E42. Is your home healthy? With Special Guest Zara D'Cotta (Part 1)

In this episode of the Building Design, Prime Time podcast Frank and Amelia welcome special guest and Building Biologist Zara D'Cotta to talk about healthy homes.

The podcast will be broken down into two bite sized episodes. Zara dives deep into healthy homes and shares her harrowing story of multiple cancer diagnoses and how it drastically changed how she lived and became passionate about healthy homes.

Part 1 of this 2 part podcast episode delves into everything from designing a healthy home through to construction practices onsite as well as common issues such as mould and condensation issues affecting Australia. 

Stay tuned for part two of this exciting podcast episode about healthy homes which leaves many questioning about whether our homes are healthy?  Remember to subscribe so you don't miss an episode!

About us
Prime Design is a building design company locally owned and operated in Tasmania since 2004.  Our goal is to share as much valuable information as possible about the process of building design, extensions, and more. We will talk about a different topic each week. To suggest a topic you would like us to talk about contact us at info@primedesigntas.com.au

Disclaimer
The information provided on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, individual circumstances, or remedy. We strongly suggest you consult a qualified professional before taking any action based on the information provided in this podcast. The views, opinions, and information provided in this podcast are those of the hosts do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organisation, employer, or company. All content provided on this podcast is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this podcast and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, or damages arising from its use. We reserve the right to change content or delete any information provided on this podcast at any time without prior notice.

Transcript

E42. Healthy Homes with special guest Zara D’Cotta (Part 1) 

[INTRO] (0:08 - 0:24)

Hello and welcome to the Building Design Primetime podcast, focused on providing valuable information for anyone looking to undertake a new build or extension project. We'll share our tips, tricks and stories from a building designer's perspective.

[Amelia] (0:26 - 0:43)

Hello and welcome to the Building Design, Prime Time podcast. I'm your host, Amelia. And once again, we're joined by Frank Geskus.

[Frank] (0:43 - 0:44)

Hey, Amelia.

[Amelia] (0:44 - 1:19)

Hey, Frank. And I'm so excited to welcome our special guest today. Thank you so much for joining us, Zara D’Cotta.

[Zara]

Thank you so much for having me. 

[Amelia]

It's so exciting to talk about healthy homes because this is something that I know a lot of the guys in the office are really excited to learn more about. But also, it's a bit of a hot topic of conversation as well.

[Zara]

Sure is. It's great to see it getting more focused in the building industry. 

[Amelia]

So give us a little bit of a background into you, Zara, and how you got started into healthy homes and becoming a building biologist.

[Frank] (1:20 - 1:25)

Can I just say, that is the coolest name for a job description, building biologist.

[Zara] (1:25 - 4:16)

Building biologist. Yeah, it's a pretty fascinating field. So I'm a building biologist new build consultant.

And this has become my passion and my life's work after going through my own challenges with cancer and environmental illness. So my life was shaken up in a big way. Just before I turned 30, I had my first cancer diagnosis.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And that led to quite significant lifestyle changes. So the switch to organic food and skincare and cleaning products and learning to meditate and leaving my corporate career.

And feeling pretty confident that I've learned everything I needed to learn off the back of that experience until two years later when I was diagnosed with a melanoma. And then very shortly after that lost a close friend to breast cancer. And even though I'd been incredibly lucky in that my cancers hadn't made me sick, I had about 20 plus symptoms that no doctor was able to diagnose.

And went on a search for answers and uncovered more than I had ever anticipated I would in my lifetime. And discovered that I'm one of the one in four people who are genetically susceptible to mould. And was told anytime I wanted to move home for the rest of my life, I would need to get it assessed by a building biologist. Which everyone around me thought was pretty far fetched. This was back in 2015 when mould being a hazard to human health wasn't really recognised. And so after six months of, I did make some changes in my home and had it assessed by a building biologist.

And there were some things that he suggested wasn't going to be the ideal place for me long term. So I left my home in Melbourne and moved to Sydney, ironically, one of the mouldiest cities in Australia. And spent four years moving from one mortar damaged building to the next.

