BC government
on this front right now with theBC Home Energy Planner.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
What are you doing with them?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
What is?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
the specific task you guys are.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Let's go back to the question and the plan Two and a
half billion square meters ofbuilt space.
We need to upgrade it.
The first thing you have to dois to plan.
So what we do is that we arefinding where these buildings
are, we are looking at publicdata to create an idea,
(14:44):
essentially that digital twinthat I'm talking about, but with
some assumptions.
That says this one home is inthis scale in terms of already
doing well or having a potentialfor an upgrade, and then we map
all of these homes.
So the places you need to focuson are for the entire building
(15:05):
of stock.
Are these priorities?
For example, a lot of homeshave problem A, like they don't
have good attic installation, orproblem B, and guess what?
We have maybe like twocompanies in every town doing
that kind of work.
It needs to be like 200companies, like that's the kind
of problem we have when it comesto this scale.
(15:26):
So when it comes to workforceyou know workforce planning and
when it comes to understandingthe problem and routing the
funds, that's the kind of workwe do with the government.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
How do you route the funds?
Just give me the use case here.
If you identify a home inLangley, let's say single
dwelling house, detached home,and you do an assessment on this
home, you have single dwellinghouse like detached home, yeah,
and you do an assessment on thishome.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
So you have people who can go on site and do the
assessment.
Okay, so they do the assessmentand then give it a rating.
They give it a rating.
The problem is that there isnot enough of them nowadays and
there is like a lot of workforcedevelopment, there is like a
lot of training happening.
So what we do in the first stepis that we are using that
remote energy rating work tofigure out where, roughly, the
(16:21):
potential of this home is.
And the next step is that whenyou work with the government on
this front, you have to engagehomeowners, and I think I
shouldn't preach to the choirand tell you how hard it is to
talk to an audience about theimportance of just engaging them
when you are competing withother sources of information
(16:43):
that's coming to them to say,okay, now I want your focus on
this particular thing, that wethink your home has a high
potential for doing an energyupgrade.
And so these are the A and B andC that we need to care about.
Okay, so I'm going to get thereone second.
Okay, so the next thing we dois that we have a website.
You can go to this websiteRight now.
(17:04):
Across Canada, you can accessproprateio.
You go in there.
You put in your address.
Yeah, we get the data we havefrom satellite images and the
public information about yourhome and we ask you this stuff.
We don't know about your homeQuestionnaire.
It's a questionnaire, but it'sonly 10 questions and it's 10
(17:24):
questions that you can answer.
I don't ask you about what isthe R value of your home or of
your ceiling, or what is the airchange rates.
So it's like you know, whathave you changed in the last 10
years?
So when you answer thatquestion, I can give you a
report that tells you okay, thisis where we think your home is
and we think, maybe we think youshould get that onsite
(17:47):
assessment.
And also, this is a checklistof the things that you need to
be doing.
And in BC there is the BC HomeEnergy Planner is doing this
work for the residents of BC inthe regions that is being
piloted right now.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Okay.
So then, so back to the usecase of the detached home.
Yeah, that they go to yourwebsite, they put in their
address, they put in theiraddress, they finish the
questionnaire, finish thequestionnaire and then they go,
and then you have a result whichsays we think that you are
(18:22):
eligible for an upgrade.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
We think these are the areas to focus.
We think these are theincentives that are relevant to
you, for example, for changingyour….
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Just take me through the incentives.
How does that work?
Where is this funding comingfrom?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
So the funding is coming from the government.
A lot of places in Canadafederal government has some
funding.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Okay, official places have funding, yeah, so what
would the typical use case be ona per home basis?
How much money are we talkingabout?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
So let's say, for example so when you're getting
an attic installation we justtalked about attics they give
you in BC, I believe they giveyou up to $900 for the amount of
installation you're adding, forthe amount of roof square
footage that you have.
We do all of that calculationfor you and we say, okay, we
(19:11):
think you're eligible for thismuch, but you can top it up with
a federal government program.
Now that program discontinued awhile ago but when it was
around you were pretty muchgetting the entire money in
terms of government incentivesfor a lot of homes Like I have
had homes that they pretty muchhad nothing to pay out of pocket
to do that kind of upgrade.
