28 - Adam White - Intelligent Membranes
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James: Hello and welcome to Marketing Passive House, the podcast where we hear from architects, designers, builders, suppliers, owners, and other experts in the passive house and high performance building space. We'll be talking about what's working and what's needed when it comes to marketing buildings that meet or aspire to the passive house standard. I'm your host, James Turner, and today I'm joined by Adam White, CEO, and founder of Intelligent Membranes. welcome to the show.

Adam: Thank you for having me on. Really excited to go through this. Something a bit different. Let's go.

James: Yeah. Excellent. we get right into it, and for people who are just meeting you for the first time, could you share a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how you started on your passive house journey?

Adam: Okay, so I am, I'm 43. Let's, so they can picture that I'm 43. I started my career as a carpenter at 15 years old. And now I've done carpentry most of my life. I've owned a timber frame manufacturing company. Through that. And it was actually through the timber frame manufacturing. No, the timber frame install inside where I had just read about Richard Branson and him saying, if someone ask you something, just say yes and find out how to do it.

Adam: It was a week before I'd I'd read his stuff on that and I was on a building site. I'd put this one timber frame kit up. And someone come to me and said, oh, do you know how to do air tightness? I was like, of course I do. Of course I do. Hadn't got a clue. Went home, went on the internet. Obviously I was going back many moons now.

Adam: And yeah, I got all the stuff I needed to do. It gave them an extortion price to do it, which they accepted. Yeah, so I'd done all the tapes and membranes and that was a nightmare. And then afterwards he said do you know how to do air testing? Oh, yeah, of course we do. So I rung up a local air testing company.

Adam: I didn't even know what it was. I said, look, can you come in just. Unbranded tops and do these for me do this air test. So he, did, he come down and done it for me. And in the meantime, I'd booked several of me and my staff onto an air testing course. So within two months there was three of us that were qualified air testers.

Adam: And I actually had my own air testing company for a couple of years. So we'd done thousands of air tests between us.

James: Amazing.

Adam: it was heyday, there was lots of money to be earned and that was actually what set me on my travels for earning a lot of money. So it funded the bank. And then into passive house was actually an argument with an architect.

Adam: That actually got me actually into passive house. I'm quite stubborn if anyone's met me. My views are my own and I'm happy to challenge you. Where I said I didn't believe a bank of five studs with no insulation on either side was a good idea. He told me, I didn't know what I was talking about 'cause he was a passive house certified consultant.

Adam: And I was like, okay. Booked on a course and a couple of months later, I was a certified designer. That was back in 2016. That was. That was with Warm, that was with Pete when Peter Warm was still teaching a long time ago. So I could go back to that architect and say, right now I've done it.

Adam: Now I'm definitely, no you are not. Correct. So yeah. So I fell into it. And then, yeah, and then the rest is history really having some bad times of some paper membranes and things. Sorted the liquid membrane out, got the manufacturing company. And then yeah, intelligent membranes was born with passive purple.

Adam: Yeah the rest is history really.

James: continues to be written. That is awesome. That's definitely the best. Journey into passive house. I've heard yet, I think.

Adam: Yeah. It is just being a bit stubborn and yeah,

James: And saying

Adam: luck.

James: Just saying yes.

Adam: I love that. Just say yes and just do it after. I've done that so many times since. Sometimes it can over promise and under deliver, but more times than often it's worked.

James: Nice. Passive purple. Okay. And one question I've dying to ask since I've seen your advertising a lot o over the years, but does it have to be purple?

Adam: Does it have to be purple? Yeah. It took us a long time to find that purple color. There's actually a few colors that we had in mind. We had black to start with. And if you've ever

James: I.

Adam: put black on a building, we had one client and she was furious. She did not like it. Even though it was being covered up, it was black.

Adam: And that what triggered us to go let's pick a different color anyway. But purple, you can just see everything on purple. It's like a magic color that we have. We've tried blues and reds and other, you can just see anything on purple if it's crisp and it's purple.

Adam: You can see any gaps or anything like that. It's just a magic color. And obviously passive purple kind of has a little twang to it. It sounds right. And it's great for the branding. It's definitely great for branding.

