What is a normal house?
Why does the phrase sustainable home still sound like it belongs in a glossy magazine?
That was one of the big questions we kept coming back to in this conversation with Helen, CEO of Renew. Because for something that should be practical, achievable, and increasingly normal, sustainable building still gets talked about like it is a premium add-on. A nice idea. A bonus feature. Something for people with endless budgets and architect-designed homes on sprawling blocks.
But the more we talk to people in this space, the clearer it becomes: that framing is part of the problem.
Sustainability Needs to Feel Normal
Sustainability is no longer a fringe conversation. It is moving into the mainstream, and not just because governments are starting to pay attention. That matters, of course. But a lot of the momentum is still coming from everyday people asking better questions about how they live, what they build, and what kind of future they want to be part of.
That grassroots shift matters. Because real change in construction rarely starts with a press release. It starts when enough people stop accepting the old way as the only way.
A Sustainable Home Is Not Just for Wealthy People
One of the most useful parts of this conversation was challenging the idea that sustainability automatically means expensive. Because yes, some features cost more upfront. But a lot of sustainable design comes down to decisions, not luxury.
Orientation. Shading. Airtightness. Draught-proofing. Solar. Small upgrades that improve comfort, reduce running costs, and make homes healthier to live in. None of that should be treated like niche knowledge. It should be part of the baseline.
Helen put this beautifully. Sustainability is not about building some perfect eco-home fantasy. It is about building regular homes that perform better. Homes that are more comfortable, more efficient, and more resilient over time.
Renters Are Part of This Conversation Too
We also got into something that often gets missed in sustainability conversations: renters.
Because if you do not own the home you live in, your options can feel pretty limited. You might know the place is draughty, inefficient, freezing in winter, or unbearable in summer... but you do not exactly have free rein to knock out walls or install a full energy upgrade.
That is why it matters to talk about low-cost, temporary improvements as well as policy change. Things like sealing gaps, using portable induction cooktops, and improving comfort in simple ways can still make a difference. And broader legislative reform, like the rental efficiency standards being pushed in places like Victoria, is a huge part of making sustainable living more accessible.
Community Living Has a Role to Play
Another part of the conversation we loved was around community-led housing and shared spaces.
There is something powerful about developments that move away from the old model of isolated homes and instead create opportunities for connection, shared gardens, and better use of land. Projects like The Paddock in Castlemaine show that sustainability is not just about the building envelope. It is also about how we live together.
That shift matters. Because homes do not exist in a vacuum. The way neighbourhoods are designed affects wellbeing, resource use, resilience, and the sense of belonging people feel in the places they live.
Sustainable House Day Makes It Real
If you have ever wondered what sustainable living actually looks like in practice, Sustainable House Day is one of the best ways to see it for yourself.
Rather than talking in theory, it opens the door to real homes, real projects, and real conversations. The kind that helps demystify sustainability and show that these ideas are not out of reach. They are already happening. And often in ways that are far more practical and relatable than people expect.
Sustainability does not need better branding. It needs better normalisation.
The more we can make healthy, efficient, all-electric, well-designed homes feel standard rather than exceptional, the better off everyone will be. Builders. Homeowners. Renters. Communities. All of us.
Because the goal is not to make sustainable homes feel special forever.
It is to make them feel completely ordinary.
LINKS:
Connect with Renew:
Sustainable House Day:
https://sustainablehouseday.com/
Pro Clima - https://mindful-builder.captivate.fm/proclima
MEGT - https://mindful-builder.captivate.fm/megt
Connect with us on Instagram: @themindfulbuilderpod
Website: www.yoursanctum.com.au/
Connect with Matt:
Instagram: @carlandconstructions
Website: www.carlandconstructions.com/
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[00:00:00] Matt: Hey team, things are going to look a little different coming up, but this is a good thing. Sometimes change is hard and it's something that we have been working on in the background for a little while now. Honestly, change is good. It's a whole reason Hamish and I started the podcast and we're filled.
[00:00:17] The building industry needs it. Oh, and by the way, I'm Matt Amy's co-host who loves to poke the bear. But what's cool is we are now recording from the Pro Climber Australia Studios, who are our major sponsor of our podcast. It's like the perfect combination. We're kind of like Batman and Robin fighting the crime against an outdated, crappy building industry with a perfect combination of pushing boundaries, sharing our knowledge, and starting rural conversation about how we can improve the industry.
[00:00:43] Of course, I'm Batman and really Hamish is a little bit more like Alfred. Anyway, enjoy today's episode, which is coming directly from the pro climber built to last studio.
[00:00:58] Hamish: We are coming from [00:01:00] our mobile pro climber built to last studio today, so pro climber being one of our major sponsors. Uh, thank you Proclama team. Um, today we are joined by Helen from Renew, CEO of renew. Um, Helen, before I ask my first question, who are you?
[00:01:17] Helen: So, I am somebody who about 25 years ago looked up from my day job, which was, I was actually a speech pathologist, would you believe?
[00:01:26] Worked with kids for 10 years and looked up for my day job and suddenly went, I think I'm a bit worried about climate change. What can I do? Where can I volunteer? How do I go and get involved? And I inadvertently enrolled myself in a environmental law masters and then
[00:01:43] Matt: Oh wow.
[00:01:43] Helen: Rocked into a job at Greenpeace in Canberra.
[00:01:47] Um, felt very lucky to get that role. And it was a political advocacy team in Canberra. And so started there as a research admin person and I was still doing, uh, speech pathology. [00:02:00] For half the week and a bit of Greenpeace for the other half of the week for you.
[00:02:03] Hamish: But didn't in Canberra. Lived in Canberra.
[00:02:04] Helen: Sorry?
[00:02:04] Hamish: You lived in Canberra?
[00:02:05] Helen: Yeah, I did. I mean, I didn't intend to stay in Canberra as long as I did. I was there for 25 years in total. What's wrong in
[00:02:10] Hamish: Canberra?
[00:02:11] Helen: Uh, nothing's just not where I was from. I'm, I'm a Melbourne girl and I went to Canberra 'cause my parents were there and I love living there. It was great.
[00:02:19] Um, and then I just, and then I just got this dream job and I, I stayed because it was so good. So you
[00:02:25] Matt: been at Renew for a long time?
[00:02:27] Helen: No, I've been at Renew for only two years. Huh. Um, yeah, so I worked for Greenpeace for eight years and then I worked in the a CT Parliament for eight years and then I headed up, um, the ACT's, uh, conservation Peak Body for about four years during COVID.
[00:02:41] So that felt like eight years. Yeah. Um, and then we relocated back to Melbourne a couple years ago, about three years ago, um, to be with family. So, yeah. And came back to Melbourne and then got this job a couple of years ago because Renew is an organization that I've known about for a very long time.
[00:02:56] 'cause we're a 45-year-old organization this year. [00:03:00] Uh, we used to be called the Alternative Technology Association, and it was started in the 1980s by, you know, a group of passionate, uh, people who, you know, loved solar panels and renewable energy, but. Nobody really knew what that was. Yeah. Let alone believed that it would actually work to create electricity.
[00:03:17] Um, and these guys used to, you know, put solar panels on the back of trailers and drive them around and show them to people. Um, and when I applied for the job, it was really interesting 'cause my, my brother is a, uh, wind engineer and he said to me, oh yeah, I used to be, I used to be a member of the a TA and I was on the board of the a TA back in the eighties and it was this beautiful symmetry as well.
[00:03:38] But, you know, today renews about living sustainably, so it's about solar panels and it's about sustainable homes and design and building and electrification and batteries and, you know, so it's become. Something that was kind of, you know, uh, a bit niche has become something that's becoming much more mainstream.
[00:03:55] Hamish: I was just gonna say, like, you just talking fication all, like, all, everything that you have [00:04:00] just talked about now is just normal.
[00:04:01] Matt: Maybe I live in a bubble, but it's stuck. I feel like we don't even need the electrification conversation. I know we do, but like, it's like we do got how many
[00:04:08] Hamish: millions of homes need to get
[00:04:10] Matt: off?
[00:04:10] Well, I know, but like, there's so much information and data to show that it works.
[00:04:15] Hamish: Oh, yeah.
[00:04:16] Matt: Like that's why, that's why, I mean, do we even need to have the conversation? Like it it's
[00:04:19] a,
[00:04:19] Helen: it's a really good question. 'cause you know, in the a CT we persuaded the government to get off gas. Yeah. Um, when I was up there and they made a commitment to get off gas by 2045 and they're the second highest user of gas per capita in the residential sector.
[00:04:30] But Canberra's
[00:04:30] Matt: quite progressive though.
[00:04:32] Helen: Yep. Yes. And then Victoria followed and they're the highest per capita user of gas. And they've got a, you know, they get off gas roadmap and they've made some real strides. So it's, you know, what you're saying is kind of true. Governments are getting it.
[00:04:42] Matt: Yeah.
[00:04:42] Helen: And I reckon households will get it when they can see that the cost benefit is so high and that the technology for, you know, induction cooktops are so fun and cool and easy to use and, and
[00:04:53] Matt: they are keep clean.
[00:04:54] But like I, and I look at the moment, energy prices are expensive. Yeah. But we keep [00:05:00] subsidizing energy prices. Are we gonna take some, if you build, can we just put solar panels and a battery in full electrification? And you know what, your energy bills are pretty small. Like the answer there.
[00:05:09] Helen: House runs itself.
[00:05:10] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's honestly, like, I don't want come across a wrong way here, but like, if you choose not to do that, um, I understand people that maybe can't afford it, but if you are building, you actively putting a gas appliance, that's your problem for, don't complain that it's too expensive. Like,
[00:05:24] Helen: yeah.
[00:05:25] So that's, I mean, that's the, that's the big challenge now, right? We know what, we know what to do. Yeah, but it's the people who can't afford to outlay the capital, especially to do it. Yeah. And that's where governments need to step in and really definitely kind of make that happen with the rebates and the programs and the targeted programs and stuff.
[00:05:40] And, and then, 'cause the risk is that, you know, if everyone's left on the gas network, the people who are left on the network will pay these really high prices and they're the people who will be least able to afford. That's the
[00:05:50] Hamish: iron. So, irony of it all, isn't
[00:05:51] Helen: it? Yeah. So that's, you know, government's got a really big role there.
[00:05:53] I reckon
[00:05:54] Matt: that's, yeah. So, 'cause part of Renew, you've got Renew and Sanctuary, they're under the [00:06:00] same banner.
[00:06:00] Helen: Yep. They're the two magazines
[00:06:02] Matt: that we're publish publish two magazines. Yeah. Yeah. But ultimately it's about sustainability. Yeah. What would you define as then a sustainable home?
[00:06:09] Helen: Uh, I think a sustainable Home is one that uses, uh, both in its construction and in its running as little resource as possible.
[00:06:21] So. And the beautiful thing about a sustainable home that you are conceptualizing from the beginning is that you can make a whole bunch of decisions about before you build it, what it's gonna look like and how it's gonna face, you know, what, how it's gonna be oriented and what you're gonna build it out of.
[00:06:36] We don't all get to make those choices.
[00:06:38] Matt: Yeah.
[00:06:38] Helen: Um, you know, we've got 11 million homes in Australia, uh, 70% of them built before there was energy efficiency standards. So if you've got a house that's built pre 2010 and it's energy efficient, you're probably pretty lucky.
[00:06:52] Matt: Yeah. The average, I think average, is it?
[00:06:54] Yeah. Two on average. 2.2 stars.
[00:06:56] Helen: Yeah. Something like
[00:06:57] Matt: that.
[00:06:58] Helen: Yeah.
[00:06:58] Matt: Yeah. And that's on average. [00:07:00]
[00:07:00] Helen: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's a whole bunch of them. They're like sitting on zero, right? Or that, yeah. Can't even get up over the, and
[00:07:05] Matt: mostly say most people live in that. Like, and I've gone from that recently, so I dunno, Hamish, you know, I might live in a passive house now, you know, a passive house.
[00:07:13] So not, it was on ground design too. Uh, so you what really?
[00:07:21] Helen: I hadn't noticed.
[00:07:22] Matt: So you, like, I've gone from like, I don't even have you, you've
[00:07:27] Hamish: gone literally from the quintessential experience of most Victorians.
[00:07:31] Matt: Yeah. I don't even, how to describe it. Like,
[00:07:33] Hamish: like just a drafty cold, you know, you, you're actually heating.
[00:07:36] It was actually a room to stay warm. Not the whole
[00:07:38] Matt: house. It was, it was actually warmer outside. Sometimes in winter, sometimes it's inside, like, and now I come in, and this is not to glow, but my wife and she hates it when I tell her this, when it was 45 the other day. It was too hot to open the window. So she goes, I'm just having a shower to warm up.
[00:07:55] God's having, that's the level of Yeah, but we should be getting to, hang on,
[00:07:58] Hamish: let, let's, let's say, this is an [00:08:00] interesting point. She's having a shower to warm up using, uh, solar powered hot water.
[00:08:05] Matt: Yeah. So like what I'm getting, that's what I'm getting at Energy free is
[00:08:08] Hamish: energy free hot
[00:08:09] Matt: water. And it works. But it, it's like, and I actually, now I've said this to Hamish, I really now struggle advocating for sustainable construction and talking about this type of home because it far exceeds what even I expect, right?
[00:08:22] Expected. And I really hate the word sustainable home. Like why is it just like it's home?
[00:08:28] Helen: Well, you know what I reckon those of us that work in sustainability, yeah. Just house don't like the word sustainability sometimes.
[00:08:34] Matt: Yeah.
[00:08:34] Helen: But I also think that we have to remember that. We are still talking to people about stuff that people don't understand.