(19:31):
But again, like the medicinethat works on one home doesn't
work on another.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
I get that.
I mean the attic is like thelowest hanging fruit period
because a it's not typically notfinished and b you know you can
get up there and there's no arton the walls, there's no carpet
on the ground you would besurprised, james.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Let me tell you, there is like so many variables
that is coming in and there isso many homes that just haven't
done the upgrades like okay, youwould think you, you would be
so surprised that, oh, this issuch a no-brainer, but just
people don't know about it.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
But the question is let's say you get $900, but the
actual project's $2,500.
And there's usually somethingthat tips the scale for somebody
to do something.
What's the motivation?
The motivation is what virtue?
Signaling that, hey, my, myhouse is, is more efficient, my
(20:28):
hydro bill is going to go downlike what's the what's?
What's in it for thememotionally, financially.
What is that?
Speaker 2 (20:36):
so, yeah, a big part of that is just making sure that
you are living in a place thatis proper for you.
You're actually getting yourmoney's worth instead of
spending your utility bill onsomething that's just wasting
energy.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
But again, I want to go back to the equation, because
that's a financial incentive.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
I want to go back to the equation.
Right, it's the equation.
Part of it is financialincentives.
There's a part of it that hasto do with your own aspirations.
Right, it's the equation.
Part of it is financialincentives.
There's a part of it has to dowith your own aspirations, right
, and there's a part of it thathas to do with the broader
aspiration we have as a society,which comes into the government
incentives and the utilityincentives and the demand side
management program.
So the work we do is to getthis equation right and the work
(21:21):
is not done.
That's why we are in business,right?
There is a lot of that thatneeds to happen more and more.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
So how do you?
What's the revenue model ofyour company?
Speaker 2 (21:29):
How do you guys get?
paid so we have multiple avenues.
The one we didn't talk about isthrough the people who are
doing the upgrade work.
So we are helping them.
We are launching a new productin about a month that is helping
them size the equipment well.
So let's say somebody comes toyour home and they want to
(21:52):
upgrade your heating system to aheat pump.
Now, a lot of time the sizingof that heat pump happens with
just eyeballing and that's notgood.
Just like how you don't buy ashirt without looking at its
size.
If your heat pump happens withjust eyeballing, and that's not
good.
Just like how you don't buy ashirt without looking at its
size.
If your heat pump is oversized,it has some problems with its
longevity.
If it's undersized, it's notgoing to get your home
comfortable.
So we have crammed $35,000 worthof equipment into an iPhone,
(22:18):
into an iPhone Pro.
We call them hand warmersbecause we are just using every
single sensor and technologythat they have.
So you walk around the placeand you start 3D scanning the
place and it detects the windowsfor you, detects the walls,
detects different elementsinside the building, and then
this takes a ton of manual workoff of the plate of somebody who
(22:40):
is doing that kind of energyrating for you and in the
meantime, allows them to dobetter testing of your home and
have more time to just talk toyou and understand your
aspirations.
So that's one of our fields ofwork.
The other one is just workingwith the governments, working
with utilities at a massivescale, run projects and just
give the insights to theresidents and also to the
(23:03):
government to direct this moneybetter.
Again, I want to talk about theequation.
The first one is that youengage the people, give them
good advice, but also you arebringing the government and when
you look at that as a whole.
Now we go back to your questionof is that $2,500 to be spent
is worth spending?
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yeah, I mean, I think on the single family home, the
detached home, it's easy, on thestrata, it's a mess.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
On the strata.
It's a whole different ballparkBecause you can't even touch it
One person can't do it unlessthe entire strata is approved.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah yeah, I had to which is a lot of neighborhoods.
Are entire strata is approved?
Yeah yeah, um, I had to, whichis a lot of neighborhoods are
now.
Are strata neighborhoods evenwith single like detached homes?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
you can't touch the exterior, not allowed to touch
it there is the hoas homeownerassociations uh, that's like
that's the stuff about theoutside, um, but you know what
goes inside the walls andwhatnot.
As you're saying, a stratus isa whole different beast.