James: Yeah that's what made me wonder if it was purely if it was brand led or function led. So that's really interesting that it's

Adam: Yeah. It could have been sunshine blue. We had no, we had sunshine yellow, sorry. Ocean blue and some and something green. Eco green and yeah, passive purple one L right back in the day.

James: Nice.

Adam: Yeah.

James: Excellent. Okay so you made passive purple and then now that's more your business, right? Do you do any of the installing or is

Adam: So we're a bit of a mix intelligent membrane. So we do supply we're a big distributor of the product, but we also have a, an install side as well. So we go round

James: Nice.

Adam: and further afield as well. And we'll go and do the installs for clients because. Anything to do with passive house.

Adam: There's no such thing as a product. Only everything has to come as a system. There's no one product that can solve everything. It's a system.

James: Yeah.

Adam: and then understanding passive house is a big thing as well. So all our installers understand passive house. They're all trained in air testing and things like that, so they understand the concept.

Adam: So we actually offer, with our install side, we offer guaranteed air tests results. Which is a big thing for our clients because it's a one thing just to supply a product and a completely different thing to say actually we have passive purple brush. We have passive purple spray. We actually have the airtight window tapes as well.

Adam: We have our own brand window tapes. We have liquid grommets for any wires that are coming through any service penetrations. We have liquid DPM for the floors. If you want a liquid DPM or if you wanna put passive purple on the floor, it's actually a radon barrier as well. So for retrofit side of things, passive purple.

Adam: There's no other way on a retrofit to deal with radon. You either knock the building down or you've got completely encase the whole of the inside of a building and it's understanding that you cannot have any gaps. Radon will find a way. So you've gotta encapsulate the whole building. Yeah. So we go around and now, and we offer the guaranteed air type scores.

Adam: It comes with its challenges where there's a chippy, there's a hammer and a drill, and where there's a sparky, there's a wire to do something. But we have it covered. We are quite clear with our clients. You are gonna have pictures of me on posters. When you get to site, you're gonna have induction videos with me saying, look, this is his site.

Adam: This is what passive house is. Please don't hurt my building. And then, yeah, open door policy. We have with a, with our clients on site as well where we say, look if you damage something. If you tell us, we'll just go and fix it, we'll go and fix it, and it's just a lot better for everyone else. So we do that with a lot of our clients at the start.

Adam: So if a carpenter goes and does something it shouldn't have done, if you just tell us, we'll fix it, there's no counter charging, we'll just fix it within our time and scope. Now that is a big thing moving forward. Yeah, no blame culture which is something nice to see because when I was on site.

Adam: You were scared to tell anyone of anything because you thought the world, the, your whole world was gonna come down upon you if you've scratched something, nicked something or broke something. But yeah, it is good to see times are changing on that area as well.

James: That's a really great point. I think that's part. I consider it part of marketing passive house where you have signage to put up on the site, like recognizing that not everyone working there will be fully on board.

Adam: No one, no. If you go on site and ask 'em like, oh, what's passive house? They'll look at your bus side and then they'll be like, just go away. You've gotta understand as well with these sites, and I'm one of I, I like the nerdy side, but I am a builder at heart. And a lot of these, they're builders. They don't care about passive house.

Adam: They don't care about a u value of a window. They don't care about anything. But what they do care is what about? About what they're doing. So if you explain passive house in the simple terms of it's a fabric first approach. We just need to make sure thermal installation, your airtightness, your weather barriers, they're all sealed up together and these, and if it isn't, this is what the consequences are gonna be.

Adam: That's a, that's an easier way to deal with the site. So that's why we do 360 imagery for our posters. We do 360 cameras. So we all go on after we've done a few of the installs 360 camera, we'll walk around so you can scan a QR code and actually look around at the air tightness on a project as well.

Adam: Just the more information you can give people, the more they actually understand it. And we do find that's working. We have electricians and plumbers that I've got a tub of passive purple brush in my van and a brush and stuff, and they do a wire they blow it all up and seal it all in.

Adam: So it's working.

