The godfather of passive house
When you meet a trailblazer, their passion and sheer drive are often palpable. That's certainly the case with Harley Truong, the godfather of Passive Houses in Australia. We've had the pleasure of sitting down with him to dissect what it truly means to be a pioneer in the world of sustainable building.
But how does one transition from being a public servant to championing an entirely new building methodology on the other side of the world? Join us as we hear about Harley's journey and explore the impact he's had not just with passive house building, but also through the sophisticated windows he imports essential for these eco-homes.
Who is Harley Truong?
Harley isn’t just any innovator; he’s shaped the way Australians think about comfortable, energy-efficient living. Before Harley even thought about building a house, he was deeply entrenched in public service in Canberra. His career was one with stability and predictability at the Department of Defence. But as life often does, a twist led him to realise that he could live a life that was warmer and a little less drafty.
It all started with a dream to build something better. Harley witnessed firsthand the inadequacies of Australian housing—zero-star energy efficiency and an inability to retain heat were far too common. His journey began with a fire in his belly and a desire to craft a comfortable home for himself and his family.
The Birth of a Passive House
Twelve years ago, Passive Houses weren't even a blip on the Australian architectural radar. Harley, however, was ahead of the curve. With determination and copious amounts of research aided by the Passive House Institute from Germany, he embarked on building his own passive house, without ever having stepped foot in one. This wasn't just any house. It was a trendsetter—a masterpiece of engineering that paved the way for others.
Building a passive house without any local resources meant creating a path where one didn’t exist. Harley embraced the challenges and often found himself rewriting the rules. His fervour for a sustainable, comfortable living environment meant he couldn't settle for the status quo. He meticulously crafted his home with airtight solutions and imported windows, ensuring it was unlike any other.
Venturing into the Window Business
Windows are more than just a part of a house; they’re gateways to efficiency and comfort. Upon completing his own passive house, Harley realised the lack of adequate windows in the Australian market. It wasn’t enough to build one house; he wanted to enable others to build their eco-fantasies. With this, his company Logikhaus was born.
Harley didn’t just see an opportunity; he created a market for high-performance windows—importing top-notch products from Europe. His windows became a critical piece of the puzzle for builders seeking to meet passive house standards. He wasn’t content with just being a consultant; Harley became a supplier to ensure these pioneering houses had the very best.
Creating a Sustainable Future
As Harley says, building a passive house isn’t just about meeting standards; it’s about exceeding them. His first project achieved an astounding 0.1 air changes per hour—a testament to his dedication and perhaps just a taste of what’s possible if we dare to dream bigger. It's his philosophy that has inspired many within the industry to aim for what once seemed impossible.
But Harley's vision extends beyond his own projects. He's keen to usher in an era where high-performance windows become the norm rather than the exception. Not merely forcing an exclusive market, but fostering an inclusive industry revolution where Australian-made isn't just a patriotic tagline, but a sustainable reality.
Beyond the Building
Harley’s influence reaches far beyond the doors of the houses he’s helped build. He’s catalysed conversations on how we, as an industry, can provide better and more sustainable housing for all Australians. And believe us, the conversation is just beginning.
With pioneers like Harley leading the charge, the future of sustainability shines bright.
If you’d like to submit a question for us to discuss on the podcast, reach out to us on Instagram.
LINKS:
Connect with us on Instagram: @themindfulbuilderpod
Connect with Hamish:
Instagram: @sanctumhomes
Website: www.yoursanctum.com.au/
Connect with Matt:
Instagram: @carlandconstructions
Website: www.carlandconstructions.com/
-
[00:00:00]
[00:00:48] Matt: Firstly, who are you? Because I think it's an important part because you are in the area that we, and the space we operate in. You're kind of a big deal and you are one of the innovators in this space to, to pull to where it is now. [00:01:00] I would love to be known as the
[00:01:01] Harley: godfather of passive house.
[00:01:03] Hamish: So you, uh, so Harley is the godfather of passive house. Is it the fourth certified building in Australia?
[00:01:09] Harley: Well, at the time. There were no passive houses when I was building mine. None. I wanted to be the first, but I just got beaten right at the post there. The dawn. Yeah. So, yeah. So,
[00:01:23] Hamish: so your, your background is not you are in public service for a while or a consultant?
[00:01:28] Harley: So I, I, I trained as an engineer. Yeah. Okay. so before I, Went into the, the construction industry. I was a public service. I was in Canberra. I was working for the, well, you could've
[00:01:38] Hamish: just said you're in Canberra and we just assumed that you're in public service.
[00:01:40] Harley: Everyone there is a public servant.
Yeah. Uh, a fat cat. Yeah. I was one of those fat cats.
[00:01:45] Hamish: Yeah.