[00:08:40] Yeah. And I reckon the community's just getting a hold of that word and we shouldn't walk away from it. Right. Yeah.
[00:08:45] Hamish: So that's just really interesting. 'cause I, I, I don't know if I can talk about this, but I will anyway, so I had a big planning two planning days last week with SBA and I actually challenged the team in this meeting about using the word sustainable.
[00:08:58] I said, I actually feel if [00:09:00] you kind of zoom out out of our bubble and look at the people that we're trying to attract into this organization, I think we need to drop the word sustainable.
[00:09:08] Helen: Maybe, I mean, it depends, you know, there's a lot of campaigns around,
[00:09:13] Hamish: by
[00:09:13] Helen: the way, sustainability,
[00:09:13] Hamish: people listening to this.
[00:09:14] We're not copying the word sustainability
[00:09:17] Helen: builder,
[00:09:18] Hamish: the logo conversation, just the just builder and someone take the UL it, it more, it was more,
[00:09:23] Helen: it is a good thought though. How
[00:09:25] Hamish: do, how do we educate?
[00:09:25] Helen: How do we communicate?
[00:09:26] Hamish: Yeah. How do we communicate? And that's a marketing piece, right?
[00:09:28] Helen: Well, it is, and I mean, we talk about it, you know, we run sustainable house days, so we've got that in our, in our, one of our biggest events is called, has got that word in it.
[00:09:36] And, um, you know, I think, but a lot of other people have started thinking about, well, what does it look like? Well, it's, it's healthy homes. It looks exactly the same. It's comfortable homes. And it's safe homes. Yeah. And we're talking about homes that are both energy efficient to run, are comfortable to live in for the people who live in them and are safe in terms of climate, being climate safe and are resilient in the face of things like, you know, [00:10:00] smoke and, um, storm air and air quality and all that sort of stuff.
[00:10:04] And so. Uh, when we unpack it, we know what it means. And obviously I always say, you know, you can have a word. Don't worry about the word so much. What, what matters is the stories that you're telling Exactly in the community to people at different points in time. And that's
[00:10:17] Hamish: actually exactly what I was challenging the, the group last week about like, how do we, how do we bring everyone along for the journey?
[00:10:23] 'cause I reckon if you just, if you got them in and started talking to 'em about like the facts, all the things that you just talked about, I would say 95% of people would be like, oh yeah, that makes sense.
[00:10:34] Matt: Right? What you need.
[00:10:35] Hamish: That makes sense.
[00:10:36] Matt: What you need with Sustainable House stays almost. You need Sustainable House night when it's damn cold outside and everyone stays night has sleepover and they wake up going, gee, I slept pretty well.
[00:10:44] Helen: I think that's good. The CEO sleep out, isn't it? Yes. CEO Sleep in
[00:10:50] Hamish: We digs for a second. I just wanna circle back to something you said earlier on. So, um, 25 years ago, you're a speech pathologist. Mm-hmm. Now, um, we're going through a really [00:11:00] fantastic experience with speech pathology moment with my middle child.
[00:11:03] Now I look at what, um, this particular person's doing for my children at the moment, and it's such a fantastic thing, helping people. Why the shift? You're, you're already in a industry where you are actively improving people's lives and you know. I, I don't have a severely autistic child, but I have a child that is, you know, going through some stuff that we need to help 'em with.
[00:11:26] Like, you could be life changing for some people in that role.
[00:11:30] Helen: Mm.
[00:11:30] Matt: She's doing that now though.
[00:11:31] Hamish: Why? Yeah. What, and you
[00:11:32] Helen: know,
[00:11:32] Hamish: I guess I'm just trying to understand, moving, moving from
[00:11:35] Helen: this, this, it's a good question. I mean, I, I, and, and there were some lives that I, I do know that I did, did touch on and, and I, but I also know that other equally as good, well qualified speech pathologists could have also changed those people's lives.
[00:11:49] 'cause you know, you have a four year degree and you know what you're doing. So you, you do what you're supposed to be doing professionally. Um, but for me, at a personal level, um, I didn't actually start out by, [00:12:00] to plan a career change. I started out by going back to uni to get some skills so that I could volunteer.
[00:12:04] I wanted to go and volunteer for an environment.
[00:12:07] Hamish: I went to university to volunteer.
[00:12:07] Helen: What was that?
[00:12:08] Hamish: You went to university? So I could go and volunteer.
[00:12:11] Helen: Yeah, I suppose I did. So, rack up, rack up,
[00:12:14] Matt: rack up, rack up a h extent.
[00:12:17] Helen: Well, no, I just paid up front.
[00:12:18] Matt: Yeah,
[00:12:19] Helen: yeah. Um, it was a very short qualification. Okay. It was, I did it part-time over a couple years and, and I mean, I was the only speech pathologist that was doing environmental law that year.
[00:12:29] Um, it was a lot of lawyers and there was a lot of environmental people. Yeah. And I remember going around the table introducing ourselves and I was like, and I'm a, um, speech pathologist. That's a bit weird. But anyway. Um, but I think it was because I had a bit of a naive idea that we just needed to get in the ear of politicians and tell 'em how it was and they would fix it.
[00:12:51] And guess what? That doesn't work. I don't know. I
[00:12:53] Matt: don't know if it's that easy,
[00:12:54] Helen: you know, this, it's a, it's a whole journey. So, you know, I was pretty, I was, I was pretty young at the time, but. I wanted to be part of an [00:13:00] organization. I was, you know, at that time when I talked to my friends about what I wanted to do, most people didn't know much about climate change.
[00:13:06] Mm-hmm. Um, they didn't know much about sustainability. I think my friends always thought I was a bit of a greenie, you know? Um, always talk about the ozone layer back in the nineties. Yeah. And telling my cousin not to use hair spray out of a spray bottle, stuff like that. You might not have, remember that You're
[00:13:19] Hamish: a bit young,
[00:13:20] Helen: but, but you know,
[00:13:22] Matt: I was born in the eighties.
[00:13:22] It was 89.
[00:13:23] Helen: Yeah. The hairspray. I have no hair
[00:13:24] Matt: left anyway. I have no hair left anyway, so there's no hair to spray up anymore.
[00:13:29] Helen: Um, a big and big hair was a, a big thing back then, right? So there was a lot of hairspray going on. So
[00:13:34] Matt: lots of hairspray.
[00:13:35] Helen: Um. So, yeah, so I think it was just a, a, an opportunity to think about how to make a difference in a different way.
[00:13:40] And I guess that's, you know, as you go through your career, you're always, you're always sort of evaluating, particularly in this space with climate change and, and, um, is you're always evaluating how to best influence things around you in the best way you can. And also, you know, you've gotta have a job and, and, uh, you know, keep, keep some income coming in as well, you know, [00:14:00] but, but I think, um, yeah, constantly taking stock of how we, how we make change.
[00:14:05] And it's, it's very interesting for me to land at Renew because Renew is a very, is an organization that's very focused on community capacity building and enabling people in the community to make changes at a household level. And in some ways that was quite confronting for me at first. I'm like, you know, we're not gonna actually solve the climate crisis one house at a time.
[00:14:23] But if there's anything I learned from my time, you know, lobbying politicians and being in that political space, it's that politicians generally don't lead. They generally follow the community. They want the community to show them that they want the changes to happen, the systemic changes, and they wanna see that things can happen and that the community can make stuff happen.
[00:14:44] Matt: That's who votes for 'em, that's why. Yeah.
[00:14:45] Helen: Right. Because that's who votes for them. Yeah. And so the, so the, you know, the, the political change that we wanna see is not political change, it's social change. And social change happens because there's a momentum for it. And momentum happens because the community.
[00:14:59] [00:15:00] Learns about stuff or, or demonstrates that things can happen. And then politicians go, oh, look what you can do there that's really clever. Or a business, you know, creates some invents, something new and they put it in front of government and governments go, oh, that's, that's good that you're doing that.
[00:15:12] We'd, we'd like to get on board with that. So, you know, and I think I was probably just very naive about how social change happened when I started.
[00:15:18] Hamish: Have you got an example of, um, the time that you were working in Canberra of like one of those moments where, you know, you were involved in maybe a community group which then got into the year of a politician and then you actually saw some, like, tangible change off the back of that?
[00:15:32] Helen: Yeah, I mean the, the first one I saw was back in 2011 and the a CT government was about to set its climate change target for 2020. And, um, and a, you know, and in some ways a lot of people in the community didn't even know this was happening. But the local climate orgs and the stu and some students at the uni got really mobilized and they started campaigning for a 40% target by 2020.
[00:15:57] You've gotta remember back in 2011, that was a big [00:16:00] target. Yeah. But that's what the science was telling us that they needed. And we all know that the a CT is tiny and that their energy consumption is not industrialized. So it's very, it's very niche, but
[00:16:09] Hamish: lots of solar panels. Yeah,
[00:16:10] Helen: lots of solar panels.
[00:16:11] Hamish: Bluebird like always
[00:16:12] Matt: blue skies and
[00:16:13] Hamish: day
[00:16:13] Helen: blue skies. Yeah. And, and people who, you know, average income in the act is a little bit higher than it is in, in other parts of the country.
[00:16:20] Hamish: Lots of
[00:16:21] Helen: employed people, so people can afford some of the upfront costs. But, um, but also the government, you know, the government had kind of really got bit bogged down in sort of climate policies that weren't really going anywhere.
[00:16:32] And anyway, this, this little group, it was called Canberra, loves 40%. And they put it on t-shirts and they started campaigning and they were out there in front of politicians. And because, uh, the politicians are very close to the people in the a CT, 'cause, you know, everyone knows everybody. Um, it gave the, it gave the government of the day the space to do that.
[00:16:50] And they, they did that. And once they did that, they started, you know, that kickstarted a whole bunch of stuff, like the large scale feed in tariffs, um, where the a CT started purchasing renewable energy [00:17:00] outta the grid. Um, and so the a CT was a hundred percent renewable by 23.
[00:17:03] Hamish: So, so when, when you're talking about, um, uh, getting in front of, um, government, you're not talking federal because, no.
[00:17:09] That was the a CT government because you, there's potentially just wanna clarify that because even though you are in Canberra. You know, they do still have Oh, oh yeah, that's right. I, I
[00:17:18] Helen: was in, in little Canberra. Yeah.
[00:17:19] Hamish: Yeah. They, they still do have like a, like Canberra
[00:17:23] Helen: or a ct. Yeah. I, I, I speak of some from somebody who's lived there for 25 years.
[00:17:26] Yeah. And, um, I, federal politicians to ask to people who live in Canberra, federal politicians are people who just turn up every few weeks.
[00:17:34] Hamish: Yep.
[00:17:34] Helen: And when people say, I don't like Canberra, 'cause of all the politicians, I'm like, yeah, but you sent them here. Yeah. Like, they're not ours.
[00:17:39] Hamish: Whereabouts in, can, whereabouts in Canberra were you?
[00:17:42] Helen: Uh, I lived in a few places, mostly on the north side. I've spent, spent a year down on the south side. You know, it's a very small place, so it's pretty easy to get around and you have to drive more
[00:17:50] Hamish: than it's 20 minutes away and a few, it's
[00:17:51] Helen: about safe. It's more than 20 minutes away. You don't go.
[00:17:53] Hamish: So my, my wife's from Canberra.
[00:17:55] She's, um, family house in, uh, in Chapman. So we go up there a couple times a year. So I know, [00:18:00] I know, I know Cam very, very familiar with Canberra and seen a really positive change over the last 20 odd years that me and Lisa have been together. So I really, I really like Canberra.
[00:18:08] Helen: It's actually a beautiful place to live, and it's a really great place if you've got kids.
[00:18:11] Yeah. Young kids. You know, I used to throw my lad on the back of the bike and
[00:18:14] Hamish: Yep.
[00:18:14] Helen: Um, commute into work every day. Drop him off at the, you know, daycare center and then keep riding and
[00:18:19] Hamish: two hours to the ski fields. Two hours to the coast.
[00:18:21] Helen: Two hours to the coast. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's a beautiful spot.
[00:18:23] Hamish: Beautiful spot.
[00:18:24] Helen: They don't like us talking about it too much, just in case people turn
[00:18:27] Hamish: up. Yeah, exactly. And, and do you know what, the south coast of New South Wales is terrible. Don't go, don't go there.
[00:18:32] Helen: No, it's, that's a horrible place I've heard.
[00:18:33] Hamish: Yeah, it's really terrible. I don't want the beaches that we go to every year.
[00:18:37] Right. To be crowded.
[00:18:39] Matt: Sustainable house day. So March? No, you put no, you put in the thing March 17th and I'm like, what's not March 17th? It's actually May 17th.
[00:18:48] Helen: It's May the
[00:18:49] Matt: 17th. May 17th. That's
[00:18:50] Helen: right. Yeah.
[00:18:51] Matt: It, it's not just about Sustainable House Day. You'll do like a bit of a whole month with webinars and all this other stuff.
[00:18:56] Helen: Yeah, we do.
[00:18:57] Matt: So,
[00:18:57] Helen: yep.
[00:18:58] Matt: Want to kind of [00:19:00] really expand on that because personally that's a resource I use when I first started going down this road. Um,
[00:19:05] Hamish: and everyone knows about Sustainable House Day.
[00:19:07] Matt: Yeah.
[00:19:08] Hamish: Everyone knows that.
[00:19:08] Helen: Thats good.
[00:19:09] Matt: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:19:09] Hamish: Well, maybe I'm just in a bubble.
[00:19:10] Helen: Check us out on Instagram at the moment.
[00:19:12] It's looking pretty. It's looking pretty nice. Great. Alright. Yeah. So we're gonna, we'll Instagram is just sustainable House day.
