The new normal: Why renewable resources are the future of construction

Charley Burtwistle (00:05):

What is up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of “The Building Code.” I’m Charley Burtwistle, and here today with me is …

Scott Hale (00:12):

Scott Hale.

Charley Burtwistle (00:12):

Scott Hale, how are you doing?

Scott Hale (00:15):

Doing fabulous. How are you, Charley?

Charley Burtwistle (00:16):

Doing fabulous as well. Obviously, I love recording with Courtney, but I was a little excited when I heard that you got to be our guest host today. How did this happen?

Scott Hale (00:26):

So, first, I’m excited as well. I’ve been listening to “The Building Code” for five years. I had a guest episode a few years ago, so we’ve been merging paths for a while. So, how did it happen? Courtney saw those paths merging, and she couldn’t be here today, so she wanted to test out, see who else could weigh in and provide a voice on construction with the pod.

Charley Burtwistle (00:45):

Love it. Scott and I sit five feet from each other during the day, so we interact a lot, but excited to get to interact with them in this setting. And we have a super, super exciting guest today for your first episode as guest host here. Scott, who do we have today?

Scott Hale (01:01):

We’ve got Matt Hannaby. He’s a project manager at Marble Hill Fireplaces coming to us from the UK. Really excited to see what he has to say about innovation in the construction space across the globe.

Charley Burtwistle (01:12):

Yeah, super exciting. That was a great little preview, but we won’t steal too much thunder. Let’s go ahead and get Matt in and talk to him live. Hey Matt, welcome to “The Building code.” Really, really appreciate you making the time to join us today. How’s it going?

Matt Hannaby (01:27):

Yeah, thanks for having me. It’s going great. I’m on the other side of the pond to you guys now, so I am 6:00 p.m. approaching. So, yeah. Had a great day. My day and work has been done. I’ve been using the Buildertrend all day at work.

Charley Burtwistle (01:41):

Love that.

Matt Hannaby (01:42):

Checking, rescheduling changing as well as … So, I deal in the project management side of the business, and we’ve devised from the project management, which I run, and then we’ve got sales. So, the sales team use all the very proactive prompts with the leads and all the other side of the sales tech with the Buildertrend app.

Charley Burtwistle (02:04):

Love that. Well, I’m glad you had an awesome day. Scott and I are just kicking ours off right now, so hopefully we can follow your lead and win today as well, too. So, the first question we always love to ask our guests is just a little bit more about yourself, your background, how you got to where you’re at today.

Matt Hannaby (02:22):

Okay, so there’s always a long version or the short version. I will try to keep it short as I can. The age of sweet 16, I didn’t have the best school education as I left, but I very quickly got myself a job as an engineer’s apprentice, and I continued on my long loving apprenticeship. I’ve been carrying out my apprenticeship for the last 30 odd years, I’ve taken everything that we’re learning. I’ve built all sorts from bridges, tunnels. I’ve been involved with some big heavy civils projects here in the UK, as well as having a fairly successful renovation company that my wife and I run, while we were growing up our young boys.

(03:06):

As the tide turned for a lot of people and we realized the demand after the dreaded pandemic that we don’t like to remember, the cost of living, the cost of materials, the customer became a little bit difficult for me. So, I decided that my children were old enough, time to go back into the big boy world of construction, and I polished up on a little bit of my certificates and my education that I needed to operate into today’s world. So, I redone my first aid, site management and so forth, and I hooked up with a recruiter.

(03:42):

He got me an excellent position doing a $5 million renovation in a period property over in Southeast London. And while I was there I was headhunted for the job that I’m in now, and it was complete flip side. We go from doing lots of concrete and lots of construction, lots of wood, to the fireplace industry. The core values and the fundamentals are the same, a big focus on customers, safety, man management skills, but the overall end product, we now, I say we because I’ve been there six months, we deliver some amazing products. We’ve just finished one in a period property for a very, very, very wealthy tech company and probably the value to us as a company’s $300,000 for seven fireplaces. Our average price is about $30,000. They’re our target customers. So, yeah, so it’s been an eventful journey from school to manhood on this 30-year apprenticeship as I love to remind myself I’m on.

