21 - Valentine Gomez - Gomex Engineering
===

[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. I'm your host, James Turner, I'm joined by Valentine Gomez, engineer certified passive house designer and founder of Gomex Engineering.

James: Valentine, welcome to the show.

Valentine: Thanks for having me, James.

James: It is my pleasure. And 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 what led you to begin your passive house journey?

Valentine: Sure. So funnily enough, I guess my background in engineering is actually petroleum engineering and I worked in oil and gas for about six, seven years all over the world. And then. Ended up getting laid off in, in the downturn in 2015, and then meeting my now wife who was, had work on PEI. [00:01:00] And so I ended up coming to PEI, taking some time off and trying to figure out what I was gonna do.

Valentine: And while I was here, I sat in on a, a presentation about passive houses and being an engineer and, and hearing about a new way of building that was achievable that, but we weren't doing it completely boggled my mind. It was, it was kind of like, you know, the public will wait in line for hours on end for the latest iPhone, but then when it comes to, you know, here's a latest in tech style of building, people are just like, huh.

James: That's a hmm.

Valentine: So I, I that was my first exposure to passive house and I kind of saw a, a future in it. But I also at the time realized that, you know energy on PEI was pretty cheap. Oil oil was relatively cheap. And there wasn't a great market demand for it right away. I started my firm in [00:02:00] 2018 and was doing some other engineering work with a client which wrapped up in, in 2020.

Valentine: And then I, I went ahead and got my, my passive house designation after that, followed shortly by the passive house trades person and then also the construction verifier passive house certifications as well and my living future accreditation.

James: Wow.

Valentine: so the it, the living it, I, I always call passive house as my my, my, almost my gateway into the environmental and sustainability world because, you know, I, I started with passive house and then I, and as I got more and more down the rabbit hole with passive houses, I kind of realized that essentially you can break passive houses down into two different products.

Valentine: And you know, where one product is using materials that are not so great for the environment. A lot of petroleum based products like rigid, rigid foam insulation and stuff like that. And so and then the second product is, you know [00:03:00] something that using materials where it's significantly better for the environment.

Valentine: And these are your wood fiber, cellulose, that sort of stuff for insulation, for example. And so I kind of went down this rabbit hole and then I realized this whole other avenue of embodied carbon. And then I was like, okay, I need to also take, take this on. And so I kind of now try to steer clients towards not only passive houses, but then also passive houses that use healthy building materials.

Valentine: And then from that I went down another rabbit hole, which was all about, you know, just. The, the healthy building materials and then like red list free chemicals, which is what comes from a living future. And so that's basically what my firm offers is a combination of those three where it's a, it's a passive house building that prioritizes, you know, low embodied carbon materials, but then also uses healthy building materials that are not only good for.

Valentine: The the occupant, but also for the [00:04:00] trades that are, that are installing the material and also for the workers that are at the factories making the material. So it goes all the way back up the, up the entire life cycle of the product. And overall that leads to, you know, better communities and better planet and better for your pocketbook.

Valentine: So yeah, it's that trifecta that we try to specialize in here on PEI.

James: That's amazing. And well one observation is the interesting from the marketing angle. I find it interesting to think of the, this certification and the sort of the idea leading to a rabbit hole that leads to these other things. Like I, I feel like they're all. They're tied together in a way. And that did, did you feel that, like, did you feel like the

Valentine: Yeah.

James: was in some way also a marketing vehicle for maybe

Valentine: I not so much in marketing it. Well, like, I guess the

James: spreading?

Valentine: the, the, the nice thing about everything is that it, it works well together. Like those three certifications work well together. So, you know, at the end of the day, if a [00:05:00] homeowner is choosing to put in a material that is better for their health, while typically those materials tend to be more natural materials and those natural materials.

Valentine: End up being, you know, more less petroleum based, more more organic. And then, so then automatically you've now brought in the embodied carbon because you're now going with the more natural material. And then if you have enough of it and you do it right, you can achieve passive house with it. So it, it all, it all ties very well into each other.