[00:01:46] Harley: What's a fat
[00:01:46] Hamish: cat?
[00:01:47] Harley: You know what a fat cat is? No, no idea. It's a public servant who, who has a really easy job. They're paid well. They don't do a lot of work. But look, I did a lot of work. But in every, in every public services. [00:02:00] I work so hard. I work from nine
[00:02:01] Matt: to five.
[00:02:02] Hamish: Yeah. I, I know, I know a lot of public servants in Canberra, so I'm not gonna cast aspersions of anyone.
[00:02:07] Harley: But I was highly ambitious. I was working for the Department of Defense at the time. I liked the work, but then something changed my path. It, it happens to us all. Sometimes I, I don't know, maybe you guys did.
We literally
[00:02:20] Hamish: just had this conversation with our guests beforehand that was exactly like this. So carry on. This is super interesting.
[00:02:27] Harley: so I was, like a project manager. Working in a, a team with software developers complete opposite of what you do in the building industry, right. But it was, it was a team environment.
It was about getting stuff done, having processes in place, optimizing things. So I really loved that job. But then, I, opportunity came up where I, I could build a house. Now this, it is rare these days that people can actually build houses 'cause they're so expensive. But at the time, it was affordable.
I bought, bought land and. [00:03:00] From the start, I wanted to build something very comfortable. 'cause I, I'd grown up in a really, really badly insulated house.
[00:03:06] Hamish: Were you always in Canberra?
[00:03:08] Harley: Uh, I've been here 45 years. I was not born here. Yeah. I came from a, a country, uh, that was very, I had a very nice weather. It was probably like 20 to 28 degrees year round.
It's uh, it's Vietnam, right? Yeah. Coastal Vietnam. Uh, came here after whereabouts in
[00:03:24] Matt: Vietnam, in the coast.
[00:03:26] Harley: So it was, it's in a central part. It as a small fishing village. in, and I don't remember it. I left it when I was three, but I think my DNA remembers it that, that you can actually live
[00:03:39] Hamish: in a, in a warm, comfortable climate.
I was
[00:03:41] Harley: born in a warm, comfortable climate. I want that. I want that. And when I came here, I came to Canberra.
[00:03:48] Hamish: Warm,
[00:03:49] Harley: comfortable climate Canberra in the middle of a winter as a refugee to settle in Canberra in the middle of winter. I mean, if I, if I [00:04:00] was an older person that I would've said, send me back. It's torture.
Send me back. Right? And
Yeah. And we lived in a house, a typical Canberra house, brick veneer. Yeah, these days would be considered a zero star energy rated house. Zero star filled with
[00:04:14] Hamish: Mr. Fluffy insulation.
[00:04:15] Harley: Probably filled with Mr. Fluffy insulation. No, no, no, no, no insulation. Okay.
[00:04:19] Hamish: What's Mr.
Fluffy? Just like a blowing insulation. No, Mr. Fluffy, this is, I don't know if we can, I mean we can, 'cause everyone knows, but it's a Mr. Fluffy insulation used to spray in asbestos. Oh, I didn't? Yeah.
[00:04:29] Matt: Okay. Yeah.
[00:04:30] Hamish: Ridden, uh, fiber insulation.
[00:04:32] Matt: It's that, is that the stuff that had in the Wizard of Oz that they used to spray to make it look like snow?
[00:04:36] Hamish: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. Pretty much.
[00:04:38] Harley: Yeah. So about a thousand Canberra houses had that sprayed into their roofs and it cost
[00:04:42] Hamish: massive government buyback. Oh yeah. Anyway,
[00:04:45] Matt: was that a government incentive at the time?
[00:04:47] Harley: Yeah. So, I eventually, I, I did buy a house, our very first house, and it was an old house, about 50 years old, And also similar levels of comfort. Similar levels of comfort. You, you buy whatever you can afford. Uh, [00:05:00] as a first home buyer, you, you just buy whatever you can afford. You can't, as a first house, buy your dream house. No. So we only had a $250,000. I mean, that, that was the amount that, that we, we could borrow from the bank.
And that was enough to buy a house. In the old days, this is going back Wow. Uh, a few years. And that house was, I'd say. Even more uncomfortable than the house that I, the very first house that, that I moved to. It had so many air leaks, evaporative, cooling very little insulation. And all the while I was thinking it's, this is not right.
This doesn't feel right. And everybody else's house was the same. I thought, I can't stand this. I'm going to. Look for a job in Brisbane to escape the Canberra weather. And every winter I would go on to, seek.com and look, look for work. so then we, uh, had the opportunity to actually buy a block of land and build a house that was unlike any of these rubbish houses in Australia.
