Lessons from running a Natural Building company - Julz Baker

Transcript

00:00:01 JEFFREY HART
i've never said that hello and a warm welcome to episode 114 of the building sustainability podcast i'm jeffrey hart and every fortnight join me as i talk to designers builders makers dreamers and doers together we can explore the wide world of sustainability in the built environment by talking to wonderful people who are doing excellent things. And today's wonderful person is Jules Baker, who is a natural builder based out of Lewis. This episode is perfect for New Year because it is about fresh starts and really focuses on what Jules learned from his company Kind Construction and where he's taking that now. Before the episode I want to say thank you so much to everyone who sent in questions for the Yule special. We did ask each other all of the questions that were sent in but the recording ended up at almost three hours so a lot had to be edited. the questions were all great i should say but honestly some of the answers were rubbish uh so they had to go so yeah once again thank you to everyone that sent something in uh apologies if yours didn't make the cut and also a huge thanks to mike for his work co-piloting the now annual yuletide shenanigans okay uh patrons we have one new supporter this week and that is denise denise has supported at the higher level which means there will be a hand carved spoon coming your way soon and our guest today jules is also a patron supporter and also got himself a hand carved wooden spoon and this is what he has to say about it.

00:01:45 JULZ BAKER
still got my wooden spoon. Have

00:01:45 JEFFREY HART
still got my wooden spoon. Have you? Yeah.

00:01:48 JULZ BAKER
Good. Do you use it? I do. It's good for porridge. That's my porridge spoon. Excellent. Reminds me of being a little bear.

00:01:58 JEFFREY HART
one, Jules. If you would like to join Jules and have a porridge spoon of your own, then head on over to patreon.com forward slash building sustainability in return you not only get 11 odd hours of bonus content including 20 minutes from today's podcast guest Jules Baker but you also get to listen to the podcast advert free via a special link in the patreon page also you make me really happy what else to say oh podcast stats uh we've just passed a quarter of a million downloads uh which is pretty big news and according to our hosting we are in around about the top six to eight percent of all the podcasts out there in terms of downloads so that's pretty good isn't it also show notes uh make sure you check out the show notes of this episode to follow up on any of the bits we talk about there's a link to Jules's work really anything that comes up there'll be a link um so have a look there uh sharing I am actually giving myself a break from social media uh I've realized it's um it's not particularly healthy uh in my life and it does somewhat present a little bit of an issue uh in that i can't promote this podcast as such i will still be sending out graphics to all of my guests for them to share um if you do see one of those and you want to share it then please do i feel quite hypocritical of asking you to do anything on social media if i am taking a break from it but yes please do continue to share it really is the very best way of uh of finding new listeners and hopefully inspiring them to build better okay so about this episode it was recorded at the kind supply warehouse it was raining pretty heavily it's big old warehouse we stuffed up every little crack with beautiful hemp insulation and i ended up soundproofing the room by sort of draping hemp around the place it really is a multifunctional product yeah imagine that uh i would put a photo on social media but i can't do that anymore maybe i'll try and put one in the show notes uh on the website so if you want to see what jewels looks like how we soundproof the room there's a bit of hemp insulation underneath the microphone because uh jewels was prone to gesticulating and uh and really hammering out his points uh so we added in a bit of padding and there's also an unofficial sponsor uh jules brought some kombucha along we drink that so you occasionally hear a little little glug and what else to say oh tangents we wander often and far and occasionally we remember what we're talking about and pull it back uh sometimes we just go off uh it is what happens when you put two natural builders in a room they are going to chat all the things um so yeah i think someone once commented on another episode with a natural builder that it was a bit like listening in on a pub conversation and i suspect this one might be a little bit like that only that it's kombucha we're chugging um right that's it from me i am back at the end i hope you enjoy jules baker cheers

00:05:24 JULZ BAKER
Kombucha cheers. Kombucha

00:05:35 JULZ BAKER
and hemp. and, sorry, Yeah, it's good, eh? That is delicious. Made in Sussex. Yeah. It's good stuff. Beautiful. they're Yeah, doing some good things. Keeping it I feel like I'm local. blind's good on, like, stuff. they're Beautiful. doing some Yeah, good Keeping it local. things.

00:05:49 JULZ BAKER
My name's Jules. I'm a Virgo. I'm actually a Taurus. Couldn't you tell?

00:05:55 JEFFREY HART
I'm actually a Taurus. Couldn't you tell?

00:05:57 JULZ BAKER
Classic Taurus. Classic Taurus. My name's Jules. I am a

00:06:05 JEFFREY HART
how do you describe yourself? Yeah, I'm

00:06:06 JULZ BAKER
Yeah, I'm calling myself that. I run a company called Unearthed. We are specialising in clay, lime and stonework here in Sussex. Beautiful Sussex. Based out of Lewes? Yeah, we're based out of Lewes, just outside of Brighton. Yeah, lovely Lewes. beautiful Sussex based out of Lewis yeah we're based out of Lewis just outside of Brighton uh yeah lovely Lewis um we've yeah most of our work's kind of Lewis Brighton

00:06:35 JEFFREY HART
be yeah lots of good things going on around here there is a good there's the right type of person around here isn't

00:06:40 JULZ BAKER
yeah yeah Lewis lovely. Yeah, lots of people here that kind of seem to really bought into, like, what we do and how we want to build and are looking to educate themselves on the right way to build, the right way to maintain their buildings. Lewis is a conservation zone, and it's in the South Downs National Park, so there's quite a lot around the heritage of the town and the National Park Authority are doing a good job I suppose of preserving the heritage so a lot of the buildings you've had a walk around Lewis today that's lovely I had a lovely time yeah lots of lime lots of flint yeah lots of stone there was a lovely

00:07:22 JEFFREY HART
there was a lovely timber framed bell tower thing at the top of the high yeah yeah lots of stone there was a lovely uh timber framed bell tower thing at the top of the high street yeah that was oh yeah i saw that from a distance when i was on the phone to you and went i'm walking that way yeah

00:07:36 JULZ BAKER
buildings uh like history of brick making here and um where we're sitting now this used to be an old foundry ironworks. quite a good history Yeah, of

00:07:50 JEFFREY HART
making, Nice. Presumably because it's on the river.

00:07:55 JULZ BAKER
Yeah. So good trade routes. Yes. good clay up the Yeah, road. Still good brickyards just

00:08:05 JEFFREY HART
a lot

00:08:05 JULZ BAKER
of stuff

00:08:06 JEFFREY HART
still made here actually nice yeah so regular listeners yeah my uh no you were

00:08:13 JULZ BAKER
company name yes so i am i now say the former director of kind construction and kind supply um kind supply is still very much operational kind construction um we decided to close down which was a big decision really big decision um love kind construction love what we did love everything that we were trying to build we're really trying to build a positive force for change in the building industry um everything we did we kind of came from a place of positivity sustainability and kindness and tried to make a real impact and shift within the industry which i think it needs definitely yeah um yeah general industry as a whole needs a bit of a kick up the bum and yeah in terms of kind of building sustainably how they treat people right through the chain all the stakeholders involved from clients to architects subcontractors everyone just needs to just work with a little bit more positivity and kindness and that's what we tried to inject into the company um so i was company as director kind for four years um and yeah like got some fantastic memories fantastic learnings from it um unfortunately um it we got to that point where we thought it was best to close the company um kind supply still operates so andrew who was my business partner at kind construction he is now operating kind supply and i have unearthed my true passion just did a little

00:09:54 JEFFREY HART
did a little

00:09:58 JULZ BAKER
my mouth.

00:10:00 JEFFREY HART
It's the

00:10:05 JEFFREY HART
Yeah. Was there a moment like when you decided you'd had enough? Or like it wasn't working out how you wanted it to?

00:10:18 JULZ BAKER
There were a few. Yeah, there wasn't one particular factor that really was like the deciding point. I did have a moment when I was standing in a bathroom between a tiler and electrician kind of disputing about a socket for an electrical tail rail thinking, I don't care. socket for an electrical tail rail thinking i don't care i um but yeah that wasn't the deciding factor for why i'm closing the company down i think um a lot of builders i started off as a builder i started off a bricklayer i did a brickwork apprenticeship i am very practical i like working with my hands good at building things that's what i like doing i like getting my hands dirty i like working with lime I like working with my Good hands. at building That's things. what I like I like doing. getting my hands dirty. I like working with lime. I like working with clay. I love natural materials. I love the idea of building in a natural and sustainable way. That's where my passion is.

00:11:13 JEFFREY HART
That's where

00:11:15 JULZ BAKER
So I obviously formed a company around that passion and then brought in the other core values, which were so important to me, the positivity and the kindness.