Initially getting sicker before eventually moving to the Northern Rivers. And deciding that moving into a newly built home was going to be key to getting my health back on track. And I moved into this house three weeks after the builders had handed over the keys.

And I woke up after the first night and my eyes were stinging so badly that I had to get out of my house while I let fresh air in. I had a rash for the first few months and I had bouts of nausea. And so I'd been implementing building biology principles already to make my own home healthier.

But it was at this point that I decided, okay, there's some quite significant changes that are needed to the way homes are designed and built and the materials that are used. So that was the beginning of my studies in building biology. And I think the important thing to be aware of is, broadly speaking, building biology means building for life.

And it's the study of the relationship between the built environment and the health of the human and the building in the environment. And the goal is for each of these three things to be in harmony. And my focus is specifically on new builds.

So there are some building biologists that go and assess homes. So they'll do mould assessments or EMF assessments and look at indoor and air quality and light quality. But my focus is on design and materials and the health and environmental impacts of those.

[Frank] (4:17 - 4:18)

Excellent. Wow.

[Amelia] (4:18 - 4:21)

That's incredible. What a story.

[Frank] (4:21 - 4:23)

That is an amazing story.

[Zara] (4:24 - 4:25)

Yeah, it's been quite a ride.

[Frank] (4:25 - 4:30)

Yes. And it's wonderful that you can now share those experiences.

[Zara] (4:31 - 4:32)

Yes.

[Frank] (4:32 - 4:36)

An you can explain things to people, you know. I find that utterly amazing.

[Zara] (4:36 - 4:43)

Yeah, I feel very lucky. It's been, you know, my biggest life challenge, but also my greatest source of joy and fulfilment now.

[Frank] (4:43 - 4:51)

Yeah, yeah. I can totally understand that. And you can relate to so many people that are going through this and no one else understands.

[Zara]

Yep. 

[Frank]

Yeah, wow.

[Amelia] (4:52 - 5:43)

And it's amazing, you know, you sound like you've hopped from house to house. And they've all had, you know, fairly common problems with mould and with being unhealthy. And it scares me a little bit, to be honest, because I've been in old houses, I've lived in newer houses. And to think that even new houses can have these problems as well is, you know, kind of gobsmacking a little bit. 

[Zara]

Yeah. And I have to admit, it can, I think when you first learn all of this stuff, as I just said before, it is a huge can of worms to open. And it can feel scary. But I think what I want people to take away is that knowledge is power. And when you start to realise that, you know, that maybe, you know, there are links between why you're not sleeping properly or why you're getting headaches and a whole range of other health issues in your home, and there are changes that you can make to improve your health, it's also really empowering.

[Frank] (5:44 - 5:53)

Yeah. No, that's absolutely amazing. And interesting, we're not taught this in our world as designers. You know, when we go through education processes, we're not taught this.

[Zara] (5:53 - 6:06)

No. I mean, it's interesting because building biology has been around since the 1960s, 1970s in Germany. But it's really, yeah, it's not a field that is very well known in many places in the world.

[Frank] (6:07 - 6:08)

Yeah, certainly.

[Amelia] (6:09 - 6:23)

I've pulled a couple of key stats off your website, Zara, which I find incredibly gobsmacking, to be honest. 40% of new builds in Australia have condensation and mould. That's insane.

[Frank] (6:24 - 6:59)

I'm actually not overly surprised in the last few years, considering we've gone back to some sites, some houses, and they've had major problems. 

[Zara]

Really?

[Frank]

Yeah, and we're scratching our heads, you know, stick my head up on the roof and all the trusses look like mouldy pieces of bread.

You know, it was just next level or under floors, crawling under floors, and it's all like spotted mould or all sorts of stuff. And you're scratching your head a little bit on this and you go, well, how's this even possible? What's the source? At that stage, I've had very little training and we're just scratching our heads working with the builder trying to solve a problem.

[Zara] (7:00 - 7:24)

Yeah. Yeah, I really feel for home designers and builders. It's a lot to get your heads around and navigate.

And I've had a number of builders that have told me stories of projects they've gone back to after a couple of years and found problems. But the homes have been built, to code. So, you know, they're definitely not at fault.