And [00:06:00] I've been to display homes. I've, I've been to a lot of these. Show houses that are considered state of the art and they look beautiful. They've got our, you know, our fresco dining. They've got large windows, all the latest kinds of tiles and finishes, and yet they're all, they're all the same. They're all built like tents.
So for my house, I, I went on the internet and at the time, passive house was not a, was not a thing. This is going back. 12 years ago, this passive house was not a thing in Australia yet. The Passive House Association, I don't think it even had started, or if it did, it was in its infancy. There were no passive house consultants back then.
There were no passive house builders. No one was talking about this. There was the usual solar passive stuff.
[00:06:43] Hamish: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:44] Harley: Plenty of that. I wanted something that was guaranteed. I didn't, didn't want to do something that was, that might work. So I went on the internet. As you do, you do your research, you Google it, and there's a massive amount of open source information from the passive [00:07:00] house institute overseas in in Germany.
Right? I found all this information and you at first glance I thought, ah, you gotta build like one meter thick walls. Nah, not for me. I just ignored it. Then I circled back and then I read it closely and it turns out you don't have to build a one meter thick wall. You build the walls to suit your climate, it's climate dependent.
And that's when the light bulb went off. Ah, passive house. We can build it to suit the Canberra climate and it's gonna be as comfortable as any other house, any other passive house in the world.
[00:07:33] Hamish: And you've got a perfect, well, in my opinion, I've always thought that there's some amazing opportunities to branch into Canberra because you have incredibly cold winters.
And very hot summers, you've got these massive swings in temperature. It can go from like minus five to plus 45, and your buildings need to stay within that 20 to 25 degrees. So I am curious to understand [00:08:00] what was the wall buildups that you needed to achieve certification in Canberra?
[00:08:05] Harley: Yeah. Well, yeah.
Canberra is cold. Minus is eight is the coldest. I, I remember. Mm. What mine is eight. Get eight cold. Cold, man. Mine is
[00:08:11] Matt: eight.
[00:08:11] Harley: And it's clear like
[00:08:12] Matt: you, you're, yeah. Those drafts in those leaky house must just, that would be like blowing an ice machine on you.
[00:08:19] Harley: it's next level. Yeah. It's, and the gas heater is, is blowing hot air, ducted.
Gas heating is blowing hot air onto your head, so your head's really hot and your feet are freezing. and the summers. Yes, they are. I, I remember I think 47 degrees or something,
[00:08:34] Matt: and it's just, but that's, oh, that's just part of life there. That's just how it is. That's
[00:08:39] Harley: the probably common thought that that's how it is.
And, and people are living in, in uninsulated houses in that kind of climate. And so they are solely dependent on the heater being on. And them being right in front of the heater. 'cause the heater cannot heat the whole house. You've gotta be right in front of it. Yeah. It's
[00:08:55] Matt: like my house at home in the moment.
Like it was only five degrees this morning, but the [00:09:00] gas heater heats the living room. You step into the hallway and you're like, oh fuck. Get back in. And, but then you go back into that room and it's so hot that you can't stay in that room because it's too hot. So you kind of like turn the heater off. It gets cool now.
Oh, gotta get that back on and, yeah.
[00:09:14] Hamish: And and the heat doesn't stay though. No. It, it goes in two minutes. It, you turn it gone turn off and it's gone.
[00:09:19] Harley: and like heat is not just heat, it's, there's a quality to good heat. Like it's good and bad heat. Yeah. Good heat is, it's like, like a warm hug.
You don't even notice that sort of thing. You Yeah. It's like, like every surface of the room is the same temperature. You just walk in, it's like you're back in the womb. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. That, that's the heat that I wanted.
[00:09:37] Hamish: Do you know what? There's a really great marketing opportunity. What does passive house feel like?
[00:09:41] Harley: Being
[00:09:41] Matt: back in the feels like being back. I ask my child, it's doing like any day now back.
[00:09:44] Hamish: Well, because it, because it's consistent heat, right? Because look, so I was down in Tazzie last week at mad Grady's Place, open house, uh, and I was down there with Justin and a few of the other sort of usual suspects down there.
And I don't live in a passive house, but I've been in plenty Right? [00:10:00] Stayed over in plenty of passive houses before. Good friends of ours who we've brought up in kind's, got a passive house like I, you can't explain what it's like to be in a passive house. You've gotta feel it for yourself and you obviously live in it.
So how does it feel now? I mean, you probably, you've been in there for a long time, like one of the first passive houses in Australia, comparing your lived in experience now to what it was when you were a kid and even in your first home. Like, can you explain some of the differences? Like do you get sick much?
Do you, like, how do you sleep? Like all of those things. How has improved your lifestyle? How has improved your life? Yeah.
[00:10:33] Harley: Uh, it's, it's unbelievably good. I feel so privileged to be able to live in that house. And when, when we go on holidays, we, uh, like we, we go to the beach, like Canberra's, three hours from, from the ocean.