Valentine: And it's, it's that understanding of how those work and the, and the building science, of course has to be there, right? Like

James: Yep.

Valentine: house is, is fundamentally a, a, a, a specialization in, in building science where that comes all, all together. And yeah, so I've, I've always found that to me it makes sense that the three be offered as a trifecta and as a full service.

Valentine: Say 'cause. And I had a colleague tell me this once [00:06:00] that, you know, he doesn't sell people green buildings anymore. He just sells people good buildings. And it's really hard for someone to tell him that I don't want a good building. But it's really hard for someone to tell him that. Or it's really easy for someone to say, I don't necessarily want a green building.

Valentine: 'cause there's often this mis, this connotation that green buildings are expensive.

James: Mm-hmm.

Valentine: Whereas like it's really hard for someone to say, well, I don't want you to provide me a good building.

James: Right. That's right.

Valentine: Right. And so at the end of the day, yeah, that's what we do. We provide good buildings.

James: Nice. And so when we first talked, which is a while ago,

Valentine: Mm-hmm.

James: I, and maybe it's still true, but you, you were the only passive house designer. Is that right? Is that right? Did I get that right? On Prince Edward Island,

Valentine: I was the first passive house designer on the island. Since then, I think there are a couple more, but I'm still the only one that is, that this is my main focus of work. I think the other one's an engineer that does mechanical engineering and he got his, he has his designation but doesn't work with it all the time.

Valentine: And the other one is an architect that I'm aware of, but [00:07:00] she also doesn't, doesn't work in it all the time as well. Yeah.

James: Nice. So, which brings me to my, the burning question and the reason I think that it's so interesting 'cause in New Brunswick we have a similarly small amount of people still that I know of. I've, I've met a few now, but how has the experience being, 'cause like, you've renovated your own home, right? So you've had to. Sort of create pathways, you're sort of trailblazing in the province. How has that been like getting people on board?

Valentine: Yeah, I mean I always for anyone that's done passive house, I think. They would say that there's a couple challenge, like retrofits are probably your, your greatest challenge when it comes to passive house. And then if you have a, a smaller building as well, it, it can be harder. It was, it was definitely interesting doing, going through my own renovation process because I kind of wanted this to be an exemplification of what Gomex does.

Valentine: And so [00:08:00] it, it basically, it basically combined. The trifecta of the three things that my firm does. So the embodied carbon, the indoor air quality and, and red list free chemicals and then also passive house as well. But in the process very early on I was running into roadblocks. And I actually reached out to Chris Magwood and, and, and had a chat with him and said, you know, how do you.

Valentine: Or what do you do in these instances where you have something that is pro passive house but conflicts with embodied carbon or vice versa? And so he actually gave me a great piece of advice and it, and he was just like, you know, every client is different and every client has different priorities.

Valentine: He's like, you just have to find out what your client's priorities are and then design accordingly. And so I probably spent about, you know, a solid week and a half, two weeks thinking about this. 'cause I wanted it to be right.

James: Mm-hmm.

Valentine: At the end of [00:09:00] the day, I, I chose indoor air quality and red list chemicals as, as my biggest priority, followed by embodied carbon and then followed by passive house.

Valentine: So that's basically what, what drove the design decisions was that pecking order of priorities. And so if, if once, once I had that order delineated, then it made things on the design end really simple.

James: Hmm. That sounds like a, an interesting point to bring up really early in a project too. Like

Valentine: Yeah. I, I mean, it, it, it isn't, it isn't like if for me, in, in this case, like the client was. Was me, I was the homeowner and the designer as well, right? So I could, I, I could immediately argue with myself and then immediately come, come to solutions and, and, and quash that. And I called my wife the other stakeholder.

Valentine: So I would, you know,

James: Mm-hmm.