00:11:26 JULZ BAKER
But I think this happens all too often people who are good at building move into or start their own construction companies building firms whatever they may want to call it and you just kind of get repositioned um as a project manager

00:11:45 JEFFREY HART
no training

00:11:46 JULZ BAKER
a project manager no prior experience as a project manager i did like an online course which was actually fantastic um didn't really teach me how to be a project manager it kind of taught some leadership skills which was great and i did learn a lot from it which i can can bring

00:11:57 JEFFREY HART
it kind

00:12:04 JULZ BAKER
people, they just kind of get landed in that project management role. And it's not really what I wanted to be doing. So it didn't

00:12:12 JEFFREY HART
So it didn't

00:12:14 JULZ BAKER
out of bed in the morning?

00:12:14 JEFFREY HART
out of bed

00:12:16 JULZ BAKER
No, that side of it didn't get me out of bed in the morning. I like seeing the overall project and I like seeing kind of a renovation or a retrofit. Or I like seeing I did like seeing the steps along the And way. I like the camar of a renovation or a retrofit or I liked seeing, I did like seeing

00:12:20 JEFFREY HART
I like

00:12:27 JULZ BAKER
And I liked the camaraderie on site. I loved

00:12:33 JEFFREY HART
what we built and we

00:12:34 JULZ BAKER
fantastic people working for us. You know, I didn't really care walking around a kitchen with a client deciding how many spotlights they want or the position of their light sockets or switches. That didn't excite me working with clay excites me working with lime

00:12:51 JULZ BAKER
i took the you know what you're good at what you like doing found that sweet spot and yeah started unearthed

00:12:59 JEFFREY HART
nice yeah

00:13:00 JULZ BAKER
yeah yeah there wasn't one factor there wasn't one factor in clothing down

00:13:05 JEFFREY HART
so i mean just it might seem like you've uh maybe to a listener that you've just started up a new business with a different name yeah like what how how are the how is it fundamentally different

00:13:21 JULZ BAKER
it is fundamentally different because we are now just doing the specialist work just doing the work i love doing and my team loves doing so we're now we're going to um work as

00:13:38 JULZ BAKER
work alongside main contractors so someone

00:13:42 JEFFREY HART
someone else can deal with

00:13:46 JULZ BAKER
bloody tail rail

00:13:47 JEFFREY HART
tail rail no problem yeah yeah yeah but someone else

00:13:48 JULZ BAKER
problem yeah yeah yeah but someone else will be really good at that yeah because that is somebody else's sweet spot somebody else gets out of bed in the morning because they love project managing they like and and that's great and you need those people and you need the practical people so

00:14:04 JEFFREY HART
yeah we're

00:14:05 JULZ BAKER
fundamentally different now because we're yeah we're just more hands-on i'm back on the tools myself with a smaller team just taking on those specialist items so like our first job front half just just perfect it's uh exactly what i want to be doing what is it but oh we're building a lovely so the pre-existing roundhouse, which you very kindly pointed out on Instagram isn't actually round.

00:14:32 JEFFREY HART
a roundhouse with the right angle. It has

00:14:35 JULZ BAKER
got a right angle in the corner.

00:14:36 JEFFREY HART
in the

00:14:38 JULZ BAKER
what shape to call it. I suppose you've got a right angle in the corner, which isn't actually very square

00:14:44 JEFFREY HART
very square

00:14:46 JULZ BAKER
And then, maybe yeah, it's more of an octagon, but with a right angle.

00:14:51 JEFFREY HART
But it's the easiest way to describe that. It's It semantics.

00:14:55 JULZ BAKER
Yeah. It's roundish.

00:15:01 JULZ BAKER
So, yeah, that was already there pre-existing. And we are kind of beefing up the insulation. It's got some beautiful cladding

00:15:13 JULZ BAKER
So I think the person who built it probably built it in that time where natural material wasn't so readily available. So when client supply wasn't down the road, where you can get some beautiful hemp insulation.

00:15:21 JEFFREY HART
you can get

00:15:26 JULZ BAKER
that you love that you love that bit yeah it's my favorite

00:15:30 JEFFREY HART
it's my favorite

00:15:31 JULZ BAKER
so they built it and they've got some pir and within the stud so they kind of got like all the elements right ish it's got a lovely living room and beautiful round with timbers but then the new people that are in the house they've wanted to put their little touch on it so we're building the we've got new wall around the inside um uh out of hemp blocks and we are currently uh applying a nice clay plaster supplied

00:16:00 JEFFREY HART
by will

00:16:02 JULZ BAKER
stanwix He has to have a mention On every one of your podcasts He

00:16:04 JEFFREY HART
a mention

00:16:08 JEFFREY HART
his phone Otherwise he's going to Stop getting mentioned Fair

00:16:14 JULZ BAKER
I think there was one Where you mentioned him Five times I can't remember That one Oh yeah

00:16:21 JEFFREY HART
Oh yeah It was just in the intro As well Well he's doing

00:16:27 JULZ BAKER
he's doing good isn't he? Well, stuff, He is. Will supplied us with some lovely clay, and we've had some fun putting the base coat on this week. And then, yeah, we're going to go back and top it all and up, we've just been experimenting with some pigments and some different colours.

00:16:43 JEFFREY HART
Well, it's lovely to hear you talk.

00:16:48 JEFFREY HART
clearly what you're passionate about.

00:16:54 JULZ BAKER
like when you came out to our job and you did a lovely earth floor. And I just remember you mixing up some clay and you came back the next day and just putting your finger in it. We've just got such a like connection with clay which I think unless you've worked with it in some context or like I imagine everyone's probably had that experience as a kid just playing with it at a festival or a pottery class it just does

00:17:17 JEFFREY HART
does good things to our soul doesn't it if you give someone like a little lump of clay mud yeah and then like you just ask them to hold

00:17:28 JULZ BAKER
yeah sort

00:17:29 JEFFREY HART
of come back like we used to do a big group sort of ask them to hold it and you come back sort of within a couple of minutes and like some people have made like a little donut yeah you know have flattened it out really yeah pancake you know everyone has just played it and needed it and felt it and connected with it and like it's working out its properties and yeah do it's

00:17:30 JULZ BAKER
used to

00:17:38 JEFFREY HART
yeah you know have

00:17:49 JULZ BAKER
and yeah

00:17:51 JEFFREY HART
it's an

00:17:51 JULZ BAKER
it's an amazing substance and it's like we've evolved around it and built with it for thousands of years i think it's like a real deep part of our evolution and yeah it just does good things so yeah we're just yeah working with what we love now um yeah doing back to kind of doing brickwork like that was that was where i started really that was my apprenticeship and like saying around lewis there's loads of beautiful historic buildings with nice fire clay fired bricks and lime mortar

00:18:23 JEFFREY HART
I love

00:18:23 JULZ BAKER
I think the art of brick works lost it's like I think it's a really sad like I've got an apprentice now shout out Sonny Boy he's a brick

00:18:39 JULZ BAKER
apprentice I've sent him to college because I think he learned some really wonderful core skills throughout brick work even if he doesn't do a great deal he's doing a lot of plastering with us and he loves it he's taking on that quite naturally um he loves working with hemp and clay and lime and um i just think it's really sad now his college course he's not going to qualify as a level 3 bricklayer. Right. He's going to qualify as a 2.7.

00:19:10 JULZ BAKER
It's just like such a slap around the face. It's just such an insult to tradespeople everywhere that you don't even get a level 3 anymore. Does level 3 still exist? I don't know. Not around here. Wow. I'm sure it exists somewhere. So when I went, like, days gone by, back in the day, you did three years and you came out with a level three. Yeah. Now you do two years and you come out with a 2.7.

00:19:38 JEFFREY HART
Well, I mean, you could argue that's better value. Yeah, he does get an extra seven. He gets 0.7 for free.

00:19:43 JULZ BAKER
gets 0.7 for free.

00:19:48 JULZ BAKER
True, true. Yeah. value yeah he does get an extra

00:19:50 JEFFREY HART
seven he gets 0.7

00:19:51 JULZ BAKER
think they're gonna learn as much though but it's they're just what i'm getting at i suppose that lost art of brickwork where they're just going to come out as sight machines aren't they that's what they're training

00:19:59 JEFFREY HART
as now yeah

00:20:00 JULZ BAKER
i think so slap dashing up houses

00:20:04 JEFFREY HART
like brick slips on the outside of yeah something else yeah put up sip panel yeah

00:20:08 JULZ BAKER
yeah put up

00:20:11 JEFFREY HART
that's happening you don't need to say panel when you say sip no that's like saying pin number um I don't need to get into this rant uh everyone says pin number I know personal

00:20:23 JULZ BAKER
I know personal

00:20:25 JEFFREY HART
number number yeah true there's a few like that yeah anyway sit panel yeah yes I mean that's that's sort of most of bricklaying now I suppose yeah things like probably just the Prince's Foundation like yeah they're still championing proper brickwork but there's a really great demonstration project in Dunfermary's house that was led by them and I didn't know anything about brickwork before I went there and they were saying a mark, or the mark of a really good would you call it a mason? yeah they were saying like a mark or the mark of a really good,

00:21:08 JULZ BAKER
they were like Yeah, traditionally a mason.