When you go to the beach, you, uh, you book into a, an Airbnb or someone's house and you stay and then, you then appreciate, oh, home feels so good. 'cause this house here is. Drafty and cold, and you have to have the fireplace going. so the house [00:11:00] thermally it is fantastic. it's always warm with without the heater, but we, we do use the heater on on days where you have long runs of cold days without the sun.
It, it is, it's solely driven. You need that sunlight to keep it warm. But we, you're not hearing the heater 'cause it's on the lower setting and it's only on for a couple of hours. Right. So the difference between having a house that's naturally warm compared to one that's relying on this air being forced into every room.
your eyes don't dry out. it's almost
[00:11:32] Matt: like it's so cold. And then the heat is so good from the heater, but it's still so uncomfortable. But you, you're not comfortable.
[00:11:39] Harley: Yeah. Yeah. I find that's
[00:11:40] Matt: what I'm experiencing in the moment. Like, you crave the warmth, but you go in there, but you just icky.
[00:11:46] Harley: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in a passive house, it's the opposite. Icky. It's, it's, it's just shorts. T-shirts. It's short. You're wearing summer clothes when it's winter. At night though, I must say it can be a. Ironically, a bit too warm sometimes. Yeah. In, [00:12:00] uh, even in the, the colder season. What is your house at?
[00:12:03] Matt: What's that? What house, what degree does your house sit at?
[00:12:06] Harley: Uh, it's mostly 20 degrees, but like the cold's ever been by 18 degrees without the heater, that's still warm ever in
[00:12:12] Hamish: during winter, right? Like, like we live in a shitty 1970s uninsulated home at the moment. And I actually quite like going to bed 'cause we've got two dunas on and you, you're snuggled in and I actually really like, like getting right under the duna.
But I've been up to our friend's house in Kit a few times during the middle of winter. And you're in a, you've got a sheet on. And I'm like, this is, this feels weird right now. 'cause my body's so used to wanting to, yeah. Be really tucked up in the blanket. I'm so excited for mine.
[00:12:41] Harley: I, I, I, agree that, that it feels good to have weight on your body.
Like you need a thick, that weight, that feeling of being wrapped up, like, uh, you know, back in the womb, like you said, like back in the womb. Well, when the babies are born, there's a, there's a term when you wrap 'em up with a cloth swaddling. Yeah. Well, that, yeah. Yeah. Like a burrito.
That, that's it. and so [00:13:00] in the bedroom, sometimes we keep the blind, the external blinds closed during the colder seasons to keep that room colder, to make it about, you know, 18 degrees or so.
[00:13:10] Matt: Interesting. So you actually Yeah, that's actually such a, I'm trying
[00:13:12] Hamish: to make my house colder when, yeah. Yeah.
[00:13:17] Matt: and so that's your first passive house. Yes. And at that point then, because how I know you is Logic House Windows were you. In the window industry at that point then? Or was it them building your first passive house? You're like, Hey, what windows do you have in your house?
[00:13:32] Harley: PVC German made windows at the time.
I imported those windows, so I've got a local company to import those windows. Yeah, yeah. So I had to build, to build the house, but I was heavily involved in getting everything together.
[00:13:45] Hamish: And was your builder on board?
[00:13:46] Harley: well, one of them was German heritage.
[00:13:49] Hamish: because I'm, I'm like, this was how, how long ago? 2000.
[00:13:52] Harley: Uh, so it's, it's 12 years ago. Yeah.
[00:13:54] Hamish: 2015
[00:13:55] Harley: so we got the certification 2014 got certified. So the building started around about [00:14:00] 20 12, 20 13. Yeah. And then at that point
[00:14:02] Matt: you've finished, you're like, Hmm, I can import windows.
[00:14:05] Harley: so just the process of getting the windows, you, you have to look around and there's a lot of rubbish windows out there. Okay. A lot of rubbish windows. And what did define as rubbish? This is a good question. Aluminum windows. so before I built that Pacif Pacif house, I was living in a, a house that had steel casement windows, single glaze, really bad windows.
And admittedly at that time, I, I retrofitted, I took those windows and put in new windows.
[00:14:32] Hamish: Yeah.
[00:14:33] Harley: And I was so uneducated back then. I took out steel, single glazed windows and put in double glazed thick aluminum, non thermally broken windows.
[00:14:42] Hamish: Yeah.
[00:14:43] Harley: I was trying to fix a condensation problem by replacing windows with double glazing.
'cause I thought double glazings, they've gotta be good. Yeah. And you know what? The condensation didn't go away.
[00:14:51] Hamish: Yep, yep. And, and probably worse 'cause if, 'cause aluminum's a much bigger conductor of heat energy than steel.