James: Yeah. I was gonna ask if there, if you're. you had spillover where someone works on a site and that's the first time they've encountered it, and then they go on to try and get it into their next project or tell their friends about it, or,

Adam: oh yeah we get a lot of that. We get a lot of that. 'cause it's easier for them as well. If they're working with someone they know that's gonna help 'em as well.

Adam: Again, going back to the plumbers the, that some of them can be, they'll just go hell for leather and just you walk in, you're like, what have you done?

Adam: What have you done guys? And they're like I did tell you. You are like, okay. But then that helps us out 'cause we will see 'em on the next job. And we were approachable. We're all a big team and they talk. Yeah, it's good. It's good.

James: Yeah.

Adam: being part of a family, bringing everyone back in together.

Adam: Because in passive house, it is a small industry. At the minute we like to say it's mainstream, it isn't. It's quite niche still. The next few years it's gonna be trying testing because I don't know if the labor force is there to do it, if I'm honest. I've seen that a lot in the retrofit side of passive house standard, and, passive house trust. Would love to hear me say this as well, that I have been wrong with. I've always said I, I don't mind a builder building to passive house standards. If they're going from normal building standards to passive house standards. I don't mind that and I don't mind it not being certified and verified myself 'cause they're trying, but.

Adam: I think I'm wrong in that approach because I do believe in retrofit especially that everything needs to be certified or verified after the projects are done. 'cause I'm actually seeing a lot more bad than the good I'm seeing as well,

Adam: On these projects because the market's so big for it now. The retrofit side, the insulation being added to all these buildings not understanding ventilation.

Adam: I go to so many projects and they're not putting MVHR systems in and they're doing extract only,

Adam: And it's mind blowing. It, it's, it is absolutely mind blowing. And the cost of some of these retrofit projects that are building up, passive house standards, 120, 130,000, and I'll see the end result.

Adam: Ah, and it's embarrassing. Really. It's embarrassing to see that someone that's living in a home can't really afford their bills. It's hard for every one of them in it.

James: Yeah.

Adam: go and take 130,000 pound upgrade their home and they go, oh yeah, I'm saving 300 pound a year now on my energy bill. And you think the payback

James: Yeah.

Adam: on pound and you are saving 300 pound a year. It and it's not being done correctly because there's still some iffy parts.

Adam: I, it's just not there. I don't think it, I don't think it's fair what we're doing at the minute in the industry on that side of things.

James: Right.

Adam: and I'll argue with anyone because I would love to go up to that person and say actually there's 10 grand.

Adam: Go start a business. If it fails. I wanna pay your energy for the next five years. That's 50. Okay. That's 60,000 pound we've spent. We've still got some change to do a little bit of remedial work in your house. That would be a lot better today.

James: Yeah.

Adam: That's just one opinion.

James: No, I think I think that's something I've come up against when asking people, like about the certification, like the thing that it adds in is that checking, that testing, like showing your work, right? Showing your homework, how did you get to this? What did you achieve? That kind of thing.

Adam: I think there should be a master platform. And this is, and I don't like governments stepping in, but I think it should be a master platform where everything is documented and uploaded on every project to show exactly what they've done, especially if you're dealing with government money that it all needs to be there, so there's no getting around it.

Adam: Everything's there, even in Tera Membranes, we do 360 imagery on everything before we do the work. After simple cameras, simple uploads that's there, you can check everything, but that should be for everyone as well because there's just too much out there that's actually ruining it for the rest of us.

Adam: 'cause in there is a lot of good retrofits as well happening. There is a lot of good retrofits.

James: right.

Adam: I know I'm only, I'm of some reason I've gone down the route of just highlighting bad stuff. But no yeah that, that'd be a lot better for the industry. One, one body,

James: Yeah.

Adam: one, everything.

James: Yeah. And it's natural isn't it, to go down the root of the bad stuff. 'cause that's the part that's ruining, like it's hard to, to market broadly to, to tell people like, Hey, there's is great way of doing things that'll make your house more comfortable and safer and healthier and nicer to live in if you pick the right people.

James: If you have to have that qualifier on the end that like that it's a bit of a gamble. It's not.

