In this episode of the Practical Broker podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing Casey Grey.
Casey is the founder of the award-winning sustainable building company, The Conscious Builder, the host of The Conscious Builder Podcast, and The Conscious Builder Show on YouTube and the former Co-host of The Conscious Living Podcast. He has written almost 400 blog posts on topics such as marketing, branding, entrepreneurship, personal development, sustainability and more.
He talks about building homes, renovations, and how his construction company takes a different approach to issues in the construction industry.
3 Key Insights
- Consciousness is a state of awareness and you can’t make a change unless you realize what needs to be changed.
- An integrated design process is essential because it allows the builder, architect and energy advisor to work together and plan effectively to get the best results.
- If you are based in Ontario, a tarrion warranty program covers you for seven years when you are dealing with structural issues that affect your building.
Resources
The Conscious Builder on Youtube
Show Notes
[0.34] – How Casey got started in the construction industry
He has been in construction since he was in high school. He initially thought he was going to be an engineer but he realized he was good in carpentry. He went on to work for a company for almost seven years after which he ventured out on his own.
He started to take his business and life seriously when he discovered that he was going to have his first child. He and his wife had a podcast called the Conscious Living podcast which was not based around the construction and it had about 70 episodes.
He focused on the word “conscious” for what he was doing because he realized that consciousness is a state of awareness and you can’t make a change unless you realize what needs to be changed.
Everything they do in the conscious builder is custom, it has to be for that individual, that family so he doesn’t say you have to do it this way or that way. He gives you the available options and asks you which one works best for you.
[4.13] – How to build a house while being conscious of the environment and your lifestyle
The first step is getting clear on what you want. There are so many options available. Renovations could make sense and new construction might be the best option for you.
He typically asks more questions to get more clarity on what they actually want and he guides them appropriately. He might say maybe renovation makes sense because you are happy in your neighborhood and there is an expense to moving. People often underestimate the cost of moving and when you move somewhere else unless you are building brand new you will need to renovate that house as well. There are also added costs to the building, designing, and building on an empty lot especially if you are going outside the city.
If your goal is to hit passive house certification or a building standard then it might be more difficult to achieve through a renovation.
The next step is to building your team, finding a builder, an architect, and an energy advisor you want to work with. These is referred to as an integrated design process where you get everybody working together and planning effectively to get the best results.
[6.28] – The first step a customer needs to take when they want to build a house
They don’t price anything until they have a design. He has never had a set of plans that matched the budget that people wanted to spend, it was always over-designed.
If you reach out to them, they will recommend some designers and architects that they work with regularly and they can choose the one that they feel best with.
You need to lock in with the people first because you can’t initially get a firm price on the construction site.
On the other hand, if you have a budget in mind you can design and make sure that it is done within the budget.
[8.43] – Fixed price and Cost-plus pricing schemes
He doesn’t really know if one pricing scheme is better than the other, it depends on what the individual wants. A fixed-price contract is never a fixed price, that is why there is something called a change order.
The issue with the fixed price especially during renovations is there are so many things that are not decided at the beginning of a project or things that you don’t know about. You might not know what you will find when you open the walls, you can make some assumptions but you might be wrong.
In the fixed-price contract the contractor does not need to break down the cost, they just tell you that here is the price to do this work, do you want it or not?.
If it cost them $500 and they are charging you $1000, they don’t have to tell you.
He has realized that people want to know these things so they give every receipt of all the materials that were used for the project but they will receive a percentage and they will create an estimate.
[14.49] – The importance of Tarion warranty
You have product warranties because they give receipts to everything but they are not going to warranty the products that they are installing but they will warranty the workmanship. If there is an issue with something that they install then there is a three-year warranty on that.
In the case of a custom home in Ontario, there is something called Tarion which used to be Ontario New Home Warranty Program and it is technically mandatory by law for anybody who is building and selling homes within Ontario. What it does is that there is no additional cost, if your builder charges you for something it should just be a registration fee for your home which is somewhere between $1000 – $1500 depending on the total cost of the project.
A lot of people don’t do it because it is not easy, to get Tarion you need to share your financials, you have to prove to them that you are in good standing, you have to maintain that good standing when you register a home you have to give them a deposit depending on your standing with Tarion. The biggest thing it handles is structural issues, if your foundation starts to crack or it is sinking you are covered for 7 years.
If your builder doesn’t remedy it, then they will remedy it, it is that third party insurance that really makes sure your house is built properly.
[17.28] – Trends on the green renovation or the environmental renovation front
The bigger builders are still focused on granite countertops and the pretty makeup stuff. He advocates for comfortable, healthy, and efficient homes. By default, if they make a home comfortable, it will be efficient.
They want to make sure that when you are in your basement it is not 10 degrees colder than the rest of the house. There will be a temperature difference from floor to floor but they focus on the proper building details that fix these things ahead of time so that when you are in your basement it doesn’t feel cold.
[20.38] – Does it cost a lot more money to build consciously?
It is generally more expensive to build a custom home. To increase the comfort and efficiency of the home is a small percentage of the overall cost of the custom home. When you buy a two-acre home, you can spend $100,000 on just getting the lot ready for landscaping, not even necessarily landscaping it at that point, so it is not a huge cost to increase the insulation or air sealing details or upgrade your windows.
Some windows are more expensive and perform worse, a nice aluminum-clad wood window is extremely expensive compared to a PVC triple glazed window with maybe an insulated frame.
The people that they are building for want to go with an all-electric system, they’re getting off fossil fuels. At this point, air source heat pump technology is still more expensive than a typical natural gas furnace.
[22.18] – How to connect with Casey
You can check him out on his website at The Conscious Builder Website
You can also subscribe to the Conscious Builder on youtube and listen to his podcast on all the podcast platforms.