[00:14:58] Harley: I think the mold got worse, the frames got [00:15:00] more moldy than the steel. And that point, I, I said I've, next time I've gotta actually do things properly.
Yeah. And dig into the signs, do things properly. And so when I did the passive house and those PVC windows, there's no condensation anymore. and then that passive house, you know, I built this passive house without ever going into one. I didn't know what I was getting into.
[00:15:22] Matt: That was like my
[00:15:22] Harley: first passive house.
[00:15:23] Hamish: Wow.
[00:15:24] Harley: And
[00:15:24] Hamish: there for the Yeah, but he built one for himself. Yeah. No, this
[00:15:26] Matt: is what I'm crazy. Yeah, I know. But this is what I'm saying, like, I've got a comment here and I'll get to it quickly before you keep going. It's like what we need to understand quickly is like Harley paved the way for what we do now.
Yeah. Like he made, he made all the mistakes so we can have our life very easy in the way we build now. We still look like we're at the front creating all these new amazing things. The reality is Harley had to do it for us first. Father
[00:15:48] Hamish: Harley. Yeah.
[00:15:49] Harley: yeah. In, in a way. Yeah. I, couldn't really follow someone else locally.
I mean, there were lots of overseas examples, but the. It's different when you build products. When you build stuff overseas, the products are different. The, the wall [00:16:00] build up, build ups different, but that, that first moment when I, when I realized the, we had all the windows in and everything was closed up, and you walk in and it's cold outside and it's so nice inside and everyone remembers their first time in a passive house.
I think living in one or being, being one. Being in one. Do you remember your first time? It's
[00:16:18] Matt: quiet. I can remember actually. It's not my first time. What I remember distinctly was we had just. Wrapped the hole outside. We had put the roof on, we inside it, put our in tall windows were in and we are walking around in shorts and t-shirts in the middle of winter and it's fucking freezing outside.
And I just come back from Thailand. So I was like, this is beautiful weather. Back to reality of cold. And then I'm like, this works instantly. I remember doing a blower door test that next week and being like, oh my God, this actually. Thi this isn't some made up thing that's woo woo. And this,
[00:16:49] Hamish: and this is before that the people have been living in the house.
Yeah. This is just drink None of the, the, the
[00:16:54] Matt: construction site's more comfortable than my own home. Yeah,
[00:16:57] Harley: yeah, yeah. So imagine that happening to you and [00:17:00] then, then you think, wow, this, once people realize that this is possible, everyone's gonna want one of these. Mm-hmm. Everyone's gonna want a passive house and.
the job that I was doing at the time I was in public service, I was working for a defense and it was, it was a noble job. The thing that it was classified, but the things we were doing, they were making a difference. And yet I thought getting into the building industry to build pacif houses was a better cause.
[00:17:26] Matt: Wow.
[00:17:27] Harley: It's almost
[00:17:28] Matt: defense like, it's ironic. It's, I actually
[00:17:30] Hamish: love to know what you were
[00:17:30] Matt: doing. Yeah. It's actually ironic, like it was defense. You're now defending the home from the outside,
[00:17:37] Harley: from inside. It was, it was defense intelligence. Okay. So, but it was, I really wanna know. Carry on, carry on. Can't talk about it.
but I on record anyway. I, I quit that job. it was a permanent job. You, you don't get fired as a public servant unless I don't let break the law. Right. And, and that's, that's still argumentative. Yeah. So I, I, I had a cushy job and I, I thought [00:18:00] this, do I want to spend the rest of my life doing this?
Even though it was, it was a good cause. I thought, this is a golden opportunity. Let's change careers. Let's do something completely different. So I, I changed, I quit and then I did what I thought would be the good place to start as a consultant, as a passive first consultant. I got qualified as a passive house consultant, not by doing any course or any exam.
I, there's a pathway to get qualified by doing a passive house, building a passive house, and doing all the calculations for the PPP and getting that building certified. I. Interesting. So I did So
[00:18:36] Hamish: you, as a trades person, we can do that, but you can do that as a designer as well. Exactly, yeah. Which is
[00:18:41] Harley: a better method in my opinion after Yeah.
Wet, go down that path anymore. But yes, I'd argue that uh, doing an exam that takes whatever, two hours or however many hours is probably easier than building your own passive house and doing all the calculations is months, if not years of work. But, but yeah. But
[00:18:58] Hamish: how much more does it [00:19:00] sink
[00:19:00] Matt: in?
This is this, so this is my issue. I'm gonna say it. That course sucks. It doesn't teach you anything. I'm gonna be really brutally honest. and we talk about this one, just for the record, Matthew
[00:19:09] Hamish: Carlin is now talking and not Hamish White.
