How Building Science Reduces Costly Callbacks with Sam Myers

Reece sits down with Sam Myers of Retrotech to talk about why comfort issues, humidity problems, and buckled floors often turn into expensive callbacks for builders. They cover how air tightness, HVAC design, ventilation, and testing all work together, and why code minimum is not always enough to protect the homeowner or the contractor.

If you build homes and want fewer surprises after move-in, this conversation is a practical reminder that measuring the house matters.

https://retrotec.com

Show Notes:
00:00 Show Intro
00:47 Meet Sam Myers
04:34 Who Retrotech Helps
05:53 Building Or Mechanical?
07:41 Why Code Falls Short
10:05 Smarter Homeowners
13:44 Commercial Testing Uses
15:54 Missing Residential Commissioning
19:25 Moisture Creates Costs
23:40 Testing Prevents Callbacks
25:34 Old Habits Pushback
30:15 Where Builders Learn
33:01 Building Science Answers

Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano

Podcast  Produced By:
Motif Media

Transcript

0:00

Why didn't this go right? Why did these hardwood floors buckle after a year? Why are these certain rooms never comfortable? Where do these humidity problems come from? Building science is your answer. Welcome to Builders Budgets and Beers. I'm Reece Barnes, and I started this podcast to have real conversations about money in the building industry, the wins, the mistakes, and everything in between. I believe builders deserve to feel confident about their finances, and that starts by hearing from others who've been through it too. This industry can be slow to change, but the right stories and the right tools can make profitability feel possible. Let's get into it. Alrighty, Sam, mics are hot, we're rolling. All right, thanks. Thanks for jumping on Builders Budgets and Beers, dude. Absolutely, yeah, thanks for having me on. Of course, yeah, it was, it was great running into you at the International Builder Show in Orlando. Yeah, that was a blast. It's a riot, it's a riot, and we won best of IBS. Did you know that? That was, I did see that. Yeah, congrats. Yeah, that's killer. Yeah, dude, yeah, we were super, super excited about it. And also, just like the number of products that were there that did, did win. It's always good for contractors to see what the next and best thing is out there, but cool. Okay, so let's jump into the episode here. And first, let's go ahead and give the audience a little introduction to yourself. Go ahead and let them know who you are, what you do, kind of, you know, a little background on yourself, how you got into the space, and we'll start from there. Yeah, so my name is Sam Myers, I'm the Building Science Director at Retrotech. We manufacture tools for measuring air tightness, air pressure, airflow measurement in all types of buildings and HVAC systems, and so I do a lot of our curriculum, I do a lot of our training and education, a lot of our technical articles, some product design, a lot of research in the field, things like that. If you go to these trade shows, like IBS, or any other of the other ones that we attend, you'll likely see me there. But yeah, I got into this into, you know, I don't know if I've ever met anybody that got into building science in a very straightforward way. I kind of fell into it when I was in, when I was in between undergrad and grad school, I lived in North Carolina's Outer Banks, and I did vacation real estate, so worked for a company. We had about 500 weekly rentals that we changed out every week, and that began to wear on me. It was, it was a lot. Yeah, so I got into grad school. I went to East Carolina University. They had a program, it was a Master's of Science and Sustainability, and I knew I wanted to do something in that direction, where actually, you know, whatever profession that I chose, I was making some kind of positive impact from it. And as I was interviewing with the director, he said, you know, we just got this grant from the EPA to study energy consumption of coastal vacation rental homes on the Outer Banks. Do you want to match? Do you want to manage that? Yep, yeah, that sounds great. I mean, home runs, yeah. And so that's what I ended up writing my thesis on and doing my graduate research on, published it, and I got an internship at a company called Advanced Energy in Raleigh, North Carolina, which is really well known in the building science world for some of the early research that they've done, so just being able to learn from that crowd, getting my hands dirty, getting my boots on the ground experience there has been great, I was with them for a while, and then now I've been with Retro Tech for just over eight years now, so yeah, totally. Okay, okay, so you're the SME, you're the, you're the Airflow HVAC SME subject matter expert, yeah. And actually, side note, is it HVAC or HVAC? It depends on who you ask. I say HVAC. I'm an HVAC guy. You're both are correct, you know. Okay, whichever way you want to go. Okay, okay, potato, potato type of thing. Okay, cool. I always, you know, I hear that, you know, floating around. I'm like, I'm just always brought up saying HVAC. I don't know, but okay, cool. So you got, you've got plenty of experience here, you know. Kind of started with a passion for sustainability. Who all do you typically work with in terms of contractors? Is it just residential, is it commercial, and who