00:21:11 JEFFREY HART
a mason. A good bricky. Yeah. You that's safe know, ground. Yeah. Is having consistent mortar beds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like if you can have really thin mortar beds, then it means you can do different shapes. Yeah. So it means you're sculpting those bricks more perfectly.

00:21:11 JULZ BAKER
A good bricky. Yeah. You that's safe know, ground. Yeah.

00:21:17 JULZ BAKER
mortar beds. Yeah, yeah,

00:21:22 JULZ BAKER
Yeah. So

00:21:28 JEFFREY HART
Rather than just like, oh, there's a brick with loads of goop between it.

00:21:33 JULZ BAKER
Oh, yeah. You see like the old Victorian buildings. Yeah. There's real nice fin joints, beautiful bricks, like amazing arches. And they used to do like the viaducts and stuff like that incredible absolutely incredible huge arches that like go on yeah level 2.7 can do that yeah

00:21:59 JULZ BAKER
that as well we're kind of on the mason side i suppose it's been stonework there's like there's lots of flint is our stone

00:22:10 JEFFREY HART
is our

00:22:12 JULZ BAKER
stone uh the sandstone like in the wield which is so we're like on the downs and then the wields below and you get good sandstone there um but yes flint's great because it's free and the farmers don't want it. So all the flint that comes, kind of what we build with here, comes from farmers' fields. When they're ploughing their fields, they're turning up the flint. They just throw it to the side of the field because they don't want it. You can't grow your crops through a big, absolutely rock-hard stone. So they Yeah. chuck it to the side of the fields don't want

00:22:35 JEFFREY HART
they're turning

00:22:45 JEFFREY HART
it to the side of the fields don't want it you can't grow

00:22:45 JULZ BAKER
your crops through a big absolutely rock hard stone yeah so they chuck it to the side of the fields and then they have just deals with different builders or flint wallers so then they can take the stone it's a good symbiotic relationship yeah build it with lime and then yeah it's uh it's a great way to build yeah Yeah. Great

00:23:04 JEFFREY HART
interesting. I like that there's

00:23:09 JULZ BAKER
Yeah. And you look around Lewis as well. There's some lovely stonework around Lewis, and that came from the old priory that got blown up by Henry VIII. And then over the years, it was just a ruin. It's all very well protected now, and it's all beautiful, and they made it like a tourist attraction but yeah an old ruin that got blown up and then people have just pillaged it for years so I quite like spotted it now if you go around and there's quite nice garden walls in people's houses and you look quite low down there's lovely bits of stone and you can tell they come from the old ruin nice

00:23:35 JEFFREY HART
go around

00:23:43 JEFFREY HART
someone was saying a similar thing about Hadrian's Wall. It's like, I went up to Hadrian's

00:23:47 JULZ BAKER
It's like, I went

00:23:49 JEFFREY HART
year.

00:23:50 JULZ BAKER
Yeah.

00:23:50 JEFFREY HART
And there isn't actually very much wall. Oh, really? Because everyone's nicked it. Yes. I think over the years, like, there's probably a lot of farmhouses with, you know,

00:23:57 JULZ BAKER
like, there's probably a lot of farmhouses with, you know,

00:24:01 JEFFREY HART
nice bits of Hadrian's Wall foundations or something. But yeah, actually what's left as a wall, a recognisable wall, is pretty minimal.

00:24:12 JULZ BAKER
Ah, yeah, very interesting. But again, it's a sensible way to go. It's isn't recycling, it? It is recycling. Someone's gone

00:24:15 JEFFREY HART
way to go. It's isn't recycling, it? It is recycling. Someone's gone to the effort of quarrying all that stuff.

00:24:21 JULZ BAKER
Yeah. So again, they're building in a kind of circular sustainable way and what we're trying to achieve now but um i suppose without nicking it now yeah you build relationships with farmers or you know you're growing um growing crops for regenerative building materials yeah or just like yeah good companies they're making bricks out of waste and also um yeah it's what we're trying to achieve i suppose circularity that's

00:24:54 JEFFREY HART
we're trying to achieve yeah

00:24:56 JULZ BAKER
but just ask permission stop

00:24:56 JEFFREY HART
but just ask permission stop nicking my wall yeah um did henry viIII himself blow it up?

00:25:06 JULZ BAKER
I think so. Yeah? Yeah. He was

00:25:07 JEFFREY HART
Yeah? Yeah. He was known for his...

00:25:09 JULZ BAKER
Yeah, I think he came along with a couple of sticks of dynamite. Yeah.

00:25:13 JEFFREY HART
Yeah. Yeah. Lit up a big cigar around him.

00:25:19 JULZ BAKER
I think so. Yeah. I don't teach history, so... No. That's how Bonfire Night started. We love it here.

00:25:30 JEFFREY HART
seen all of the Bonfire Society, is it?

00:25:36 JULZ BAKER
Yeah. They're out on the street. They're out today. Yeah.

00:25:36 JEFFREY HART
They're out on the street. They're out today. Yeah.

00:25:38 JULZ BAKER
Yeah.

00:25:39 JEFFREY HART
All in there. Stripey clobber looking a bit like Where's Wally, which I didn't dare say to them.

00:25:44 JULZ BAKER
they'll blow you up. Yeah.

00:25:45 JEFFREY HART
Yeah. You know, then there's that one thing that everyone's heard a thousand times. Yeah. I bet

00:25:51 JULZ BAKER
I bet that's it. Do you know why they wear that?

00:25:55 JEFFREY HART
They wear

00:25:55 JULZ BAKER
They wear Stripey.

00:25:56 JEFFREY HART
can't find her in a crowd?

00:25:58 JULZ BAKER
Yeah, for that exact reason. Is it really? Yeah, because when they're pleased for trying to shut down Bonfire Night. So it's Where's Wally from this?

00:26:07 JULZ BAKER
actually is. Yeah.

00:26:08 JEFFREY HART
is.

00:26:09 JULZ BAKER
because they dress up as smugglers. Yeah. Because, yeah, for that exact reason. Because when they were... I did point out earlier I'm not

00:26:15 JEFFREY HART
out earlier I'm not a history teacher.

00:26:19 JULZ BAKER
But, yeah, it's that exact reason. Because when they were trying to shut down Bonfire Night, they all wore stripy smugglers jumpers. that exact reason

00:26:24 JEFFREY HART
they all wore stripy smugglers

00:26:25 JULZ BAKER
they they yeah all wore stripy smugglers jumpers and the same hat and they blacked out their faces which is controversial and you're not allowed to do anymore yeah but yeah and then yeah the police couldn't arrest people and they just carried on

00:26:44 JEFFREY HART
start calling him Wally it

00:26:48 JULZ BAKER
but I don't know I don't know where's Wally

00:26:53 JEFFREY HART
so we went off on quite a a brick tangent there yeah so yeah I mean it's from that it's clear that your your passion for the materials and the skills and trades is there yes can i can i drag you back to the the bad time yeah absolutely

00:27:12 JULZ BAKER
yeah i'm not i'm not quite over it yet i'm i'm still in this trauma so

00:27:22 JEFFREY HART
you know journalists who's just just asking horrible questions

00:27:28 JULZ BAKER
say pre-podcast i'm i'm here i can be open honest like honest vulnerable conversations need to happen and i'm happy to talk about the good times and the bad times and then hopefully other people can

00:27:43 JEFFREY HART
learn from it as well yes i think yeah that's exactly true and yeah thank you for that yeah

00:27:48 JULZ BAKER
it all goes back to that kind of spirit of kind and why we started it and the positivity around it and the kindness so if i've got a couple of people can kind of learn from mistakes where we went wrong um yeah hopefully you can not do it on your business good

00:28:07 JEFFREY HART
i'll hold off on renaming you as jules mean in my phone we have

00:28:15 JULZ BAKER
before yeah that was a funny one so it was in

00:28:20 JEFFREY HART
in jest or no

00:28:22 JULZ BAKER
this guy was deadly serious. So we were going to do a job for him. And this was like early days when you kind of like say yes to everything. And then it wasn't really, really a kind job. And he wanted a skylight put in.

00:28:36 JEFFREY HART
in.