[00:19:11] Matt: Yep. So what we were going back at before, one of the previous conversations today is when we did the conversation and the, the teaching around passive house, there was passion and course when we did the course, uh, yeah, we, there was just so much enthusiasm.
Now I feel it's a tick box. And I feel like it's completely changed in the way that we're teaching people. And when it goes, why, why? I loop back to that he is like, we didn't do any PHPP training in the designer course Whatsoever. And I feel like that's what I wanted to learn to know to improve our buildings.
But I didn't get that. And I feel, that's why I say you spending all those hours and actually logging the data. Made you learn properly.
[00:19:46] Hamish: Yeah, but look, not, not everyone can do that though. I mean, let's be fair, I think, the courses that are being provided out there, regardless of who you go through, are a nice gateway to get into the space.
And then it's like when you do your carpentry apprenticeship, [00:20:00] right At the end of it, you're a carpenter at the end of the passive house trades person course or designer course, you're a designer, but that's the beginning of your journey. that's the point where you actually start to learn, in my opinion, right?
So you can do your course or passive house trades person course, but it's not until you actually go and do one or two or three or four or five, that's when you actually become an expert.
[00:20:23] Harley: Yeah. So same as when you learn to drive a car, you get your Ls, right? But really. Do you really know how to drive a car?
You do. Exactly. But, why you're on your PS those few years, you actually, you are learning, you, you are improving.
[00:20:35] Hamish: Yeah. And
[00:20:35] Harley: after you're off your PS you are way better. You are way better. You are always safer driver. And so with I, I absolutely agree that when you get the qualification. I think you do need to do work on some projects.
Yeah. And then get into the trenches and get stuck into the details. I don't think, I don't
[00:20:50] Matt: think you should be able to call yourself a passive house architect, building designer builder, a consultant unless you have a certified [00:21:00] project.
and I, I'm probably getting off track here, but like.
That's how Yeah. As you go, you get expertise. It's, it's logging those hours. Yep. As 10,000, they say 10,000 hours is what you need to do to become an expert in that field. Is that the But you've,
[00:21:11] Hamish: but you've now done it, right? So, so you, in your own home, you did all of that stuff yourself. Yep. You know, you, it's real world experience.
You're, you're in the trenches. You are failing, you're learning, you're failing, you're learning, you're failing. You're learning in real time
[00:21:26] Harley: at your own expense. not so much failing though. I think being the, the very first house that I've actually built. Okay. And at the time I wanted to have the first pacif asset in Australia to be a pacif it has to meet the air tightness requirement.
And so when you're doing for the first time, it's like, it's like when you go to the moon, I think you want to over-engineer
[00:21:46] Hamish: because
[00:21:46] Harley: you cannot fail when you go to the moon. You cannot fail if you're aiming to be the first pass to fail because you only, I'm only gonna build that house once. Yeah. What did you get?
I over-engineered and I got the tightest house in Australia. 0.1 air changes an [00:22:00] hour and 50. So what are,
[00:22:02] Matt: what blows me away. Right? Like, and I can't get that at the moment. We've got all the experience.
[00:22:07] Hamish: I, I've done dozens more houses than you have. Right? And I've never got that time.
[00:22:13] Harley: What did you do? it's not what I used.
It's, it's the mindset. If you want to aim for something like, the thing is, it's different when you're a builder. You, your goal is to deliver to the client what the target is. 0.6 or better. Yeah. At the best cost. Yeah. You're not out there to break records unless you're someone like Drew Cro. Well, I am right now, at the moment
[00:22:34] Matt: trying to beat your record and I can tell you I'm not there.
I haven't done my last test, but like. Yeah, I've thrown a lot at this and,
[00:22:42] Hamish: but some attitude.
[00:22:43] Matt: Yeah. No, but that's what I'm saying. Like, that is an insane number. It's
[00:22:46] Hamish: ridiculous.
[00:22:46] Harley: Yeah. Look, we don't want everyone to build that tight. It's not needed because it is not needed. But it's the same reason why um, you know, like if, if I could do it, it means that most builders should be able to beat 0.6.
That, that's the idea. You need one or two to [00:23:00] aim high. So, so that everybody else can then think, ah, it must be doable. It's Harley Strong, who was a. software project manager from defense can get 0.1. Then why, why can't I get
[00:23:12] Hamish: 0.6? Do you know what, when you, when you're, when you are going for 0.1?
0.6 is easy.
[00:23:18] Matt: I think 0.66 is actually, it's a, it's a mindset challenge, right? I actually gonna challenge anyone here. I actually think getting it, if you have an internal membrane, let's just specify that. Oh yeah. If your aura sips, if you can't get on a point. Six air exchanges, you are off doing something fundamentally wrong.
I think it's actually, it's just, again, it goes to mindset. If you go, that's my goal, I have to do it. You'll do it very easily.