But also, I think what we callis the biggest sin in
(24:07):
construction is that we forgetthe lowest hanging fruits, and
those are those single familyhomes, the townhouses, the owner
homes.
These are the vast majority ofour residential built space.
If I ask you a question, 25billion square feet we talked
(24:30):
about.
This data is a few years old,so forgive me about that, but
how much of that do you thinkare high rises in terms of
percentage?
Are high rises in terms ofpercentage?
Speaker 1 (24:44):
High rises.
What are we considering?
A high rise over A high?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
rise residential building Just just over what?
10 stories Over 10 stories 8stories, over 8 stories.
Let's call it that.
What percentage?
Of that 25 billion square feet.
What percentage of it is highrises 15.
3.6.
So, like Estrada buildings,whole different problem, like
(25:12):
all of this high rise Estrada.
But the big, big, big problemare those single family homes,
townhouses, this long tail ofconstruction that we have
overlooked for so many years.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
So what about townhouses?
Would be part of Strata.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Townhouses.
It really depends on your modelof ownership and the types of
things to do.
A lot of times you just don'tneed to.
You're basically limited fromchanging the exterior, but if
you band with your otherhomeowners around you, you can
get some government incentivesthat compound for everybody.
(25:56):
You also can do certain kind ofwork that has to do with your
shared amenities or the stuffthat you're doing yourself, like
, for example, a lot of timespeople have water heating that
is independent, yeah, and youhave to change that water
heating system.
So, um, when it's breaking down, what are you gonna do?
Are you gonna get somebody youhappen to know to come in and
(26:18):
tell you to put one thing oranother, or are you going to get
advice about that, for example,there?
Speaker 1 (26:30):
are heat pump water heaters now that just plug into
the wall.
So wouldn't it be helpful ifyour programs were subsidized
also by a property tax incentiveof some sort?
By a property tax incentive ofsome sort, I mean to me it seems
, you know, with people withmortgage rates super high,
people are like they're up totheir eyeballs in it.
(26:55):
This is the last thing they wantto think about Until until the
government says, hey, we cangive you up to $900 for X, and
once this passes with a companylike Proparate, once it's
approved and finished, thenyou're going to get a tax break
(27:17):
for whatever property tax,because getting people to do
things, depending on what it isit, can be quite disruptive too.
Like you've got a constructioncrew and they're doing stuff I
mean an addict sticking a bunchof pink insulation in there, big
deal, whatever, easy.
But if you're going to be doingsomething else where it's like
changing the windows, shit, Imean that's like it's not
(27:40):
depending on what windows it is.
It's like changing the windows,shit, I mean that's like that's
not depending on what windowsit is.
It's a single family home and,as you were saying, like if
maybe we were 3% are only highrises, eight stories and up, but
there's a lot that are sixstories, tons, six stories.
(28:00):
There's lots of those.
They're all townhouses, they'reall connected, they're all part
of a strata.
Even the high rises have 20townhomes attached to each, to
each.
uh development yeah, there'stons right.
Um, I think on the duplex sideof things I could see neighbors
getting together and be like,look, we got to you know because
(28:21):
that's basically.
You know it's a strata of two,but I think that, like anything,
you know, these programs needto be pushed by the government
even harder, because it wouldmake your job a lot easier.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So let me answer those one by one.
The first thing was about okay,why don't we do tax incentives?
Why don't we do that kind ofthings?
Question for you Will you takea $40,000 interest-free loan?
No, you won't do that.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
No, Would you take?
Not unless I knew that it wouldgrow the property value by that
.
No, would you take?
Not unless I knew that it wouldgrow the property value by 80.
Okay, if it doubled it.
I mean, that's just a math,because this interest-free loan,
you still got to pay it back.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Over many years?
Yeah, would you take incentiveson the mortgage insurance you
are paying if you are getting anew building?
Yes, okay, so these programsexist today.
Okay, you just don't hear aboutthem.
Yeah, you don't hear about them.
That's the problem, right, yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
So what's the 40 grand one?
Speaker 2 (29:29):
It's called the Canada Greener Homes Nome.
They used to have a grant aswell.
Can that be on an?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
existing home?
It can be.
Oh, have a grant as well.
Can that be on an existing home?
It can be oh, that's cool.