Adam: The problem is it is a gamble. It is a gamble. If you are gonna go and do a retrofit, and I'm say in Wales I'm gonna put the installation on. I can't afford MVHR, so I'm just gonna do like an extract only unit. But what's in Wales? Radon

Adam: A Radon is how's the Radon doing in the homes?

Adam: That's what a lot of people are finding as well Now. They're putting these extract only systems in,

James: And it's sucking more in, is it?

Adam: and they're sucking more in, you are literally killing the residents inside the building. And yeah, anyone doing a retrofit in, in, in Wales needs to be making sure it's not just the floors either, because obviously radon comes up through the gaps in the building.

Adam: So if it, the floor's broken, it's gonna come up through the wall. It could come up on, out on the first floor. It's a minefield. Be really careful what you're doing.

James: before we, we connected, I saw one of your, I can't remember now if it's a post or an advertisement, but you specifically calling out radon and it's something that's on my mind. I'm in a basement office right now in Brunswick Fredericton, new Brunswick in Canada. And it's a thing that there's, you can get a radon testing kit. At the library, they just made it available and it's booked out for the next three months or something. I know you can buy Radon test but they're realizing that people are, lower income, they're not gonna pay to test if there's this invisible, imaginary thing that's killing them.

James: So have a lot of old housing stock, a lot of cinder block built buildings and,

James: Yeah.

Adam: Next to smoking is the biggest cause of lung cancer, along with a lot of other problems.

Adam: People just aren't checking for it. In the UK we have a new thing called Awaab's Law and that come in September last year. And that's all to do with damper moisture in rental homes.

Adam: So if you're renting somewhere, if you've got black mold, the landlord needs to sort it out. Radon and methane gets added in 2027. That sounds like a long way away,

James: Yeah.

Adam: these their two issues you are not dealing with in a couple of weeks. This is full strip outs. We are doing projects not just in the UK but in Chicago.

Adam: We've gotta go in and you getting readings of 1500. Some of them are school buildings.

Adam: People's children are in these buildings and you've got millions of 1500 and the safe value is about a hundred to 200. So you're like so much over the legal limit of what, what should be happening.

James: Yeah, I just, I thought it was an angle I hadn't heard anyone else talk about that's personal to me that 'cause I'm always looking for these moments in the passive house world where it can connect with like regular people who aren't, oddly interested in architectural standards or building standards.

Adam: I always say passive house is return on health

Adam: Return on investment. That's the number one thing you should say in my house. I'm actually wrong. I'm spending this money. I'm gonna live healthier because the, I've got fresh air. I'm radon free, I'm methane free. All of the rest, it's just fresh air coming in, filtered.

Adam: That is it. So my health is that that's the number one driver.

James: Yep.

Adam: How much am I getting back on my return on my investment? I'm not so sure.

James: 300 pounds a month saved on your bill but then also a better quality of life. Maybe you'll live longer

Adam: that, that's all we strive for.

Adam: I don't live to pay the tax man, so had a minute. I do. I'm in the UK we'll see where.

James: Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so that really spoke to me. I, it made me think of how in California there. Bromwyn Berry talks about smoke tight, like how passive houses

Adam: I love smoke tight. I love it.

James: tight.

Adam: Smoke tight and airtight. I actually got asked that the other day. One of the girls come in the office. No. And she actually put the camera in my face. What? Smoke Tight and airtight. They're the same thing. People say Smoke tight. In California or in where there's fires

Adam: Want to know that a building smoke tight, 'cause people can visualize what smoke tie is.

James: Totally.

Adam: tight California, it's all smokey outside. You are inside air quality still. You're still getting your fresh air that you should be doing 'cause you've got your filters and stuff.

James: Yeah.

Adam: that's the big difference.

James: Yeah. And it feels like radon tight is, as it becomes more common knowledge that could, that is another angle through which you

Adam: I I think it's gonna be big. I think radon will be the ne the next asbestos, we already know it's big, but 'cause we can't see it.

Adam: It's put to the back of the pole. But over the next coming years where everyone has to be accountable now,

James: Yeah.

Adam: is right for the buildings you sell, for the buildings you build.

