17 - Trey Farmer - Forge Craft Architecture + Design
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[00:00:00]

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. your host, James Turner, and today I'm joined by Trey Farmer, architect and partner at Forge Craft Architecture and Design. Trey, welcome to the show.

Trey: Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

James: My pleasure. So before we get 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?

Trey: Yeah. I'm an, so I'm an architect and my practice, our practice is in Austin, Texas. So we do work all around the country, but mostly in Austin and Houston sort of southern region. I did my. I did a CPHC training as part of grad school. I actually got course credit for it with Kristof Irwin and a bunch of people [00:01:00] from the Positive Energy Crew which was really fun.

Trey: It was like a summer thing, and like Kristof and his wife catered, like, cooked the meals for us and catered it. And and we basically, like from that group started the local PHIUS Passive House Alliance chapter in Austin. Which then put on the Humid Climate Conference is kinda like the primary thing that we would, we would do every other year.

Trey: You know, kind of like volunteer put on this conference for 300 people and like have a blast and be exhausted and then a year later be reinvigorated and ready to do it again. But there was definitely some downtime. So we're actually, that's coming up in May, May 4th and 5th, and it will be our sixth conference that we've done.

Trey: So it's been going for a while. We've got a great. Great momentum and it's been fun, you know, as it was starting out, you know, we were having to bring people in from around the country 'cause there wasn't really any passive house work down here. And now we have a lot of local case studies and more, you know, it's the Humid Climate conference, so it's supposed to [00:02:00] be like, specifically like technical for dealing with hot, humid climates.

Trey: You know, initially, as I said, like a lot about just sort of passive house and high performance, but over the last. 10, 12 years, we've gotten a lot more work down here and are starting, you know, it's still pretty nascent compared to Pacific Northwest or, you know, it's far, far away from building code like Massachusetts.

Trey: But you know, we're, we're starting to get, get a little traction, so it's exciting times.

James: Nice. Yeah, that I was, that leads into what we were just talking about before we hit record. So people around where you are initially kind of broadly rejected or would you say, or there was a sort

Trey: There when we first started, like we had Kat down, I don't know, like, 12 years ago or something, and for like [00:03:00] a one day conference. And then we had Dr. Joe Lstiburek down for a few different conferences. And, and at that time, I think prior to that there was a notion that like, passive house was just not appropriate to a hot climate.

Trey: You know, it was too far up the sort of diminishing returns curve in terms of how much insulation and it wasn't dealing with humidity appropriately. It was just, you know, too much for what we needed. And you know, then PHIUS came out with the climate responsive design targets. And, and then PHI has followed.

Trey: And so now you know, the. The kind of like market has caught up as like our building codes have gotten more aggressive down here. Austin is on already on 2024. IRC and IECC, so, so we stay pretty closely to the current, current codes and then the passive house groups have recognized that we have different design constraints down here, and then it's like cold for like two days a year, [00:04:00] and then it's hot for like 130 days a year.

Trey: And so we're really dealing with that cooling load. But the temperature, deltas aren't that bad. You know, it's like 105 to 75 is pretty different than like zero to 75 in terms of the temperature delta. And then humidity is a huge issue here because we have a lot of time where it's like 78 and like 80 or 90% humidity.

Trey: It's nothing like Houston or. Louisiana, but it's still a thing that we really need to control for and design for.

James: Right.

Trey: and so, yeah, so it's become, it's, it's an evolving space and so now you know, we've got more and more practitioners, more people excited about it, more and more builders more clients asking us to build this way.

Trey: And so we're still, you know, we're always looking to those other regions and people practicing up there for like. How are they running their business? How are they [00:05:00] designing? You know, how is the market evolving? Because we are you know, like 10 years behind those other spaces in, in a sense. Which, but in a, but it also is really nice 'cause we get to learn from what they're doing.

James: Right. And have you found. Outside of the sort of experts who maybe first heard of passive house and were like, no, that, that doesn't apply because it you know, the different climate with your, on the client side, do you find the sort of people here and there know about it? Like how do you, how does that, how did they hire you

Trey: Yeah.

James: how often for passive house.