Valentine: converse with her and and you know, get her opinion on it as well. And then [00:10:00] and then go back and forth and have a discussion and, and, yeah, so it was fairly. It was quick in that process, but you're right, in a typical situation where I'm dealing with a client that that can take a little while because there, there could be there could be some priorities where they, they conflict.

Valentine: But I try to keep things as clear as possible. So I ask for, I specifically ask for that design criteria right off the bat. It's one of the first things I do when I onboard a client. It,

James: Nice.

Valentine: it's, it's, it's to make my life easier when I'm designing so that I can kind of have their priority matrix in front of me. And then whenever I'm designing, I can just immediately go to that and it, and it saves me from having to go back to the client and say, well, do you wanna do this or do you want to do this? It's like, no, no. I'm gonna make all the decisions based on the priority matrix that you've provided. And then if you wanna have a discussion about why I chose this, I can just pull out their matrix and say, Hey.

Valentine: You know, this is what, how you told me you preferred your design to go. And so I made these decisions based on your [00:11:00] priorities that you've provided at the beginning.

James: Yeah. Very smart, very

Valentine: Hmm

James: I'm wondering, talking about roadblocks, like that's, there's like logical, emotional, even moral

Valentine: mm-hmm.

James: but did you have just practical roadblocks? Trying to get materials, trying to get people who knew how to use the materials or even like building code people.

Valentine: S yeah, there was, there was challenges in all of those. So let's say like for trades, like like I specifically initially got my passive house trades person designation because not because I wanted to go out there and build passive houses, but it was more so, so that I could, it started offering the passive house trades person course.

Valentine: That's the end goal to to be an instructor here for it to help the trades increase the, that education, that learning gap, right? And so that was my intent of, of doing the training on, on that end. So there aren't, I think other than for myself, there are no other passive house trade people on the island.

Valentine: So, and then with the construction verification certification, obviously. That's just [00:12:00] a add on to my passive house design services for clients where it's, you know, I can come out and, and actually verify what's, what's being done in the field. On, not necessarily so much as, I mean on residential, but it's mostly for the larger commercial stuff as well.

Valentine: Right. And then also the commissioning that occurs afterwards for buildings. But yeah, like I was. Luckily able to be on site. So I GC'd my renovation. So I was, yeah. So I managed the schedule, I managed the budget, I managed the ordering of all the materials and, and including the trades as well, right?

Valentine: So,

James: Right.

Valentine: The, the nice thing about that was because I was on site every day, I was able to QC as things were, we're going in, in real time, basically. I think there was only maybe one instance where, I don't know, I had to leave and go somewhere and we had installed my membrane. And then we were adding on our front porch outside [00:13:00] of the air barrier.

James: Mm-hmm.

Valentine: And they had cut the membrane and, and put their ridge beam to to the existing seven, eight boards. Yeah. And I had to tell them, like, it was a new guy that was there, and I had to tell him, you're not allowed to cut the membrane without my permission.

James: Right.

Valentine: like, we are gonna have to undo that repair, repair the membrane, and then put the beam back on.

Valentine: And he, he threw a bit of a, a fuss up at first, but then when he kind of realized, you know I'm coming in after him and, and essentially taping the holes that the staples are making. It was like, that was the level of detail of why you don't cut the air barrier.

James: right,

Valentine: So then you kind of got the picture after that was like, oh, okay, the air barrier is a priority.

Valentine: It's like, yes, it's the, it's the number one priority. So.

James: Interesting. And did you, did you feel an, that you got any lessons learned for job sites or, or did you feel that the people working on your house now are like, oh,

Valentine: Oh yeah, like both. [00:14:00] I had, so I had two, basically two carpenters that worked here. It was two carpenters and myself that did the majority of the work. And both, both sets of carpenters were like, if, you know, if we ever build a house, like we're just incorporating these principles, like it makes no, no sense to 'cause.