Scott Hale (04:49):

Yeah, you’ve seen a lot of the construction industry.

Matt Hannaby (04:52):

Oh, mate.

Scott Hale (04:54):

Talk to us about that transition. How do you go from those massive projects for government versus homeowners and who do you work for now?

Matt Hannaby (05:02):

Well, if we were to start at the government because when I was 18, I carried out … Well, not me personally, I was part of the team, carried out a renovation on a mortuary that left me scarred with horrendous nightmares for years. I’d go to sleep, and I was still seeing the dead bodies in the fridges. Let’s put it this way, I’ve dined out on them stories quite a few times of how we pretended to be dead on the slab, and you can imagine the horseplay.

Charley Burtwistle (05:33):

Oh, I’m sure, yeah.

Scott Hale (05:35):

Absolutely.

Matt Hannaby (05:35):

Went in on a Saturday morning to do an extra shift and one of my fellow co-workers decided he would play dead, but he went the full extreme and put a sheet over himself. So, then as well as having plenty of horseplay, I’ve worked on some of the bigger, how should we say, the bigger government projects. So, I worked on a few projects uptown in around the historical naval barracks. Never quite made it to Buckingham Palace, although some colleagues did.

Charley Burtwistle (06:08):

Wow.

Matt Hannaby (06:09):

The last project I worked on commercially before I went into the domestic world myself was Heathrow Airport. I can literally walk you around, and I can show you every piece of concrete that I put the formwork up with. I managed the steel infrastructure, and I then looked after the levels of concrete and making sure it was all finished pristine because it was the car pack side. So, yes, and then I’ve had some amazing customers in the domestic world. I’ve had customers who have let me express myself as a designer, which I didn’t even know I had in me. I always remind myself my best customer’s been my wife. She has allowed us as a family to develop, I think we’re on about house number ten now, and everyone has been slightly different, but there was a patch there in the middle where we had three properties, same. So, we copy and pasted, same. We had the same kitchen three times, the same bathroom ten times, and so that became a little bit mundane.

(07:15):

But this project that we finished off a couple of years back here that we live in, and we’re very proud of, she set the goal out at the beginning. We’re not having any gray, no fake shaker style, and we have to push the boundaries and have some color. So, we’ve got some very, very light dusky pinks, and we’ve got a Japandi-style kitchen and as I say, it’s always been an organic journey between working for customers, working for my wife, developing our own projects, and now I’ve gone back to the full commercial world. And has the commercial world changed? A little bit. I find we’re maybe a bit lacksy-daisy on some of the skilled labor. I don’t know. How’d you guys find it over the other side from the pond from us?

Charley Burtwistle (08:01):

Yeah, I think that would definitely resonate with a lot of our listeners today. A lot would say that probably the biggest issue that they’re facing right now is just a labor shortage of skilled trade laborers to lean into the construction industry. I do think it’s something that we’re seeing turn for the first time in a long time and people putting more effort into recruiting and trade schools and even just cross industry, finding people that have the talents that can resonate with their construction business.

(08:29):

One of my favorite stories that we’ve heard from a guest on here was talking about, during the pandemic, a lot of the pool that they were pulling people from across industry was wedding planners, and they found that wedding planners, they weren’t having to plan a whole lot of weddings during COVID made really, really good construction project managers because they could keep track of tasks really, really well and keep people on time and coordinate and communicate really, really effectively. So, I think we’re also seeing a shift, not just, obviously, increasing the labor pool and the schooling and stuff that comes along with that, but also saying you don’t need a construction background to provide a ton of impact in the construction world. There are a lot of really, really impactful positions outside of just a field crew worker going out there swinging a hammer to make a business operate.

Matt Hannaby (09:19):

Yeah, well I think that’s been one of my strong points through being able to be a semi-decent leader is I’ve got a really strong joinery background and from that, I can read the technical drawings and also, I can demonstrate it. The first part of my apprenticeship I served probably from the age of six to about 14 was with Lego. I don’t know how many of you guys have played with Lego.