Trey: It's been, that's been interesting the last couple years. So we, so our practice is maybe like two thirds of our work is supportive housing. So like tax credit funded affordable housing, like big multifamily, kinda like 70 to 130 unit pro projects. And then. We would do kind of a smattering of single family custom homes here and there, but not enough, [00:06:00] or not with enough consistency that it was like a really good engine for the business.

Trey: And so after we built our first passive house, we kinda like, okay, we, we only want to do this. And just made a business decision to say like, okay, we're only gonna do this now moving forward. And. You know, we wanna find builders who are aligned with that. We wanna find clients who are aligned with that.

Trey: We'll advertise this way and we'll be a little dogmatic about it and hope that it will, you know, we can kind of like corner the market as small a market as it it is or was. But really like create a specialty and like a workflow and a kind of community around it. And so far it's been successful.

Trey: We have. I think we have like 18 projects in the PHIUS you know, queue that are, you know, either completed or, or like in some phase of certification right now. [00:07:00] Yeah, it's been, it's been, it's exciting. Has, it's been interesting, like from the client standpoint. You know, we've got, we've had clients who come to us because they're energy traders and kind of like.

Trey: Wonky in that space and want to do like energy arbitrage with their house where like they, they, you know, they, it's like the family home, so they want it to be really healthy for their family, but also they like understand the market dynamics around energy in Texas. And so they can use their home as a battery and use their cars and, and use like actual batteries or even like their pool as a battery and like soak up energy during the day through PV panels when energy is basically free or even pull it in off the grid.

Trey: And then because their house is so efficient, they can then put it back out and sell it back at a profit and use that as a way to like pay the house down. Yeah. And then we've got clients who, bought a, you know, bought a really nice new home a couple years ago, and then everybody got really sick and eventually they realized that [00:08:00] the whole house was just shot through with mold.

Trey: You know, just like really, really poor building practices. No building science, understanding poor craftsmanship, no humidity control. So we're working with 'em on sort of like a case study house for like. If, if like mold proofing is like the thing and like health are sort of like the singular focus, like how far do you go with that?

Trey: And so that one has like, there's no cavities, so all the studs are exposed on the inside. It's kinda that perfect wall system where it's like, you know all the structures in inbound and then you have your WRB and then all your insulation is outbound. So there's nowhere for mold to possibly grow that You wouldn't see it there.

Trey: There is no like. You don't have eyes on within the envelope. And then other clients who are really like longevity and durability was their primary thing. And so they are building a house that they, they're in their thirties and have kids and are planning on actually like [00:09:00] moving to the coast for, to like the next 15 years and having their parents stay in the house and then they're gonna come back and retire in the house and plan on living there.

Trey: The, the kind of catchphrase for the project is roll me in and hose me off, you know? 'cause he is, he is planning on you know, seeing out their days in that house. And so they wanted something that was going to outlast 'em. You know, both from like climate resilience but just general durability standpoint.

Trey: And so found us and all of these clients found us sort of through passive house and high performance. But it's just been interesting, like the different priorities that they have had, and there are different reasons they've come to it. And we have another client that's more sort of what I would've initially thought, which is more of like a sort of climate change champion, you know, kind of like sustainability hero who just like, they, that's, that's a high priority, is more like the trying to be gentle on the planet, you know?

James: Mm-hmm.

Trey: So, [00:10:00] yeah. And it's, it's been. A really interesting couple years since we kind of made that call to see whether who's come in the door and how they found us.

James: Yeah. Did they, did they find you because you put messaging out that passive house addresses those different issues, or did they find you because they did the research that passive house would address what they were looking for and then looked for Austin passive house or whatever, like

Trey: Yeah. It,

James: around, do you

Trey: it, it varies, you know, like some of them, a couple of clients found us through sort of, you know, like they became interested in passive house and then reached out to some friends in the sort of AEC industry. And then, you know, they were like, oh, or, or they were interested in high performance.

Trey: Some of the friends in the A industry were like, oh, you should check out passive house. And then through passive house they found us. Some of them found us through our builder network. We, the, so like the Theresa Passive house was the first one we did, which [00:11:00] was my house, and we got a lot of press for that.

Trey: We also moved in right before the big freeze that happened in Texas when everyone lost power. So we also got, you know, some press around that. So that that helped, you know I mean, and the intent with that project was to kind of like create a billboard, right? Like try one. We wanted to like test out this, this sort of building methodology that we were excited about and been hearing about and getting trained up on. But also just to like, you know, proof is in the pudding, right? And, you know, create an example. And yeah, I mean, we've been, we've been very intentional about. Networking and community, you know, it's like, it's a community, right?