[00:19:17] Matt: We'll, we'll easy find.
[00:19:18] Hamish: Yep. Beautiful.
[00:19:19] Matt: Yeah. So. Essentially today we can go around and check out houses that are sustainable, um, and understand what they might look and feel like.
[00:19:28] The hard part, as we sort of joked before that, it's sort of hard to experience unless you live in them a hundred percent. What it does is it gives confidence that sustainable architecture and houses aren't concrete boxes or boring. Like they can look sexy. Well, they, they're not, they're not hippie.
[00:19:42] They're not hippie boxes.
[00:19:43] Hamish: Right. They're, they're, they're, they're beautiful homes. That just make sense.
[00:19:48] Matt: Well, as I think it was, Anna said, like when she first started the working in the magazine, that should take any how she could get didn't look good. But now, like the competition's hard to get into those magazines.
[00:19:57] Hard
[00:19:58] Hamish: it is to get into Sanctuary Magazine [00:20:00] now.
[00:20:00] Matt: I
[00:20:00] Helen: didn't actually, but I do know I got two last year.
[00:20:03] Matt: Yeah, no, no, no. I've been in it too. Um,
[00:20:05] Helen: yeah, it's some pretty good criteria going on at the moment. It
[00:20:08] Hamish: is, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:20:08] Helen: It's, you know, it's an interesting thing 'cause Sanctuary Magazine, the idea that a sustainable house is a beautiful house.
[00:20:14] Yeah. Something that I feel is, is sort of out there a little bit. Obviously sustainable houses can be really beautiful homes. Um, I think the, the idea that we are trying to get out there as well now is that normal homes can be massively sustainable. And that's, that's actually a bit harder 'cause people are like, oh, sustainable House Day and Sanctuary.
[00:20:34] It's all very beautiful. Um,
[00:20:36] Hamish: unachievable, you know, to
[00:20:37] Helen: unachievable out of reach for rich people.
[00:20:40] Matt: Yep.
[00:20:40] Helen: Buildings
[00:20:41] Matt: for I building is for rich people. Like I think we've gotta all acknowledge that right now.
[00:20:44] Helen: I think building, yes. Yeah, building. But, but, but, but sustainability, there's always a point where
[00:20:49] Matt: doesn't any, it doesn't add any extra cost.
[00:20:50] Helen: Right? We, there's places where people can tap into sustainability no matter where they're up to in that journey. And it, it might be, you know, with your caulking gun going around, sealing up your gaps, or it [00:21:00] might be putting your ceiling installation in, or it might be, if you're lucky. Retrofitting your double glazing or
[00:21:05] Hamish: whatever.
[00:21:05] Yeah, because, because let's, let's be clear here. Sustainable House Day is not just for new homes. It's actually Good point. And I think there's gonna be a big focus on, I remember, um, Ben Russell's house last year. He's Alistair Knox Home in war. Um, sold out like that last year. I remember, uh, 'cause I remember talking to his wife about having to, she's exhausted.
[00:21:24] She, she's, she's still exhausted by it.
[00:21:26] Matt: Um, 'cause you do resources like. Converting to like electric electrification. Yeah. There's also just like sealing up,
[00:21:32] Hamish: I guess the point I was making is not just new homes, it's all, that's all existing homes of people that, that might have done some modifications, which would then lead to a healthier, comfortable home.
[00:21:40] Helen: Yeah, that's right. So we, we, you know, we are really keen to showcase lots of, we had a lot, lots of new retrofits that were listed last year. Yeah. Um, and lots of homes that are on that electrification journey. So people who've either just electrified their homes or people who've gone back and done that thermal efficiency work on their homes.
[00:21:56] Um, and I think, you know, it is a bit of a sequence and I, I did it on my house in [00:22:00] Canberra. It's, you know, it was a three bedroom, 1959 cottage and it was, you know, I remember when we bought it and moved in the day the ceiling insulation went in. 'cause I could literally feel the difference. We were in a heat wave.
[00:22:11] Hamish: Oh, so you didn't have Mr. Fluffy in there?
[00:22:13] Helen: I thought I did for a minute, but no, got
[00:22:15] Hamish: the asbestos in
[00:22:15] Helen: session. Got it
[00:22:16] Hamish: tested. Blowing asbestos.
[00:22:17] Helen: Got it tested.
[00:22:18] Matt: It's like the Wizard of Oz again.
[00:22:19] Helen: Yeah. Goodness. That was such a tragic situation. Yeah, it was really, really traumatic for people.
[00:22:24] Hamish: Horrible. Yeah,
[00:22:25] Helen: yeah,
[00:22:25] Hamish: yeah.
[00:22:25] For those who dunno, there was a, there was a period in the 6 56,
[00:22:30] Helen: yeah, I think it was 60 seventies
[00:22:31] Hamish: blowing, blowing insulation and it was blowing asbestos or
[00:22:35] Matt: it was just blown in asbestos. That's it.
[00:22:36] Hamish: Blown. Blown in asbestos. Like it was fibrous, like insulation in the roof. Loose, loose
[00:22:40] Helen: fill.
[00:22:41] Hamish: And it would like get into all the duct work.
[00:22:43] And then the, even when they had it cleared out, geez, fall
[00:22:46] Helen: down between the cavities and the walls.
[00:22:47] Hamish: It was a massive government buyback of all the Mr. Fluffy homes.
[00:22:50] Helen: They
[00:22:51] Matt: all got knocked. It was, it was like from a durability and water perspective, like the best product they, that killed people.
[00:22:55] Hamish: Oh, they weren't, they weren't burning down a bushfire.
[00:22:57] Matt: No, no. Yeah. It's like, it was like the best but worst building. [00:23:00] So I've got a really hard question for you and you've gotta pick one here. So you've got two magazine, sanctuary and, and renew. What's your favorite?
[00:23:07] Helen: Oh no. That's like choosing a favorite child.
[00:23:10] Hamish: Yeah, but let's face it, I've got three kids. I've got a favorite.
[00:23:13] Helen: I love them both.
[00:23:15] Hamish: I'm
[00:23:15] Matt: joking. Which one, if you got one in front of you, which one are you picking up for? Because they're very different.
[00:23:20] Helen: Oh. Pick up whichever one's just come in the door. That's not, I cannot do that. My staff would just, no, I'm, it gives the competition to the opposite. I'm tired. When I'm tired, I would pick up sanctuary.
[00:23:30] Yeah. 'cause it's got more pictures.
[00:23:31] Hamish: Yeah.
[00:23:32] Helen: When, when I'm alert and wanna learn something really useful about, you know, renewable technology, I would pick up or hear a great human story. I'd pick up renew
[00:23:40] Matt: Sanctuary,
[00:23:40] Hamish: like the
[00:23:40] Matt: gateway drug.
[00:23:41] Hamish: Here's, here's a, here's a fun fact. And my wife reminded me, um, this last night when I said you were coming on.
[00:23:46] She goes, remember when we won that, um, solar powered, um, hot water system in Sanctuary? And I'm like, yes. And at the time I didn't own a home, so I ended up selling it. I, I was
[00:23:56] Helen: about to say, did you get it? That's
[00:23:57] Hamish: good that you got it. I sold, I sold it to a friend of mine. Yeah. Yeah. It was [00:24:00] really in the sort of sustainable space.
[00:24:01] But we were just on the verge. On the
[00:24:03] Helen: cusp
[00:24:04] Hamish: buying on the cusp of buying. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, great. I've won it.
[00:24:07] Helen: So where do I put this?
[00:24:08] Hamish: Where do I put this thing? It's great. Um, but I, I mean, I'm, I'm huge fan of. Sanctuary Magazine, like it's probably one of my favorites. 'cause we are
[00:24:15] Matt: builders I think.
[00:24:16] Hamish: I think it's 'cause we're, yeah. Builders
[00:24:17] Matt: and
[00:24:17] Helen: that, I mean, everybody loves a magazine that's got a house plan in it, doesn't it? Yes. Whether it's been renovated, like you can go, oh, there's the before, there's the after. Oh, that's so clever. Um, you know, everyone loves, I love looking at that. I'm, I'm a bit of a map girl, so that's like the map of a house is, is always fun.
[00:24:31] Matt: So yeah. One of the things I wanted to go back to, which is sort of links in now and what really drives me insane about our industry is this like sustainability category when we have all these awards is we have a sustainability section, not Sustainable house. Why the fuck is in every house? Just that is the bare minimum of every
[00:24:49] Hamish: Well,
[00:24:49] Helen: right.
[00:24:49] Why isn't it? Yeah. So, you know, we've got these housing standards that have just come in. Yeah. You know, seven star houses. But we know, I mean, we all know that it's gonna be pretty tough [00:25:00] for. It's gonna be tough to be confident that all new houses are meeting that standard all the time.
[00:25:06] Hamish: Yeah.
[00:25:06] Helen: Um, especially retrofits, but look at a step up from what it was.
[00:25:09] And it's a step up from nothing.
[00:25:11] Hamish: I mean, if only there was a way to ensure that it was built to seven staff
[00:25:14] Helen: compliance,
[00:25:15] Matt: but like, so, so I was, I was on a judging
[00:25:16] Hamish: verification,
[00:25:18] Matt: so I was on a judging panel for one of the associations last year for some awards and the year before that, and I think I've been given the flick because I, I wonder why.
[00:25:27] So they have to sustainability section in there and they're like, oh, we built a six stars. I was like, oh, so you didn't build a code.
[00:25:34] Helen: Wow.
[00:25:34] Matt: So I'm giving 'em zero in that category. And they're like, no, no, but they, they, they put in a rain water tank. I was like, yeah, because the council made them like we, and I don't, I don't think I'm invited back, but like, that's what frustrates me about these awards a lot of the time is that often the, the real stuff is getting missed and we have to have a sustainability category.
[00:25:54] And, and we have to have a sustainability magazine to showcase the houses where like why in [00:26:00] every magazine on the basis of what you guys do is where I'm kind of getting at.
[00:26:04] Helen: Yeah. I, I mean I kind of hope that we're about to see a shift, you know, I know that we've seen even some stuff on grand designs, you know, we started to see, okay, let's not do so grand.
[00:26:11] Right. Because it's brand designs though. Most though sustainable, you know, maybe it could be re rebag. I don't know. There's something there. Sustainable designs. Sustainable designs. That's right. But you know, I, I have a colleague in who works in the space in Canberra, and she used to list her homes in the sustainability category.
[00:26:27] And I remember her telling me a couple years in a row, we were the only people that listed homes to be nominated. No wonder I won because they just, people weren't putting them forward. Yeah. And all these homes were winning awards and, and there was just no tip of the hat. And people are spending a lot of money building very beautiful homes, but they'd just spent a tiny bit more time thinking about it.
[00:26:47] Then there's absolutely no reason why those kinds of people shouldn't be building sustainable homes.
[00:26:51] Hamish: Well, I'll tell you what, sustainability starts the, before you start drawing lines on paper.
[00:26:56] Helen: Exactly.
[00:26:56] Hamish: Like forget about solar panels, forget about rain water [00:27:00] tangs, forget about your appliances, forget about all of that.
[00:27:02] It starts, it's not a bolt on. Like I say, that performance is not a bolt on. I think sustainability is, is not a bolt on either. 'cause you can have an amazingly designed home and it's just facing the absolute wrong
[00:27:12] Helen: Right. Wrong direction,
[00:27:13] Hamish: wrong direction.
[00:27:14] Matt: And for so long, like I like when I, my journey was.
[00:27:18] I'm a green builder, didn't do anything to make myself a green builder. I just thought it was sounded good. That was how it originally started. And then you're like, oh, I've gotta actually understand more. So you do passive house and you see that and it's like you drink the Kool-Aid.
[00:27:29] Hamish: Yep.
[00:27:30] Matt: And then for a period of time you're like, that's the only way to do things.
[00:27:33] I think in the last year and a half I've really learnt that sustainability is just more than that. Like, it's like a puzzle. And whilst you're probably never gonna complete a full puzzle and fit every piece in there, there's multiple aspects that make up.
[00:27:45] Hamish: I'm, I'm, I'm sitting here smiling right now 'cause obviously I'm pretty privy to what we're doing at Sustainability Alliance and I can't talk about it yet, but I'm genuinely excited with some of the things that we're about to bring out that gives people really great.[00:28:00]
[00:28:00] Guidelines around what's, and again, yes, we're kind of driving the narrative here, but what we believe, and I think we're coming from a good pool of builders who actually believe in this stuff, of what actually a good sustainable home is. And it does include a big part of it, performance construction. But then there's all these other things that you need to layer on as well.
[00:28:21] You
[00:28:21] Matt: can't tick every box I tried in my As and you just generally can't.
[00:28:26] Hamish: Uh, but I think you can tick a lot of the boxes though, if you can
[00:28:28] Matt: tick
[00:28:28] Helen: 7, 8, 10. Don't think it's about like every decision that's put in front of you, taking the best decision you can for every, whether it's, whether it's a new home, whether it's a block, whether it's a retrofit, whatever it is, it's about making a choice where you, you're conscious about what you're doing, which is lovely.
[00:28:43] 'cause this is the Mindful Builder podcast, right? So it is actually about that. It's about having a lens that says, okay, here's a decision. What am I gonna do? Here's another decision. What am I gonna do? Yeah, I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it. I'm gonna get the best outcome I can. Yeah. And you know, it was really interesting 'cause somebody, I, I got a question the other day on [00:29:00] a radio interview, which I'll ask, I'll ask you.
[00:29:02] Matt: Yeah. Okay. Go.
[00:29:02] Helen: Carl Ando. It was a Carl and
[00:29:04] Matt: JackieO.