do you work with? Yeah, so everyone, we're in residential, we're in commercial, we're in industrial. Our tools are used for a variety of purposes, depending on the building type, whatever code that's trying to be met, or whatever issues there in an existing building, or kind of all over the board, and for residential, we're spread out through some different trades. There we do a lot with custom home builders that use blower doors as a quality assurance. Tool throughout the build, HVAC contractors are using the blower doors and duct testers a lot in existing buildings, because a lot of the times, if they get - if a homeowner has uncomfortable bedrooms or high humidity, that HVAC contractor is usually the first line of defense, right? That's who's going to get the phone call. My error is wrong, that's all they know, and so who figures that? HVAC contractors, okay? Well, what they're learning is, you know, a lot of the times the source of the problem isn't just in the HVAC system, and the way that a building works, that building enclosure is the container that is holding all of that conditioned air in, and it's its job to keep that inside and the outdoors outside, and so being able to measure the building envelope and see, like, okay, is this a mechanical problem or is this a building problem that allows them to be a lot more accurate in whatever they're going to prescribe after that. Totally, what do you see as more common, and is there a theme of, like, is it typically a building problem or is it a mechanical problem? A lot of times it's a mix. Okay, I live in the southeast. We do this really stupid thing where we put all of our duct systems outside of the building enclosure, so our air handler, our ducks are either in a hot vented attic or in a damp vented crawl space, so it's really working against itself, and so, a lot of the times, what we see is like, okay, well, just where the system is placed isn't doing a lot for you, and so does it make sense to repair what's there? Do we encapsulate the attic? Do we encapsulate the crawl space? Do we improve the building first, and then look at the mechanicals? So, a lot of the times, that's what we look at, and it depends on the budget too. I mean a lot of the times, if the, you know, if the budget isn't quite there, there's still some things that we can do to improve it. We won't make it what we would consider perfect, but there's still a lot you can do in between. So, yeah, there's there's all kinds of ways to skin the cat, depending on what the problem is. Totally, okay. Well, and that's that was one piece that I kind of wanted to dig into. So, you know, it's, oh, it's going to be a mix, right? It's going to be building mix, it's going to be the HVAC, or the mechanical mix, right? It's never just like one finger to point, but like this seems just being a consumer, right? You can call me, I can call myself a consumer in the situation, not the contractor, is like this seems like stuff that just should be expected, right, like an envelope that is keeping the outside out and the inside in, right. We've got our mechanical, that's, you know, filtering and conditioning air, and right, removing moisture, and all this stuff. But is that not the case? Like, is this.. is this just like a tell me about that? Who's typically flocking to better HVAC mechanical airflow concepts? Yeah, it's you. know, a lot of times it depends on the state, because our building codes are state by state, and the way that it works is we have what's called a voluntary code that some of the stuff falls under, so that's the IECC, the International, the International Energy Conservation Code, and so I think right now we're on 2024 but states can adopt whatever version of that that they want to, and then tweak it to be whatever they want, so interesting. For example, in North Carolina, here we're on the 2018 IECC with amendments, which means they removed their tightness testing. So, why? Yeah. because we have certain groups with lots of money that lobby to keep codes the way that they are. This is just insane to me. Go ahead, it is. It is, and it's really the homeowners are the ones that are really paying for it, because they end up with a subpar product that they have to encapsulate their family in, and then constantly call contractors to figure out what's wrong, totally, so it's, it's counterproductive, but that's the world we live in, unfortunately, and and it's hard to really kind of keep a finger on the pulse of how all of that is changing, because within each state you have, you know, up to 100 or more jurisdictions, and they're all doing things differently, they may adopt that code and do something different with it after the state does, so yeah, it's kind of all over the board, but it's better than it used to be, you know. This building science knowledge that we've known longer than I've been alive is now becoming a little bit more mainstream. We see more custom builders starting to figure this stuff out. How to plan for it ahead of time, so they don't have all kinds of problems later on. We're seeing it more. This old house is talking about it a lot more, so more homeowners are starting to see what this stuff is. So, it's it's better than it was. Okay. Well, and that's why I was, you know, kind of asking, like, who's typically flocking to these better, better practices, these better build and HVAC HVAC