Trey: I mean, it's a fun thing. It sounds, it sounds kind of cold when it's like networking, right? But it's like the people who we put on the conference with are my friends, right? Like those are, it's like my, former landlord is coming, is coming in for a meeting in half an hour in case like our, just built a big passive house duplex for us and is another one under construction.

Trey: The, and take and hose me off [00:12:00] house. And the and then we're, we're pricing out a new project with them as well. You know, these are like good, good close friends who you know, it's, it's fun. I think like, you know, there's a little bit, there's like a a. Especially down here where it's kind of a nascent market.

Trey: There's like a camaraderie and, and like a, you know, like us against the world thing. And like there's, you know, other architects in the scene too, and we're always trying to help each other out and like looking at each other's WUFI models or detailing or like, we had a client we were working with for a while and it just wasn't.

Trey: Making sense based on their priorities and like the way that our firm is set up where it's a little bit bigger so we have a little more overhead. So we, you know, connected them with another friend who's an architect, who's a sole practitioner. You know, so it's, it's it's very friendly and it's very fun and we're all kind of like trying to learn it and, and like figure this whole thing out from like a business standpoint and a marketing standpoint and a technical standpoint at the same time.

Trey: And it's really [00:13:00] fun and, you know, it's, you get to go walk each other's projects and.

James: Hmm.

Trey: out and, you know, drink a beer and talk about what's going on. And yeah, I know it, it makes the whole thing enjoyable.

James: It has, it, it feels like a scene more than an industry. I, I've found that like, I can't imagine if you went to like a giant construction industry conference that it would feel like that. It feels like.

Trey: Hmm.

James: I may, I may be wrong, but

Trey: No. Yeah.

James: sort of experiences in life is that that would be a sort of competitive and sort of distrusting environment where like there's sort of, I dunno, competition I guess is really the root of it all.

James: But

Trey: Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. It's interesting, right? Like I, I, I, you know, I go to the AIA conferences and the, you know, other construction conferences, but then like. PHIUS Con, right? The, like the Passive House Institute, US' annual conference and then like the Humid Climate Conference and [00:14:00] summer camp. And you know, there's, there's like these ones where it feels more like coming home,

James: Mm-hmm.

Trey: know, it's like, oh, like there's, it's just like, you just want to hang out.

Trey: There's like so many fun people. You, and you're all kind of doing the same thing and learn, you know, learning from each other. And I, I, I talk about this with the Humid Climate Conference where I was like, very. Intentionally kind of set up to where I have an excuse to like, call up my heroes and be like, Hey, can we fly you down here so you can like, teach me about what you're doing and become my friend, you know?

Trey: And it works. And now like we've got all, you know, we have all these friends all around the country and like you know, I've had, have had people come down. Who are, you know, big name practitioners in the space, just, you know, who like, ask to come down to speak. We're like, oh, you're in the room. Okay, we're gonna get you on stage now, kind of thing.

Trey: But yeah, I mean, it's great. It's like, I mean, we're doing, we're doing good work and I think everybody in the space is like doing it because they're convinced that [00:15:00] this is, you know, the best way to do things.

James: Mm-hmm.

Trey: And, you know, when you're kind of, you know, in that space, it's like. There's sort of a natural camaraderie and, and sharing and like focus and excitement, you know, and it draws in people who are excited about what they're doing and not sort of, sort of doing it because they're doing it.

James: Right, right. you think there's a way for that to spread out too? Non, non like people who are just essentially homeowners, I suppose, like, is there, you think that that, that, that vibe can include the fans as well as the artists? If you think of it like a music scene, like,

Trey: Yeah, I hope so. I think so. I mean, I do see,

James: kind of thing.

Trey: yeah, I think, I mean we see that with our project owners and I've definitely heard that from people. Who have been doing this longer than we have, you know, and, and read articles like Artisans Group. Just put an article on LinkedIn a couple weeks ago that was an interview with one of their [00:16:00] clients who's been living in the house.