00:28:39 JULZ BAKER
He had a lovely, lovely like house, top of town. And he wanted a skylight put in. And he seemed like quite a nice guy at first. And it was all kind of going well, and then he was quite keen to just get it started, and then he started, we had a great tippy that worked for us, and he started messaging him, and he sent him messages at, one was at two in the morning, one was at four in the morning, like asking questions

00:28:56 JEFFREY HART
one was at four in the morning,

00:29:00 JULZ BAKER
job, and when can you start, number one, it should have really come to us, and then I did ring him up, and was please can you start? like, Number it should have really one, come to And then I did ring him us. up and was like, please, can you not contact our team at four o'clock in the morning? And he threw that whole, do you know who I am at me? And then sent me a big, long, shitty email and called us on Coast Construction. Because I said I was.

00:29:21 JEFFREY HART
said I was.

00:29:22 JULZ BAKER
know who he is? I'm not going to name names oh i mean is he is he someone famous well he's an obe or a cbe or he's got some

00:29:30 JEFFREY HART
he's got some

00:29:33 JULZ BAKER
that doesn't allow for 4am anything nah he didn't like it because i said i'm not gonna do his job but because again going back to the core values why we started kind and around kindness and it's respecting people's boundaries isn't it no one no one should get a call about work or a message about work at four o'clock

00:29:55 JEFFREY HART
no no to be

00:29:55 JULZ BAKER
be telling your chippy to put

00:29:57 JEFFREY HART
his phone on yeah so but we were always

00:30:01 JULZ BAKER
open for Christicism and ridicule. If you're calling yourself kind, I suppose it's, it's a good target to throw back at someone, isn't it? Yeah, that's true. You're the man in the arena. If when you're putting

00:30:13 JEFFREY HART
true. You're

00:30:17 JULZ BAKER
out there as that, I believe. But I was always willing to take that.

00:30:21 JEFFREY HART
mean, I think being called unkind as an insult is sort of the softest insult you can give yeah

00:30:29 JULZ BAKER
oh that's

00:30:29 JEFFREY HART
mean yeah yeah yeah

00:30:30 JULZ BAKER
yeah i did really hurt my feelings yeah yeah um

00:30:35 JEFFREY HART
were doing like there was big interest wasn't there yeah there

00:30:41 JULZ BAKER
big interest and that's why i think it was a bit of a it was a really tough decision yeah we shut down a company we had 75 inquiries on our spreadsheet wow when we shut the company down so there was yeah there was definitely interest and that's one of the things i'm most proud of from kind actually i think we've really started a bit of a wave of natural building or sustainable building around this area been a few other companies that since have kind of popped up by doing similar things

00:31:09 JEFFREY HART
by doing

00:31:11 JULZ BAKER
was again a big driver to start on earth because we were um yeah as kind of construction we were just stuck on a project or say stuck on we were on a project willingly stuck on a project being paid to be there sometimes yeah

00:31:27 JEFFREY HART
paid to

00:31:32 JULZ BAKER
that's part of the next story um yeah so we we were on a project maybe like six months eight months and yeah doing some wonderful work and for some lovely customers. But I think now with Unearthed, we've got the ability to have a much greater impact. Because if we can now collaborate with a few other builders, because a bit of a wave and you've obviously seen it. There's like there has been a shift in the way people are wanting to build. And there's been a big movement within architects and A-Canada and some fantastic things, I think, helping promote that. And

00:32:02 JEFFREY HART
And there's

00:32:10 JULZ BAKER
around and there's loads of good stuff going on at the moment. It's a great podcast. Yeah. Just one. One great podcast. There's a really, really, really good podcast. really good podcast. I can't remember what it's named. What's it I can't called? remember what his name What's was. it called? Some I'm geoff gay off. or something.

00:32:27 JULZ BAKER
Um, yeah, there's a, yeah. Hey, your, your podcast is very inspiring on, in my journey, actually, Jeffrey.

00:32:36 JEFFREY HART
Oh, thank you. I, I can't actually take any more of that because, um, uh, I got met by Amy today. Oh, yeah.

00:32:43 JEFFREY HART
Oh, yeah.

00:32:46 JEFFREY HART
She, she, I got met by Amy today and she said some really lovely things which just makes me feel incredibly awkward I

00:32:53 JULZ BAKER
this because you were telling me the story of I've just read out on my podcast that I'm incredibly humble as it was a review and you said on my podcast that I'm incredibly humble as, was it a review? It was a review, And he said, I can't believe I've just read out on a podcast. I'm so incredibly humble. Is that the most unhumble thing that anyone could do?

00:33:06 JEFFREY HART
a review? It was a review,

00:33:16 JULZ BAKER
then I met Amy at Future Build like the week after and she was like, I just left Geoffrey a podcast review. And it was brilliant because i had no idea so yeah i had a good laugh about that yeah she that was a really good review

00:33:33 JEFFREY HART
a really good review and she's i mean uh she's doing really incredible things yeah amy's great

00:33:38 JULZ BAKER
amy's great shout out amy yeah um yeah so she um is doing good things yeah she described your podcast as a gateway drug which i quite liked yeah yeah i think that's for positive change isn't that but gateway drugs yeah uh

00:33:58 JULZ BAKER
um but that kind of goes back to what

00:34:00 JEFFREY HART
of goes

00:34:02 JULZ BAKER
we're talking about as well. And this is something that Amy really heavily promotes. Accelerating. Accelerating change. Yes. So loops back round to exactly what I was talking about.

00:34:17 JEFFREY HART
like we're singing from the same hymn sheet. Isn't it? To use a popular phrase.

00:34:21 JEFFREY HART
I won't sing.

00:34:23 JEFFREY HART
I won't sing.

00:34:23 JULZ BAKER
is a popular phrase um but we yeah we were on construction jobs for kind of maybe six eight months and yeah doing some fantastic work and doing nice retrofits or sustainable builds top to bottom renovations extensions and we were we were doing good natural or sustainable elements. But now, with the new company unearthed, hopefully we can collaborate with a few other builders. So in that kind of six months where we were just doing one project previously, we might be able to flip between,

00:34:57 JEFFREY HART
be able

00:34:59 JULZ BAKER
know, four, five, six different projects in that time, working with other people, and hopefully upskill some other builders along the way.

00:35:12 JULZ BAKER
it just takes the pressure off them a little bit. It's... Off

00:35:18 JULZ BAKER
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you're a main contractor, and you've been handed a set of drawings with a load of clay plaster on for example that that's in the spec and they're scratching their head and asking their plasterer who's only worked with gypsum for the last 20 years it takes that pressure off them now they can obviously come around to us we would love to do the job we can collaborate with them hopefully inspire them teach their plaster how to do it yeah put us out of

00:35:49 JULZ BAKER
that's what we want to do as well and we're going to collaborate with the crew down here at kind supply and we're going to run training workshops and yeah yeah we do we need to we need to accelerate the rate of change within the industry because it's a bit stuck in its ways isn't it and a bit toxic in more than one way yeah yeah well i mean it's

00:36:10 JEFFREY HART
i mean it's definitely changing it's hard to know how much of that is because um you know is it just your bubble and your yeah you know i keep talking to natural builders yeah so i think the whole world is natural building

00:36:23 JULZ BAKER
so i think

00:36:26 JULZ BAKER
do as well I know I was talking to someone else about this it was a bit of a wake up call to me when they explained that 90% of the people outside I don't have a clue what we're actually talking about

00:36:35 JEFFREY HART
a clue

00:36:38 JULZ BAKER
boy I was talking about our apprentice, his assessor came round to our job the other day, I was like come in have a look I

00:36:46 JULZ BAKER
what he made of it he was

00:36:51 JULZ BAKER
of nodded a bit um i think he thought we were a bunch of whacked out hippies building with hemp and clay probably but uh yeah

00:37:02 JEFFREY HART
a site a little while back and there was a guy there who's really, he listens to the podcast actually hey Greg big fan of the podcast when he saw me he was like what are you doing here

00:37:17 JULZ BAKER
he saw

00:37:19 JEFFREY HART
gave me the tour of the building of the site introduced

00:37:21 JULZ BAKER
the site

00:37:23 JEFFREY HART
me to a load of the conventional. He's like the natural builder on site. Yeah. Working with a load of conventional people. Yeah.

00:37:28 JULZ BAKER
Yeah. Working

00:37:33 JEFFREY HART
a clue. Didn't really know how to interact with it. This guy, Greg, was trying to keep the straw bales dry. And some had got wet.

00:37:42 JULZ BAKER
Yeah.

00:37:42 JEFFREY HART
And he had to sort through them all to make sure that the wet ones didn't come in and they were just yeah just put the straw bales in there no we need to sort them everyone on that site except for that one guy yeah well i think yeah infused by it we

00:37:58 JULZ BAKER
are in a little bubble but i think that's part of like the next phase of what I'm trying to achieve with the business. And yeah, we can run training and workshops. And I want to get into the college. I want to get in and speak to these kind of... You're a bit old, mate. I've got loads to learn, though. Just give me my final point three.