Valentine: I think Michael Ingui was, who said, a passive house is nothing special. It's just a better built house, right? Like at the end of the day, it's a better built house where you understand the sequencing of materials properly and you're setting up I like to call it setting up your materials for success.

Valentine: So it's when you install something as, as a trades person installing it, like do you have a full understanding of the product you're installing and. Why it's being installed and what's the proper way to install it. And so like, take your air barrier for example, like, you know, it's, it's pretty common practice on, I, you know, I'll say this across Canada even, I was gonna say the [00:15:00] Maritimes, but to just have your air weather barrier up, go up over your OSB and then, you know, you come in with the.

Valentine: Your vinyl siding and you hit your nails onto your air weather barrier and you perforate your air with barrier, your Tyvek with, with a thousand siding nails that aren't pushed tight because you need your vinyl siding to expand and contract. And so you've just swiss cheesed, your entire air weather barrier.

Valentine: And then if you, and then even going back a step usually those air weather barriers are installed with like a hammer tack, stapler. Whereas if you read the specific installation instructions for Tyvek, it says it must be installed with a cap stapler. Otherwise it voids the warranty. And it's not done.

Valentine: And so it's people. And if you ask someone, well, why are you doing it this way? It's like, well, that's the way I was taught and that's the way I've always done it. You're like, well, that's not right. And if you, if you read the proper installation material and what you're supposed, what this. Material your air weather barrier is, is supposed to be [00:16:00] doing, you would understand very quickly that you're not supposed to be cutting it and leaving it cut without sealing it.

Valentine: Right? Like

James: Right.

Valentine: so that's kind of a little bit. So it was nice to get the, the two carpenters on board that were willing to, it. Actually, it was a good blend 'cause I had a, a junior carpenter who was very interested in in energy efficiency. And then I had, I had a, a. More senior carpenter that was very good at finished carpentry and, and finished framework.

Valentine: And even, well my renovation took so long because I had two finished carpenters frame my house. So yeah, I mean, everything's great. Like, everything's within like a, not even like a. It's not even a quarter of, or three eighths of an inch off like it's under yeah, everything is square and plum and, you know, it made, finished carpentry.

Valentine: Very simple. My, my cabinet maker, when he came in, he, and set his cabinets in, he was like,

James: I.

Valentine: I don't think I've ever done this before where I've come in and [00:17:00] put cabinets on the ground and not had to adjust them. He was like, the floor is level. And he's like, by level. Like, he was like, they're ready to put a stone countertop on here, like right now.

Valentine: It's like without me touching them.

James: That is very cool.

Valentine: so yeah, we, I mean there's, I guess yeah, those guys had pride in their work, so they, they put out a good, a good product in the end, in the rough framing. So

James: Nice.

Valentine: I was very happy with it. And then of course, the, the, the red door of truth spoke, the end results, and and I was very, very happy with the, with the final results.

James: Were you there with anyone when you did the red door of truth or was it just you?

Valentine: Well, I was there with my two, with my two, with my with my two carpenters. So they were there. We, we did two tests. We did one when our one when the air weather barrier was up. So my Adhero 3000 was, we used as our exterior air weather barrier. And we didn't have our windows in, so we basically like, had [00:18:00] plywood in place and then we just like loose, like taped the plywood,

James: Mm-hmm. Hmm.

Valentine: For the rough openings.

Valentine: And it was mostly to check to see other than for the, at the window connections 'cause how the rest of the air, weather barrier was, was was handling. And so. We did a bit of a blower door, and then I also had a couple of theatrical fog machines. So we filled the house with smoke and then pressurized the house and then went around to see if there were leaks.

Valentine: And a, a perfect example of why it's so relevant to do this. And, you know, we got up on the roof and my roof air weather barrier was the, was the mento 3000 connect. So it's not a self-adhered, but it has a little self-adhered strip at the top and the bottom that connects to the next layer. And you have to press fix that.