practices, because I was, is this like getting driven by the consumer, or is this stuff that the contractor is wanting to drive, but it sounds like the contractor can be is essentially going to be building to whatever the code is in their area, and then I guess the consumer could drive that if they were really conscious. Of like mold and airflow and quality of the envelope and stuff like that. Am I tracking, or would you? Yeah, I see a mixture of both of those happening. We have quite a few customers who are custom home builders who've got a really good grasp on this stuff, the importance of planning out and building an airtight envelope, matching the mechanicals to it, making sure that the system gets commissioned. We're seeing builders now that are advertising that stuff where they weren't before, and we're also seeing homeowners that are watching some of this content, they're watching the build show, they're coming across these episodes from this old house, they're coming across Green Building Advisor, and so now they're they're getting smarter about the questions that they ask to find a builder, so that also kind of forces the builders a little bit to kind of take a step back and say, okay, well, why are they asking me this? Why is this important? Why wasn't I taught this from the beginning? What changed? Sure, it's, it's good that these questions are coming up, totally, totally, and like I'm even saying I'm curious to hear more about, like, the commercial and industrial side, but just like even in, like, conversations I have with, you know, clients, friends at this point in the space that are like really leaning in hard in terms of building brands around healthy living and healthy homes, you know, I'm seeing a lot of consumers around this, so it's safe to say that over what, the last couple years, decade, five years, like, how much has this become more popular in the residential side? Would you say, yeah, I would say, you know, since the COVID pandemic started, a lot of, a lot of people were spending more time in their homes, right, so consumers, homeowners are starting to look for this stuff, they were realizing, okay, my home is might be making me feel a certain way, and also we've been seeing an influx in just, I'll say, influencers to build show really began to pop off, then on the HVAC side, HVAC school, what Brian Orr has been building with that has really kind of exploded over that time as well, so there's really good education out there now, and it's easy to find, and it's free, and so anybody can kind of access this stuff, and then kind of go from there, they can at least arm themselves with the right questions to ask, so yeah, I mean, over these past I would say six to eight years, there's definitely been a big change. Totally, okay. Well, and it's like anything else, right? The more conversation it gets, the more action that gets taken, right. And when, like, I mean, I'm at least optimistic that now, like, especially when you have the consumer that's being influenced by Build Show and the other influencers that are on Instagram and LinkedIn and stuff like that that are really pushing this agenda, and also people that, just frankly, like you said, with COVID, like they might have been spending more time indoors, you know? You see, you know, mold-related illness that comes through, and they start to understand that their home isn't there, like that's at least promising to know that more people are at least being conscious of the spaces that they're spending time in and what that air quality is actually doing so, hopefully there's a little little push in terms of the what legality that's in place in the code that's around this stuff, but okay, I mean, I think it's obvious to talk about this from a residential standpoint, because obviously people live there, but what are you seeing, like in terms of the adoption with the commercial industrial side, because I would imagine that on the commercial industrial side they're more applying these concepts as needed, or as like they're - I would imagine they're like extremely rigid when it comes to following code, and they're less interested in, like, for lack of a better term - upselling a client into higher quality air. Or how does that segment the commercial industrial guy look at HVAC, and how this is applied. Yeah, so it's commercial and industrial is a different beast. And from what we do and what we offer, we kind of hit it from a few different directions, right? We still do building envelope testing, it's just on a larger scale, but another thing that we do too is we work with the fire side of the industry, so you can actually use blower doors to determine whether or not a space is going to be suitable for a clean agent fire suppression. Interesting. Okay, data centers, server rooms, control rooms, things that can't get wet. What they use is a clean agent fire suppression system, and it's a gas that comes out at a very high pressure, and it has to retain at a certain height for at least 10 minutes, and so you can actually use our equipment and software to see if that room is going to work or not, and then go and find the leaks to make it work. So we do a lot of that, like we had a customer that we spoke with a couple of weeks ago that, you know, went into a facility, they did this test, they had the, you know, the fire suppression system set up for the past 30 years, and realized that there wasn't nearly enough clean agent there to put out any kind of fire if anything were to happen, and they had $75 million worth of electronics in there that needed protection, and they thought it was protected, but it wasn't, because they never got it tested. Oh, so that's a reason in itself, that. Great, one of many examples, and so we do a lot too with areas of refuge. This, the same customer that we talked to, does a variety of