[00:29:07] Helen: Um, and the question was, what about how do you build a sustainable house on a really narrow house block when it's in a, you know, a suburban development and it's facing the wrong way and the block's really long and thin? What do you do? Watch
[00:29:19] Matt: my Grand
[00:29:19] Hamish: Designs episode.
[00:29:20] There you go. Well, it's, I mean, in, in my opinion, it's all about exactly what you just said. Yeah. It's about considering all of the, like in that scenario, it's not gonna be perfect. And the thing is, if we actually said, oh, well, I'm just going to give up and, and just build whatever the fuck I want on that.
[00:29:33] Site, then you're gonna fail. But if all the decisions that you're making is giving you the best possible outcome, then that's a really great result.
[00:29:41] Helen: And it's probably gonna be pretty good.
[00:29:42] Matt: Start with Orient. It's gonna be better than what you had. You're gonna be, be the top 1% house in Australia.
[00:29:46] Hamish: And also, not only that, you're gonna end up with a really cool, unique home.
[00:29:51] You are using this as part of the design consideration.
[00:29:55] Matt: So one of the things that we did with our house, and it talks about before it hits the [00:30:00] pen and paper, is our, we're 190 square meters, 25 meters long by six and a half meters wide. Tiny in, say
[00:30:07] Helen: that again?
[00:30:08] Matt: 25 meters long. Yeah, six and a half wide.
[00:30:10] Helen: Wow.
[00:30:11] Matt: So one night into Yarraville where
[00:30:12] Hamish: we are right now is bigger than Map Block.
[00:30:15] Matt: So it's time. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, so, and the back, the backyard or the front is north. So you, you can't, you're building on, you gonna
[00:30:24] Helen: open up your street frontage to the north. Yeah.
[00:30:25] Matt: So we,
[00:30:25] Hamish: we, you do a really good job of actually bringing in the front yard.
[00:30:29] Matt: So our backyard is our front yard as well. Yeah. We just push it all to one space, which council's minds were blown by that. They're like, oh, where's your backyard? It's like, at the front. No, no. Where's your backyard? At the front. At the front. Like, like, like, we're allowed to choose where to do that. Um,
[00:30:43] Hamish: it's a front backyard.
[00:30:44] Matt: I actually got, this is so stupid. We got told off by, well, we had to go to vcat. One of the reasons was because I had too much North face glazing. Go figure.
[00:30:51] Helen: I'm gonna use your house as the example of that question. I mean, I, I basically answered it, right? I'm like, well, I'm not a builder, but which, but it was kind of, you know, you gotta think about it first, [00:31:00] but I'm gonna get your house out, have a look at it and check it out and go, go, go check out this.
[00:31:03] 'cause yeah,
[00:31:05] Matt: I wish I could do Sustainable House. Say I've just got NDA still around and because of grand Designs, but. And was
[00:31:11] Hamish: your house on designed?
[00:31:12] Matt: Yeah.
[00:31:13] Hamish: Wow.
[00:31:13] Matt: But like, and my wife, I think she's sick of people coming through, but the,
[00:31:18] Hamish: I've got a really cool project that we're, I really wanted to do it this year, but May 17th is not gonna work.
[00:31:23] But we've got a really cool project next year, which my client's really excited to get on. And it is another Alistair Ox home. Uh, and there you go. And Sam Cox is doing the landscape. So it's gonna be primo come,
[00:31:35] Matt: it's there. The answers. The thing is, as I say, the answers are there. Like I have a, what is it, a five meter wide front backyard, and I still got a 5,000 liter underwater ground rainwater tank.
[00:31:48] Yeah. Like you can do it. Yeah. And you can, and, and I still, and I've got a water filter out the front. I've like, I've got solar. Like the answers are there. You don't have to go hard to find them and just stick [00:32:00] to simple stuff. Like, I think the thing is we all over complicate this and Yeah. We,
[00:32:04] Helen: I think that's really, that is so true.
[00:32:06] Like it's actually. That hard and one of the biggest challenges, this is why Sustainable House Day is so good because it actually unpacks it for people. Yeah. Well, puts it in context and puts it in context. Yeah. And one of the things that we've, we, we heard back last year was that 70% of people who went to Sustainable House Day walked away and said, we're gonna make a change in the next six to 12 months to our house based on what we learned today.
[00:32:27] Yeah. And because it makes it all really tangible, they can touch it, feel it, hear it, experience it. Yeah. Like, I remember when I visited, visited,
[00:32:32] Hamish: so I just need to turn my marketing on to ex renovations come end of May,
[00:32:40] Matt: locations on the day where they're just target the little metadata.
[00:32:44] Helen: I remember I went out to see a passive house out at W Diet a couple of years ago.
[00:32:47] Jessie's Yeah. Jessie's house. Jessie's, yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And um, you know, I remember standing in there going, wow, I've never been inside a, a. A passive house before, like I've never had this experience. It feels, and it sounds really different. [00:33:00] Um, and then other people might just be going, how loud is this heat pump for the neighbors?
[00:33:04] Hamish: Yeah.
[00:33:04] Helen: And they can hear your heat pump and they're like, oh, it's not that bad, actually. That's okay. Which do
[00:33:08] the
[00:33:08] Hamish: really interesting thing about Jesse's place too is it's right on the main road on
[00:33:12] Helen: right on a busy corner,
[00:33:13] Hamish: on a roundabout. And I'm, I live in Warrendale as well, so I know that, I know drive path every single day.
[00:33:17] And I remember the first time I went into Jess's house closing the door and thinking, wow,
[00:33:23] Helen: yeah,
[00:33:24] Hamish: I was not expecting this.
[00:33:25] Helen: No. 'cause
[00:33:26] Hamish: it faces out to the oval as well and the creek running out the back. So you block out all of this. Yeah. And that's probably a really great example of designing for the location.
[00:33:35] Matt: I hated our first night.
[00:33:37] Hamish: It was too quiet.
[00:33:38] Matt: I was like, I have made the biggest mistake in my life. I've gone all in on this sustainable passive house thing. And I was like, this sucks.
[00:33:48] Helen: It's too quiet.
[00:33:49] Matt: It was too comfortable. Too comfortable. It was, it was too quiet. It's like I can hear the voices in my head.
[00:33:54] I'm literally just like, right
[00:33:55] Hamish: now,
[00:33:56] Matt: what have I, oh my God. Like my whole business structure is just [00:34:00] like, and, and then I woke up in the morning and it was 5:00 AM in the morning, and I was like, oh, it's
[00:34:06] Helen: so easy to get outta bed.
[00:34:07] Matt: Yeah.
[00:34:07] Hamish: Yeah.
[00:34:08] Matt: So like,
[00:34:08] Hamish: I, I wanna, that's a good question. So you got, you've got two, two magazines, or two publications to go out.
[00:34:14] Yeah. Yeah. Um, what's, have you seen a shift in like your readership or your audience over the last few years? Or have you got any kind of data on that or who, who your audience actually is?
[00:34:25] Helen: Oh, I don't have any. Well, we know that our audience is that, I mean, I think our, I don't think our audience is one type of person, but we know that people who, you know, have long standing commitment to renew.
[00:34:38] And the magazines and the publications that are often people who are really interested in the issues, they're often early adopters of technology. Um, we have a lot of people in industry and builders and, and, um, people who are into electrification and electricians and things like that. Yeah. Um, and then we have people who are just, you know, they just love this stuff.
[00:34:56] Matt: Yeah.
[00:34:57] Helen: Um, but I think what we do know, aside from the [00:35:00] magazines, we, we know that people are really hungry for this kind of information. Yeah. Um, and they're, they're really, they're looking for how to do it. Um, you know, we held a, a battery webinar last year, uh, 'cause the battery rebate was launched. And we had 400 people sign up for that webinar in a couple of weeks.
[00:35:17] Wow. Wow. And it's an insane amount of, um, interest. Um, and, and so people are really looking for very tangible advice. Very, you know, clear. Information, but they also wanna know that they can trust where it's coming from.
[00:35:31] Hamish: Yep.
[00:35:31] Helen: Um, and that people who are giving them the information don't have a vested interest in giving them particular pieces of information.
[00:35:37] So, um, we often try to, you know, tell people about the things to think about when you're buying a product. We don't kind of recommend products. Yeah. So we're not like choice. We don't test products and things like that, but we'll say, Hey, when you are looking for a heat pump, look out for this issue. Look out for your warranty, look out for noise, look out for, you know, coefficients of efficiency, et cetera.
[00:35:57] Matt: Yep.
[00:35:58] Helen: But, but we don't go, so we don't say go [00:36:00] buy a blah, blah. Um, so people really, people really want that information. But I think the other thing that we do know that people want in our audience is they wanna know about their house and their context and their situation. And so they wanna say, Hey, I've got a 2.5 kilowatt solar system on my roof.
[00:36:17] It's 10 years old. Should I be adding more solar to it? But if I get a battery, do I connect them up? Do I need a new inverter? And it's always very personal. Yeah, I realized that too. And so one of the things we, I really wanna do over the next year is really build the number of opportunities that we're offering people to ask questions about their stuff.
[00:36:34] Matt: We're happy to do that with you guys. We're happy to jump on a webinar or something when they can just ask the builder whatever you
[00:36:38] Hamish: want. Oh, I mean, there's that, I was, we
[00:36:40] Helen: did that last, didn't we?
[00:36:41] Hamish: Yeah, yeah. I jumped
[00:36:42] Helen: on. Definitely give that one a rerun.
[00:36:43] Hamish: Yeah. Um, but even, even just some FAQs, like some Right.
[00:36:47] You know, some collaborative FAQs.
[00:36:49] Helen: Yeah. Yeah. Because, because people just want, they just want that information and they wanna know that they can rely on it. And it's very interesting to me. Like, I always think you should be able to trust the information you get from governments, but [00:37:00] apparently people don't.
[00:37:01] Hamish: I
[00:37:01] Helen: dunno why.
[00:37:02] Hamish: I actually think, like, if you think about Renew and you think about sanctuary, like that's a pretty reputable source of where that information is coming from in my
[00:37:09] Matt: Yeah, no, I agree.
[00:37:10] Hamish: Agree. In my opinion,
[00:37:11] Matt: but
[00:37:11] Helen: Yeah. But how do, but because the people that feed into Renew and Sanctuary Magazine are often working in the space, like they're off, well, they're nearly always.
[00:37:19] Unless they're community stories or householder stories, which obviously we, we try to weave community and household into, into the magazines because we are a community based organization. But the contributors are often people like yourselves. They're people working in building construction, design, electrification, energy, um, solar.
[00:37:38] So they're experts and, and they, you know, they're giving back. It's actually our membership is wonderful 'cause they're actually people who are giving back to the community and they're not asking for very much in return. And we,
[00:37:47] Matt: yeah, you should increase
[00:37:48] Helen: your
[00:37:48] Matt: membership.
[00:37:48] Helen: It's pretty, I wanna try and leverage those people to Yeah, to to, to do that, to keep doing that.
[00:37:53] That's why people sign up to be members. 'cause I wanna give back.
[00:37:55] Matt: I actually look at like your membership and it's compared to some of the other ones after pay. I'm like, [00:38:00] guys, you guys give way more, increase yours and you should definitely be declining. I'm not gonna say who. Um, but it's, I shouldn't say, I shouldn't open my mouth too much.
[00:38:09] Cut that. Gonna cut
[00:38:10] Helen: that bit?
[00:38:10] Matt: Cut that bit out. No, don't cut that bit out. Cut that bit out. Um, get, put pressure on the, everyone else, like, as I always say, like I'm will tell you if I don't like something. And that then gives them the pressure to improve and meet the standards of what you guys are
[00:38:24] Hamish: doing.
[00:38:25] That's why I kept telling Beck that we just need to be apprehensive about getting mad on as an ambassador for SBA. I'm like, we just need to make sure that we put a muzzle on him sometimes.
[00:38:32] Matt: Yeah. No filter. Not at all.
[00:38:34] Helen: That's right. Matt. You can promote membership of renew as no much as you like.
[00:38:37] Matt: How do we become a member of Renew?
[00:38:39] Like, like it's. It's a great resource, but like how do we get, 'cause we have, we are pretty, the way that we run our business now, people who come to us know what we do. And we have, we want a passive house, we want a healthy, high performing house. But let's say, let's go to John's building down the corner that might not have that opportunity and their clients uneducated.
[00:38:58] And then what gets lost along [00:39:00] the ways because they don't know, then they don't educate the client. How do we get new people that just don't get this? How do we get them picking up the magazine? How do we get them? Like, I love you guys have like little Netflix series or something like that, that
[00:39:12] Helen: we Right, right.
[00:39:13] Yeah. I mean I think it's, I think these days it has to always be through social media. Yeah. So we, you know, and, and I say that with. You know, half of my brain saying our social media hasn't been great for a little while, but it's, it's on the up and it's looking beautiful now. And, um, but I think that's where, you know, that's where we find new audiences and, and, um, people who work in that space.
[00:39:32] You know, I, I'm on, I'm on certain platforms, but you know, my youngest staff come in and go, we need to be on this platform and this platform and this platform. Yeah. You can't do it all. And, and those are where people, you know, the people that we wanna start talking to are sort of 25 to 45. They might have just bought their first home.
[00:39:47] They might even still be renting. 'cause we've got 30% of Australians are renting. Um. That's where, you know, people are hungry for information. They actually know about climate change. They kind of get it. They're not having the fight about whether climate [00:40:00] change is real or not. I mean, some people are, but most people aren't.
[00:40:02] Yeah. We know that most Australians are actually pretty okay with it. Um, and they wanna live more sustainably, but they also want their energy bills to go down and they wanna live in a comfortable house. And they shouldn't, they don't wanna be kicking around in a, in a, excuse my language, but in a shit box for like, you know, 10 years.