Trey: I think it was 15 years ago. And it was just like, so, joyful and like effusively, like complimentary about this space. And you know, it was like, you could tell that the homeowner like really loved being in this space and like, I'm sure they're a fan and telling everybody else who comes to that space and like helping spread the word.

Trey: You know, and, and I'm sure that's part of how this kind of, it kind of like spreads organically within a given market once it kind of catches fire. Do you know, you do See, we, we have, there's a, at, at the conferences there's always like a handful of homeowners, you know, sort of like retired engineers who like really want to do this and do it on their own.

Trey: It's like they're super fun 'cause they're just like, love to get into the weeds on it and like go super deep and you knows like learning and also similarly excited people who, you know, who are like doing it for themselves often, like building their own homes. So, yeah, I, I hope so. You know, it's still, [00:17:00] it is still an early, you know, early market down here where we just have sort of like a handful of projects that are occupied for the last sort of five years now.

Trey: But, you know, not right now, there's probably a dozen projects under construction in Austin and another, you know, five or ten in Houston. So, and it kind of seems like it's, it's on that exponential growth curve.

James: Nice. So one of the things that comes up often is that, you know, you really need to feel it, you really need to experience it to, to understand the benefits. Like you can tell people. Oh, it's quieter, or, oh, it's, you know, there's no dust

Trey: Hmm.

James: sort of, but for people who've lived their whole lives putting up with that, or maybe not even noticing that they're putting up with that, it's the actual experience of, of spending some amount of time in an environment with like, oh, this is noticeably better.

James: And I didn't realize it was possible. So having [00:18:00] yourself a passive house, you end up having to. Like host potential clients for dinner or like, is,

Trey: Yeah, well, so I'm actually building like a three unit spec project right now. And the idea is like I'll live in one of them and then have one as sort of like a rental and then sell one. But, you know, the, the idea with that is like having the ability to actually have people like come spend the night, you know, and, and, and like do tours and just really show it off because of what you're saying at, where it is really like a felt experience.

Trey: That's just a different thing.

James: Right.

Trey: And we've, so we have had that, but having it be like your family home makes it a little trickier. So. So yeah, so that's, that's like a very intentional move with this, this project that we're just getting started. We, we, I, I say that just getting started with the build, it's been in the office for a long time,

James: Right.

Trey: is all permitted and everything, but, but yeah, being, being able to have [00:19:00] strangers over, even like advertise it on Airbnb, but then also have potential clients, you know, who are like, thinking about it and just be like, just come.

Trey: Come spend the night. Come, come spend a couple nights, have the weekend. See, see how different it is.

James: Hmm. Yeah, I've, I've, I, someone, someone mentioned, and I didn't actually end up going to the, a meeting about it, but like an, an Airbnb network or some sort of.

Trey: Oh

James: house, Airbnb, it, it could sort of be a marketing, a shared marketing asset for,

Trey: yeah,

James: you know, I don't know how the finances would work,

Trey: Pete.

James: I could see,

Trey: pH Airbnb, something. I like it. That's great. Yeah. I think there, I know there's a, I think in Colorado there's like a prefab company that has like a little set of Airbnbs that you can go rent that are all passive house. And then,

James: Oh, nice.

Trey: we have a, a good friend who's, who's a collaborator on that three unit project.

Trey: Greg Esparza with Cross Cabin and he [00:20:00] built the cross, the cross cabin, which is a CLT and Cork. Kinda like a thousand square foot back house. And, and he's been doing the same thing, just like he has this sort of unoccupied space that he is able to walk through. And it's, you know, with that it's also, it's also so visual and, and it smells different, you know, being in like an all wood unfinished interior,

James: Right.

Trey: that it's like a really powerful tool to be able to like, bring people, you know, just, it looks great in photographs, but like being in it, you're just like.

Trey: This is really different and really amazing.

James: Hmm. You show them their future

Trey: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Exactly.

James: be your life every day.

Trey: Exactly. Yeah.

James: I kind of wanna circle back to the humidity thing for a second. So you've

Trey: Sure.

James: Humid Climate Conference and that was one of the things that you were saying is kind of when passive house was initially being heard about, you were like, yeah, but it doesn't deal with humidity. But I, I wonder [00:21:00] what are there attributes of passive house builds that you. S se that you can only sell in humid climates? Like now, now that it's developed, are there actually, like, is the, could the case be made the other way around where people in Northern climates are like, well, that doesn't apply to us.