So that's exactly like.
Do you have a list of thesethings on your website?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yes, oh, that's pretty cool, you can go, yeah,
so when you get your report,yeah, this is how you can
execute, yeah.
That's cool.
So you just don't hear aboutthem.
And then, if enough, peoplehear about them the people who
have there's a ton of money thatjust doesn't get allocated
because they don't have thatchannel of getting to people.
So that's a big problem, right,people are not hearing about
them.
Now, the other thing youmentioned was like it can be
(30:04):
really disruptive.
That's actually something wehave looked into very deeply.
Of course, you have your lifeand you don't want to be
disrupted.
Now I want to highlight twothings.
The first one is that what doyou do to avoid future
disruptions?
I think a lot of people wouldtake the fact that they can make
their home resilient towardsthe next heat wave any day.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah, that's the big one.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Right.
The other thing is that we aretrying to reach people at
certain points.
So you have a time of sale.
Rating, for example, is thatthe home is empty, right, but
you want to increase the valueof the home you touched.
Sale rating, for example, isthat the home is empty, right,
but you want to increase thevalue of the home.
You touched on that.
You know like getting an energyupgrade can be one of the
biggest boost you can have inthe property value.
So, when the home is empty, whydon't we upgrade it as it's
(30:51):
happening?
Time of replacement Well, yourheat pump is broken down or your
hot water system has brokendown or your roof is leaking.
You're going to have thedisruption anyway.
So would you rather dosomething that is going to cost
you more and you have to revisitin 10 years, or would you want
to get the best class advicethat is going to give you that
(31:12):
has more durability, isresilient against those next
heat waves or cold snaps, andit's going to be the same amount
of effort and cost?
Like people think that I'mlying about this, but in reality
, just the knowledge is notflowing around for you to
understand what is the bestthing you want to do, but just
people, because they're doingthe same thing over and over
again and they're using outdatedtechnology, they end up paying
(31:34):
more and they end up not reallyimproving on those resiliency
metrics.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
That's cool.
Okay, so people go to yourwebsite to do this.
So what's the website address?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
It's called proper8.io.
If you're familiar with it'sPapa Romeo, oscar, papa Echo
Romeo, alpha Tango, echo dotIndia.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Wow, that's exhaustive.
Yeah, Jeez, I think people gotit.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
So, proper8.io.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Proper8.io, that's cool, okay, cool, and then
people can find you on LinkedIn.
Have they got any questions?
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Yeah, if they got any questions and if you are around
in BC, just stay tuned in theBC Home Energy Planner Folks in
the government.
They are doing really amazingwork there, getting a ton of
resources together that peoplecan easily see and they have all
the right things in the book.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
All right.
Well, thank you very much, andalso thank you for I keep seeing
people keep waving to me asthey're walking behind you.
I'm like hi.
So, yeah, there's lots ofpeople here that I know.
So anyway, thank you very much.
Best of luck for everything,and it's pretty cool what you're
doing.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, I feel like I could make an impression on the
questions because you wereasking me hard questions and
that's always welcome.
But you know, I was at the COPconference a few months ago.
I can tell you that we inCanada are the front runners on
this front and I think if we getthis right, if we get the
equation right and we get theincentives right, then we can
(33:00):
start exporting this technology,because people everywhere in
the world are going to deal withclimate change effects and
they're going to woke up to thefact that we have all of these
problems.
So I know there is a lot ofthings that today are not
incentivizing people to makechange.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
But there is so much opportunity that I think we will
look at it as a smokingairplane that I was looking to
you about.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
That was a good bookend.
Okay, Well, perfect.
Thank you very much.
All right, man, Thank you.
Well.
That does it for anotherepisode of the Site Visit.
Thank you for listening.
Be sure to stay connected withus by following our social
accounts on Instagram andYouTube.
You can also sign up for amonthly newsletter at
(33:46):
sitemaxsystemscom slash the sitevisit, where you'll get
industry insights, pro tips andeverything you need to know
about the site visit podcast andsitemax, the job site and
construction management tool ofchoice for thousands of
contractors in North America andbeyond.
Sitemax is also the engine thatpowers this podcast.
All right, let's get back tobuilding.
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