Scott Hale (09:46):

Of course, who hasn’t?

Matt Hannaby (09:47):

If you can follow … I consider myself a master builder now, the last Lego I did was 1,850 steps. So, I think if you can picture something in your brain and develop this picture of what should look like, once you’ve got that picture from the 2D drawings, it’s very easy to be able to articulate it, to say, “Right, we need to build this, we need to check this, and we might want to watch in case this comes up and bites us later.”

Charley Burtwistle (10:18):

Yeah, I think that could be a really cool entrance exam in the interview process is just hand someone a Lego set and say, “How quickly can you put this together?”

Matt Hannaby (10:28):

Hopefully some of the senior leaders, they’re watching this and they think, “Wow, that’s going to be in the next interview.”

Charley Burtwistle (10:35):

There you go.

Matt Hannaby (10:36):

We’re going to pull out the Millennium Falcon and see how we get on. You’ve got 30 minutes on the clock. On you go.

Scott Hale (10:41):

Well, Matt, you talked about pushing boundaries. Let’s hang out there for a minute. Can you tell us a little bit about what trends you’re seeing in the UK internationally that you’re working on?

Matt Hannaby (10:51):

I think a common trend and a common goal we’re seeing a lot is around … Well, if I talk about the fireplace industry, I’m six months into my job. Something I’m learning a lot about is, in the UK we were traditional, we were gas, and we were coal. Coal has gone, obviously because of the fumes and the smoke emissions. Gas is still there, and we’ve made gas a lot more energy efficient. Well, not so much made the gas, we’ve made the fires more energy efficient, be able to fire hotter on less gas. So, on the back of that, we are seeing big trends in solid wood burning stoves because we’ve got copious amounts of wood. If it’s burnt correctly, you reduce the smoke.

(11:37):

We’re also seeing a lot of bioethanol fuel fires. I was shocked to be part of a demonstration at our showroom where we had a six-kilowatt bioethanol fire. The heat coming off this fire was phenomenal. Bioethanol. You need no chimney. You need no ventilation. You need no log store. You just tip the fluid in, press igniter and boom, all of a sudden, you’ve got this real living flame throwing up copious amounts of heat. Pretty spectacular.

(12:09):

Something that we’re seeing a lot of recently, and I think it is post-pandemic, something that we don’t like to talk about is the war situation in between the Ukraine, but I definitely can put my finger on it and say, “We’ve also got this unspoken about fuel possible, will we get the gas cut off?” And a lot of people have opened their brains and gone, “Okay, smart cookies, we need to be thinking all electric.” We’re getting a lot of drive towards all-electric homes, air-source heat pumps, more economical heating from underfloor heating.

(12:45):

So, with that, the smart fire companies, they’ve now developed these fireplaces, which if you didn’t know, you would genuinely think that you’ve just come into a real blazing fire. They’ve even introduced sound bites, so that you can hear the crackle of the logs. They’re holographic you just … So, we invested quite heavily in a new part of our showroom to set it up as a house room rather than just a display room. We got three of these fires set up and I can say, some days I go in there, I sit down on the leather couch and I’m just taking a break, I’ll put the TV, on and I put the fire on and I’m like, “I need one of these in my house.” They are the future. Really easy to install, super, super cozy, real ambience driving and we’re thinking that that’s going to be the way that we’re going to be going, is more into the all electrical house, the smart house. These tools could be integrated to your smart home. Yeah.

Charley Burtwistle (13:47):

I’d say, I’m interested to hear more of your thoughts there. We’ve had a couple interviewees on from Canada, and they’re pushing more towards the eco-friendly, sustainability route in their homes as well. A lot of that is government mandate and building code wise. I also think we’ve had some interviewees on from the U.S. as well that that’s just more of a customer want. It’s what the people that they’re building for are looking for. Would you describe over in the UK, where is that shift coming from? Is it more demand from the consumer side or is it a shift that you guys are making as a whole to start shifting the mindset and how you’re building from a more government perspective?