[00:23:38] Hamish: So just circling back to how you got to, and we're kind of jumping all over the place here, but it's an interesting conversation. So 0.1 is super tight, right? Your windows must have been awesome.
And your building. F I'm, I'm assuming that leaks were potentially through the windows. Now Windows, let's just put things into context. When we say the windows are leaking, I'm doing this in inverted commas, right? It's such a [00:24:00] micro amount of air come moving through that. So, but windows leak, 'cause they've got hinges, there's, it's really hard to get that a hundred percent airtight.
So your building fabric, your actual building fabric, not, the windows must have been like a hundred percent airtight.
[00:24:13] Harley: Yeah, very, very light. The, the airtight budget. Yeah. You allocate some leakage to the windows, to the, to the walls, to the floor, to your junctions, to your penetrations. You, everything leaks a little bit, right?
But to get 0.1, everything's gotta be super tight. So, let's start with the walls. Okay. So there are, there were four airtight layers in the walls now, normally you really only need one. You only need one. Right? Because like in theory, like if you have an airtight thing, like a balloon and you put it inside another air type thing, another balloon doesn't make it any more airtight.
I love that. And then put another balloon inside the other balloon. Inside the other balloon. Yeah. Which is what you did. You
[00:24:49] Hamish: had
[00:24:49] Harley: four balloons, so Yeah. So, but in reality, those balloons are not perfectly airtight. They're leaking a little bit. Yeah. So you put a balloon that's leaking a little bit into another balloon that's leaking a little bit, [00:25:00] maybe four, four times.
It's, it's, it's okay. So. So my outside layer was a proclaim, uh, external wrap. Yeah. It was manto.
[00:25:08] Hamish: Yep.
[00:25:10] Harley: Next, uh, on the inside of that, it, it was, it was a sips house. So the outside layer was 15 millimeters. OSB. Did
[00:25:16] Matt: you tape all those as well on the pen? On the, yes. All
[00:25:19] Harley: the, the sips were I had sikaflex pro on all the junctions, and I got RSI, 'cause I applied it all with.
With a hand caulking gun. Wow. and they were, they were taped as well. So on the outside there's two airtight layers on the inside. The inner sips was 15 millimeters of o sb, and they were all taped up. And Stickerflex probed as well. Okay. And then there was in tallow on the inside of that. Okay. you don't, you don't do this, you don't,
[00:25:47] Hamish: unless you drink as someone who's done a dozen or so sip projects, I
[00:25:52] Harley: have never done this.
Yeah. But that, that's only part of it. the main reason I, I got a good number and these, these houses were small. They were a hundred [00:26:00] and, 35 square meters, single story, three bedroom houses
[00:26:03] Hamish: and, and just, and just that makes that number even more incredible because for context, like the smaller the volume, the harder it is to get that really, really tight.
[00:26:12] Harley: Correct building. Yeah. The smallest building is the harder it's to get a good airtight number. Yes. Yeah. so the, the thing that made it easy was the shape of the house. It was a box. Okay. A form. Yeah. It was a box. Yeah. But it was a sexy box. Box. It can be beautiful, boxy and beautiful. Sexy. So where does Logic House then come into this?
So a, as a consultant I was then advising people how to, how to build like this to build sexy
[00:26:35] Hamish: boxes. Well
[00:26:37] Harley: build whatever they wanted to build. Yeah. And the, and the, the first few clients, they weren't building sexy boxes. They were, they were building very complicated sexy boxes, complicated shaped houses.
That was, yeah. Unsexy boxes. Yeah. And I, frustrated because, um. Um, way buildings are built here, it's so far from what you need to, to achieve a pacif house. Like on my project, it was dead easy. I, I [00:27:00] had full control over everything. It is done my way.
But on the, on these other builds,
[00:27:05] Hamish: you
[00:27:05] Harley: have to follow certain process and the consultant has no power. You're constrained because there's a limited budget. The house has to look a certain way. The products were not available.
[00:27:15] Hamish: Yeah.
[00:27:15] Harley: The ones that were maybe the client didn't like them or couldn't afford them, I found it frustrating for the first few projects and I, I got a few certified over the line, but I thought there's gotta be a better way to contribute to this industry, not as a consultant, but as something else.
And I thought, well, as a consultant, I was recommending Windows. And I had maybe one or two that I could recommend, and I thought, why don't I start doing Windows? And as a consultant, you can't consult and recommend Windows and sell windows. You, you, you do one or the other. Yeah. You can't do both. It's a conflict of interest.
[00:27:51] Hamish: Yeah.