James: Like, yeah, sure. You've got like,

Trey: Yeah.

James: could I,

Trey: Yeah, there's a, I mean, there's a few things for sure. I think the the building codes are pretty relaxed on air sealing down here. There's some, from like a risk standpoint, because the temperature deltas aren't so high there isn't like, from a building code standpoint, there isn't as much of a, kind of like a need for tighter envelopes.

Trey: But for passive house, it's the same air sealing target across the board regardless of climate. And, you know, we do have this really high hot, humid, you know, outdoor condition most of the year, and then have, you know, colder [00:22:00] drier interior condition. And so having a really tight envelope makes for like a much more comfortable.

Trey: Environment. But it also means like you don't actually have to run your AC very much. So, like a lot of the times here when you go into like a grocery store or like an older home or even a newer home, people have their AC ramped down really low more to get rid of the humidity than to actually cool it.

Trey: So you actually like, you know, have to like carry a sweater Yeah. To like go to the grocery store. It's like 105 out. And you don't have to do that when you're in a passive house. Like you can let it be 77 and it's 40% humidity inside and it's really, you know, quite comfortable. So there, you know, and then like you turn a ceiling fan on, it's like even better, right?

Trey: And you can't really do that in a typical house where you've just got so much latent energy trying to get into the house from outside. So you end up just having like your ERV running and then your de-hu running and you're not [00:23:00] actually running the air conditioner for like those shoulder seasons.

Trey: Whereas like most other people are either just like really uncomfortable or because their house is hot and humid, or they're really uncomfortable because their house is 65 and probably still really humid. Just

James: Right, right.

Trey: trying to get the, the, the humidity out of the air. So that, that's probably the, the biggest one is just like, you know, it's.

Trey: It really makes like a difference when, when you like walk into it and the house, the, the mean radiant temperature, right? Like the way that we experience comfort is like mostly from, we were talking about Jonathan Bean. We should definitely talk about Reimagine Buildings in a second. But the

James: Yeah.

Trey: we were talking about Jonathan Bean a couple days ago and Robert Bean, excuse me. Yeah, just the way that he explains, you know, we, we did this in architecture school is like, there's the seven different comfort factors. So there is air speed, air temperature, mean radiant temperature, [00:24:00] and there's five a clo factor, which is like your how much clothing you're wearing, you know, you're gonna be more comfortable in shorts in the t-shirt or, or a hoodie depending on everything around you.

Trey: And then your metabolic. State, right? So if you're just been working out or if you're just like waking up or going to sleep, your body runs at different temperatures. But mean, radiant temperature is the big one, and that's the temp, the mean that of the temperatures around you, of the surfaces, right?

Trey: Because your body is constantly trying to be at equilibrium with the surfaces around you. And so in like an old house, it's just kinda blowing cold air in when it's cooling, trying to cool down your. You know, drywall, but if your house is uninsulated, the back of the drywall is exterior condition, so it's gonna heat right back up.

Trey: So the air isn't really doing a whole lot. Air doesn't have a lot of mass to it, so it's not a great thing to like cool things down. But in a passive house you have these thick, insulated, often massive walls and, and floors and [00:25:00] roof, and so all the surfaces are exactly where you want them to be. Then the air is having to do much less.

Trey: It's really, the air is more about keeping everything at a comfortable temperature within that space. But your felt sense of comfort is, is much, you feel more comfortable in a space where the surfaces are all within a comfortable range. You know, that's why you don't wanna sit next to a window, like a single pane window on a cold day.

Trey: Right?

James: Yeah.

Trey: But if you're in a passive house. Michael Ingui, who's also in our Reimagine Buildings cohort was posting a couple days ago. 'cause they're having that cold snap in New York and he is like, I'm in my kitchen next to my sliding doors in my shorts and a t-shirt, like letting my dog out and I'm totally comfortable.

Trey: Right.

James: Yeah, yeah,

Trey: so yeah, it's it's good stuff.

James: yeah. That, that feeling always puts me in mind of like, there, there's some, I don't know, I, I think of summer evenings where. The[00:26:00]

Trey: Hmm.

James: inside and outside and your body and everything's just all lined up and you're just

Trey: Yeah.