Adam: Because there's no, even if you've got a high radar on area and you do the floor, you could be sucking the radon through the walls. They can be coming in out the ground and straight into your house rapid.

James: Yep.

Adam: everything needs to be done right.

James: Yeah. Switching topics a little bit, if you don't mind. I now wanna talk about the advertising, like the campaigns, the brand, like I, I equate in my mind intelligent membranes with Liquid Death. The famous. Canned water company.

Adam: Yeah,

James: The name Liquid Death, but the brand, the way that they advertise and something like the look of the brand like you've got there.

James: The stag.

Adam: the big the big stag and the characters and yeah, the stag's been with me since I bought the farm. I h the HQ is on a farm, so I bought the farm and it was always my dream. To have a big stag here until I realized just how big fences that you need to build to keep these big majestic things in.

Adam: I do have a sta I do have a deer now. I have a little muntjac. I have a rescue. He lives with me in my house now 'cause he can't be, go out into the world. But yeah, with the branding. We love the, it's like the Marvel theme for the characters, and we're just trying to be a bit more fun.

Adam: It like, it doesn't have to be serious.

Adam: The room I'm sat in over COVID. We built the passive house bar, so I was like let's build it to passive house, get the air tightness right down and then I was approached by a company that said they'd put the bar in for me. I said, oh, there we go.

James: Absolutely

Adam: That was a company in California as well.

James: nice.

Adam: And then you'll be surprised how easy, how much is easier to get someone to your office when you say, look, I've got a pub. Come down, have a couple of beers. We'll go through passive house, we'll go through some products, laid back on a Friday. Make sure you bring a driver and yeah, come down. Let's go through it all.

Adam: Let's just relax and do it. That has been so successful for us. Yeah, because e even a lot of people come down. It's not about the having the beer, it's just the laid back atmosphere of it all. The theater of it or looking at the building, looking what a passive house is. Understanding in here there's no heating, there's no cool in,

Adam: Stays the same.

Adam: This part of the building.

James: Yeah.

Adam: And it's just us that warms it up. That's a good way to explain it all to them.

James: Right.

Adam: Yeah. And then, yeah, obviously just fresh air and all of the rest but yeah. But going back to the characters, the Marvel stuff, all our, if you've seen any of our brochures we lay it out like the Marvel side.

Adam: Each product has its own special character. In the summer, we will actually be getting our characters out and sending them out as well. So each one will have a a handheld character to give out. So that's pretty cool.

James: brilliant. Yeah. Did that come along with is that kind of just of you or did you get a

Adam: I do.

James: to dig too deep into your

Adam: No. It's an, it's just a fun side. We just wanted to, one of our products, it's called Surface Pro.

Adam: It's boring name. It sounds like it could be the Surface Pro laptop, or.

James: Right?

Adam: But then when you put a character in it in a white suit, glaring blue eyes, big horns, he is got his body armor.

Adam: When I think of Surface Pro, I think of that character and that's what I like about it. It's for fun side.

Adam: If I send it to sight to someone for free to try, they're like, what? What is this? Look at it. I love the branding. And you'll be surprised architects as well they like to see something different.

Adam: They don't start to see boring old drawings all the time. And boring, oh, look at this brochure someone's given me.

James: Yeah

Adam: yeah, just trying to add a bit of a fun to life.

James: I love

Adam: too short.

James: A hundred percent. Yeah. I've worked a lot in B2B and. There's this of idea that everything in B2B has to be a bit boring and stodgy, and it's but the people, the, ultimately it's just a human being reading the thing. Yeah, they work for a company, but they're a human with the same desire for fun and novelty and

Adam: Why so like why can't bathroom waterproofing be a bit more fun? We, ours is called Poseidon. Our roofing product is called the goat, the Greatest of All Time, the Goat, big Old Boy. Our charity product, it's called Fuck Off Cancer. Yeah, but it was called Intelligent Protect Vis. But when we used to go around to the sites, we used to say to the contractors put this on your worktops and you tell everyone to f off, fuck off.