[00:27:52] Harley: So at one point I said, let's stop doing consulting and let's start doing products. And Windows was at the top of the list, but it [00:28:00] wasn't just Windows. I wanted to. Supply all the product that we can't get in Australia. At the time, it was hard to get hit recovery ventilation systems. It was hard to get windows and it was hard to get prefabricated wall systems.
The the dream was to supply everything I wanted to. Be the godfather of Pacif House. There were the four companies that the um, prefabricated wall system, windows, ventilation, and, uh, and membranes. Right? now those companies they do a lot of passive house work. Okay. And those are the products that people need to pull off a passive house project.
Yep. And. all those companies, what they do is they have, they have something in common. they import all of their products.
[00:28:42] Hamish: Yeah.
[00:28:42] Harley: My windows come from Poland. The wraps come from Germany. The panels come from overseas in China. Some, some of it's, uh, COT from
[00:28:52] Matt: Australia. Yeah, I think, I think the products are like the, the Canadian, it's Canadian Pine.
Canadian OSB. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
[00:28:59] Harley: And then you've got the [00:29:00] ventilation systems made, the, the Netherlands. Yeah. And look, we, we make no apologies that it's not Australian Made. Now, the, the reason is we are leading the way. So as an individual, I was trying to lead the way by building a passive house. As a company, we are leading the way by importing products from the future.
we, I think of it as we're going to Europe and we are getting what is bog standard over there and bring it over here. And it's like we are going 20 years into the future by doing that. Okay. I'm, I'm a time traveling businessman. I've gone into the future 20 years, I've got something and I brought it back to our present day in Australia and the clients love it.
It's so futuristic compared to the stuff that's available here. Right.
[00:29:45] Hamish: If we don't use that as a reel, I dunno.
[00:29:47] Matt: And, but can I just touch on one important, important point? You created a market and I feel at the moment there's so many people trying to jump on this market because it's a new shiny thing. You physically had to create a window market [00:30:00] for awesome, uh, a market for awesome windows.
Yeah. That, that's right. Yeah. I mean,
[00:30:04] Harley: there are other companies like me as well that, that have paved the way Yeah. To, to, to import windows. Uh, are there though, I'm
[00:30:09] Matt: gonna, I'm gonna challenge you back there. I think you are the, the reason why we're here. Who
[00:30:13] Hamish: else was there?
[00:30:13] Matt: Yeah. There's no one else that has done it.
I
[00:30:15] Harley: mean, there, there are companies but we, we serve as the passive house market the most we've got, yeah. A third of the certified passive houses, uh, have our windows in. But yeah, if we are pioneers good. but the, the idea is to not forever import windows, ultimately it would be great if we could grow this market so that everybody wants these kinds of windows, not, not necessarily ours.
[00:30:36] Hamish: Yeah.
[00:30:37] Harley: If everybody wants double and triple glazed airtight windows that are sexy then that will create a market enough so that a local manufacturer can then. Start making them. Yeah. And guess what? We are starting to make some of these. Yep. Alright. Yep.
[00:30:51] Hamish: We are, you know, and, and I think what I love about that conversation that we were literally just having then was you are not trying [00:31:00] to keep the market to yourself.
You're not trying to be greedy. Like I feel that you want everyone to succeed and everyone to every, you want everyone to build this way. The fact that you sell a market leading window to the passive house, market. It doesn't exclude the fact that you want other people to come into that market to provide other windows for a broader part of the com uh, community.
[00:31:25] Harley: that's right. We're, it's not, it's not a a zero sum game. We, we, if we can't win a job, we will recommend one of our competitors. Yeah, because we, we want the client to end up with a high performance window. It's no
[00:31:36] Matt: different to what we do as building. Exactly.
[00:31:38] Harley: Yeah. And what we don't want is to say to the client, yeah, go, go get an AWS window or get, get something.
Yeah. Yeah. I remember when I was
[00:31:44] Matt: sold some, I had to remember, I'm not gonna say the company, uh, I still remember the day they came out on site to my project in Westwood Gray, and they sell the windows as like, oh, these ones might keep water out. Or you could get these ones that, that are pretty good, but might keep water right.[00:32:00]
Like that was like, although this is what the basic we have, and I'm like, hold, like, what is wrong with, and I just then finished a passive house course being like, wait, what was the, I wish I had that time, that conversation post doing that course. Oh yeah. We, we, we, we've gotta stay clear the cowboy companies that, yeah, yeah. Which is 99.9% of the window manufacturers in Australia. Yeah. So that's the reality.
[00:32:22] Hamish: I would love to keep chatting, but the reality is I need to go and get my side.
[00:32:27] Matt: Well, we might do part, do you wanna do part two tomorrow? I reckon? Do part two and we'll touch on tomorrow. More logic cast windows.
[00:32:31] Hamish: Yep.
Let's do that. Yep. Happy. That sounds good. Yeah. Done.