It's just that there's more that we know now about moisture in the built environment than when they were taught.

[Frank] (7:24 - 8:17)

And certainly it's not just the building code. It's also been the bushfire provisions we have to put in. And that was a major catalyst we noticed what is causing a lot of these problems because the buildings get tightened up, the exterior is tightened up, and the building can't breathe. Every builder I've talked to, if you ask them about that experience, they've all got stories. So then they go back and they go, look, we've had to go do this.

We've done this. We've experimented with this. There was no information.

So everyone's talking to each other. So put bigger fans, open it up. And I'll say straight out, we're not complying with the NCC.

We're not complying with the bushfire stuff. Just to get the house not to have moisture build up inside. And in the roof cavity specifically, that's where we could see it. We can't see in the walls, but we could definitely see it in the roofs and under the floors. And it scared a lot of us.

[Zara] (8:17 - 8:52)

Yeah, I can imagine it would. Yeah, so I think we're very lucky to have people like Dr. Mark Dewsbury and Professor Tim Law at the University of Tasmania have really been leading the way that led this study, the study that you just referred to, Amelia, which has led to the changes being incorporated into the National Construction Code (NCC) and building science being incorporated into the National Construction Code, which is huge. But it still doesn't fully, it's a start. It doesn't fully address mould risk. And there's more things that need to be considered during the design and construction stage and material selection to reduce the mould risk.

[Frank] (8:52 - 9:07)

But you know what gets me? We're not the only country on this planet. And we may have some unique climate areas. We may be unique in some ways how we run our homes. But there's housing all around the world that would have come across these problems already.

[Zara] (9:07 - 9:28)

Yep. There was Jordan Peterson on his podcast recently did an interview saying he led with the headline that 80% of homes are causing chronic illness because his daughter's, he's recently discovered that his daughter's got mould illness and all his properties are ridden with mould. And he's baffled at the extent of the problem and what to do about it.

[Frank] (9:28 - 9:33)

It's very hard to deal with it after the fact, isn't it? In a lot of cases, it's really hard.

[Zara] (9:33 - 9:46)

Yeah, the scale of the problem is mind blowing. It's not just, you know, the cost of knocking homes down and starting again as the environmental cost of replacing the materials. And yeah, it's a much bigger problem than many people realise.

[Frank] (9:46 - 9:49)

Certainly. What other stats were there on the website?

[Amelia] (9:49 - 12:03)

Zara talked about some symptoms and illnesses with known environmental links that include respiratory illness, insomnia, migraines, headaches, hormone imbalances, infertility, miscarriage, damage to DNA, birth defects, compromised immunity, inflammation. It just goes on. It's just insane, the effects, you know, and the mould that can cause unhealthy effects. Have you experienced a lot of these, Zara? 

[Zara]

Yeah, I've experienced insomnia, hormone imbalances, gut issues, migraines, sensitivity to hot and cold and light. Yeah, there is a huge, yeah, as I said, I had about 20 plus symptoms when I was going through mould illness.

And I still, you know, I live in the Northern Rivers and I do, I've just struggled through the summer months here when the humidity is really high. But yeah, you know, I've spent a lot of the past decade pouring through scientific studies on various environmental contributors. For every known symptom and health condition, there are environmental links.

[Amelia]

So what are some common construction issues that cause our homes to be unhealthy? 

[Zara]

So I think the big one that can make the biggest difference, that is a big focus of what I talk to building industry professionals about is construction stage practices to manage moisture, which then significantly reduce the mould risk when you hand over the keys to the client. So inspecting timber before, when it arrives on site, moisture testing it, making sure it's not already mouldy before the framing goes up, putting the weather-resistant barrier up as soon as the framing goes up to protect the materials from moisture.

Moisture testing the timber before the walls get sealed so you're not sealing moisture into the building envelope. Moisture testing the concrete so that you're not laying floors and cabinetry over concrete that still needs to dry out. And as well as in places like here in the Northern Rivers and there in Tasmania in the humid months, keeping an eye on the humidity level once the windows and doors are in and the roofs on during the construction stage and ideally keeping humidity below 60%.