Adam: And then we realized, 'cause it was quite fun, we were like, okay, let's just make it a pure charity. I'll get it manufactured. Anything we make after that just goes to charities and let's make it. High vis yellow, pink, and orange. So that's what we did. And then we spell it with a PH passive house, so

James: Perfect.

Adam: off cancer.

Adam: Again, bit of fun, goes to charity.

James: Yeah.

Adam: Builders like it, it brings everyone back on the same level.

James: Yeah, certainly. And yeah, liquid applied membranes doesn't sound fun, but somehow. When I think of intelligent membranes or passive purple I'm, I want to like waterproof. I want to air proof something or air make something airtight like it's an insane thing that you've done, I think to make air sealing this kind of exciting.

Adam: You should see the window protection. About four years ago, three years ago, I come back and I was supposed to be driving. It is about four hours away, and I, Dr. I put I didn't have time to sort this window out, so I told the lads, I said, look, just go and spray my Audi. And just go to town on it, spray the whole thing, get the colors out, graffiti it, and do a load of, they did, so they sprayed my whole Audi and then done high-vis colors and stuff.

Adam: I'll drop you some links to the pictures. But you, that was mad. I got some looks driving up, up north in that literally you had people bibb in giving your thumbs up and yeah, it was a great way to sell window protection.

James: I bet. Have you found that, so this is another thing I think about are do you market to anyone in particular or do you just put it out there and see what comes? Do there? I feel like there's. There's the builder side, then there's the architect side of where they could specify the product.

James: And then there's the consumer side where they're like, I don't really know. I just wanna use this cool, fun thing in my house.

Adam: Yeah, I mean they, that side of things changing fast over the last year as well. People just want to see raw footage of people doing like the installs. That's why you'll see people, our competitors doing it as well, but given out to YouTubers to put on their channel.

James: Yeah.

Adam: as much as I can demonstrate the product and I can show a lot of pair times, I won't relate to some of these H home builders.

Adam: 'cause they'll go, oh, he's a bit high techy techie for me. Even though he's got this cool little brand. But then if you give it to a DIYer who's got their own little there and they will channel and they're, oh got paint this passive purple stuff on this wall doesn't have to be right. It goes on the wall.

Adam: Yeah, that's a great way of selling. Got, we have loads of channels. Everyone's slightly different. I co-own a brewery as well, so I've got my own beer,

James: Nice.

Adam: called brew board. And I actually, when I sent stuff to the architects, now I put beer in the boxes. So sit back, have a beer, read the magazine.

James: That's

Adam: There's lots of way, with the tiktoks and Instagrams, you've gotta be a bit different.

Adam: You've gotta be on it though. You've, you have to be prepared to lose a lot of your time to Instagram if you're gonna be one of them stars.

James: Gotcha. Yeah.

Adam: yeah. I like TikTok as well. He likes you to be on it. A few, three, four years ago, I was on it all the time.

Adam: I admits of views on different things, but you get to a stage where you think, oh, someone else is gonna have to do this now, because it takes a lot of time up.

James: Yeah. Yeah. Do you have a dedicated social media crew now?

Adam: So I've got a lovely lady called Loz who smiles at me in the morning when she walks in, and maybe not so much by the end of the day because her workload. So anything that's in my head I'm like let's do this. But then she does the same to me. So I'm out tomorrow filming on a retrofit project and she's sending me scripts and things and make sure you cover this, make sure you cover that.

James: Give and

Adam: Yeah, definitely need the help.

James: That's cool. cool that you're. It's interesting to, to think of journey and where you are now, right? Did you think when you were starting out your carpent carpentry journey that you'd be

Adam: I never thought,

James: on

Adam: I never thought I'd be doing this, and I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I did. And I, yeah, because at the end of the day I'd say I'm a liquid membrane supplier, but I'd say I'm a marketing company. That is who we are. We are actually a brand. We are marketing companies.

Adam: Sometimes it's like the product comes second because people buy into the brand itself.

Adam: But I love that side. I love going out, I love being, I love talking, being center of attention sometimes I do thrive on it and it's a bit better than what I'm used to on the construction side.

Adam: A little less aggressive.

