Category: Builder
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188: How to Have a Comfortable, Safe and Affordable Home
Paul Hennessey has an inspiring vision of a thriving community in which people live in their own warm, dry comfortable and affordable homes. He’s partnered with his wife, Pascale to create Park Homes in order to turn that vision into reality. But is it really possible to have an affordable and a comfortable home? Affordability…
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187: Building to Inspire and Nurture
Dolores Davis is part of a building legacy. It began in 1957 with Clarence and Stella Guerrero when Clarence started fixing up homes in Austin Texas. 60 years on, Dolores now leads a design-build company with thirty team members and a strong desire to inspire and nurture. Note: In the podcast episode, I mistakenly introduce…
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178: Cutting Edge Craftsmanship
In the early 1800s there was a rapid migration westward across the United States of America. Newer, faster ways of building were needed to house people in the booming towns of the “early west”. The craft of careful timber framed construction quickly gave way to mass production of stick frame housing. Tedd Benson refers to…
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176: The Enemies of Ugly
Arrow Timber Framing are self-proclaimed ‘enemies of ugly” and their portfolio of beautiful hybrid timber-framed buildings is a testament to that philosophy. May 2020 Update: Check out the Arrow Timber newsletter here. Bert Sarkinnen has been building homes since he was 16, firstly alongside his Father who was also his teacher and mentor. Along the…
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165: NZ Builders
I usually interview designers and builders about what’s going on overseas, with a focus on what the New Zealand industry could learn from them. In this episode, I speak with Damon Gray and Andrew Chapman of NZ Builders. They’ve turned this idea on it’s head and have taken some NZ techniques to British Columbia, with…
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151: Passive House is Here
There’s so much that could be said about two days of great Passive House presentations in Melbourne, but I’ve challenged myself to boil it down to one point per presentation. If there was one takeaway from the second South Pacific Passive House Conference, it was that Passive House has arrived in the Southern Hemisphere…
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150: Energy Efficient Homes in Canterbury
Glenn Harley is a builder of energy efficient homes in Canterbury. After being attracted to the natural, healthy feel of strawbale construction, Glenn now produces high performance homes with lots of insulation and airtight envelopes. Among his recent achievements is building Christchurch’s first Passive House. The Cost of Building Glenn points to the cost of…