00:38:17 JEFFREY HART
give me my final point

00:38:20 JULZ BAKER
to go and talk to these 2.7ers. Because if they're doing a brickwork course, take them a hemp block. It's not too foreign. It's like, you know, I think they can, they'll understand the principles of it. It's just what they've been doing. So, I mean, those kind of like easy transitional switches. Yeah, I mean, they're the

00:38:39 JEFFREY HART
Yeah, I mean, they're the quick wins, aren't they? Yeah. Like switch out

00:38:41 JULZ BAKER
Yeah. Like

00:38:43 JEFFREY HART
of hemp insulation for the rock wall insulation. You know, it installs very much the same way.

00:38:51 JULZ BAKER
We went and we did with the Kind Spy crew. We went to like a very much conventional like tall place in Brighton. And it was just conventional builders coming in. Most of them hadn't seen hemp or wood fiber

00:39:09 JULZ BAKER
pavotextile p the recycled denim oh yeah i loved it because i think everyone's got a pair of old jeans at home and they were coming in and it's so soft it's denim and velvet and it's like hang on were you there like demonstrating

00:39:24 JEFFREY HART
or were you just there buying them now they're demonstrating okay i thought you were just trying to buy a new bit for your angle grinder

00:39:27 JULZ BAKER
okay i thought you

00:39:31 JULZ BAKER
grinder just rubbing denim

00:39:35 JEFFREY HART
for a drill bit but now i'm hugging some denim no we were there

00:39:39 JULZ BAKER
demonstrating we set up a little stall in the like four

00:39:40 JEFFREY HART
set up a little stall in the like four way bit

00:39:42 JULZ BAKER
way bit as you walked in and collar built us and went, build with this. But they loved it. They were like, oh, I've been working with Rockwall all morning. Like, yeah, it is. You're right. They're the easy wins, I think. Insulation and, yeah. But I was laughing. Me and Connor were talking about this. Connor's plaster. You've worked with Connor. Smooth

00:40:03 JEFFREY HART
Smooth plaster. Smooth plaster. Mr. Smooth. He's also a pretty handy floor installer. about this um connor's uh our plaster you've worked with connor plaster yeah mr smooth he's he's also a pretty handy uh floor installer

00:40:04 JULZ BAKER
Smooth plaster. Mr. Smooth. He's also

00:40:10 JULZ BAKER
he is he's very good connor very very good he's uh yeah fantastic person a wonderful trades person um but we were laughing about this the other day we were wondering like when like gypsum plaster came out, or, like, Portland cement, do you think everyone was moaning about it then? Or the plaster was using lime? Or, like, all the brickies using lime?

00:40:27 JEFFREY HART
the plaster

00:40:32 JEFFREY HART
Well, I mean, the cement one, I think most of them, it was post-war, wasn't it? Everyone's coming back. Yeah, maybe. Either being shell-shocked or didn't come back or didn't want to go back into the trade they were doing. I think So, yeah, shocked or that, didn't yeah. come back or didn't want to go back into the trade they were doing so yeah

00:40:38 JEFFREY HART
Yeah, maybe. Either

00:40:42 JEFFREY HART
go back into the

00:40:46 JEFFREY HART
that yeah sorry that's put a pretty somber somber reflection on on your uh knife point uh because that would have people don't like change do they no and

00:40:58 JULZ BAKER
like change do they no and that would have been quite a big shift but i don't know we weren't obviously weren't there so it might have been over many years or yeah a lot of it's post-war

00:41:08 JEFFREY HART
i suppose the shift like with sand and cement as i understand i don't do that stuff yeah uh it's just that it's easier yeah like you don't have to look after it the same way as you'd have to do for a lime blast yeah yeah so actually like there was still that i think we're we sort of seem to be past that point now where like the 80s 90s where ease yeah was like the the thing wasn't it like microwave meals and you know all that kind of yeah convenience uh and now we're seeing like oh actually nutrition that's

00:41:47 JEFFREY HART
yeah live kombucha

00:41:53 JEFFREY HART
by the old tree brewery aren't we yeah well if they pay

00:41:57 JULZ BAKER
they pay me a kombucha i'm absolutely fine i spend a small fortune on this for meaning to make

00:42:05 JEFFREY HART
my own but it's um it's very nice um yeah so i think it's quite easy for a thing that's you know simpler harder to muck up to sort of come in and yeah yeah people

00:42:18 JULZ BAKER
yeah people

00:42:20 JEFFREY HART
a bit more receptive to it but little

00:42:20 JULZ BAKER
a bit

00:42:23 JEFFREY HART
know they were destroying buildings. Yes. Creating damp problems, ruining lives.

00:42:34 JULZ BAKER
it has, hasn't it? I spend so much of my time going round to buildings and just going, well, yeah, you've got damp there because you've got a load of gypsum plaster on a solid wall.

00:42:49 JULZ BAKER
no idea. They've bought a house in all goodwill. I went round to the job a few weeks ago now, and a beautiful, beautiful house and solid wall construction. And she was like, oh, we've just got a line of damp along here. And it's like in the kind of kitchen at the back of the house. I was like, yeah, you've had a damp proofing system put in, haven't you? And she was like, yeah, how did you know? And I was like, well, because you can see, there's like a big, big coat of sand and cement and Vandex under that gypsum and the damp's just tracked up and there's just a line around the room. And she was like I spent thousands on that I was like yeah you're going to have to take it off I'm afraid and she was like no she wasn't very happy with me saying

00:43:32 JEFFREY HART
it but no one likes to be told that they've

00:43:34 JULZ BAKER
to be told

00:43:37 JEFFREY HART
a costly mistake no and

00:43:39 JULZ BAKER
no and that's it as well because it's all like they've gone into it with obviously the very best intentions and had a damp probe specialist come around, obviously, and sold them a system.

00:43:46 JEFFREY HART
and sold them a system.

00:43:48 JULZ BAKER
damp proof specialist probably sold them the system in the best of will. Yep. You know, I don't think they're going out of their way to like go and con the old deer down the road, are they? They're trying to probably do their best.

00:44:00 JEFFREY HART
Yeah, I suppose so.

00:44:03 JULZ BAKER
don't seem so convinced well

00:44:04 JEFFREY HART
well i was told once i was told once that they all come with like a guarantee

00:44:10 JULZ BAKER
yeah but it's the guarantee

00:44:11 JEFFREY HART
the guarantee isn't that it'll solve damp it just is a guarantee of like like the material won't break down or something like that and so and so you know they're going well it's got this guarantee 50 year guarantee yeah that's yeah gotta be worth something it's gonna solve my dump problem yeah but yeah it's not guaranteeing against

00:44:19 JULZ BAKER
so and

00:44:19 JEFFREY HART
so you

00:44:24 JEFFREY HART
guarantee yeah

00:44:32 JEFFREY HART
know that you know that's sort of second third hand information that may not be true yeah i don't want to talk talk bad about

00:44:32 JULZ BAKER
that you know that's

00:44:41 JULZ BAKER
have you you used the Rinsano plaster yet?

00:44:45 JEFFREY HART
No, but I saw, I was down here, coincidentally, when it was the... Ah, yeah, you came for the

00:44:51 JULZ BAKER
Well, you didn't mean to come to the workshop. No, I just popped in. You just walked in and broke my hand sander.

00:44:51 JEFFREY HART
Well, you didn't mean to come to the workshop. No, I just popped in. You just walked

00:44:57 JEFFREY HART
hand sander was on its way out. It was wobbly when I first turned it on. It wasn't

00:45:01 JULZ BAKER
it on. It wasn't even mine. I don't know where it came from.

00:45:06 JEFFREY HART
case, I regret

00:45:06 JULZ BAKER
I regret nothing.

00:45:10 JULZ BAKER
I just gave you a broken hand, Sander, and was like, here you go.

00:45:16 JULZ BAKER
we've just done a little room under the road with it. So it's, yeah, it's an Italian lime plaster with volcanic ash in it. And it's apparently what a lot of Venice is plastered with. Right. And it's holding back the canals. So it must be doing

00:45:26 JEFFREY HART
And it's

00:45:30 JEFFREY HART
And it's

00:45:33 JULZ BAKER
of a good job. But we've just done a little kind of cupboard, essentially, under the road. Right. We haven't. It's the first time using it. Yeah. And I said to the clients clients there's like a gas main coming through it and the water main coming through

00:45:40 JEFFREY HART
Right.

00:45:44 JEFFREY HART
Yeah. And

00:45:50 JULZ BAKER
um so we couldn't obviously like absolutely guarantee the system because there

00:45:56 JEFFREY HART
are holes

00:45:57 JULZ BAKER
it but it seemed to really work it

00:46:00 JEFFREY HART
presentation i saw yeah that, the guy was saying like, you plaster it on and

00:46:02 JULZ BAKER
the guy

00:46:06 JEFFREY HART
you come back like the next day or so and there's like a dark patch and you'd plaster that again. Yeah.