James: Yeah. Get to show. Your other side, right?

Adam: Yeah, it shows the fun side. You can know the fun side. If I'm going into a meeting on construction side or like building I've done a lot of full turnkey stuff and it's all really serious, but when they come into my domain on passive house and all of this stuff. I love it because I'll tell 'em the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Adam: I'm always honest about the bad stuff first. I, with passive house, I tell 'em the bad stuff and the horror stories and you see 'em all oh no, what's gonna happen? But if we do this, it's this, it's gonna be great. We have a great journey and we'll get through it type of thing. Yeah.

James: Nice.

Adam: I've made a load of great friends along the way, especially with the passive house accelerator.

Adam: Everyone probably knows Mark Wille. Like what a guy.

James: Yep.

Adam: met him through there. Love him to bits. Bob Kelly from WickRight. Yeah, there's, yeah. Shaun St-Amour.

Adam: Absolute legend.

James: It's

Adam: Legend. And yeah. So I've met a lot of good, great people in the community that, that's another thing Passive house does have.

Adam: It has a strong community.

Adam: America's slightly different from the uk. Definitely. America is more trades driven and the UK is more architects driven.

James: The passive house world

Adam: Passive house. Yeah. Complete switch.

James: Interesting.

Adam: you're marketing to these shows, if you, so if you go to anything passive house in, or even a bit a builder show, like a build show, you go to one in America, you get the actual people are from site.

Adam: You get the carpenters, that was two days ago doing a big old roof

Adam: There. They're doing their Instagram and they're doing all their stuff, but then they're gonna go back the next day. But if you do that in the uk, it's architects and specifiers. It's a complete different dynamic. I would love it.

Adam: That's what the UK needs more of. Actually, it needs more of the trade umph there. They'd give it some energy. 'Cause without the trades we are nothing without the trades coming through.

James: Yeah, I've heard multiple people say you can design whatever you want, but if you don't have the people to build it, it just doesn't matter.

Adam: you don't have the followers that's it.

James: I.

Adam: I, I did, I was surprised when I first started going over to America how different it was and how hands on the people are over there. It brilliant to see,

James: That's a cool observation

Adam: not saying America builds the best. Because I've seen some of this stuff. I'm not trying to put anything down on the uk, but yeah,

James: Yeah, no like a sort of broadly speaking bottom up versus top down

Adam: Yeah.

Adam: It. Wherever UK's top down and then

Adam: Head America is bottom up.

James: Yeah.

Adam: But these guys are in America, they're stars. They're stars as well, and they,

James: awesome. I can't think of anyone that I've talked to yet who's doing a better job of marketing passive house, which of course is what I named my podcast. So thank you so much for

Adam: No, thank you for being on it. I love it. Anything we can promote push on the industry and actually getting everyone to understand that it is, it's a, it's an open platform. It doesn't matter. Your, and I've said this, it doesn't matter about your religion, your politics. You can put all of that aside.

Adam: Let's talk about building science. And I don't mean just building science for just the nerds. I want it for the builders, for the actual rule builders. I wanted to it. That's open to everyone and that's widely accepted in our community.

James: Yep. Yep. Thank you. Thank you for what you do. I think I feel, my feeling is that there should be a intelligent membranes like party booth at every passive house conference or builder's trade show

Adam: Oh,

James: looking at

Adam: do you know what? We have been tempted to bring a bar down. We have been tempted to bring the passive house bar to some trade events. I think yeah when we get into the summer, we might think of doing it.

James: Nice. Before we go where is the best place for people to find you online, find out more about you online?

Adam: Okay, so for the website, it's intelligent membranes.com. If you're gonna go on LinkedIn, so tag me personally, it's just Adam White on LinkedIn.

James: Okay.

Adam: you won't miss my cha, my my face on there, obviously the banner with the characters, so that's gonna be quite clear. Or on Instagram, it's passive house me.

James: Excellent.

Adam: Excellent.

James: Thank you so much for joining me today.

Adam: No, thank you for inviting me on.

James: It's a real pleasure. You've been listening to Marketing Passive House. I'm James Turner, and I hope you'll join me again next time.