Matt Hannaby (14:26):

Well, there’s two customers. There’s the customer who’s building new bill. They have got to abide by the government drive and where they need to be and the government now has a big focus on the renewable energy sector. The other customer that we have, and I’ve had for a long time, is the renovation customer. The renovation customer tends to be more driven about fashion rather than cost. Sometimes they have got their hands tied a little bit on a bit of a budget, but they have a lot more freedom in what they want to do. They can do what they want in their home because it’s an existing home. So, that trend with them tends to be very open-ended as well with our new build customers. We do a lot of work for developers, so their work tends to be more around … We call it the building control sector, where they set energy efficiency ratings, where the builder and the designer has to design into be super energy efficient.

Scott Hale (15:31):

Yeah, that’s amazing. Splitting your customers in those two ways makes a ton of sense to me. So, how do you leverage this technology with those two different types of buyers? Are you working with general contractors who need to be sold new technology or those more fashion forward renovation companies? What’s the sales process look like?

Matt Hannaby (15:52):

So, I’m back office. I’m project management. Our sales team, they can be dealing with anything from, I call my customer, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones. She lives on the corner. She wants a standard simple, take the old fire out, put a new one in, energy efficiency, warm, and it’s going to look clean. Then we have the designers who come in and some of the fireplaces that the design is unreal. Our sales team, bear with us, but we’ve only been on Buildertrend now successfully since the start of July, and we are just starting to adapt the tools to be able to flag up, so this building company that we work with week in, week out, we are using color tabs to identify … Ah, there we go. They’re aligned. They are alarm line. So, every time the sales come through to what I’ve then got to deliver with my delivery team, I know exactly who they are, the same as our domestic client.

(16:55):

We then use the platform, the software to be identified, and we have to adapt ourselves as to how we’re going to deal with them, so we’ve got the big commercial developer. I could be dealing with five, seven, nine people on the email, and they all chip in at various different parts of the contract. As where Mrs. Jones on the corner, she just wants a very simple call. She doesn’t even want to know about BT, she just wants to phone call, say, “Hello, I’m going to be with you on Monday. We’re going to install your new fireplace. We’ll commission it on the day, and we’ll be out your hair by 4 p.m. Thank you. Goodbye.”

(17:31):

As we’re the developer, well, we could be doing four fireplaces over three, four months, bit by bit by bit. So, our sales team, they’ve just got to put multiple different personalities on, depending on who the customer is.

Charley Burtwistle (17:47):

I love that. And you mentioned have just been in your current role for about six months, and you also, that was about the same timeframe as you guys started onboarding Buildertrend, is that right?

Matt Hannaby (17:57):

Correct. I landed in the shop in April, and I landed to this very, very, very oldie worldie, it’s an amazing product, it’s an amazing team, but it was so inefficient. We were doing scanning documents, file save as, email, we’ll post a copy as well. We were effectively running a triplicate book on Excel. I thought, “Oh, there’s two …” And I was told, literally on day one, I’ve got a fix for that. My MD said, “I have a fix for all this. Once you know the old system, and you know how inefficient it is, we’ll make the switch.”

(18:43):

Within two weeks, I was begging him, “Please show me. Show me. Show me the way, please.” Following week, he sent me my link to Buildertrend, and he said, “Well, how’d you feel?” I said, “Next week, we start.” And then I developed my champions, who’s my goods in manager, my procurement manager, my sales manager and myself, and we sat down and we sliced it and diced it to see who and how we were going to manipulate the software platform, so it could work for our business.

(19:22):

We then, all the three of us sat through the online training. We were then able to … Well, me personally and the delivery team, I took a four-week step where I wrote my own training platform as to how do we use the time clock, how do we use the schedule? So, that I could break it down into bite-sized nuggets rather than try to watch a two-minute video. I put together a 10 slide presentation and yeah, my team, we thought it was going to be rougher than what it was. But within two weeks they were on board, running it, and actually now …

(20:03):

I asked the question to my supervising fitter today, I said, “Hey,” I said, “Do you want me to print a drawing now for that job you’re going to? And we’ve now got BT running on tablets.” And he said, “No. I’ve got this. I’m good.” Because one of the drives was around taking paper out the business and that was one of the real … We talk about micro steps we can do to save the environment and if you can take paper out of a business, you’re nearly already saving small parts of the environment. So, yeah, it’s been good.