testing: 15:09

blast proof rooms, explosion proof rooms, and so those have to be airtight, especially in manufacturing facilities where chemicals might get airborne. There has to be a safe place to go, so our tools are usually used to make sure that those are actually working as intended, but, um, but yeah, if we go back and look at just the envelope and HVAC side, you know, one thing that's really different about commercial and residential is the HVAC commissioning, because in commercial you have an entire industry that does that, they do test and balance, sure, in residential it's just as important, but that never gets done. They just throw it in there and have a good day. Nothing, airflow doesn't really get measured, pressures don't get measured in rooms, but in commercial, but why that actually has to get done. Why? Well, I mean, I just wouldn't.. what's the why? There's no lack of resources. Well, there's just.. there's no requirement. There's nothing on a piece of paper that has to get submitted to a building official that says this has to get measured, this has to be balanced. It's just not there. So, one thing, and a lot of it is an education thing, too. Totally, okay? So, that's all the more reason to be having this conversation, but the other side, I think, would be interesting. It's so easy just to be like, you know, biased in these comments of like, there's there's no mandates, there's no requirements, like it's just that's just what it is. Getting somebody on the podcast to talk about the why, I think, would be interesting, because I'm sure there's at least, I would hope that there's a logical reason why there isn't a mandate, or why it is harder to get across. Do you know, or do you? So, it goes back to, unfortunately, it goes back to it being a political reason. You know, the people that determine our codes are our state legislators, and depending on what lobbyist has their ear and who they represent, you know, a lot of these really big production home builders, they don't like change. Sure, they want to keep doing things the way that they do. They're just printing out houses, and if you throw, you know, a change in there, that's then they have, they see that as just a huge expense, when really it's not right. But unfortunately, that's really the source of why we're not getting the quality that we need, there's a huge amount of pushback to keep things the way that they are, so that's what we're fighting against constantly. That is so disheartening, it is brutal. Yeah, just like, just like the American citizen just catching the brunt of it, because they want to build 50,000 homes. Yeah, and if you look at it, too, like, if you're just building the code, it's like, you know, do you want your surgeon to operate on you that past medical school, you know, it's just the bare minimum, code mill house is the crap mill house you can legally build, so we shouldn't really look at that as, you know, the target to achieve, I mean, that's just what you're allowed to build, it's not what you can build, so it's really just a perspective of how we need to be looking at it, totally. And I think you know it's like with anything, I mean, I would say like tech more prominent than other industries for disruption, right? There's always like there's always innovation, always disruption in tech. Construction has obviously been like a fairly, I would say like a laggard or like a very like old school way of doing things, but just to our earlier point, of like in the last call it eight to 10 years, right, or like since Covid, where people are starting to prioritize it, we've got people like you, Bill Chill, all these other people starting to talk about it, prioritize it, maybe there's room for someone to come in and disrupt what the big production guys are doing, but again, you just kind of look at this and you're like, is it really down to change, because it feels pretty, I feel like that's pretty minimal on their end. Yeah, and I mean it's happening a little bit. I mean, a lot of these houses that are getting built by some of these really big companies aren't working, I mean, they're not livable and a year, and so there's some lawsuits in place, so unfortunately, that's that's the driver, but things are happening because I mean, when you don't build with this in mind, especially in human environments, things are going to fail and fall apart in one way or another, whether if it's something that you notice physically or something that you feel and are able to find that there's microbial growth, you know things like that, so yeah, if you don't do it right, there's there's consequences to suffer. What are the financial implications of that? I mean, I'd imagine that goes back on the contractor, doesn't it? It should. With one thing that surprised me with some of the houses that I've been into recently is just how fast some of these failures have occurred, so you know people think when a