James: It's, you could just walk anywhere and you feel

Trey: Mm-hmm.

James: Not too hot, not too cold,

Trey: You feel like you're like swimming in like a good way almost. It just kinda, everything's good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

James: to make your house be like that all the time is amazing, I think.

Trey: Yeah. Yeah, it is really, and I, so I, I grew up in New Hampshire, so you know, where colder climate, more insulated houses, you know, dealing like baseboard, heat you know, some insulation, little more air ceiling. I grew up in a relatively new house, you know, so like that feeling of like walking in when it's on a cold day and being like comfortable inside.

Trey: You know, which is really down here, it's really like you walk in that kind of opposite feeling where you walk in and it's really hot out and you, you walk inside and if you're not in a passive house, it's like still kind of uncomfortable. 'cause it's still really high humidity. Yeah, yeah. It's just, you don't have that [00:27:00] kind of like feeling of like the house kind of hugging you and like welcoming you in the same way as I do now in the passive house.

James: Hmm. Yeah. Your, your imagery of, of having to carry a sweater to the grocery store me, yeah. Well, I lived in Japan for three years in, in Nagoya, which is. Well, fairly, it's like sort of the same latitude as New Orleans and that, that leaving your apartment and then trying to get to the subway before you start sweating and then getting to the subway.

James: And then if you're on a newer train, you're freezing and then you're like, it's just, it's not, not pleasant.

Trey: Yeah.

James: Right. I think

Trey: Hmm.

James: the passive house thing is just, I don't know, as analogy is we don't like change, you know?

Trey: Yeah. Or like

James: it either,

Trey: at least like having control, right? We, we talk a lot about how we're kind of like, we're control freaks, you know? It's like in, in like a good way because it is, we, you know, we do get like people asking us like, well, can I open a window? Or like, I want to do the big sliders because we do have these like perfect days [00:28:00] here in the spring and fall where it's like.

Trey: It's 74 and gorgeous out and like the evening is nice and it's like, you know, the ability, so you do have the ability in a passive house to, to open it all up and decondition it, but you're gonna stay much more comfortable because the house, again, the mean radiant temperature is gonna float much longer in a house with better insulation and, and more mass.

Trey: So you can open it up and, and then as soon as it starts getting chillier at night, you can close it up and the house is still comfortable. And so it's like, you know, we don't wanna be. Like anit-thermal delight, you know, or like, or like, oh, you should be in like a steady state and like, your air should always be perfect and you should always be like

James: right.

Trey: able to wear like whatever clothing you want no matter what.

Trey: Yeah. Living in a bubble, but also it's unpleasant, right. To, to, like you said, like having to like go through those extremes or not be able to be comfortable when you're home, you know? So like we want to be able to give. Our [00:29:00] clients and homeowners, the, the control, you know, should they choose to use it.

James: right. It's like you wouldn't open, you can still open your window on the day when you would open your windows, but.

Trey: Mm-hmm.

James: wouldn't open it in the middle of a minus 30 day and you wouldn't open it it was a hundred percent humidity and

Trey: Mm-hmm.

James: Right. Like you did.

Trey: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

James: open your window no matter what your house was like.

James: So

Trey: Yeah. We, we do. It doesn't, no, it's, it's the same thing, but you have, you, you get to make the choice, you know, we, we do a lot of work with in the like, preservation community. And you know, sometimes some of the, it seems like there's sort of a generational divide around even within the preservation community around sort of like adding density and like ability to bring older homes up to current standards.

Trey: And so we, you know, like the. Theresa Passive house is in a historic neighborhood and, and you know, we got an award from the preservation group because of how we preserve the sort of like character and the facade of [00:30:00] the, the existing house. But it's triple pane casement windows now that just sort of look like they're double, double hung windows.

Trey: Like the original, you know, if you get within a few feet of 'em, it's pretty obvious, but from the street you can't really tell that they're different. But I just remember like. One of the people on the Historic Landmark Commission, you know, being like, well, I like sitting next to my old comfortable un, you know, or my old uncomfortable single pane leafy windows.

Trey: And I'm like, that's great, but that you're okay. You know, good for you.

James: Right.

Trey: have like a great triple pane window that you can open a crack if you really wanna be uncomfortable.