Valentine: All of these are pressure sensitive adhesives. So once you stick it, it, it doesn't activate the glue until you actually come through with a, with a press fix tool or whatever to actually force that glue to start its chemical process [00:19:00] and, and bonding. And sure enough, you know, we're doing the blower door.

Valentine: And well actually within the first five minutes, we had a really good reading and then it all of a sudden it, it it completely, we, we lost the reading completely and we were like, what's going on? And so we walked around the house and we had actually blown one of the plywood windows off off its tape.

Valentine: So that was a really good sign.

James: To

Valentine: and then, yeah, and then, and then we went back and tested it again. And. When I went up on the roof, I could see smoke coming off and it was leaking just a little bit, but consistently throughout an entire seam. And so what I think what had happened was, is when we had gone through, we'd attached the, the connect at the adhesive, but we'd forgotten to press fix it to activate the bond.

Valentine: So it was getting a seal, but it wasn't a perfect seal, and you could just see this thin line of fog coming out the entire length of my roof,

James: Wow.

Valentine: line. Anyways, [00:20:00] so we came back, we press, fixed it, and as I passive house is pretty commonly known as the belts, belts and suspenders approach of designing.

Valentine: So I came through afterwards and, and, and just retaped the seam as well as an additional precaution and yeah. And then we did our final blower door test. When everything was said and done, our initial blower door test came in at 12.19 air changes or somewhere around there. And then our final blower door test came in at 0.57.

James: Nice.

Valentine: So quite, quite impressed.

James: Yeah. Yeah.

Valentine: Yeah.

James: it's, I think that part's so interesting that the performance, like, well checking performance as you go too, like obviously is just really

Valentine: Oh, you have to, it's at, at, at the end of the day. It's you can't fix something if you don't know if it's broken.

James: right.

Valentine: Right? Yeah.

James: right? Like that that isn't

Valentine: Well,

James: building. Did they do anything like that?

Valentine: In, on PEI

James: Or, yeah.

Valentine: the.

James: building here

Valentine: [00:21:00] yeah. Traditional building is, is, we'll put it in quotations here 'cause

James: Lowercase t.

Valentine: yeah. And I, I think the code calls to, for there to be a blower door test and, and you should be under three air changes per hour.

Valentine: And that's typically done once at the at the, when the building's done and complete,

James: Right.

Valentine: On PEI, that, that part of the code is not currently followed. So as far as I'm aware, there is no, the blower door testing isn't hasn't been made mandatory from what I've seen. So it's, it's on the homeowner to push for it or request it.

Valentine: And then for, for my clients specifically that are especially doing passive house or any sort of, if we're building a brand new house, I'm gonna strongly recommend at minimum two, one to do post MEP, like after mechanical, electrical, plumbing penetrations are done and sealed. And then obviously post MEP, pre drywall and then then obviously then also your final one as well, before you hand over the keys just to know what it's what [00:22:00] your final number is.

Valentine: Then you can input the last little that number into your, into your energy model before you give it over to the client.

James: Nice. And did, did you find that the, that your carpenters were kind of got a thrill out of performance feedback on, on their

Valentine: Yeah, I mean, they were, they were quite happy to see, they, they knew obviously from if anyone knows anything about me that they'll know that I love to chat passive house all day, every day. And so these, these two carpenters probably got way more information on passive house than they would've ever wanted by working with me for the last year and a bit.

Valentine: But I mean, they, they definitely will, will take that, take the lesson lessons learned on this project and apply it on future projects as well, right?

James: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, like, to my mind, that is just, that's part of marketing passive house, right? Like, you get excited about it, you talk about it with passion. You have these things that you can measure. And then, like, especially on the, on the building side rather than the home. Like the living side is more about the, [00:23:00] the comfort and, and, you know, the joys of living in the house. But the, the, I think educating and marketing to the people building them, you, you need to have a totally different approach. And this, that seems like exactly it

Valentine: The, the, yeah, like the, the one thing I've always found true is that you can't unlearn passive house.