lot of people, when they see like a blower door test or air tightness, they just think energy, right? That's the benefit, but really it's the there's four things that we benefit from, and I mean I put energy at the end of it, but really the durability of the house I. Because a building's worst enemy is water in all of its forms, and we build houses out of wood, so water can get in a house any of four ways, like through the air, through bulk water, through capillary action, through materials, through diffusion, through materials, and so we have to control for all of that, and if we don't, bad things happen, and so luckily we're seeing some builders pay more attention to that, but when they don't, you know, I've been into some of these production-built homes recently, and one of them, the call was because of mold growth, and the occupants, the homeowners, were having reactions to that, and so there's not really a standard of practice that you do for that, you just kind of figure out who you need to call and go from there, and so they, you know, the builder, unfortunately, this was only a three year old house, and so they weren't willing to do anything about it, and so they called a mold specialist, and they bring in the dog to come sniff it out, and so the dog sniffed in random spots of the house, it's like, okay, well, somehow the homeowner got my number through, through, through another contractor, and so I went and checked it out, and I noticed where the dog sniffed was underneath an HVAC supply every single time, yeah, and so looking into it, the HVAC system was single stage, which means it's either on or off, right? There's no, no in between. And it had a zoned duct system, which means if only one thermostat is calling, there's a damper that turns half of the other duct system off. And so you build up a lot of pressure right there at the beginning of the supply plenum. Things get really cold. It had insulation inside of the plenum, so things really like to grow in that when it does get really cold, and so we were able to see that after we scoped it, and then we had to put together a duct design, change some things, so that when that zone system could bleed off air and not get under such a high pressure, and then put a dehumidifier for the whole house, and then just balance the bedrooms out, and once we did that, everything's great, you know. Before they caught, before I was called in, they had blood testing done. There was evidence of mycotoxins from mold and their blood results. The, they had a one year old that was breaking out with eczema, so was the mother, and now their skin is cleared up, they're feeling better, all because of just the source, was the HVAC system was not properly designed or commissioned, and error was going to rooms I couldn't get back to the return, and so we just created pathways for that, and everything was fixed, and so that whole neighborhood was probably like that, so these were just more sensitive homeowners that were looking to do something about it, but yeah, and so, like, as far as like a cost benefit to that too, is like if you are the builder and you start getting these calls after things start to go wrong, it's really frustrating when you start to find out like there's a lot you could have done to prevent all of this, and a lot of that is, you know, testing with a blower door as you go testing the HVAC system as after it gets installed, being able to see if pressure or bedrooms are under pressure or not. When bedroom doors are shut, literally takes 30 seconds. It's quick and easy, but just be called code. Just because code doesn't require it doesn't mean you shouldn't be doing it, because if you can make sure everything is balanced and even and pairs well, works as designed, you're not going to get those moisture-related callbacks, those health-related callbacks, those comfort related callbacks. You get happier customers, they're going to be recommending you to their friends and people that they know. So we are starting to see a lot of that now. Totally, I'm just scratching my head here, because, of course, like I'm just gonna call it, you've got to be biased, right? This is your world, this is what you study, right? You make it sound so easy, but is this just insane to me that people are getting sick to the tune of neighborhoods, right, because of something that could take 30 seconds to do, and is this extremely easy process to add into the process to make sure that this stuff doesn't happen? Is it again? I might be duplicate or like redundant here, but is this because of the zoning or like the coding, the code, or I mean, usually I mean the bare minimum when I get done, so what it is, I mean, the bare minimum is almost always going to get done, unless the builder is intentional about going above code and making sure that they're not going to get these callbacks and doing what they have to do to ensure that. So, making sure the HVAC contractor is doing a load calculation to make sure that that heat pump or air conditioner or furnace is going to match the building that it goes into, instead of just guessing, because a lot of times the code department will require that, but nine times out of 10 the person in that office reviewing the manual J load calculation has absolutely no idea what they're looking at, so you could pretty much send in anything and it'll get approved, but actually