[Frank] (12:03 - 12:08)

Yeah, that makes it really interesting, those comments you make, because builders work on timeframes.

[Zara] (12:09 - 12:09)

Yes.

[Frank] (12:09 - 12:54)

And I can't imagine if it was going to stop, hey, the moisture content of my timber's too high, we can't get on with the build. Or the flip side, what really ticks me off, seeing a frame left in the weather for an extended period of time. Sometimes, obviously, it's always going to be exposed for a week, two weeks, subject, the roof has been delayed, whatever.

But I've seen, especially after the COVID, when they brought in, introduced in the grants, there was stuff sitting around everywhere because they couldn't get people in there to do it. Yeah. Same, no one measures concrete moisture and it makes perfect sense because it doesn't hit its full strength for 28 days.

So it's still emitting moisture.

[Zara] (12:54 - 13:53)

There is an Australian standard for concrete moisture testing that no one that I've spoken to is previously aware of. And what is great to see is that all the builders that I've gotten to know are now implementing these practices to protect the timber and make sure it's not mouldy when it's delivered to site. And the thing is now that they have to, if NCC 2022 condensation management has come into effect in their state, or it's going to.

And if they don't, it's like I've had some experiences with builders that have learnt this stuff when they've been going through my healthy building materials mastermind. And they've realised that they've had significant mould problems on projects that they've then had to go about mechanically standing back and remediating themselves, which that has also added significant time to the build process. So making sure these issues are addressed earlier on before the materials are delivered to site, having discussions with suppliers about how the timber is being stored can then actually save them time if they do discover that there's significantly water damaged materials on their site.

[Frank] (13:53 - 14:24)

Oh, and certainly I've seen heaps of damaged timber turn up on site and they still work with it because they're there to put it up. Well, it's there, I've got to use it. They don't consider these things.

And then on top of that, if your house doesn't breathe, and I'm not talking internally, I'm talking externally, and you can't get the thing to breathe, to dry out anyway, you're just trapping it. 

[Zara]

Yeah. 

[Frank]

You know, and then it absorbs into other materials. So it's like you're chasing your tail.

[Zara] (14:24 - 14:34)

Yeah, and using vapour permeable materials in the walls is really important so that moisture can pass through the walls without condensing in the wall.

[Frank] (14:34 - 15:30)

But then the trick is, we had an interesting situation just recently with a build, and then the moisture goes into the cavity, but where does it leave from the cavity? You know, if you don't put your damp-proof courses in properly, the weep holes correctly, it vents through the roof, does the roof vent properly, all those types of things considered, and simple things of covering the cavity at the top of a wall with a piece of insulation, you know, the bit of it sloppy how they've installed it, blocks it off. It's simple little things like that.

And we had a case where they didn't put the DPC in the bottom of the brick and block work subfloor. So then you got air movement, but you didn't have the DPC to draw it, any moisture can dribble out, you know, literally pour out of the weep hole. So we had to come up with an alternative solution there.

But it was interesting, the building surveyor picked it up and he wouldn't pass it until we got it fixed.

[Zara] (15:30 - 15:31)

Wow.

[Frank] (15:31 - 15:32)

He was all over it.

[Amelia] (15:32 - 15:37)

What I find really interesting is this does not just start at construction stage.

[Frank] (15:38 - 15:38)

No.

[Amelia] (15:38 - 15:49)

It's sort of a domino effect. It's the design. It's, you know, it's how the person who moves in, it's how they live.

[Zara]

Yeah, it's all the design stage.

[Frank] (15:49 - 16:03)

But also what's interesting in this particular case, the brickies and the builder goes, I've never done that before in 20 years, yet it's always been in the building code. Putting the damp-proof course to the weep holes, it's always been there. Yeah, this is with brick.

[Zara] (16:03 - 16:04)

Really?

[Frank] (16:04 - 16:26)

Yeah, and that's what the claim was. And I said, trying to figure this out, how's this even possible? And again, this comes down to the education of the builders, but then the sub-trades.

And the sub-trades, in certain cases, let the builders down because they expect them to know their stuff. 

[Zara]

Yeah. 