James: Hmm.

Valentine: And so once you show someone, this is a far superior way or style of building, and you explain to them like, Hey, this is why we're doing it. This is, and then you, you back it up with the blower door results and then they connect the dots and they go, wow, like this house performs so much better.

Valentine: Just because you chose not to Swiss cheese, you're air, air weather barrier. Right? Like now the next, on any other project, like it's like. Trying to do something like driving on the wrong side of the road. It's like you just inherently [00:24:00] like, like why would you do that? Like, do you know what I mean? It's, it's so, it's so natural now that you're like, Hey, now that I've been enlightened with this knowledge, I'm never going back to doing things the wrong way.

Valentine: I'm just gonna try and do it the right way. Right? Like and that's where that, once people see that, and I like, I really do believe that passives is not rocket science. And it really is like Michael Ingui, we said it, it is. Just a better built house, right? Like it's and so anyone can adopt these, these styles of building or, or this better way of building and I think passive House Canada calls it passive house adjacent buildings where they're, you're not necessarily trying to achieve passive house, but you still want a better building.

Valentine: And so you're, you're trying to meet some of the targets. Maybe not necessarily certification on, on that end, which is all right as well. There's a time and place for certification. For sure. It's usually it's financial that, that dictates that.

James: Right.

Valentine: but yeah, so at the end of the [00:25:00] day is, is is the more people that can see passive house and, and understand that it's not complex.

Valentine: It's just a, a, a. A way that requires you to just pay a tiny bit more attention when something's getting installed

James: Mm-hmm.

Valentine: to make sure that that material is being set up for success.

James: Nice.

Valentine: And then the end product. Yeah.

James: it makes you think of the, the, the human tendency to not read the instructions. When you get like something,

Valentine: Yeah.

James: there's this silly thing we all do where it's like you

Valentine: Or, or any waiver. Yeah.

James: Yes.

Valentine: Yeah. It's like, please, please click that you've read all these, all these terms and conditions. It's like nobody reads those.

James: Well, I mean that, I mean there's a practical reason, like Yeah. But, but yes, exactly. Okay, so switching gears a little bit,

Valentine: Yeah.

James: I was also really interested to ask you about is, I remember you said that you, you didn't actually set off intending to renovate your whole house, but then it just kind of turned from this into, and, and so the, what I really wanna know about [00:26:00] is now that it's done and the house is the way it is, what does your wife think of it? Was it worth all the presumably upheaval and hassle?

Valentine: Yes. Like there, the comfort, the resilience component the resilience component I think will really start to feel, over the next couple months, O Maritime Electric, which is the PI's electric utility. Put out a headline in in our newspaper the other day saying that, you know they're worried about us over exceeding our, our power demand from what Power generation.

Valentine: Is, is capable. And so they've, they've put out the warning in saying that this winter they're expecting to do rolling blackouts across the island to the tune of, of four hours. And so from what I'm hearing right now is, is they're supposed to give you a heads up so you can make the proper accommodations.

Valentine: But yeah, your, your power has potentially has the opportunity, I guess. [00:27:00] Maybe that's not the best word, but the possibility to be shut off for four hours at a time when there's a massive cold snap. And so we will start, like for me, I can already, I know that there's an inherent level of, of resilience in the house because I, it was almost a game.

Valentine: I was trying to see how far I could go into winter without turning on any heat in the house. And since we moved in in May, and we ended up having to turn the heat on finally on November 11th. And I, I strongly believe that the only reason I had to turn the heat on was because we ended up leaving actually for six days.

Valentine: The kids had a slew of PD days combined with with Remembrance Day. So we ended up heading to Nova Scotia to, to visit my family. And we left the house for, for six days. So there was no, there was no internal heat gain, there was no cooking that was taking place. And so it, it did drop down to I think, 17.9 degrees.