making sure it's done correct. Lee, now down the road, you're not going to be getting those calls about warped hardwood floors and things like that, anything that moisture is going to cause if it's done right the first time. Dang. Okay. Okay. So, and do you see? I imagine you have this. You have this conversation for a living. You have this conversation all the time. There's got to be a contractor that sticks out in your head, that would push back on on this with you, or would you say that, like, the majority of contractors are pro this, they're just following code. My question is, what do you think the contractor that would listen to this episode and push back, what do you think they'd say? It would start with, I've been doing this for 30 years, and I've never had to do this before, but you know, my argument usually is like, okay, well, like, five years after you build the house, you ever just go knock on the door and see how they're doing? What dare? No, exactly, totally. And then, and then, I have home builders that do this stuff, and are friends with their clients. They, of course, they know how they're doing. They're, you know, it was just a success all the way around, so it, yeah, if you're completely confident in what you did, because you tested and you measured everything, there's no reason to be scared to talk to that client years down the road, because you should know exactly what's been going on, what's going on in that house, but you know another thing that we constantly hear too is that you know houses need to breathe, they don't need to be airtight, they need to breathe, and Dr. Allison Bells from Energy Vanguard wrote a book a couple years ago called A House Needs to Breathe or Does It, and that was just the best title that that book could have, and it really just goes into the basic concepts of why this stuff works, because the whole idea of, like, a house needs to breathe is just like the one argument that we are constantly fighting, and it's usually just because, you know, is having an airtight house isn't the only solution, right? Everything else still has to work together. I mean, buildings aren't just static, stationary objects, right? They're their systems of multiple components totally have to work together, and so if you have an airtight building, but you have along with that no ventilation and an oversized HVAC system, then you're going to have moisture problems. So it's not the tight envelope's fault, it's just the rest of that design didn't fall into place like it should have. So it all has to work together, totally, totally, and that's like just with the pushback, I'm just what I'm picking up on this whole topic, this is way more than I ever thought I'd think about moisture in homes and HVAC, and so this is great so far, but the one thing that I'm hearing is this just like broadly because of neglect or like just people like not emphasizing it, that's turning right, like it's definitely becoming more of a conversation. You're definitely seeing more of it, but it's like the guy that's been doing it for 35 years, never done it. I know what I'm doing. We've all heard that contractor, we've got code right, we've got politicians like pushing this. It's like this is just.. it just seems to me like this problem exists because of just intentional neglect. Yeah, I don't know if I would call it neglect or not. It's just a, it's just a lack of education, and I mean, a lot of builders don't know any better unless they are going out of their way to learn it. That's the only way that they can get there. Otherwise, it's just this is the way we've done it. If it's an HVAC problem, that's that's that subs fault. So that's their responsibility to fix, instead of kind of owning the whole project. That I mean, I think that's another thing I see that kind of differentiate some successful builders versus others. It's like, don't don't just blame your subs, like this is your this is your project, your name is on this house, so maybe try to get a better understanding of the physics of how all of this is supposed to work, and it's really, it's really not that hard. Yeah, we're keeping the inside out, or we're keeping the outside out, the inside in, but we still need a measured amount of fresh air coming in and still air leaving, and we need to make sure that everything is sized properly, so that you know the HVAC system isn't just keeping us cool or warm, it's also removing humidity when we don't need it and keeping in humidity when we do want it in the winter. So, Nick, where I live in the Southeast, is I'm in, I'm in Wilmington, North Carolina, so we get all four seasons and humidity, so building houses here to accommodate all of those scenarios, it's tough. But if you do everything by the book, get a tight envelope, measure it along the way, do your manual J correctly, and get ventilation. I mean, there's no reason why that house isn't going to work. So, totally, just, yeah, but, but a lot of home builders, they just don't know this stuff, because they've never been forced to learn it, and a lot of the times they get a negative association with this kind of stuff, because, oh, well, the code makes me do this, that's the only reason why I even know about it, and so a lot of times they just see it as a hurdle if it is required in the area, oh, they're just forcing me to do it, but they're never really shown why they