Scott Hale (20:36):

Plus there’s something really interesting about walking in saying, “I’ve got an innovative heating solution for you. Can you sign some paper?” Whereas with Buildertrend, “I’ve got an innovative solution and we’ll deliver to you in an innovative way.”

Matt Hannaby (20:49):

Yeah, I cannot express how easy and how simple that we have found the onboarding. The academy, I was dedicating an hour of my day to just sitting there. I plugged myself in, click play, no, not relevant, skip. Relevant, okay, relevant file. And I built up this small case file of, these are all the bits that you need to watch. These are worth a listen. And yeah, I just find it really, really easy. Even now, well we don’t even use the academy anymore because we are using it to our business best.

(21:30):

We have talked about the next step, and I think that we have to be absolutely confident that we are where we want to be and the next step now is to try and bring the customer in, and it’s more around them. Big commercial developers who are needing more steps, Mrs. Jones on the corner, she wants a phone call. She’ll get a phone call. But those bigger projects, that’s where we’re sharing the Gantt chart. We’re sharing how we’re going to be delivering seven different projects on one site and making sure that our customers know that we got this, we’re good, we have a plan, we’ll deliver.

Charley Burtwistle (22:08):

It’s funny you bring up the Buildertrend Learning Academy, and I could see Scott smiling as we were actually in a meeting about that internally this morning of just how we onboard our customers and what resources they have to take advantage of and the value of an online resource such as that, as opposed to the more traditional one-on-one training that we would’ve done in the past. So, we may have to have you on here for an additional episode to just talk through the onboarding experience because Scott and I could talk your ear off for about two hours on that. That’s all we think about.

Matt Hannaby (22:38):

Yeah, well, like I say, I’ve got all the slides that I’ve prepared for that because some people learn in different ways. Some people learn by listening, some people learn by watching. Some people learn by reading. I do not learn by reading. I also don’t learn by just watching a video once. I do like to scan through, and I just … Well, like I say, if you want to do something different, I’ve got my slides that I developed, and I just put it together for our company to how I thought it would unfold and what was meant to be little one week sections ended up being three days. Okay, we can pull the next section forward. We learned that section easy, next section and what was meant to be a one-month onboarding, we did it in a couple of weeks. It was really, really good.

Charley Burtwistle (23:30):

Love that. We’re getting close to time here. Again, I think we definitely want to have you on for another episode to talk about some additional things as well, too. But the last question that I want to end with, and this could be the longest one, so just because I said we’re at time doesn’t mean you can’t go on a ramble here. One of the big reasons that we’re excited to have you on, you mentioned in your interview, is you’ve just seen so many different verticals inside the quote construction space, a wealth of information, and we’ve talked about how things have changed historically, but how do you see the construction industry continuing to evolve? How do you see the next decade going as opposed to the previous decade and any emerging trends that you’re seeing come out of this or things that our listeners should start thinking about and being cautious of or potentially excited of? An open-ended question here to just pick your brain while we have you.

Matt Hannaby (24:24):

Let me throw a few things out there quick. My favorite, favorite, favorite tool, 3D printing. Have you seen 3D concrete printing? If ever you’ve been involved with anything high-rise, I’m like, “Wow. Wow. This is the future.” It is. Obviously it needs a bit of human manipulating, should we say, to make sure it’s on track. It needs clever engineers, but 3D concrete printing, I’m like, that is absolutely phenomenal. I would like to think that we’re all on the same page environmentally, and this sustainability focus we have, I really, really hope that we all maintain it for the future. I know my own children who are the age of 10, I’ve got two 10-year-old twins. For them, it’s natural, not second nature, it’s natural for them not to take a carrier bag at the supermarket. It’s natural for them. They just pick rubbish up.