[00:40:15] Oh, you can swear, we
[00:40:16] Matt: swear all time.
[00:40:16] Helen: I noticed you did that. I
[00:40:17] Matt: say fuck all the time. You
[00:40:20] Helen: know, they don't wanna be living like that. No. And they don't want their kids to be living like that. And they don't want their kids to be in houses that have got mold or damp, you know, where they're getting chest infections and, um, they can't get well or they're frying up in summer.
[00:40:31] And, and we know that people who are, who are sick or elderly or have disabilities are really at risk of heat. And when we're getting these heat waves coming across the country where, you know, if you looked at the map this summer and you see what the heat looks like in some places across Australia, it's hot.
[00:40:44] It's actually really frightening. 50
[00:40:46] Matt: degrees. Like that's what you
[00:40:47] Helen: stuck slow cooking. So, and inside the house it's really unhealthy and people are really vulnerable if they don't hydrate or stay cool. And so, you know, I think there's a real, I think there's a real growth audience there for that stuff.
[00:40:58] Matt: Do you feel it's ironic that those [00:41:00] older people were probably the ones that didn't push for this, that they're now having to deal with it?
[00:41:03] Helen: I think, I think people just show, you know, sharing information. I just think social change takes, takes things to take forever until suddenly it happens.
[00:41:13] Hamish: It's kind of like, and you know what, you're a pretty really good person to talk about that. 'cause you're talking 25 plus years in this space and I guess now we are sitting here talking on a podcast about it with a couple of.
[00:41:24] Centrally thinking builders actually campaigning for this stuff. Like
[00:41:27] Helen: Mm,
[00:41:28] Hamish: you wouldn't have had this conversation 20 years ago? No,
[00:41:30] Helen: no. Not, not about not the way we are now about homes and sustainability. Yeah. I mean, you know, you're right. The a CT is quite progressive and, and interestingly the a CT had, you know, the, the mandatory disclosure.
[00:41:41] So you, when you buy a house, you could know what the EER reading was. Did you
[00:41:45] Matt: know that I have about the mandatory disclosure of, um, uh, literally this is my next topic and you stole my
[00:41:49] Helen: notes. Oh, sorry.
[00:41:50] Hamish: Okay. Before we do that, I just wanna just, you brought up renters before, so sorry, Matt, let you have that one.
[00:41:55] Um, a lot of the time they got the hands tied. I know we, we [00:42:00] had, um, Tim Force on, you know, a few weeks ago talking about like, really the little smoke, low hanging fruit can have you got anything else to add about what renters can do because
[00:42:08] Helen: mm-hmm.
[00:42:09] Hamish: It's not their home.
[00:42:10] Helen: Yeah, that's right.
[00:42:11] Hamish: But they can still do things to their home to, to make it healthier and more comfortable and all that kind of stuff.
[00:42:15] Helen: Yeah, that's right. So I mean, renters, there's two things for renters. Firstly, there's a limited amount of things you can do, and the things that you can do are the things that you can generally remove or don't impact on the building envelope permanently. Um, so curtains, um, you know, we've got a photo of a guy hanging a tarp off a gutter on a westerly wall because if you can keep the heat off your westerly walls in summer, you're actually keeping your house much more cool.
[00:42:39] So much cooler. So things that are temporary that you know, that you can do, that you can walk away with. Now the, the trick is I can make a whole bunch of suggestions and there'll be a bunch of renters listening, maybe going, oh, I can't afford to do that. And I'm like, okay, I get that. Some people can't. But there are options.
[00:42:54] Um, there are some things, it's interesting 'cause in some of the states, like in Victoria, there are some things that your [00:43:00] landlord. Must do. Um, can't tell you not to do, unreasonably tell you not to do, and I didn't realize this, but I think using a caulking gun to seal up gaps is one of those things.
[00:43:09] Matt: Yeah.
[00:43:09] No. Yeah.
[00:43:09] Helen: Yeah. Um, so you can't unreasonably say no to that.
[00:43:12] Hamish: If I was a landlord and I had a tenant saying, Hey, do you mind if I go on caulk, all the gaps, I'd be like, here you go. I pay,
[00:43:19] Helen: I'm coming to, I'll
[00:43:19] Matt: pay, I'll pay, I'll pay for the caulking.
[00:43:21] Hamish: Here's the
[00:43:21] Helen: cool. Right. That's the way it should be. Yeah. But, but you know, people don't know what they can and can't do.
[00:43:26] So, so things, temporary stuff, thinking about having like fans in your home that can cool you down, thinking about keeping rooms cool or hot in winter or summer rather than heating the whole house. Yep. Um, here's a good one. If the only gas that you're using is for your cooktop, then get it disconnected and go and buy yourself a little, um, bench top induction cap.
[00:43:44] Hamish: Stop using, stop using it and put it, put it
[00:43:45] Helen: put a little induction thing over the top. Yeah, yeah,
[00:43:47] Matt: yeah. Just don't sign up to a gas bill.
[00:43:49] Helen: Just don't sign up to a gas bill. Yeah.
[00:43:50] Matt: You don't get it disconnected off the, because
[00:43:52] Helen: the trick is when people are on a hot water for gas. Yeah. And that's really challenging.
[00:43:55] But then, you know, if, if you can, and you think your landlords are receptive, then talk to them about the fact [00:44:00] there are rebates on hot water systems. I mean, you can get a, a pretty neat little hot water system rebated in Victoria, particularly for, you know, a grand, two grand at the most. Yep.
[00:44:08] Hamish: Yeah. Reach out to their good friends over at good bug gas.
[00:44:10] So one thing
[00:44:10] Matt: that I, on this is I think, is that one of the high ed somewhere that they want to force all. Owners are there for a rental to insulate all the walls and ceiling.
[00:44:21] Helen: Ceiling and ceiling insulation will be coming in Victoria. Yeah. For rental standards in 2027 for new rentals and 2030 for all rentals.
[00:44:29] Matt: Yeah.
[00:44:30] Helen: Um, there'll be an expected, a reasonable level of draft proofing.
[00:44:34] Matt: Yeah.
[00:44:34] Helen: Those were the two key things. And then also cooling system. Yeah. So an energy efficient cooling system, which will effectively mean that everybody ends up with an energy efficient. So split system for heating as well. Um, and they are coming, but Victoria is well and truly leading the pack.
[00:44:49] So
[00:44:49] Matt: my fear on this, I know where you're going with this. Yeah. Like we start, start now start to talk about indoor air quality because we talk about comfort as one thing. We've only touched energy efficiency to some point here. What [00:45:00] about the mold and condensation problem when we start having mold? Who's liable at the government?
[00:45:03] Because we have, well
[00:45:04] Helen: we've got mold already.
[00:45:05] Matt: Yeah. We are doing
[00:45:05] Helen: And nobody's liable. Yeah. Um, and, and it's a real problem. It's
[00:45:09] Matt: actually outta a real insurance policies
[00:45:09] now
[00:45:09] Helen: problem. Yeah. You know, when we look at rental standards, 'cause we are, we're doing some work on rental standards at the moment and looking to model what are the changes that we should be making, um, to homes and what do they cost, what do they cost for the landlord to put in and what do they save for the tenant?
[00:45:23] And we are looking at it right across Australia, across, um, different climate zones in each jurisdiction. And we're using, actually using passive house software to model it because it's really good at doing the draft ceiling sort of side of things. Um, and ventilation comes up in that conversation very, very quickly.
[00:45:37] But, you know, at a practical level in across Australia, there is no requirement to put in fly screens. So, you know, even what I call actively ventilating your house. Yeah. As a somebody who's living in it. People can't open their windows at home in certain places because they don't have fly screens.
[00:45:53] They're gonna get bitten to death. Aren't, I mean, this is insane.
[00:45:55] Matt: Aren't we one of the only countries that actually installed fly screens too? Someone told me I think that we're [00:46:00] not did
[00:46:00] Hamish: hear that.
[00:46:01] Matt: So like with other countries don't have fly screens, they don't
[00:46:03] Helen: even know what fly
[00:46:03] Matt: speed are. So, so, but I, but so one of the easy things for me is like every wet area, I should be on a 30 minute timer.
[00:46:11] I was gonna say
[00:46:12] Hamish: like,
[00:46:13] Matt: or for a fan and one of those is a full-time running SL that's gonna consume no energy. Yeah. There's an energy penalty percent potentially or some bit that just takes the guesswork out of it.
[00:46:23] Hamish: Yeah, I agree.
[00:46:24] Matt: Okay. And, and I think that just should be NCC code regardless, but the. I think that's such an easy thing.
[00:46:32] And it can be like, the government can be like, you know what? To de-risk, we're gonna give you a $500 credit or something to help you do that.
[00:46:38] Hamish: So one of the things I was talking to last, well, earlier guest on we had today about like governments just looking in little individual silos and I'd actually connecting the dots through things.
[00:46:49] I go, oh, we're gonna fix this problem, this problem, this problem, this problem. Like, no, no. Fucking zoom out and look at it. All insulation's great in the roof. Insulation's great in the walls. Draft proofing is really [00:47:00] good too. But then if you forget about ventilation, then don't do it. Mm-hmm. Because you, because you're actually creating an environment is what you were getting on getting before.
[00:47:07] Like, add onto that. We need to have 30 minute running fans in the home. Ev all our extraction points need to be deducted out.
[00:47:14] Matt: And, and the reason I say that is, like, this is sounds potentially really bad is like, I can't trust someone living in a house. They're gonna turn it on. Like what happens hypothetically, if That's
[00:47:22] Helen: a really good point.
[00:47:22] Yeah.
[00:47:23] Matt: Because like, what if you've got, what if you've got the renter that just like, I don't like turning it on and the kids don't turn off the shower and then there's mold everywhere. Mm-hmm. That's a user problem. Like what we would have in a handover package.
[00:47:31] Hamish: Yeah.
[00:47:32] Matt: The issue is actually like this, people suck people we don't, we think that we don't need to do, so I'll be fine about what happened in my house, but how do we take the human element out of it and make it a smart home
[00:47:44] Hamish: mostly.
[00:47:44] Look, you know, I think, I think if you, uh, if you've got a property portfolio, I would argue that we are gonna, and, and when, when people think about renters, they're probably just have it like an avatar in their mind about what a renter is. There's actually some. Really [00:48:00] educated, uh, high paid renters out there who are living in homes who are demanding or will be demanding good homes to live in.
[00:48:08] Helen: Absolutely. And, and people are spending longer in their rental properties now because of, you know, the unaffordability of, of a first home for, for, you know, young family or
[00:48:16] Hamish: someone might, might wanna move into an area where there's a good school. Right. Yeah. So like having, if, if you've got a portfolio, make it
[00:48:24] Helen: appealing.
[00:48:25] I think what's really interesting about the rental stuff is there's, I think there's a bit of a, a sliding doors moment here maybe because in terms of laws that are putting place to protect renters for energy efficiency. It's really been the very low hanging fruit that the two governments that have done anything about it have gone for.
[00:48:42] And one's, one's the a CT and they've mandated ceiling insulation. And the second one is Victoria, who's done the things that we just talked about. Um, and credit where credit's due. They didn't kind of, they, they actually stepped out of the silo a little bit because they actually thought about how it intersected with the getting the getting off gas stuff.
[00:48:57] Yeah. And they made those decisions at the same time about what they [00:49:00] wanted to do. But, you know, and, and the thing is, when we go to talk to other states about rent, the, the conversation about rental standards in other states is almost non-existent. Um, new South Wales are just starting to have it.
[00:49:11] Tasmania, west Australia, Queensland, not really on the boil. Um,
[00:49:17] Matt: Tasie is an interesting one 'cause they kind of, it's pretty cold down there.
[00:49:20] Helen: Pretty bloody cold. And, and so, you know, so what happens is that because governments, as I said earlier, you know, governments don't like leading. They like to follow.
[00:49:28] But we could either do this thing where we go, okay. At a bare minimum, you just need to mandate this. Yeah. Like we just wanna keep people basically safe. So what is the bare minimum We need to ensure that people can live safely in their homes and that you're not leasing out a home that is actually unsafe.
[00:49:42] Matt: Yeah.
[00:49:42] Helen: And then there's that idea that we could leapfrog that and go, actually that's okay, but it's kind of crap. And we know it's crap because we are really talking about like ceiling insulation. Whoopi do, like we're
[00:49:54] Matt: Yeah.
[00:49:54] Helen: A third of the way there or something, I don't know. Um, and or do we wanna actually have a [00:50:00] conceptual shift about what it means to actually properly retrofit Australia's housing stock?
[00:50:05] So that it's sealed, wrapped, ventilated.
[00:50:08] Matt: It's an adult conversation.
[00:50:09] Helen: It's an adult conversation. But you know, the problem is politicians get such pressure when they start making decisions about costs for potential costs for landlords.
[00:50:17] Matt: And I understand that. I act, I like, I think at a purest element, like people buy, it's an investment.
[00:50:22] They're trying to grow their wealth, they want the best return for money. Like that's, I I actually understand that side. I, well look at,
[00:50:27] Hamish: look at it some as,
[00:50:28] Helen: as I, I challenge that.
[00:50:30] Matt: Look at it as, I mean, I hear it, I challenge it because that, but that's, that's what they're doing. They're trying to build their wealth.
[00:50:35] But from a lot, I was gonna rent a property, I'd be more inclined to be like, Hey, I know Hay might be there for 10 years. Hey, have we signed a longer lease? And I'll put some money back into it to help you. I'm secure for 10 years. Let's just negotiate. Not even a CPI increase just a basic 1%. I'm set, I know for 10 years I've got long-term rent, my asset's being covered.