just are. Showing that they have to do it, so, so there's that too. It's just, you know, whether if you're willing to go out there and really learn what this is all about, what problems we're trying to prevent, other than just kind of seeing it as an obstacle you have to navigate around. Totally, okay. Well, so where do the fine contractors of America go to learn more about this? Yeah, so plug away kinds of places, plug away, yes, own the good resources, yeah, so we talked about the build show earlier, all of the contributing builders are making sure that their buildings are airtight, whether if they're starting from scratch, building new construction, or if it's a gut rehab, I mean, they're planning for that and testing through that all along the way. So, I mean, as far as a free resource and just seeing examples of how all this can come together, all the different materials that can be used, how to test it. I mean, that's that's a great place to start. Another good one that I really like too is construction instruction. They're based in Colorado, but they have a lab set up with all different kinds of mock-ups. Is this Mark? I was his last name wrong, Lola Mark. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was just with Mark last week. I was getting his last name wrong, but anyways, yes. Construction instruction sounds like a sweet facility. It is. Yeah, it's killer, and there's a few training centers like that around the country, like we're going to be hosting a training with a group in Chicago, CETA, next year, where they actually have a warehouse with a two-story house built inside with all different kinds of components, construction types, and things like that, where we can actually train builders and HVAC contractors on all kinds of mechanical systems set up, so you know there's all kinds of online sources, there's all kinds of in-person sources, if you're willing to travel a little bit, you know, if you go out to construction instructions site, I mean, that's definitely worth going to check out and getting some of their classes done, but you know, the Building Performance Institute is a good one too, that's the institute that certifies a lot of energy auditors to do energy audits, weatherization projects, and things like that, but just kind of going through that, just to see what equipment that you need to test with and how to operate it. I mean, you can get that in a couple of days. So this all seems just like not like non-negotiables to me, this seems like such a light lift, like just like a low barrier to entry, easy resources all across the country, resources online, couple days to get this done. There's such a huge upside to this. Yeah, I mean, if you're really trying to build a house, it's gonna last and make people happy. I mean, you really can't ignore it. Yeah, totally, totally. Okay. Well, well, we'll, we'll send, we'll send you off with, with this. I think, if there's, you know, we talked about a lot, if you want to use this as like a summary, or just even like a way to get really, like, you know, the one comment, or the one perspective that you wish more contractors were considering, what would it be? Yeah, I mean, if, if you're, if you're a homebuilder contractor that's been struggling with some of the stuff, to you know, why didn't this go right? Or, you know, why did these hardwood floors buckle after, after a year? Or why are these certain rooms never comfortable? Where do these humidity problems come from, I mean, building science is your, is your answer, and it's the key when you're googling for answers, I mean, that's what you want to look for. Another resource that I wanted to mention, too, we talked about Allison Bells with Energy Vanguard, his blog is awesome. Usually, whenever I write up a report for a client, I am pulling something from his blogs, because he likely articulated it better than I could, and so really, for any kind of problems that we see in houses, he likely wrote about it in the best way you possibly could. So definitely go check that out. But yeah, I mean, if you're really trying to reduce callbacks and just make that house work the way it's supposed to, this is the rabbit hole you want to get pulled into. I love it, I love it. Well, Sam, I appreciate you jumping on. It was an absolute pleasure. And real quick, before I send you off, I just realized I'm colorblind, by the way. Is that a blower door behind you? I just really is red, and you're moving around, and like, it's like there's like the hole or whatever, is this in your, yeah, so this like, yeah, this is a test chamber that I built right when the pandemic got started in 2020 I travel a lot, I teach all over the country, and so there was 18 months where I didn't go anywhere, but we were still having customers wanting training and education, so I built a virtual training lab in my garage, cameras I can move around. We could simulate any kind of thing that we run into in the field in here. We can make this have an encapsulated attic, vented attic, but I host podcasts in here too now. Sound quality, exactly, exactly on the side. It, that's great, that's great. Okay, cool. Well, Sam, like I said, I appreciate it, dude. And yeah, I hope this was impactful for the audience, because this was certainly eye-opening for me. I had no idea. Yeah, this was fun. Thanks for having me on. Of course, dude, we'll, we'll be in touch.