James: Yeah. If

Trey: at least you're not forced to be uncomfortable. And like, I'm sure you're spending a ton of money and, and carbon, right, like heating and cooling that, that really inefficient home that that would look great as a very efficient, but still historically preserved home.

James: That's, yeah. Yeah. I guess, yeah. People are just, well, people don't like to change, so there's,

Trey: [00:31:00] Hmm,

James: an an element of that, like,

Trey: yeah.

James: that unlike many things, you wouldn't miss those drafts once they were gone.

Trey: Right.

James: you wouldn't be like, oh, darn it.

Trey: That's what front porches are for

James: yeah, right.

Trey: we, we love a good screen porch, you know they're great for, great for shading, great for creating, you know, extending the footprint of the house, you know, making your house bigger without actually having to condition more space. And we get, we get a lot of mosquitoes here, so,

James: Hmm. Same.

James: One, do, do you find that, I was just thinking, this goes back now to when we were talking earlier about, about how you decided to be passive house only, but do you have any, any sort of. Cases where people have come to you and because of their interaction with you or your, the sort of pre-project discussions, they ended up going with a passive house design

Trey: We, so we, yeah, I mean we definitely have gotten, we still have, you know, like people coming to us 'cause they like are neighbors with one of the partners or like, just [00:32:00] know of our firm or have seen past work but aren't coming to us specifically for passive house. And so then it becomes an interest, you know, more of a, a conversation around that.

Trey: But I think like having we don't have to have those conversations as much because most people are coming to us are sort of mission aligned, which is really nice,

James: Right.

Trey: also like. I think there's a little bit of like we're on a stronger foundation in those conversations and being like, this is what we do and this, and we have this whole other body of work, and this is like, we feel strongly enough about this, that this is just like what we're doing.

Trey: And you know, like we we're lighter on work right now and so we're not, we try not to be dogmatic about it. Like we, we try to be firm and like this is the best house we know how to build and it doesn't have to be. A cost premium. I mean, we're said like people, if you can afford to hire an architect to design you a house, you can afford to build a passive house, right?

Trey: Like, like it is a, it is a luxury and a privilege to be able to like work with an architect on a custom home, [00:33:00] right? Like that not everybody can do that. But if you're doing that like, and working with a decent builder, it's, I mean, the last one we did and ran the numbers on it was like less than 3% of the cost premium.

Trey: You know, and that was on a three unit, like sort of one big unit that was the primary residence and then, and then two smaller rental units on the same property. And it was a $3 million project all in 6,000 square feet total. And it was $75,000 was for passive house upgrades.

James: Right,

Trey: it's like, it's not, that's like,

James: just the upfront

Trey: like a rounding error on the interest rate or like an extra month of construction if something gets delayed.

Trey: It's like,

James: Yeah.

Trey: know, it's not a huge premium. And the other thing too is like if you're working with a good builder and you're collaborating at the beginning, then you, we design to a budget, right? Like somebody comes to us with a budget, we're designing to that budget. And so if it's a million dollar home, we're gonna give them a million dollar home.

Trey: [00:34:00] And I don't think most people would recognize that they lost 3% of the square footage out of the house. If you think about it sort of inverted, right? Especially if it's like a well designed floor plan, it should live better than a poorly designed floor plan using equivalent space. Right?

James: yeah. Yeah.

Trey: That's where we get to be sort of the, the architect side of things and, and non-technical side of things, but really focusing on the floor plan and the design and having spaces share, share utility, and minimizing sort of wasted space and that kind of thing.

James: Right. This has been incredible. Thank you so much for, for coming on to talk today.

Trey: Yeah, of course.

James: before we get going, where's the best place people can find more about you online.

Trey: Sure. We have forgexcraft is our Instagram handle, and then we have the forgecrafthealthyhomies is sort of like a more like educational, like behind the scenes. Kind of like lots more [00:35:00] videos about like what our studio specifically is doing. More sort of, you know, tours of HVAC closets and that kind of thing.

James: Nice.

Trey: And then, yeah, our website is forgexcraft.com.

James: Awesome.

Trey: So yeah. Thank you so much James. Appreciate it.

James: Yeah, it's been my pleasure, Trey. You've been listening to Marketing Passive House. I'm James Turner and I hope you'll join me again next time.