[Frank]

But the builder takes full responsibility of the build. So I think more education has to be done on this.

[Zara] (16:26 - 16:27)

Definitely.

[Frank] (16:28 - 16:28)

Yeah.

[Amelia] (16:28 - 16:32)

Do we have to do mould testing for new houses at all? Is that a thing?

[Amelia] (16:32 - 16:34)

I've never even seen it.

[Amelia] (16:34 - 16:37)

No, I've never seen it either, but why don't we?

[Frank] (16:37 - 16:41)

Well, I'll ask the question. Yeah, go on. Sorry.

[Zara] (16:41 - 17:02)

Well, I think that there are steps that builders and the designers that they're working with should take when the home's nearing completion. So obviously there's moisture testing, which we talked about, but then thermal imaging to see if there's any cool points or any leaks that haven't been spotted because that's also quite common during construction. What was the other thing I was going to say? Testing for electromagnetic…oh sorry

[Frank] (17:03 - 17:08)

Yeah, testing for the EMF. Yes.

[Zara] (17:09 - 17:09)

Yeah.

[Frank] (17:10 - 17:34)

I was just going to point out, you bring up another interesting point of the thermal imaging camera. 

[Zara]

Yeah. 

[Frank]

Because when a new house is built in Tasmania, and it's pretty well the same around Australia, there is not mandatory waterproofing inspections or flood testing, which blows my mind where you talk to insurance companies, what are the biggest claims?

Waterproofing failures and box gutters and all that.

[Zara] (17:34 - 18:07)

I have seen this firsthand. I had a client with a multi-million dollar home that was less than 10 years old. It was declared unlivable.

They had to move out and live in Airbnbs for a year while they waited for the insurance claims. A lot of the problems were, well, there was a flat roof, so they're more prone to roof leaks, but also the windows and doors were not sealed properly. So whenever it was raining, rain was coming into the house.

Flat windows seals with standing water and timber is also quite common.

[Frank] (18:07 - 18:10)

Which is not allowed under the NCC, but they still do it.

[Zara] (18:10 - 18:35)

I know that there's a builder in Tassie, Sean, at Tassie Builders Lock Haven Homes. They're allowing extra time during construction to do the testing for water leaks, for the windows and the weather-resistant barrier, which is an extra few days. But I know that when I build my home, I would want my builder to be factoring in time to do that.

[Frank] (18:36 - 19:15)

I totally agree. Not only for the waterproofing testing, when you waterproof the bathroom or whatever it may be. But also, there's no one inspecting the thermal side of it.

So is your insulation installed as per code? You know, has it been put in, not all squashed and mangled or cut all gaps or... Yeah.

You know, it doesn't bulge out. There's all these things. And no offence against plasterers, a lot of the plasterers install it.

But the way it is, no one inspects to say that, yes, this has been done correctly, it will work wonderful. Because once you've got the membrane on the outside, your plastering inside, you're done. You can't fix it without tearing the place apart.

[Zara] (19:15 - 19:31)

Yeah. And also being able to document that, the findings, you know, the moisture readings and the thermal imaging. So then, you know, that significantly reduces the risks to the builder and designer and also gives the client peace of mind that all the protocols are being followed.

[Frank] (19:31 - 19:58)

But the challenge is, the government in Tasmania, and I'm pretty sure it's all the rest of them under the building regulations, they mandate the minimum amount of inspections. There's only four. And I find it utterly ridiculous. Always have. And I voiced it when they upgraded the regulations, this is ridiculous. You should be doing heaps more.

Oh, it costs money, does that. Of course it costs money to check that if the job's been done right. But it should be checked if it's done right.

[Zara] (19:58 - 20:09)

Yeah, I feel very disillusioned with so many different aspects of government regulations in relation to health that I've learned to just not wait for policies to change and just focus on us setting the standards ourselves.

[Frank] (20:10 - 20:34)

Couldn't agree more. Yes, totally agree. You know, and it's the only way we're really going to make a change is by consumers and not let the regulations dictate it, that you go over and above, because that's a minimum.

[Zara]

Yeah. 