Valentine: And so on the way back I said, you know, I'll, I'll turn on the heat so that we come [00:28:00] back to something a little bit warmer and and so yeah. But yeah, November 11th next year. I'll try and see how long, if I can beat that and, and keep going.

James: Definitely. That's awesome. And what about the comfort side? Have

Valentine: it like

James: is that

Valentine: you, you can't, yeah. The comfort's there, like the, I think passive house, the whole the comfort comes from the fact that there's, there's temperature, there is no temperature stratification, right? Like

James: Yeah.

Valentine: that 4.2 degrees celsius is the differential. You can see between, you can sense between your head and your feet.

Valentine: When you're a certain distance from a window and that that's what actually derives your level of comfort inherently. It's when you can sense a greater than 4.2 degree differential and, and you know, you don't get that. And so you, you get that common picture of a, of you know, I think there's a, a picture, picture floating around the internet where it's a little girl in the middle of winter, she's in her shorts and t-shirts, but she's just playing a little game beside a window

James: Yes. In a bit, in a

Valentine: Yeah.

Valentine: And so. [00:29:00] And it's like that here. Like it could be minus 26 outside. It doesn't matter. And it, it's the house is still comfortable everywhere, right? Like it's, it's not until you the look decide to look out a window or, or, and you're like, oh, it's really bad out there.

James: Do you find

Valentine: So.

James: leaving the house? I Ill prepared thinking. Well, it seems like a nice day.

Valentine: No. Well, I mean, we tend to, we just have a, a natural, we have to, 'cause we have two little girls, so that are, so we always ask we always look at the weather before we send them out because they'll be, they'll be out playing. But yeah. But yeah, definitely we've been caught, like as adults definitely. Just been like, oh, I'll step out for a minute and like, take the garbage out.

Valentine: You're just like, oh, okay, nevermind. I probably need a coat on.

James: Yeah. That's great. Yeah, that's one of the things that I, I think is an angle that. Interests me a lot is, is often there'll be one half of a, a couple that is really nerding out or is really into the building science side, but then. How do they, and this is, I think of this as marketing as well. How do [00:30:00] they convince their, their other half?

James: Like

Valentine: The other stake, the other stakeholder? Yeah.

James: what is the thing that makes the other stakeholders say, oh, I get it. 'cause it's, you know, if they're not into the building, the, the building science and aren't interested, then there's the human angle or there's the like, you know,

Valentine: Yeah. Like

James: for, I

Valentine: I,

James: just trusting and

Valentine: yeah, like

James: you, you

Valentine: I I can be pretty thankful to my wife that, you know, she's, she's been I guess my number one supporter of, of my firm and the work that we do. And so. You know, she fully, fully entrusted me to go with, with decisions that were related to the building science component of things.

James: Hmm mm-hmm.

Valentine: think everyone may be butted heads over lighting fixtures or anything like,

James: Right, right.

Valentine: your typical design points on that end. But yeah, no, every, she's very happy with the end result and I, I am as well. So

James: That's great.

Valentine: it'll yeah, hopefully it'll be in the house for generations or in the family for [00:31:00] generations.

Valentine: And we'll get, we will get to reap the benefits and, and that payback over that time. Right? Like I think that's also an important thing to talk about is, is sometimes people, when they're thinking of making energy efficiency upgrades to their home. They're always looking at the simple payback, but then they're also counterbalancing that against the fact with how long they assume that they'll be in their house.

Valentine: And I seen this down at the International Build show and, and the person presenting, ask the audience like, you know, what do they, what do they feel was the average time a North American family stayed in their house and the average from the audience was five years. And then the, the true north American average is actually 13 years.

James: Huh?

Valentine: So, so just the misconception there for is, is, is part of the reason why passive house hasn't really taken off to the level that it has, is because people have this notion that, you know and we were in the same boat, like this was our starter home. We didn't intend [00:32:00] for this to be our, our future home for the next 20, 25 years.