00:46:08 JEFFREY HART
and there's

00:46:11 JEFFREY HART
Yeah.

00:46:12 JEFFREY HART
it was like rough as anything. They were just kind of chucking it on. It wasn't, you know, plastering as we would know it.

00:46:20 JULZ BAKER
No. So Mr. Smooth did it for us. Absolutely.

00:46:23 JEFFREY HART
It was smooth then.

00:46:24 JULZ BAKER
Yeah. So he did two coats of that on the masonry, and then we topped it basically with like a lime render.

00:46:32 JULZ BAKER
Yeah.

00:46:32 JEFFREY HART
No, it's good. Yeah. And also there was the other product, which I am so unsure about. It's the aerogel insulating plaster yeah

00:46:48 JEFFREY HART
was the thing that made me laugh so much was i said you know what's what is that aero gel though it doesn't sound like it's going to be a nice thing and the guy went well

00:47:04 JEFFREY HART
good you can't argue with that isn't it I suppose what that 2% is is quite important it's

00:47:12 JULZ BAKER
silica isn't

00:47:13 JEFFREY HART
that what it silica is like what everything's made of yeah

00:47:19 JULZ BAKER
it's silica

00:47:20 JEFFREY HART
silica rather than silicon yeah

00:47:23 JULZ BAKER
is made from silica right it's uh yeah that's my understanding of it

00:47:29 JEFFREY HART
i think they're two separate things i think silicon is the like plasticky one yeah silica is a sort of mineral it is a mineral so my understanding

00:47:41 JULZ BAKER
so my understanding that it's a silica which has been it was developed by nasa so i probably should have done my homework on this before talking about it it's a silica that somehow turned into a foam and then it's really lightweight and then quite yeah you were questioning the vapor permeability of it though weren't you yeah

00:48:13 JEFFREY HART
having a lime plaster if you then put something in it to make it insulating that yeah but then i suppose well i'd hope that product manufacturers are if they're making it with lime they're thinking about that already yeah and they wouldn't compromise that because otherwise they might as well just make cement with aerogel in it

00:48:36 JULZ BAKER
so maybe i've

00:48:38 JEFFREY HART
sort of talked myself around a bit

00:48:40 JULZ BAKER
a bit but i suppose if you think of the aerogel as like a little tiny aggregate.

00:48:45 JEFFREY HART
it needs to be quite a lot of it, doesn't it? Because otherwise you've just thermally bypassed.

00:48:48 JULZ BAKER
you've just thermally bypassed. Yeah. You've just lime plastered the wall, essentially. Yeah. Which is great. Yeah. But you're not getting any insulation value. No. Yeah. Well, if it does what it says on the tin, it's, yeah, it's thermal resistance. It's apparently very good. It's supposed to be excellent. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.

00:49:12 JEFFREY HART
I sit is that, you know, I like tried and tested materials. Yeah. There's all that thing at the moment with the aerated concrete that's all crumbling and schools and stuff.

00:49:26 JULZ BAKER
schools and stuff. Yeah.

00:49:29 JEFFREY HART
It's like, you know, how long do you need to leave a material before you're sure it's not going to do something unexpected? Cause I think, yeah, all that stuff was done. Best of intentions. Uh, well also probably a bit saving money.

00:49:35 JULZ BAKER
Cause I think, yeah, all that

00:49:44 JEFFREY HART
Government contracts. Yeah. Government Yeah. contracts. Yeah. I wouldn't want to go and like, you know, slap a load in someone's house and

00:49:44 JULZ BAKER
contracts. Yeah. Government Yeah. contracts. Yeah.

00:49:52 JEFFREY HART
destroy their house in some way.

00:49:55 JULZ BAKER
Yeah. We've used it on a project. We've used it on a couple, actually. We actually did it on a wood fibre board. So stuck the wood fibre boards back to masonry. Yeah. Mechanically fixed.

00:50:08 JEFFREY HART
And then

00:50:08 JULZ BAKER
put the aerogel on that.

00:50:12 JULZ BAKER
I thought it was quite handy is like if you've got a room with a beautiful...

00:50:17 JEFFREY HART
Hang on, why did you need to aerogel over wood fibre? Wasn't the wood fibre insulating enough?

00:50:23 JULZ BAKER
Well, because they didn't want to lose lots of depth because the aerogel is so insulative

00:50:32 JULZ BAKER
could go down to like a 32 mil wood fiber right

00:50:38 JEFFREY HART
be a 50

00:50:40 JULZ BAKER
we could decrease the wood fibre and then put the aerogel plaster.

00:50:46 JEFFREY HART
It's

00:50:46 JULZ BAKER
expensive, though.

00:50:48 JEFFREY HART
Yeah.

00:50:49 JULZ BAKER
yeah, for rooms with, like, cornice and stuff, it's quite good. Cornice? Yeah. Is that like cornice?

00:50:55 JEFFREY HART
like cornice?

00:50:57 JULZ BAKER
Yeah.

00:51:01 JULZ BAKER
Decorative coving within a room. Oh, coving.

00:51:09 JEFFREY HART
yes say

00:51:14 JULZ BAKER
cornice I'm from Lewis you know it's

00:51:20 JULZ BAKER
when you have an actor kind of because that could be costly for a client and you know if you're not trying to meet regs if it's just when you have Yeah, an actor kind Because that of... could be costly for a client. you if you're not trying to meet regs, And, know,

00:51:24 JEFFREY HART
if it's just when you have Yeah, an actor kind Because that of... could be costly

00:51:29 JULZ BAKER
if it's just like a refurb, but you want

00:51:32 JEFFREY HART
the thermal efficiency. Yeah. I I want mean, to believe in it. Yeah. I'm just hesitant.

00:51:37 JULZ BAKER
Yeah.

00:51:39 JEFFREY HART
Yeah, fair enough. Definitely going to call it Cornice, though.

00:51:46 JULZ BAKER
You tried to bring me back to the the bad old days a bit earlier I did

00:51:50 JEFFREY HART
yeah and then we've just ended up geeking out about material as per usual yeah get a couple of natural building geeks in a room yeah

00:51:54 JULZ BAKER
per usual yeah

00:52:00 JULZ BAKER
stick a load of hemp insulation around it yeah yeah so would you be able to edit this back earlier or i could

00:52:12 JEFFREY HART
i think people enjoy us trying

00:52:12 JULZ BAKER
i think people

00:52:15 JEFFREY HART
it back yeah so remember that thing we were going to talk about

00:52:21 JULZ BAKER
yeah yeah so like 25 minutes ago you asked me a question which i didn't quite answer yeah so yeah other kind of learnings and pitfalls from kind construction i suppose oh yeah i said there was like multitude of factors um yeah i think one of which especially in the early days, was we'd quite often get a client contact us. They've already got building regs. They've been through planning, or they've been through planning and going in for building regs.

00:52:55 JEFFREY HART
They've got

00:52:55 JULZ BAKER
got a set of drawings. They've all appointed an architect. They come to us all excited. They want a sustainable build. Or I've gone round there and kind of sold them the kind dream as it were and talked about lots of lovely natural materials and gave them a big cheesy smile and two thumbs up and they've

00:53:18 JULZ BAKER
um and uh yeah so we kind of get to that point where yeah especially in the early days where eva i ended up doing loads of work for free because i wanted to change the job to a more kind way to build oh

00:53:37 JEFFREY HART
so they got you in to do a a car you know sustainable build but all the drawings were for yeah conventional build right yeah so

00:53:48 JULZ BAKER
a few like this so eva did a load of work for free and managed to kind of get the architect on board uh where they like weren't administering a contract and kind of just handed it over and as long as as we were building regs on certain points in the job, they were happy. They left it to us. But that was quite costly, I think, for us. Financially, definitely. But I kind of wanted to stick to it. Well, I definitely wanted to stick to the values. Otherwise, what the hell was the point of doing it?

00:54:20 JEFFREY HART
Yeah.

00:54:21 JULZ BAKER
So, yeah, that happened a few times. Also, what happened a few times also what happened a few times it's just projects never started

00:54:27 JEFFREY HART
i'd um

00:54:29 JULZ BAKER
some drawings clients would get they'd already got quite far on a project they've got architects drawings they've got engineers drawings and then i'm like why don't we build it out of hempcrete? You derailed the whole thing. Yeah, yeah. And then just lots of back and forth. They might have happened and they might have just like binned us to one side, I'm not sure. But clients would get really excited about it. I'd get really excited about it. But then, yeah, it happened a couple of times where there's lots of back and forth and projects just didn't happen.