[00:50:57] Hamish: And, and not only that, your assets being looked after.
[00:50:59] Matt: [00:51:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're
[00:51:00] Hamish: gonna have a vegetable patch. They're gonna do this. Yeah,
[00:51:02] Matt: yeah, yeah. They're actually
[00:51:03] Hamish: becoming,
[00:51:03] Matt: it's becoming like, yeah, I'm gonna reduce your run. If, like, if you could do some upkeep and maintain the garden, there's maybe an incentive behind it.
[00:51:09] I, I don't know. I think we've
[00:51:10] Helen: got, and then even, even sort of more deeply at the energy level, we think, we think it might turn out that the cost of the upgrades that you might wanna do to make a home safe are kind of the same costs that the tenant's paying in energy bills. And so. If you could say to a tenant over 10 years, Hey, how about you pay your energy bills to me, but I'll make your house really lovely to live in
[00:51:33] Matt: Yeahinteresting.
[00:51:34] Helen: You know, rather than interesting. How about you keep paying shitty energy bills and living in a shitty, shitty cold house
[00:51:38] Matt: and it's only gonna increase? And that's why I get back, the reason the person buys is investment. It only increase their investment worth.
[00:51:43] Helen: Yeah.
[00:51:43] Matt: So that's why.
[00:51:44] Helen: And it does.
[00:51:44] Matt: Yeah. And, and I think, I think we, and that started across the world and it kind of loops back into that.
[00:51:49] We're talking about, we're having like the star rating on a real estate board kind of thing, or a rental. Now real estate agents are gonna say, yeah, but we know they're already crap. We know that that's cool. Mm, let's just put it on there. How about [00:52:00] it's more, I think for those things, when we're actually looking at number, it's a new townhouse.
[00:52:04] It's the new house that was renovated three years ago. That's what matters. It's not the old rundown house. I totally understand that. It's like this stupid thing they wanna put in, bring in. Personally my opinion is when they wanna do the report on the house, when you buy it, because that's just gonna create a problem.
[00:52:20] Like I think you should be forced to get one, but maybe from someone. Not the agent picks like it should be more of an independent inspection. Inspection
[00:52:26] inspections.
[00:52:27] Helen: Oh, you're talking about the, the energy efficiency ratings being done by the seller instead
[00:52:30] Matt: of buyer? No, no. It should, it should be done almost like this.
[00:52:34] It's gotta be done. No, it shouldn't be done from the seller. It's almost gonna be like an independent source that's not actually,
[00:52:40] Hamish: aren't they making it? And I don't know if I'm talking about building reports, different things here. Building reports. So they're, they're asking for building reports that, that are usually voluntarily.
[00:52:48] You don't have to get 'em like if you're selling a home.
[00:52:50] Matt: Yeah.
[00:52:51] Hamish: But maybe it's twofold. Maybe. Maybe if you're renting a home or you're selling a home, you actually have to get a report to show the condition of the home,
[00:52:58] Matt: because there's so many reclaimers there that they're [00:53:00] just gonna be able to hide behind.
[00:53:01] Helen: Well, the, the funny thing is that the idea of a, the seller providing the building report, the building inspection report and the EER that's already been in place in the a CT and other jurisdictions Yeah. For quite a while. And it works really well when I moved to Victoria. Yeah. And I wanted to buy a house.
[00:53:15] Every house you're interested in, if you actually get close to the purchasing process. You have to go and pay for another building inspection. It's insane. Yes,
[00:53:21] Matt: and that's true. That's why I say it should be crazy. It should be. Maybe it's gotta be from a, like a licensed person that they like they they are.
[00:53:26] Helen: Yeah.
[00:53:27] Matt: That, that, that's just not hamish's building inspection that's that's gonna pop up. That's right. You've gotta really regulate that and it's like we will just remove it from you that you can't do it. But I think that we need to, like, we have two bedrooms, three bathrooms, whatever on the board. It needs to have the rating.
[00:53:40] It should have to be there. Yep. I don't care if the house is crappy and old and it's gonna be knocked over. That's because we know it's crap and it can go on there. But it's more the houses that have been renovated, the 10 years that are claiming and
[00:53:51] Helen: things they've been sold with
[00:53:52] Hamish: a efficiency rating. I think you're right.
[00:53:54] It's also also gonna differentiate in the market, like if you are, and probably motivating people to, to, [00:54:00] to make their homes better. Like if it's actually going up on the board of what it is, like use it as a marketing market.
[00:54:05] Matt: So I go check out houses for friends to help on building inspections. I love doing, well my family are real estate agents, so I can say, oh there you go.
[00:54:11] They all own. So, so I, they'll be, oh, it's houses to stem. I was like, tell me how. And it's great to watch 'em unravel. Mm. 'cause oh yeah. It's, um, yeah, it's got solar. Okay, cool. How many panels are, there's three on the roof.
[00:54:24] Hamish: What? Kilowatt system?
[00:54:25] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. And he's, oh, it's a good insulation. Don't all houses that have been built recently have to have insulation.
[00:54:31] Yeah. And, and it's fun to pick 'em apart. Like it's, it's mean, but the thing is like, it's, that removes that because it removes the, you can't hide behind it anymore. Mm. And I think, and I think that we've really gotta, and yeah, people are gonna say that, oh, that's more red tape and paperwork, blah, blah, blah, but it's the right red tape and paperwork,
[00:54:51] Helen: you know?
[00:54:51] Uh, what they do, what they do in the a CT with it is you, the seller gets the two assessments done independent from an independent provider, and the [00:55:00] cost of the assessments is passed on to the buyer during the disbursement process. So as you buy the house, the seller is reimbursed.
[00:55:06] Matt: That's a great idea.
[00:55:07] Helen: So.
[00:55:08] It, it, and you know it, I, when I went to get a building inspection on the house that I wanted to buy, I didn't know who to contact to get the building inspection. And the agent that was selling me the house gave me three names. So I would've still ended up with somebody that maybe the agent recommended or I could just go and look it up on the internet.
[00:55:24] But it's probably find, it's
[00:55:25] Matt: probably 'cause I, they're cheap and they don't do a great report and
[00:55:27] Helen: Well I do think the people's professional reputations do hang on some of that stuff though. So we need to be, you know, careful that
[00:55:33] Matt: they're not licensed. Though a lot of those people actually aren't licensed.
[00:55:36] Right. They're gonna need to be, and, and I know a lot of their reports don't hold up in vcat. Right. So like the reports have to be like, 'cause at some point someone's gonna pull that report and go, you are legally liable. Absolutely. And what happens when that's in a court of law and can they stand there?
[00:55:51] And I know.
[00:55:53] Hamish: Alright. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna wind it back to not solving this, um, rental or house buying problem. [00:56:00] Um, tell me some exciting news that's happening, happening in Renew. Tell me some things that you guys are, that you guys are working on.
[00:56:09] Helen: I'm not allowed to talk about rentals though, right?
[00:56:11] Hamish: No, I You can if it's exciting.
[00:56:14] Helen: Well, I'm excited 'cause we are, we're doing this research on the rental stuff, which is exciting from an advocacy perspective. Yeah. Um, we are going to shortly re-release our guide, guide for renters about how to make rents, make their homes more sustainable. So we've got that on the boil.
[00:56:28] We've also, is that
[00:56:28] Matt: free or do you charge
[00:56:29] Helen: like say
[00:56:30] Matt: a dollar to just help get some costs and just like, you know
[00:56:32] Helen: what I mean? It's, that one will probably be free. Yeah. Sometimes we'll have things that we charged for, but these are kind of like downloadable kind of information booklets. I mean we used to print them in the old days.
[00:56:41] I think if they were printed it, they might not be free. So let we get some funding for it. Um, we've obviously got Sustainable House Day coming up, so, and we've also got a couple of webinars that we're about to work. We're about to kick off a kind of a whole kind of year long webinar series of Oh
[00:56:54] Hamish: great.
[00:56:55] Helen: Hoping to, you know, pull some people outta the magazines and have chats with them. Um,
[00:56:59] Hamish: [00:57:00] homeowners.
[00:57:00] Helen: Yeah. Homeowners, architects, designers, builders, just have, you know, like maybe the feature story in the magazine and bring them in. People can, you know, that's a good, come have an in conversation piece with them,
[00:57:09] Hamish: you know, dub you know, a little bit more context to the story.
[00:57:12] I really
[00:57:13] Helen: like that. Yeah. Yeah. Just sort of unpack it from the page a little bit. Um, 'cause it
[00:57:15] Matt: is hard. Like, I, like I know my clients, we were on there and like, they'd love to open up, but with the young kids, like it is hard on the weekend. And then,
[00:57:23] Helen: yeah,
[00:57:23] Matt: the scary part of like bringing people to the house, like, but if it was online.
[00:57:27] She'd happily in that, happily go on. And she's also a mortgage broker and she can talk about those things. Like she will love,
[00:57:32] Helen: well, so Sustainable House Day. A lot of our profiles for Sustainable House Day are, um, online and people make videos and they put their house with all their information. Yeah. And the video and they walk people around the house and
[00:57:43] Matt: Yeah.
[00:57:43] Helen: Okay. And it can work really well. And then, yeah, then we can do this where we can say, Hey, come and talk to people and show people and talk them through. And I dunno if you've ever been to any of Anna's presentations of her, you know, favorite three H homes and things like that. She's done, she's done those in the past.
[00:57:57] And it's lovely 'cause you get to talk to, [00:58:00] you know, see through them and see what's going on and unpack it a bit. So, so that'll be exciting. And then hopefully we're gonna set up, we're gonna run, start running some really sort of hands-on workshop, um, events so that people can ask those questions. So we'll get you guys in for that.
[00:58:13] Matt: Do you do, like, do you do like, do you do like a conference or something? Because I feel like the renew side of things is like, to me, it's one of the best resources for information. Like I. And we go to a few conferences. A lot of them to me are just crap. But I would think that one is like you raise
[00:58:25] Helen: the bar.
[00:58:26] Matt: No, but like the thing is like you actually, you've got such a great, because, and I'm not talking about the passive house here, but it's very, it's passive house, but there's a wider network of different things. But if you could bring 'em all together as this ultimate, like
[00:58:38] Hamish: it's B renewal,
[00:58:39] Matt: let's do it. No, you've got like someone talking about solar and then batteries, but then you've got someone talking about draft ceiling for rentals and that part.
[00:58:45] But then you've got, hey, the new luxury. Anyone that's like for the rich people because at the end of the day, if they can afford it, like how do you approach all of it? You've got so many cool,
[00:58:53] you
[00:58:53] Hamish: guys have got a pretty big net when you're talking about sustainability. You've got people who are homeowners.
[00:58:57] Matt: I You can't do it all as well though. We
[00:58:59] Hamish: do. [00:59:00]
[00:59:00] Matt: And you can't solve every problem. I understand that. I
[00:59:02] Helen: think it is about, I mean, I think in the, I think one of the challenges is really thinking about how do we reach audiences where they are rather than trying to get people to come to us. So this is something I'm constantly thinking about is.
[00:59:14] I, I don't wanna fill a room full of people where 300, like 250 out of the 300 know who we are, what we do. They've heard it all before and they love us to bits and they love talking about this stuff, but we are not hitting any new people there. Yeah. You are preaching to the converted preaching to the converted, and I think the challenge for an organization like us is to think about how do we get those new people in, those new audiences in, what do they need to hear and see that helps 'em connect with the issues.
[00:59:44] Where do they need to see it? Is it TikTok? Is it, is it Blue Sky, is it Instagram? What content do they need to see? How do they then come to us even closer and get closer and closer to the conversation? And how do we bring them on that journey? Because frankly, you know, we, we [01:00:00] live and breathe this stuff, you guys live and breathe it.
[01:00:02] And I work with people all day who live and breathe it and my membership live and breathe it. But when I go out to, you know, Westfield or go shopping if I have to, or I'm, I'm out with my. Family in-law, in-laws, you know, the, the not too fast removed from
[01:00:16] Matt: Yeah.
[01:00:16] Helen: The day to day that we, we live and breathe.
[01:00:18] People aren't thinking about this stuff. They're not talking about it.
[01:00:20] Matt: This is the thing I think you should be doing. It's a podcast and it's the fastest growing means of marketing in the world.
[01:00:25] Hamish: You
[01:00:25] Helen: know what? And that, and that's one of the things we were looking to do. That's exciting.
[01:00:28] Hamish: Exactly, exactly what you were talking about.
[01:00:29] There was the reason why I was actually challenging using the word sustainable to the SBA group. Now, as I said, we're all, you are always gonna have sustainable house day, you're always gonna be renew, you're always gonna be sanctuary. But then how do you break through in those markets that aren't interested in the word sustainable?
[01:00:45] Helen: Right? We talk about the things that are really, that the touch, the touch points for people. And the touch points at the moment are, um, the cost of housing to build, to live, to buy, um, the cost of running a house because of energy and, [01:01:00] and the fact that people wanna live in homes. That are comfortable and safe and feel like a home.
[01:01:06] And, you know, we spend a lot of time in our homes these days, for better or for worse. We do
[01:01:11] Matt: 90% of our time is spent indoors.
[01:01:13] Helen: Um, which is, you know, in, in many ways is a shame. And I, I think there's a broader conversation around not even just thinking about people's homes, but thinking about our neighborhoods, um, our urban landscapes, um, you know, our transport, how we build homes around green spaces where that connect people up with each other.
[01:01:30] Um, you know, it's, it's really, there's one of the things that I constantly have in my head is that when we build new developments, everybody gets a little backyard and it, and we isolate people. Whereas, you know, um, I had a friend who lived in the UK in a, in an old, very old block of 1930s, terraces all built around a corner.