Valentine: We were like, you know, this is a nice starter home, but. Yeah. So then when, if, if you have this mindset that you're only gonna be in your house for five years and then it's like, oh, but you want me to spend X on a better ERV or on better windows, like, where's the payback there? And like, that payback might not be realized in five years, but it's definitely realized in 13 years.

James: Hmm.

Valentine: Right? And so there's that, that misconnect that that isn't being realized. So as soon as people start to realize like, Hey, this is worth it, like, we will see the benefit of this while we own this house.

James: Yeah.

Valentine: I think that is, is is one of the key factors that's holding back passive house a little bit.

James: Yeah. Interesting. That's a great number to, to know and to,

Valentine: Mm-hmm.

James: and that, like, that anecdote is great because it, it, it gives the person the chance to themselves think Yeah, probably five. You know, like they like the audience right. To come up

Valentine: I mean, when they, they teach. [00:33:00] When they teach you passive house economics there, and when you're doing your, your designation, like they tell you like, yeah, you kind of have to take simple payback and just throw it out the door. Like there's so many other, other ways to, to quantify and, and simple payback doesn't necessarily take into the account the, like, escalating prices of electricity just assumes a standard rate of electricity.

Valentine: Right. So it's, it's as, as and we're expecting. Price hikes significant price hikes in the next five years with with, with Maritime Electric. Yeah. And so while they have to make, bring back some sort of generation and that additional generation is now gonna cost money and that additional cost is gonna be downloaded to the rate payers.

Valentine: And so yeah, none of that modeling is, is necessarily covered in a simple payback. And so as soon as you start adding in all of these extraneous factors. It, the, the financial modeling for passive house is a no brainer, and especially if, if you're a municipality or an a institution like a university or a [00:34:00] college,

James: Where the five

Valentine: it,

James: not even.

Valentine: it's not even a it's like if you're building a building like a, like a student union building, like it's planned to be there for the next a hundred years.

James: Right.

Valentine: it's how are you not building passive house and especially on the municipal side. Where typically municipal projects are like, I think they pay 33 cents on the dollar. The province usually kicks in a third, and then the feds kick in a third as well. Right? But then after the building's built, operational costs are covered a hundred percent by the residents of the, of the municipality.

Valentine: So it's, it, to me, it makes no sense that why would you not pay 33 cents on the dollar for passive house and then reap the benefits of operational savings? Where you're using your a hundred percent of your own municipal money to fund the fund, the operation of the building. It's mind boggling. The the economics behind it.

Valentine: And when I explain it to people, they're like, oh yeah, like you, when people put it that way. That makes a lot of [00:35:00] sense.

James: Hmm

Valentine: the most fiscally responsible thing to do with taxpayer money.

James: Yeah. Yeah. It's like you could, you could make a strong case that it would be sort of negligent

Valentine: yeah,

James: Yeah.

Valentine: I just keep standing on my soapbox and and, and beating this drum. But yeah, I know. I, I this actually came up in conversation with another architect that I'm working with right now. And he was, he was like, you know, we need more passive house designers on the island. And I was like, I agreed.

Valentine: I wholeheartedly agreed, because, you know, there's more than enough work for. For one or two or three or five or 10 passive house designers. And it can't just be me beating on the drum. It, it needs to be, it needs to be other people that are also pushing this forward. Like, I can advocate only so much on my end, but if I have more people also advocating, then it, it's able to go much further and it's better for the environment.

Valentine: And yeah, that's, that's what I wanna see. That's my end goal.

James: Awesome. That's a,

Valentine: Yeah.

James: angle and a, a great place to end this. [00:36:00] This has been great. And so before we go where's where's, where can people find out more about you online? Nine.

Valentine: They can check out www.gomex-engineering.com and then all my contact info is is on there as well.

James: Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining me today.

Valentine: Thanks, James. Thanks for having me.

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