00:55:12 JULZ BAKER
So from a kind of main contractor perspective that um yeah wasn't very successful for us um whereas now um as you well know like material choice has to be built into that design stage yeah

00:55:22 JEFFREY HART
so now

00:55:22 JULZ BAKER
i'm fortunate enough to be in a position where I'm working with architects at the design stage and doing some consultation work and actually get paid for that work, which I got for free like a few years ago.

00:55:31 JEFFREY HART
which I got

00:55:37 JULZ BAKER
we help out with the design stage because then the project, everyone's on board with it. And then now obviously with the new business model with unearthed we will then help and support and do some of those natural elements or help advise on the installation or the wall build-ups throughout um and then the unearthed team can kind of carry out the work as well so yeah we can kind of be on the project throughout, but at slightly more of a distance as well. So they appoint a client or the architect appoints a main contractor.

00:56:08 JEFFREY HART
So they appoint

00:56:13 JULZ BAKER
have the headaches about electrical light switches. And, yeah, we come in and do the work we love. So, yeah. I like

00:56:22 JEFFREY HART
Yeah. Yeah, and they're all... Yeah, yeah. I like it. Yeah. Yeah, and there are... Yeah,

00:56:30 JEFFREY HART
think I need to say any more on that point. There obviously is a hole in the market for people that want to do the whole thing be the the project lead yeah do it properly yeah go through all of that um i don't yeah it doesn't seem like there's a huge amount of people wanting to do that no um or is there running if i stand by that that Hawkland are running

00:57:03 JULZ BAKER
a design and build service aren't they? doing wonderful things in Bristol and to be honest if we stayed operational with Kind Construction that's 100% the direction we would have gone into just done design and build and

00:57:06 JEFFREY HART
wonderful things in Bristol and to be honest

00:57:16 JULZ BAKER
projects our way but

00:57:22 JULZ BAKER
we didn't make it to that point that was part of the dream, part of the goal. But, yeah, there was, as I said, other factors along the way that kind of contributed to it. And one of which is just stress.

00:57:36 JEFFREY HART
Yes. Oh, my

00:57:37 JULZ BAKER
Oh, my days. Main contracting is a headache. It's just endless problems all over, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, one big ball ache.

00:57:50 JULZ BAKER
is. Like, I love building. I do. But yeah, it's just one problem after another. It's just stress. And when sometimes you've got like 30 people on site and then across multiple jobs, I was just kind of getting questions from all angles. And yeah yeah they're fantastic people and i love the crew and everyone who worked with us was great and we had fantastic clients as well but yeah it's just stress and it's there's so much research out now and i don't even watching like like the blue zones or you know no uh no

00:58:23 JEFFREY HART
i'm about to talk to someone about that for a podcast oh yeah

00:58:28 JULZ BAKER
i won't talk about it too much though well no you go for it no

00:58:31 JEFFREY HART
for it no well

00:58:32 JULZ BAKER
there's loads of research about stress and like it being one of the biggest it's one of the it's a killer isn't it essentially um i don't really want to live my life like that i'm trying to simplify my life um yeah just being running around all the time like a busy fool isn't the best modality for living yeah so trying to simplify life we've got yeah smaller team now just doing the work we love and super passionate about so yeah that was a real big driving factor and you've

00:59:04 JEFFREY HART
young family haven't you

00:59:06 JULZ BAKER
yeah yeah I've got two two young girls and another one on the way no way yeah congratulations thank you yeah anytime now really oh really yeah like literally could be tonight really

00:59:18 JULZ BAKER
phone off

00:59:23 JULZ BAKER
tonight due in two weeks Georgina did laugh she was like I'm going to Labia you're still probably going to do this podcast weren't you yeah no

00:59:34 JULZ BAKER
a really good name yeah so yeah but um yeah talking about kind of inspiring inspiring the next generation and stuff as well yeah like when talking about clay and playing with

00:59:35 JEFFREY HART
so yeah

00:59:47 JULZ BAKER
clay like my eight-year-old loves it yeah loves it loves it loves it like if we go to festivals or something like that she'd always go and find a little clay corner and we'd do clay modeling together and yes after school or at the weekends coming down to the yard and yeah i'll show you a couple of things she's made out there, actually. Lovely little hemp and clay bird's nest with little eggs in. It's,

01:00:04 JEFFREY HART
little hemp

01:00:07 JULZ BAKER
yeah. But yeah, it's really nice. I can do some clay plaster samples or testing. And

01:00:14 JEFFREY HART
As little as she knows, she's being trained up to be a natural builder.

01:00:17 JULZ BAKER
But no, she's all for it. She's, her life goal is to live in the woods and build a house out of clay. And she's drawn her perfect house with a nice living roof and yeah, it's got a big mushroom on the roof as well, which I like. Very nice. Yeah, no, she's all for it.

01:00:35 JEFFREY HART
That's funny that, I mean, that's sort of been my life goal.

01:00:39 JULZ BAKER
Yeah. Forever. You're nearly there. You just need a big mushroom ground on your roof. Beer?

01:00:47 JULZ BAKER
I think I can sort that out yeah if

01:00:48 JEFFREY HART
doing it all again which

01:00:50 JEFFREY HART
I suppose

01:00:50 JEFFREY HART
you sort of are doing yeah but like what would you do differently did you set out to be this big all singing all dancing company or did it just sort of snowball and because people were asking you to do things you kept saying yes and before you knew it like you're doing way more than you really want to yeah

01:01:09 JULZ BAKER
yeah we certainly we grew too big too

01:01:15 JULZ BAKER
yeah we i think we kind of got the brand right early um and because we were trying to like we were doing something different that piqued interest yeah um i think most businesses who are setting out to kind of leaning into change spike a bit of interest so yeah i think we grew too big too quick we didn't quite have our system set up. Like I said earlier, I knew nothing about business.

01:01:47 JEFFREY HART
I didn't really know

01:01:47 JULZ BAKER
didn't really know anything about project management. I was a builder. We liked building stuff and wanted to kind of build in line with my values. So I just ran with it. And then all of a sudden you're like getting inquiries in

01:01:56 JEFFREY HART
And then

01:02:00 JULZ BAKER
doing projects and projects. Of course we could build a block of flats. It's got poor, it of concrete, hasn't it? It's, yeah. And I think

01:02:02 JEFFREY HART
Of course we could build a block of flats.

01:02:06 JEFFREY HART
it?

01:02:11 JULZ BAKER
of it, we always went like values-led approach for like all of our crew, which is a wonderful thing and a wonderful idea in practice. What does

01:02:22 JEFFREY HART
What does values-led approach with crew look like?

01:02:25 JULZ BAKER
So you met some of them and they're all fantastic lovely beings yeah really yeah wonderful human beings and i think that was what generally attracted me to them to come and work with the crew because

01:02:32 JEFFREY HART
lovely beings

01:02:42 JULZ BAKER
fantastic human beings, love what we're doing, love the idea of building in a natural, sustainable way. But perhaps not all of them had had

01:02:58 JULZ BAKER
experience to kind of get through the work at a quick enough rate to kind of get out of jobs in financially successful

01:03:10 JULZ BAKER
as well quite often we were going up and we stopped tendering by the way i don't agree with it in any way and i think that as a practice needs to be um removed from the industry because you're going to sometimes going like there's a project three to five different contractors could be going for it that's at least two people that just waste a load

01:03:34 JEFFREY HART
of time

01:03:35 JULZ BAKER
money I think that's yeah we need to get away from that as an industry but we were we were going up against other people whereas I didn't really see them as competition as such I knew we were doing something different so we just had to like try and sell ourselves on why we were different or what we would do within the project in a kind of kind way but then there was always a budget in mind so we were probably always trying to be a little bit too flexible around that and you

01:04:06 JEFFREY HART
know building

01:04:06 JULZ BAKER
know building with natural materials it can be more costly things can take longer drying times and yeah such um i think

01:04:16 JEFFREY HART
being a company that does things properly so when you see when you discover a problem or you discover something it's like wow well we're going discover a problem or you discover something it's like wow well we're going to fix this properly because we care about how this building performs yeah as opposed to someone else you might just you know slap a bit of drywall over it and yeah

01:04:35 JULZ BAKER
budge it and leg it yeah yeah so, that came up. that's Yeah, a difficult thing to get around. what I'd do differently Yeah, is kind of what we're doing now. But I've got no regrets with kind. It's all part the and I learned so much from it, of, like, journey, and I

01:04:57 JEFFREY HART
of, like, journey,

01:05:08 JEFFREY HART
at. So say you get a call from a client tomorrow going

01:05:16 JULZ BAKER
Yeah. I'm going

01:05:22 JEFFREY HART
It's 4am.