[01:01:50] Very, very similar kind of land space usage to what we have here. And then out the front of the terraces. Was a block of green space that had a little picket fence around it and everybody could see it, and [01:02:00] all the kids were out there playing in it, and it was shared community space and it actually brings people together.
[01:02:05] And so, so sustainability, we can talk about sustainable buildings, but when we're talking about sustainable communities and people, we have to start looking outside our own buildings and into our neighborhoods and into the urban infrastructure. And that's a massive conversation, which I'd love to have again in, you know, I'd love to start putting Renews mine to that as well.
[01:02:25] Um,
[01:02:25] Hamish: quite, I don't know if you, do you, do you follow Sarah from QE Architecture and, um, te Te Leonard Edwards? Yeah. Sarah. Yeah. I don't know if you saw a post that she did. Three or four days ago about that development. I think it might've been in Hamster, the
[01:02:40] Helen: castle main one.
[01:02:40] Hamish: Maybe it's the castle main one.
[01:02:41] Yeah. Yes.
[01:02:42] Helen: Yeah, the
[01:02:43] Hamish: paddock. Yeah, the paddock. Yes.
[01:02:43] Helen: Beautiful. Yeah,
[01:02:44] Hamish: that right there
[01:02:45] Helen: nearly bought into there. Actually,
[01:02:47] Hamish: I dunno if you haven't, if if you haven't seen it, go and Google the paddock, like it's gorgeous. That right there is like. Such a bright, shiny example of what a development should, could, has to be moving forward.
[01:02:58] Helen: Sarah and the houses are quite small.
[01:02:59] Hamish: Well, it's not [01:03:00] Sarah's project in her, in her, you know, I don't wanna say it's her. No. Okay. But she reposted it. She went and visited it, and I'm just like, I'd live there.
[01:03:06] Matt: Yeah. Her silo project was my favorite project of last year, or in the most recent project. Sorry to be off topic,
[01:03:11] Hamish: very off topic.
[01:03:13] Helen: Yeah, no, you're right. It's Matt. It's, it's a lovely, it's got a, it's got a shared community space in the middle. They've got the gardens, personal gardens, they've got the native gardens, they've got the chooks. Um, it, you know, and it, and the way that project came about in terms of the land and who owned the land and how that happened and how it was viable was a very, very unusual situation.
[01:03:30] And it, it's because somebody, there was a, you know, a people who lived there who owned that land, who were deeply passionate about making that happen. Um, and they weren't builders and they weren't developers. They were just people who wanted, had a vision. Um, and it's a beau it's a beautiful place. Yeah.
[01:03:44] Okay. And, um, but the homes are actually quite modest. They're quite small, they're beautifully oriented. Um, but they're not, they're not. Large homes, but they're, but what a, what a connected,
[01:03:55] Hamish: yeah. What I love about it is actually encourages people to step outside of the house. Yeah,
[01:03:59] Helen: yeah. [01:04:00] It does. It really
[01:04:00] Hamish: does.
[01:04:01] Like that, that's what it really encourages it to do.
[01:04:03] Helen: Yeah. And it's one of those things, you know, um, my brother lives in a, a, a development that, that is kind of characterizes an eco village, and it's been, it was very old and it's been around for 25 years. Um, where's
[01:04:15] Hamish: that?
[01:04:15] Helen: It's in South Australia.
[01:04:17] Hamish: Yeah.
[01:04:17] Helen: Yeah.
[01:04:18] And, um, and it's a beautiful place. There's no fences and all the houses has been put in and, you know, and it's, you know, there's obviously issues, um, around keeping it. What's, how do, how I describe it, maintain, keep it normal, keeping it true to its purpose. Yeah. Okay. Um, and I think a lot of these places, you know, they do because time
[01:04:36] Hamish: could certainly unravel that
[01:04:37] Helen: time, can, can unravel it, but I think they've done a pretty good job.
[01:04:41] Um, but one of the things is that it's considered, it's a bit of a niche development and if you look in the suburb next to where he lives, you can see the kind of development that was happening at the same time in parallel across the road. And it is so diametrically opposed to where, where he lives. Um, and so how do [01:05:00] we make, how do we make those kinds of things normal?
[01:05:03] Hamish: What, what would be interesting to understand there is you've got these two examples right next to each other, and what would the, what would the values of the homes be? One compared to the other? That's
[01:05:12] Helen: a good question, actually. Dunno,
[01:05:14] Hamish: I mean, I'm, I'm imagining the, the, the, the suburb next door would be smaller blocks, more density, et cetera.
[01:05:19] Yeah. Whereas these pretty standard whereas
[01:05:21] Helen: suburban development. Yeah.
[01:05:21] Hamish: Bigger, bigger blocks. Less, less dense. I mean these would arguably, they're not
[01:05:25] Helen: necessarily bigger blocks, but, okay. Definitely leafier greener.
[01:05:30] Hamish: Okay.
[01:05:31] Helen: And
[01:05:31] Hamish: where would
[01:05:31] Matt: you rather live?
[01:05:32] Helen: Absolutely. Concrete, greener. Oh no, definitely. Concrete box.
[01:05:35] Yeah.
[01:05:36] Matt: Um, uh, I dunno if you can answer this question. If you're even, you're allowed to or you want to, but the, on your website or with a sustainable house day, I noticed that like you have like five or six councils who have signed up to be part of it. Why hasn't every council signed up? 'cause me, I'm like frustrated my council aren't part of it and think they're all about sustainability, blah, blah, blah.
[01:05:58] It is like one of the easiest [01:06:00] things for 'em to do. Sign up.
[01:06:01] Helen: Good idea. I, I agree with you. Why aren't they all signed up?
[01:06:04] Matt: Honestly, like,
[01:06:06] Hamish: very much out my way, isn't it?
[01:06:07] Helen: I think, um, uh, I think council sign up when they can see homes that are listed in their council areas. 'cause they want to bounce off the opportunity of Sustainable House day and use the homes that are in their areas to talk about it.
[01:06:18] So sometimes, um, they wait and see where the houses have been, um, listed. Yeah. Which is what we're just at that point now. So we're, we're just about to talk to councils again next week. Um, we had, um, 10 councils signed up last year.
[01:06:32] Matt: Out of how many, do you know how many
[01:06:33] Helen: council? Ah, there's, there's a few hundred.
[01:06:34] Matt: Yeah. Which is like really disappointing. I know. My council Ong city council the worst. Um,
[01:06:40] Hamish: hang on. But you, you as an individual can open your house up for
[01:06:43] Matt: No, no, no. But what I'm, no, what I'm saying is, but they support and I, as I always argue, council's one of the biggest roadblocks that they should be all, every, if they've got a ca, if they've got a house or not in there, they should be like, you know what, even though we don't have a house, we're supporting it.
[01:06:56] 'cause we want. Our citizens and our council to be pushing for this.
[01:06:59] Hamish: [01:07:00] Yeah.
[01:07:00] Helen: Interesting. Yeah, I mean, we work with councils on a range of different, in a range of different ways. So councils often work with us in terms of providing education to communities. We run webinars with councils. You know, some councils have a really strong focus on sustainability and they have, you know, people employed in sustainability roles.
[01:07:15] Some councils are running on really tight budgets. Um, you know, there's a lot of, often, a lot of really goodwill inside councils. Yeah. I, I think, you know, um, and there's been some great work done in councils in terms of building up skills and sharing skills around getting off gas electrification. Um, and there's some really great council networks.
[01:07:31] So, you know, I think local government can be really powerful in making these changes happen. And they have a unique way of being able to engage with their local community. Um, but they are still a, you know, they're still a, a kind of a, a type of government. And so, you know, they have the restrictions of budgets and time and resources
[01:07:49] Matt: and what's what on, what is the cost for council go.
[01:07:51] We're gonna support this.
[01:07:53] Helen: I'm trying to work out, remember if that's publicly advertised or not. I can't remember. So I'm gonna,
[01:07:56] Matt: but like yeah, like I, I know, but like what I'm saying is like
[01:07:59] Helen: it's not, it's not huge. [01:08:00]
[01:08:00] Matt: Exactly. Like it's not huge and, and the return on investments, like at the end of the day that cancel stands for their rate pays in that area.
[01:08:06] Like it would make total sense like, you know what, as a cancel and I'll challenge anyone from cancel, they should be signing up that. We want to provide the most and best information to people who might or wanna live here or currently living here. And well, well,
[01:08:20] Helen: that, that's one of our objectives. We'll be trying to get more and more council engagement as we go forward.
[01:08:25] And, and part of the challenge for us is to demonstrate the benefits to councils about the benefits of being involved. And so, you know, that's something that I like. Do, they
[01:08:31] Matt: shouldn't need a demonstrated they there, they honestly should just jump on your website and just be like, yeah, we get it. Like, I, I'm sorry I'm a bit blunt with that, but like, I think, uh,
[01:08:41] Helen: I think I might put that in charge of my, um, I partnerships program.
[01:08:45] Matt: I don't worry. I've already pissed my cancel off enough. I don't need to do it anymore. I, I joke that I have a red list that when any my jobs come off, they just like, nah. We're gonna send this to, to vcat. Um, uh, we have a, I actually got one more question for you. [01:09:00] What are you most proud about that you have done in your time at renew in your two years?
[01:09:05] Hamish: I actually had proud moments written there. Were you looking?
[01:09:07] Matt: Yeah, because at the start you said that, uh, what was my notes here? You've, you've made, you wanted to make a difference early on, so what is the biggest difference you've made?
[01:09:16] Hamish: You've made a fucking huge difference across the last 25 years. I'm just like looking at all the things that you, no.
[01:09:22] Little,
[01:09:22] Helen: little mini differences? No.
[01:09:23] Matt: How, like
[01:09:24] Helen: since your
[01:09:24] Matt: time as, since your time as CEO,
[01:09:26] Hamish: uh, let's,
[01:09:27] Helen: um, look, I think the thing that I'm most proud of is the team that we've built. And I know that sounds a bit, you know, that can sound a bit trite, but the reality is that we're a really small community organization and, um.
[01:09:43] After COVID had a couple of rocky years, um, it's, you know, changes the model when you're a community facing organization that actually has to completely shift the way that you are engaging with the community. And so, like a lot of organizations have to think about how do we, how do we reach people in different ways?
[01:09:59] [01:10:00] Um, and so after that, you know, since I started, I think just building this team that is just very committed, very passionate, very professional. They know what they're doing. I, I love that 'cause that, that just, that gives me a buzz every day that I just see them, you know, humming. And I think just getting it to that because that means that the organization is gonna be humming.
[01:10:20] Um, and I think that. Um, you know, sustainable House Day last year was, was fabulous. And we had, you know, record number of houses. We had a record. So many retrofits, you know. So I think also bringing that element of, of, okay, who do we need to be talking to? What do they need to hear from us? And knowing that it is about retrofits, it is about densification, it is about managing to get the best outcomes for the most amount of people, um, that we can, that I love wrapping that philosophy around the organization.
[01:10:51] And, and so there's a lot, I've got a lot to do. There's a lot for us to do. Um, there's a huge,
[01:10:55] Matt: but you have a plan. You, it's very, in the hour we've been chatting, like I feel like there's [01:11:00] the direction's not a one, two year plan. I, it's very clear that you guys have a 10, you're looking long term and you get, it's a very, yeah, I
[01:11:06] Helen: think, I think there, you know, I, I think that we know that there's a long, there's a bit of a journey ahead of us.
[01:11:11] We have an energy transition that's happening in Australia and. And we have a community of people who are going to have to engage with that at some point, even if they're not engaged yet. And we know that we have information and advice and support and help to get people through that, that process. Not only do we have an energy transition, we have a climate imperative coming at us hardened fast all the time in terms of homes being climate resilient and safe.
[01:11:35] And so those two things I've really like, just kind of almost banging into each other. And the next two decades, hopefully in two decades, we're gonna say, yep, Australian housing stock looking good. You know, we're resilient.
[01:11:47] Matt: So like, ideally
[01:11:48] Helen: renew looking good,
[01:11:49] Matt: like ideally renew doesn't exist. That like, no, that like, that's like the, like that then
[01:11:53] Helen: we can start campaigning on that planning law stuff.
[01:11:55] Matt: No, no. But like in an ideal world, sustainable builders, a limestone, like, because that's,
[01:11:59] Hamish: well, you know, [01:12:00] it's actually, it's actually one of the things that came outta that planet the other day. Wouldn't it be amazing if everything was just mainstream and we didn't exist?
[01:12:05] Right?
[01:12:05] Matt: Yeah,
[01:12:06] Helen: right. Exactly. That's, but you know, and, and I.
[01:12:09] I know that it'll be long past the time that I've retired, that that happens, um, because I think my whole career's been working in a space that I wish didn't exist. Yeah. You know, I, I just wished I didn't, we didn't have to have conversations with governments about getting off fossil fuels still and not expanding gas fields and in northwest, in the northwest shelf and, you know what I mean?
[01:12:30] Like why can, why are we still having these conversations? So it, it seems to take time and I think that, you know, I'm just a very small part of, a very big movement of people that has grown and grown over the last two decades and is now expanding into all sorts of community groups, representing all sorts of interests right across the, you know, the Australian community who this climate movement, this movement of people who wanna see, see us both be, you know, reduce our emissions live sustainably and, and [01:13:00] take the most disadvantaged in our community with us and not leave them behind.
[01:13:03] And, and have, and, and then overlaid on that is this housing conversation. Which has become really pertinent in the last 10 years. Yeah. Um,
[01:13:11] Matt: you're
[01:13:12] Helen: wearing multiple hats. We want everybody to have somewhere safe and, and, and comfortable and that they can afford to live in. And, and those two things we're all coming to like a perfect storm really.