[Frank]

We should be setting a higher standard ourselves, you know. And I would suggest quite a number of customers that we design for, if you suggested to them, then work with the builders, they'd be more than happy to do that and pay the extra for it.

[Zara] (20:35 - 20:43)

Yeah, I've heard so many builders say that. We don't want to just build to Australian standards because that's not aiming very high. We want to build much better than that.

[Frank] (20:44 - 20:44)

Exactly.

[Amelia] (20:45 - 20:51)

That's good to hear, you know, that it's a rising issue and people are taking that on board, which is fantastic.

[Frank] (20:52 - 20:52)

Yeah.

[Zara] (20:52 - 20:53)

Yeah, it really is.

[Frank] (20:53 - 21:01)

It's great to see. But there's another part of the demographic in our industry that is where, man, get it up, get it sold, move to the next project.

[Zara] (21:02 - 21:05)

Yes, I've heard some horror stories about that.

[Frank] (21:05 - 21:24)

Yeah, and also some of these builders or building companies, they have one formula that's looking after 10 to 15 houses, so you can't control what's going on site well either. So I believe this is potentially going to be a large problem going forward in the future and that will pull this stuff up.

[Zara] (21:24 - 21:36)

I think it definitely will be. I think the way that the industry is heading with mould being recognised as a hazard to human health, engineered stone benchtops being banned, yeah, I think there will continue to be many more things.

[Frank] (21:37 - 21:38)

It's all media driven though, isn't it?

[Zara] (21:39 - 21:51)

Yeah, and it's also an interesting question of where do you draw the line? Because wood dust is a carcinogen, so do we ban timber framing because it's carcinogenic if it's inhaled when it's been cut on site?

[Frank] (21:51 - 21:53)

But you have appropriate PPE though.

[Zara] (21:54 - 21:54)

Yeah.

[Frank] (21:54 - 22:26)

So there's millions of ways around all these things. It's just got to be true and how you deal with it's got to be true and not, and again, I'll offend someone in the media, sometimes they write stories that aren't always true or paint the full picture. And that's unfortunate.

Rather than stick to the facts, keep it simple. This is what it is. This is how we fix it.

Move on. Yeah. But from your experience though, seeing some of the new homes, what do you think is one change that would be the gross improvement to new homes?

[Zara] (22:26 - 23:08)

I think all homes should have pitched roofs and eaves and really good drainage away from the foundations. In building biology, we say that every home should have a really good hat and a really good pair of boots. And we need to think about why we build a home in the first place and what is the purpose of a roof?

We don't want water collecting on the roof. We want it to divert away from the home and also not, like I've seen a mould report where there was a south facing wall that had no eaves and there was mould on that wall and rain had paddled at the foundations and seeped through the concrete slab and then was contributing to high moisture levels inside the home. So it's also about diverting the rain away from the foundations.

[Frank] (23:08 - 23:16)

Well, any structural engineer that designs for homes would tell you that straight off the bat, you know.

[Zara] (23:16 - 23:38)

Well, it's interesting because I've had a couple of property developers reach out and say this is a really important path, they really value health. But then when you start suggesting things like this, it's too much. You know, they love the flat roofs and the aesthetic look and feel and can't imagine how that would cause an issue.

[Frank] (23:38 - 24:06)

Yeah, that's interesting. Like for our business, it was quite a number of years ago, we noticed a certain thing around people's new homes. They didn't put drains around their homes and fall things away.

And then I made a decision as a business, right, we're putting drains and pits everywhere. And when we put on the drawings, it has to be installed because it gets a permit. Since we've done that, the amount of little issues around the house have reduced significantly.

[Zara] (24:06 - 24:07)

I can imagine.

[Frank] (24:07 - 24:13)

You know, and that's from a structural point plus from a workability around the house as well.

[Zara] (24:13 - 24:24)

Yeah, and also making sure that the home is built on a foundation that's suited to the site. So if it's on a slope or the bottom of a hill, it should be on a stump, not on a slab.

[Frank] (24:25 - 25:03)

That's always a tough one. I know from our experience, we have both. And sometimes it's not suited to how it's being built.