01:05:30 JEFFREY HART
you know that's a nice a nice chunk of work yeah

01:05:37 JULZ BAKER
gonna turn that down so now i'm gonna recommend a couple of really good lovely main contractors and that's what they do and that's what they're good at. And say, these people are wonderful to work with. You should contact them to do the build. And then maybe we could come in to do these elements if you wanted to do it in this way. That's good. That's setting

01:05:57 JEFFREY HART
boundaries, really, isn't it?

01:05:58 JULZ BAKER
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, I think we've, I kind of know in my head, like our right size projects and then how deep we want to get involved within others

01:06:11 JEFFREY HART
over time to see how well you stick to

01:06:15 JULZ BAKER
i or like you

01:06:16 JEFFREY HART
because the projects might get bigger yeah still being smaller yeah but yeah i wonder if that that's sort of the the line which is a too big project yeah we'll move over

01:06:34 JULZ BAKER
in a couple of years if like the right project comes along the right client then yeah may well but um right now no yeah but what i'm kind of trying to do and there's the lovely daniel from studio ul who uh i might have said that wrong as well yeah y'all um who has a desk down at the kind supply warehouse what i'm kind of trying to collaborate with him on is if he's getting clients who are wanting to build in a nice natural way if he as an architect could potentially run the project or maybe collaborating with other architects in that way because the architect knows the job inside out and quite often they just hand it over. Do architects

01:07:23 JEFFREY HART
ever run jobs?

01:07:27 JEFFREY HART
yes.

01:07:28 JULZ BAKER
yes. Ah, But if they were kind of like overseeing it, but with a site foreman or a project manager potentially, and with the right teams, because that's where I found myself as well. I'm not a carpenter. I've never trained in carpentry.

01:07:45 JULZ BAKER
I know a fair bit about carpentry just from being around on building sites yeah um you know i'd have carpenters asking me how to do their job if they're working on a roof or something for example i don't know that's like their trade that's their area whereas yeah if we could collaborate with the right, with a really strong team of carpenters, I think that's how I could see myself progressing into a bigger build, not potentially running it ourselves, but collaborating.

01:08:14 JEFFREY HART
like collaboration is the future.

01:08:16 JULZ BAKER
Yeah. But the problem is, and it's a problem with society, isn't it? It's who's going to take that risk? Who's the fool guy at the end of it? Because that's the thing. Like the bottom line is in your typical build, everything is the main contractor's fault.

01:08:32 JEFFREY HART
Yeah.

01:08:33 JULZ BAKER
Like the buck stops with them generally or the architect if they're administering the contract. Yeah. Yeah, but never say never. Right client, right job. What have you got in mind no

01:08:47 JEFFREY HART
um yeah i can see i could see a situation where like if i was in that situation where the the boundaries would slowly wander yeah um yeah i guess i'm just interested to know if you sort of considered considered. And I suppose, you know, thinking about it, you're like the stress issue. That's still there.

01:09:12 JULZ BAKER
Yeah.

01:09:12 JEFFREY HART
You know, bigger projects are more stressful.

01:09:14 JULZ BAKER
They are more stressful. What I'm doing differently this time, I've got the fantastic Leon, who I believe you've met. Oh, lovely Leon. He's just great, isn't he? Yeah. Top lad. Such a smiley

01:09:24 JEFFREY HART
a smiley chap yeah

01:09:26 JULZ BAKER
he's just a great human being he's fantastic fantastic human um but what i'm doing this time around i've kind of got like leon as my right hand man so we're working together he's not a tradesperson particularly i'm kind of training him up but he's come more from a hospitality background so he's fantastic with people got great customer service uh really organized so we work closely together and he helps me he does a lot of the organizing a lot of the communication if we need deliveries or a skip a scaffold whatever may need sorting as part of the like the build

01:10:03 JEFFREY HART
as part

01:10:06 JULZ BAKER
that which just it's about splitting the load collaboration what it goes back to isn't it it's building the right team having them in the

01:10:15 JEFFREY HART
having him the carpenter being a scaffolder and yeah you know yeah or doing marketing

01:10:22 JULZ BAKER
that's exactly it yeah so yeah yeah no it does all go back to collaboration yeah yeah

01:10:28 JEFFREY HART
yeah yeah exactly right it's a thought i've been having a lot recently and

01:10:34 JULZ BAKER
from that in the society as a whole really aren't we you're going deep we are though aren't we yeah everyone's kind of pushed to be like an individual or to, you know, go at it alone. But it's not, you know, there's never been another time in human history where we've had to like go at it alone. We're kind of, we're tribal animals that have built society in nice little cave, no, clay huts. It all comes back to the clay yeah um and live together and cooperated and collaborated now we're just kind of segregated and you know split into it is

01:11:17 JEFFREY HART
really it is i mean we're sad all right we're all depressed and segregated and yeah

01:11:28 JULZ BAKER
is yeah there's been yeah there's no no other real time it's like again it's we are going deep now but it would kind of come from corporate greed really oh because it's

01:11:43 JULZ BAKER
you know everyone's out to just do their job pay the taxes go home essentially aren't they it's um it's not about kind of living a well-rounded fulfilled life in a society it's everyone needs to own their own house their own car have their own bills because if we all did live a little bit more collaboratively that pot's not split 10 ways is that yeah we've gone deep

01:12:17 JEFFREY HART
aerogel nice one

01:12:32 JEFFREY HART
as you probably heard there was a lot of chuckling there is a whole nother 25 minutes bonus content available to our patron supporters and what we chat about is i post the questions to jaws what's your favorite insulation spoiler it's hemp but i tell you what chalk gets a lot of attention to there is also advert free listening if you feel like you want to support the podcast then really does help it get made the the next few episodes you're going to hear i was driving all around the country which is quite an expensive thing to do so yeah any support gratefully gratefully received uh we talked a little bit about will stunnix uh will did indeed return my call and he has just sent me some clay plaster for our job down here on the estate i live on i can't wait to be putting some beautiful clay on the walls. Very, very excited about that. I wanted to take this opportunity as well to tell you about a few books that I'm currently reading that you may well be interested in. The first one is Nature's Calendar, The British Year in 72 Seasons. This book takes on a, I believe, Japanese tradition where they divide up the year into 72 five or six day chunks and they're each given a little heading uh depending on on what's sort of happening at that time or what is generally happening at that time um let me pick some at random there uh so 21st to the 25th of may is frothy hawthorn 6th to the 10th of june is dancing dragonflies 21st to the 26th of June, Thunderbugs and Fizzing Elderflower. It's such a beautiful thing. There's a little entry, just a few pages for each one of these micro seasons. And it might look at folklore. It might look at science. And it might just be a little musing on that topic. And every month starts with a noticing exercise. I'm going to read you january's noticing exercise the shortest and darkest days of the year are upon us but this means that the light is growing quickly on the 1st of january at dunsop bridge lancashire roughly the center point of great britain the sun sets around 1558 yet by the 1st ofst of February it will be light until 1650. This month take a moment to watch the sky change colour as the sun dips beyond the horizon. Watch out for the way the hues on the sunset change with different weather conditions and let the clouds form imaginary shapes as they are lit from the shifting angles. Observe twilight creeping in a few minutes later each day and take note of that changing quality of light that comes with the lengthening evenings that's a nice point for january isn't it so i will be reading along with this book throughout the year and it feels lovely to have a book companion just bringing my focus to particular plants or explaining the science behind things it's really just a beautiful thing with gorgeous little illustrations too and the second book i've got called the magical year by danu forest seasonal celebrations to honor nature's ever-turning wheel and this book is also one that i'm going to read throughout the year it is talking about the ancient celtic festivals and celebrations that were had throughout the year to mark the important points of the yearly cycle that's summer and winter solstices spring and autumn equinoxes and then the four fire festivals which are Imbolc, Beltane, Lunasa and Samhain and getting these two books has really come from a desire just to be rooted in the place I'm at and the seasons we're in and really dig into the the history the folklore the traditions of a life more connected to nature so those two which I will be reading throughout the year it feels nice actually to have a sort of reading project to go along with my my day-to-day life and I'm also reading the dispossessed which was anyone that listened to the yule episode um my gift from mike by ursula kayla green and it's fantastic i haven't been so captivated by a story in in a long time so thanks again to mike for that lovely gift you'll find links to all those books in the show notes if you fancy a read yourself. As well as those books, recently I have just listened to the BBC Sounds series by India Rackerson called Witch. And that was actually recommended by one of the guests from this podcast. I highly recommend having a listen to that. It's 13 parts, half an hour each. It will unpick all you think you know about witches. Is that all I've got? Please share this podcast, share it far and wide. That's very much appreciated. And I guess I just wish you all the best for 2024. And I'm very much excited to bring you lots more in the way of conversations hopefully to inspire you to build beautiful things with lovely lovely materials until next time see ya