(25:27):

My generation, when we were kids, I remember kids throwing rubbish on the floor. I remember big drives around being fined for throwing litter. Kids now, it’s their nature to look after the world. They’re aware of it, and I think the recycling sector is going to get better and better. I’m aware of the fabrics that they’re making. We all wear lots of sustainable recycled clothes, and they’re really nice to wear. I think we’re going to see that come more into the materials available with construction. Certainly the insulation industry, there’s a lot of focus there with recycled products. These are all the little things that we can all do just to look after our world because no one else is going to do it for us.

Scott Hale (26:17):

I love how you’re applying that to the construction industry by seeing it happening elsewhere.

Matt Hannaby (26:22):

Yeah, yeah. If we think about how many people are employed in the construction industry and actually how many people we can get the message to. Recycle, it’s got to be there. And we’ve got a world full of really, really clever people, amazing engineers, and soon as they start to join the dots and go, “Well, hang on. That recycled plastic is free. I can do some of that.” And once they start to upcycle it into a product, whether it be a form work for concrete. I know in the super, super, super expensive sector they’re doing it, but it’s when that comes down into the run-of-the-mill house builder, how it’s available to them and how it’s readily available. I think that’s how we, our generation, I don’t know how old you guys are, but you can see from my low lights I’m knocking on. Yeah, I think that we going to be known as the generation that changed the way that we recycle and upcycle and what the construction industry can do for that.

Charley Burtwistle (27:27):

I absolutely love that. And that is a perfect note to end on. Matt, thank you so much for your time today. Just a wealth of information. It was a pleasure talking to you and just really appreciate it.

Matt Hannaby (27:37):

Thank you guys so much for having me. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Charley Burtwistle (27:42):

Well, we just heard from Matt Hannaby, project manager at Marble Hills fireplaces, talking to us about what they’re seeing as trends over there in the UK. Obviously, his extensive background in the construction space. A lot of different areas that I wanted to poke at there, just not enough time in the day. A super great guy. Scott, what did you think of the interview there?

Scott Hale (28:00):

I was really, really interested by the merger of sustainability and innovation. They seem like they could be at odds at times, but Matt’s blending them nicely with his experience from massive commercial projects through renovations and now in his newer role, getting Buildertrend up and running for Marble Hill and fireplaces.

Charley Burtwistle (28:19):

And I thought it was cool, the way he positioned it really resonated with me. I think that a lot of times when you talk about sustainability and doing things in eco-friendly way, it just doesn’t quite seem … I don’t know, it seems more of like a hassle or something that you have to do, but the way he positioned it is something that their customers want and something that the industry is shifting toward. And you are on the cutting edge. You have the latest innovation, you have this brand new, really cool product that is changing the game both from a performance standpoint and a sustainability and eco-friendly standpoint as well, too. So, I really liked the way that he positioned it, he said he worked in the back office, but if I was over there at Marble Hill, I’d move him over to the sales side as well, too, because he sold me on it. But I thought that was interesting and definitely resonated with me in a way that I haven’t previously thought of before.

Scott Hale (29:09):

And when he said, when people connect the dots, they’ll see how successful they can be. And I think Buildertrend exists in that same spot. When you see how the dots connect, you can be successful with innovation.

Charley Burtwistle (29:17):

Yeah, that’s a great way to put it. There’s definitely times where he was speaking to how they position their fireplaces, the same exact way that we speak to how we position Buildertrend for our customers. It’s just a new innovation, a new technology that is catching up and changing the game regardless of the landscape that you’re in.

(29:34):

Well, Scott, I will give you a A plus on your first performance as guest host. I enjoyed it. Did you enjoy it?

Scott Hale (29:41):

Oh, yeah. Had a blast. Looking forward to more of them.

Charley Burtwistle (29:43):

Absolutely love that. Hopefully our listeners enjoyed it, too. If not, write in, leave a comment, say, “Scott stinks. We don’t want to hear him anymore.” Just kidding, of course. But we would always appreciate a like or a review and a subscribe across all platforms where podcasts can be found. And always if you want to get more in the weeds with other listeners out there, you can join The Building Code Crew on Facebook. Otherwise, until next time, I’m Charley Burtwistle.

Scott Hale (30:05):

And I’m Scott Hale.

Charley Burtwistle (30:06):

We’ll see you.

(30:09):

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