[01:13:22] So maybe we'll get some amazing decisions and changes hopefully, um, over the next decade.
[01:13:27] Hamish: We have a, so I'll just jump in. We have a, we have a do this, we have it. We, we, we have a, we have a segment called, uh, the MEGT Mindful Moment. So MEGT are Australia's biggest, uh, apprenticeship provider. Uh, and we are lucky enough to have them on as a, uh, sponsor to the, to the podcast.
[01:13:45] How can we get young people. Excited about renewable technology, excited about sustainability, excited about electrification?
[01:13:55] Helen: I mean, I would, I would answer it by saying firstly, I think there are a bunch of young people who are deeply [01:14:00] interested in this already.
[01:14:01] Hamish: Yeah. Yeah.
[01:14:01] Helen: I actually think that, I think we wiped them off a little bit too quickly and say, young people don't care about anything.
[01:14:05] That's, that is garbage. Young people are amazing.
[01:14:07] Hamish: I, I actually agree with you and I reckon that they're probably not the people we need to convince.
[01:14:12] Helen: I actually agree with you. Yeah. I think, I think, you know, we've got a generation of children that are coming through, a generation of teenagers who are coming through who don't actually challenge the notion.
[01:14:21] About sustainability and climate change because they've actually been brought up
[01:14:24] Matt: Yeah.
[01:14:25] Helen: Talking about it. Thinking about it and, and they're not polarized by it politically, it's just part of Yeah. What they understand about the world. Yeah. Um, so I actually think that probably it's young people and we know that it's young people wanting to buy houses that are putting pressure on governments around densification and housing policy.
[01:14:43] Um, you know, and they might be, to me they're young, sorry to you, they might not be, but to me they're younger. But, you know, 25 to 35 year olds who are getting together saying, why are you not changing planning law so that we can actually densify parts of our city so that we can actually have access to the kinds of things that you had [01:15:00] access to.
[01:15:00] Hamish: That'd be common sense though,
[01:15:01] Helen: right?
[01:15:02] Hamish: So, you know what, sorry, I just had this epiphany. Maybe the mindful moment right now is the fact that. As like, I'm in my forties, maybe we need to actually stop thinking that we know are the answers and then actually look down generation and say, hang on, what do you think we should?
[01:15:18] Absolutely.
[01:15:19] Matt: I think 16 year olds should be able to vote.
[01:15:21] Helen: Well, you should probably get some young people in here on your podcast and ask them what they think.
[01:15:24] Hamish: I'm 36.
[01:15:25] Matt: Well,
[01:15:25] Hamish: Matt Young. No,
[01:15:28] Helen: that thing I talking like 25.
[01:15:30] Matt: You know
[01:15:30] Hamish: what,
[01:15:30] Matt: that's actually a really good idea. Go get him out after a Thursday night straight in.
[01:15:34] Hamish: No, actually may, you know what? Maybe I've learned something from today's. I'll
[01:15:37] Helen: try and find some for you next week. I'm going to a conference. I'm gonna run into lots of young people.
[01:15:41] Hamish: Yeah.
[01:15:42] Helen: Um, and, and young people with really, you know, really strong views about what equity looks like for them.
[01:15:48] Hamish: Yeah.
[01:15:49] Helen: Um, and you know, I think that.
[01:15:52] I used to think of myself as a young person a minute ago. I, it kind of catches up with you and then suddenly you realize
[01:15:57] Hamish: I actually had exactly the same thought the other day.
[01:15:59] Matt: Like the [01:16:00] reality is both Hamish and I own homes, it's not our problem for us anymore.
[01:16:03] Helen: Yeah. Right.
[01:16:03] Matt: Like, and that maybe we're outta touch.
[01:16:05] Hamish: Yeah. Yeah. And that's exactly what I was just saying before. Maybe that's the epiphany I've
[01:16:09] Helen: just said. I mean, I remember when I first bought my very first flat, and it was, I was 31, I thought I was really old. It, it cost $110,000 to buy a one bedroom flat. And, and I thought it was a lot at the time, buy 10 of them because, you know, that was the biggest thing I'd ever bought in my whole life.
[01:16:26] Um, but you know how lucky, how lucky was I? Um, and 31 doesn't seem so old anymore to be buying your first property.
[01:16:34] Matt: Don't you love it when you do a demo and you find the old newspapers and you see the old house prices and you're like, oh, with what I just bought, I could buy the whole street. Yeah,
[01:16:41] Helen: yeah.
[01:16:42] Crazy. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's all, and it's all about the ratio between income and house prices. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but there's no doubt that that ratio has, has shifted in a dramatic way. Yeah. And so I think that. Yeah, I think the experience, I mean, you know, you could get some young people in and they, and there's, you know, 80 to 90% chance that they're renting.
[01:16:57] And so they had that renter's perspective as well. [01:17:00] Um,
[01:17:00] Hamish: yeah. Interesting. Actually, that's a good point. That's good.
[01:17:02] Matt: So yeah. So to finish off, uh, sustainable House Day's coming up, how do people get involved? How do people sign up to renew and sanctuary? How do you become a member? How do you follow you guys?
[01:17:12] Go for it.
[01:17:14] Helen: So Sustainable house day.com um, is the best place to go. Um, you can register there right now to find out when tickets go on sale. Uh, we've taken, we've closed the applications for homes for this year. So Sustainable House Day tickets will be on sale from March the 31st. Go to sustainable house day.com, grab your tickets.
[01:17:33] It's $15 per person for the day, so that means you just buy a pass and then you can go and visit as many houses as you'd like to.
[01:17:40] Matt: I love that you put a price on it.
[01:17:42] Helen: Yeah. It's like it's, well, we want people to turn up and we know some of our houses get booked out and we don't want other people to miss out because the tickets are free.
[01:17:50] They get a free ticket, they don't turn up, and then we've got like 10 people on a waiting list and they come. That's why I,
[01:17:55] Hamish: our most successful events at SBA A have been the ones that we've charged for.
[01:17:58] Helen: Yeah. Right. And it doesn't have to be a [01:18:00] huge amount, just enough to get people committed. People think
[01:18:02] Matt: as well when there's a number associated, they just think they're getting more information.
[01:18:07] There's a whole psychology.
[01:18:08] Helen: Psychology of it.
[01:18:08] Hamish: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The transactional psychology. Absolutely.
[01:18:11] Helen: We, we, we wanted to make the, we wanted to make it a bit easier this year for people to go to multiple houses Yeah. And not have to buy tickets for individual houses. So that's how that kind of, the idea of the past came up.
[01:18:19] So we're hoping that's gonna really work this year. Um, so, and then renew.org au is our website. You can go there and find out how to subscribe to the magazines. Uh, we do print magazines as well, which, you know,
[01:18:32] Hamish: it's like old school.
[01:18:33] Helen: It's old school. But hey, who doesn't love an opportunity
[01:18:36] Hamish: I doesn't love when my magazine rocks up
[01:18:38] Helen: on
[01:18:39] Hamish: the door and I'm like,
[01:18:40] Helen: you grab it.
[01:18:41] Is that, is that your womans day's hard?
[01:18:43] Hamish: A woman's day? Yeah.
[01:18:43] Helen: You grab a cup of coffee. Yeah. Yeah. You go sit out on your deck. You just step away from the screen for a minute. Yeah. And take some time out and look after yourself and read. And it's lovely. So, you know, I, I say that's probably, when I say, which is my favorite magazine, it's like, I love both of them.
[01:18:59] 'cause they both do that, you know? Um, so yeah, you can go and you can, we get
[01:19:03] Matt: a definitive answer outta that.
[01:19:05] Helen: Print subscription. What was the question?
[01:19:07] Matt: Which, which, which
[01:19:08] Helen: was your favorite? No, no, you didn't. No, no, no. I love whichever one turns up. We'll try
[01:19:13] Matt: to catch you out, try to catch you out there. We'll
[01:19:15] Hamish: edit it in a way that makes you happen.
[01:19:17] Matt: Dare to renew and insert it.
[01:19:20] Helen: In which case I'll set my editors onto you. So
[01:19:24] Matt: what we do you wish it was one of those podcasts where each one was different, where like they would just add in either Renew or Sanctuary, so whoever listen to it, it would be different. Yeah.
[01:19:33] Helen: Um, they both look gorgeous. Renews about to have a bit of a, a bit of juju, a bit of love.
[01:19:38] So it's gonna look even more gorgeous in not this edition, but the one that's like a bit of a rebrand. Uh, a brand uplift we call it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so yeah, because we know there's a lot of people who love Renew, they love all the content, but there's a bunch of people who read certain parts of Renew, but not all of it.
[01:19:53] Matt: It's a bit, it's a bit, yeah. That's me. It's a bit nerdy at times.
[01:19:55] Helen: So we're gonna pull some of that content out for you so that you can understand it better. I'm just joking. [01:20:00] Um, yeah, so, so that's a good place to go to go to the website. You can subscribe there or you can just get a digital subscription if you don't wanna have a print subscription as well.
[01:20:08] So we have digital magazines on the website
[01:20:10] Hamish: and it is printed on FSC accredited
[01:20:12] Helen: paper. It's totally printed on Good stuff. Good stuff. All the good stuff.
[01:20:15] Hamish: All the good stuff.
[01:20:16] Matt: But thank you. I think, yeah, too often we don't stop and appreciate these things like you've guys been doing this way before I was born.
[01:20:26] Um, so I, I really encourage anyone that's listening to sign up. I to get more information, we need people like you need money, you need funding. Um, the biggest barrier is money. So if I know money's tight, if you own a business, it's an expense. Like, come on, so please sign up to a renew Sustainable House estate.
[01:20:48] Hamish: You know what, don't just sign up for it out of, you know, just 'cause you think there're a charity sign up to, 'cause there's some good fucking information. No, I know,
[01:20:53] Matt: I know. But like, like there's really no
[01:20:55] Helen: excuse. We, we have organizational memberships as well, so we have individual memberships and organizational memberships.
[01:20:59] Yeah. [01:21:00] And um, and I would say also for your audience is if people sign up, um, then you can participate in some of the things that we do. And particularly when you sign up, we're gonna, we need to set it up so that people can tell us what their skills are, what their backgrounds are. 'cause you might be somebody who's actually a bit of an expert in your field, and then you can come and talk to our audience, which is what we're gonna get you guys to do.
[01:21:22] So, yeah,
[01:21:23] Hamish: and you know what, and purely from a selfish point of view, from, if you are a builder out there and want to participate, like participate in a sustainable home day. That is absolutely hands down the best bit of marketing you can do. Bringing it Does someone through a house that you've built.
[01:21:39] Helen: Yeah, it's brainer.
[01:21:40] Good opport. That's why I love to
[01:21:41] Matt: do it. Like I just can't get any access because it's the best marketing,
[01:21:44] Hamish: no brainer.
[01:21:45] Matt: I don't wanna tell many people
[01:21:46] Helen: that it's like selfish. So next year, so that, I would say for anybody who's missed out this year, start thinking about next year now and just clock it in your calendar and the timing.
[01:21:53] 'cause it, you know, it creeps up on you really quickly after Christmas
[01:21:56] Matt: due to scheduled times. Like, it might be a presentation at 10, 11, and 12, or,
[01:21:59] Helen: [01:22:00] yeah. So there's, uh, I think there's four or five, uh, scheduled tour times at, um, at this year as well. And you can, the, we get the homeowners or the people who are, who are taking carriage of the home to choose how many people they wanna have come through and what times they're coming through, when their tours are.
[01:22:16] Um, and look, it's a lot of fun, like, because actually talking to the community and seeing things light up behind their eyes about Oh, right, I get it. You know, it's so exciting to see, to see that happen and to share that knowledge. And we know that that is the change that actually makes things happen when, you know, that's how change happens.
[01:22:34] Yeah. You know, there's this really well proven effect. You know, I don't, you've probably read about it where. The neighborhoods where people put solar panels on. More solar panels. Go on. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Because people see it, then they start a conversation, they talk about it, they go, well, if they're doing it and they're saving money on their bill, it must work.
[01:22:49] And, and then it kind of reverberates through neighborhoods and through communities like that.
[01:22:53] Matt: Let's see how that goes. EVs right now with the whole war on Iran. Let's see if that, because that's a, it's gonna be a very topical [01:23:00] conversation coming up on fuel. Yep. Let's start seeing if,
[01:23:02] Helen: and people see an EV and they see it in your driveway and they stop and they have a chat and they share and you know, there's nothing like getting caught in a conversation between two EV owners.
[01:23:11] Hamish: I tell you what I, the amount of people, because I've got a shark, the amount of trades that have come up to me afterwards and said, oh, what do you think of it? Yeah. I'm like, for someone who doesn't tow.
[01:23:21] Helen: Yeah.
[01:23:22] Hamish: Game changer.
[01:23:23] Helen: Yeah.
[01:23:23] Hamish: Absolute game changer.
[01:23:24] Helen: There's some big ev Oh,
[01:23:26] Matt: I don't
[01:23:27] Helen: things coming out.
[01:23:28] Hamish: Yeah,
[01:23:28] Matt: but they're only got the 200 kilometers.
[01:23:29] Like they're not Right. I've got a model Y and when my wife doesn't take it, like it's just. So much easier. Like it, I don't have to fill the car up. You just plug it in and off you go. Thanks. Thank you
[01:23:39] Hamish: so much. I'm, I'm really excited about what, uh, SBA and Renew can do over the coming years. It's a pretty exciting little space, so thanks for coming up.
[01:23:47] Thank you
[01:23:48] Helen: so much. Fun to talk to you guys. Thank you for having [01:24:00] me.