But normally when we've got a sloping site, there's a heck of a lot more drainage in and not just around the house, but above the house. So it cuts it off well before it comes down the hill. You're putting ag drains in, you're putting plenty of pits in.

There's a philosophy too much drainage is never enough. Because things are changing with our environment. I can see it.

The intensive rainfall, especially I noticed in Tasmania, the intensive rainfalls is increasing and our current drainage is not working around houses. 

[Zara] (25:03 - 25:22)

Yeah. I mean, my home has wide eaves, but I just had on the weekend, but it's happened so many times since I've moved into this house. If I leave my door open in my bedroom and I go downstairs, it starts raining. I go up and the rain comes in, like it comes into my bed.

It's like coming into the side, wind driven rain that's coming inside the house. It's crazy.

[Frank] (25:22 - 25:22)

That is bonkers.

[Amelia] (25:23 - 25:23)

Oh, wow.

[Frank] (25:25 - 25:45)

Yeah, depending on wind, a whole bunch of factors, isn't it? But you know what gets me though? Sorry, I'm getting my soapbox again on this.

With normal eaves gutters, why don't we have overflows? Because you have these intense rainfall, because when it fills up, where does it go? It goes into the eave.

[Zara] (25:45 - 25:46)

Yeah.

[Frank] (25:46 - 25:58)

Why don't we have overflows? Like Queensland has it, where they've got slots in their gutters. I think certain parts of New South Wales and Tassie, we can't even get those gutters.

So where does the water go? It goes in the eaves and then it potentially can go into the house.

[Zara] (25:59 - 25:59)

That's a good suggestion.

[Frank] (26:00 - 26:42)

You know, it's not hard. I've had it with, yeah, you do with the old 60s homes and stuff like that, and they know they've had problems. It says get hole saw in and cut holes into your gutter.

So when she all goes a bit pear-shaped because of these old homes from the 60s, it might be 130, 140 square metre home, it's only got two downpipes on the whole thing. So drill some extra holes in it to let it go. 

[Zara]

Gosh.

[Frank]

So you're just dealing with things like that because of the change of our climate. But also expectations of customers of what they want in their homes, but also renovating old homes, we make a lot of suggestions to them about improving it. Well, if you're going to do an extension, you might as well put extra drainage, extra ventilation, do all these types of things.

[Zara] (26:43 - 27:12)

Yeah, that's great that you're educating them. I know it's not easy. I've had some builders this week saying they're having conversations with clients around guiding them towards decisions that will be better for their health.

And the clients that aren't already health aware, it's coming across as like they're trying to upsell them. And it's like, oh, actually, these builders really care about you. They've gone and become informed and they really care about your health.

Yeah. So there's a huge need for everyone to be better informed.

[Frank] (27:12 - 27:19)

I think one thing would help is seeing examples. You know, this could be you inside your house that you can't see.

[Zara] (27:20 - 27:20)

Yeah.

[Frank] (27:21 - 27:29)

You know, new, old homes. Homes have been modified because that's a killer. You know, modify a home, you're blocking all the vents and, yeah, you're causing problems.

[Amelia] (27:30 - 27:44)

Yeah. I think that must be sort of the hard part of all of this is, you know, for the general public that might not know a lot about this stuff, how are they going to see the value in it when they just see the end cost a lot of times?

[Frank] (27:44 - 27:48)

Agreed. People want to do their own renovations, don't they? Yeah.

[Zara] (27:48 - 28:11)

Yeah, that's going to be something I work with. Very committed to moving forward is providing resources for the building and the two professionals I work with to educate their clients on certain decisions that they find challenging to, you know, things like insulation, weather-resistant barrier and paint and floor finishes to give them education on actually why it is worth spending more money on those products.

[Frank] (28:12 - 28:12)

Very much so.

[Amelia] (28:13 - 28:27)

Thanks for listening to part one of Healthy Homes with special guest Zahra Dakota. Stay tuned because part two will be released very soon. Thanks for listening to the Building Design Prime, Time Podcast.

We'll catch you next time.

[OUTRO] (28:36 - 28:41)

Music You're listening to the Building Design Primetime Podcast.