Kickstarting Your Career in Natural Building - Allstar Natural Builders - BS100

Speaker 1: 0:37

Welcome to Building Sustainability Podcast with me, your host, jeffrey Hart, aka Jeffrey The Natural Builder. Every fortnight, join me as I talk to designers, builders, makers, dreamers and doers, exploring the wide world of sustainability in the built environment by talking to wonderful people who are doing excellent things. Hello and welcome to this episode 100 of the Building Sustainability Podcast. So for episode 100, i wanted to do something a little bit different and I wanted to answer the question that I get most often asked and that is how do I become a natural builder, or how do I get into the industry, or something along those lines, because it is a slightly it's a slightly obscure path. I think It's quite a new industry and, as such, there isn't an NVQ or something like that, the more sort of traditional vocational skills route. So I've asked a few of my wonderful friends to help guide you into this wonderful industry. Some of these friends will be familiar to you if you already listened to the podcast. There are a couple of new ones as well. Before we get into the podcast proper, there is a bit of news. It's taken four years of this podcast. In that time we've had a hundred main episodes, eight bite-size episodes, a total of 81 guests and to date there have been 220,000 downloads of the podcast. So I wanted to thank everyone that's ever listened, everyone that's ever shared an episode, all of the guests. Oh my goodness, this wouldn't be anything without the guests who have kindly shared their wisdom and experience. Also want to thank the patrons. There are 102 patrons. They support this podcast financially and we have some new patrons to thank. Can you hear those crows? I think they're jackdaws actually. So we have got Pico, who's on the spoon level. Thank you very much, pico. Elizabeth oh my goodness, elizabeth, she's increased her amount. Elizabeth, that really means a huge amount. And James Ramskeer Gardner James, did I say your name right? I met James at the Woodland Pioneers event last September. Very lovely chap. I look forward to catching up with him again soon and I will be sending him a bowl that I have turned on the bowl lathe, because I've got a few of those. A fail of all for the new patrons. Recently lots of people have been saying to me oh, i always meant to become a patron, but I never got around to it. So if that is you, then why not celebrate episode 100 by treating yourself to over 10 hours of bonus content? That includes unreleased episodes. It includes a tour of my tiny house. It includes loads of snippets from guests, stuff that didn't quite make the cut for the main episode but was valuable nonetheless. Yeah, give yourself a little treat and help me make more podcasts. Please don't forget that this is a monthly billing and don't do it. If you're going for it, definitely feel free to cancel. Please don't put yourself in any kind of financial hardship. Before we get into the podcast, i just want to tell you quickly about some exciting developments that are happening in Netelkoum, which is where I live. We are beginning the construction of the Netelkoum Craft School. That's a working title. We might change that. Last week we were down indoors it. We went to visit Anthony Brown, who has been copping chestnut down there. We went and we picked out some poles that we are going to make our workshop from in the woods here. It was a beautiful, beautiful couple of days peeling the logs right in the coppice. So where the trees grew, they've been cut back and where they'll grow again, the same tree from the same rootstock. It's a pretty magical cycle that. As anyone who's listened to the episodes I did on coppicing around October 2022, you'll know that it's actually a boost to biodiversity and doesn't deplete soil health or any of the other negatives that sometimes come with commercial forestry. So, yes, exciting times ahead. We will begin building our workshop in about a month. You can follow along on Instagram. we are there with Netelkoum, underscore craft, underscore school, so go and have a look. There's a couple of videos about the process thus far, although we haven't done too much, so don't expect loads, being that this is a special 100th episode. In case you'd missed that detail, if I've been organised, i will have put out some graphics to celebrate the 100th episode. If you see one of those on any of the social medias, it would be incredible to me if you shared that to your followers, maybe with a little comment just saying your favourite episode and a reason why they should listen to this podcast. It really, really means a huge amount to me and we see a massive boost in in listenership every time someone shares. All right on with the podcast. Okay, let's introduce the Allstar natural building team.

Speaker 4: 6:44

So my name is Becky Little and I am a builder, with Earth mainly, but more recently I'm an artist. I think I do more art than building now, and I also teach earth and fibre skills.

Speaker 5: 6:57

Hi, my name is Jules. I am the co-founder and director of kind construction and kind supply.

Speaker 6: 7:04

My name is Em. I'm a builder. I have a sole trader business which I just call Em Appleton, My name is Dylan Walker and I'm a forever learning natural builder.

Speaker 7: 7:19

I've been running built by artisans for about 10 years and involved in natural building for 16 years.

Speaker 2: 7:25

So my name and job title, william Stanix, and my job title well, i call myself a natural builder, but my mum doesn't like that. She thinks it doesn't do it justice. But I work in the natural building industry and I design buildings and build buildings and sell products and make products.

Speaker 1: 7:47

Nice, what a brilliant bunch of builders and artists. So we'll begin by finding out how they got into their particular industry.

Speaker 4: 7:57

It's a long time ago now, but back in the 90s I I mean, i came from uni and did do things like archaeology and geography and French, which is all super relevant to all the things I've done but mainly it was because I met a builder at university Tim Meek was his name. he was a fabulous guy that taught me a lot about lime and at the same time I had an internship with Historic Environment Scotland. So I came through a sort of heritage skills route and became a specialist in lime, set up in business. I think I was in my mid 20s, so I was fairly naive, didn't know much, thought I knew much but knew nothing and then continued to learn, still learning now.

Speaker 5: 8:40

I started my journey into sustainable building in more of a conventional way. I went to college as a brickwork apprentice. That's where I first discovered lime mortar. I just fascinated the fact that we could build a wall one week, take that wall down, reuse that mortar mix the following week to start a whole new project. From that started doing a bit more research into lime, kind of found the benefits of it When I was qualified, kind of went my own way and started looking more into doing heritage and conservation projects. I was fortunate enough to live in a conservation area so a lot of the brickwork and masonry is all lime based mortars. After discovering the benefits of lime, i kind of went down a bit of a rabbit hole in what other natural and sustainable materials were available, found hempcrete kind of had my hempcrete moment. That really got me thinking why aren't all houses built out of natural, regenerative, biobase materials? So I knew here I really wanted to do something different. I love building, love my job. Didn't like the industry. I'd seen a lot of it and seen some great things, saw some awful things, awful practices which were really damaged into human health and to the planet as a whole. That led me to start in construction.

Speaker 6: 10:11

So my route into sustainable construction. Basically, i suppose I kind of weedled my way in by using what I already knew to try and get as close to construction and the building site as possible. So I used to do education based training work for adults and for kids and also had a pretty good grounding in admin stuff. So I first of all got myself a job at Hackney City Farm because I knew that they were building doing a straw bale building in the fairly near future and they just did loads and loads of exciting building stuff and they were really open to people just getting involved. So, yeah, i worked for them and helped to manage the construction of their straw bale building in the end, which was brilliant, and we had loads of volunteers and I did some of the building myself, which was really great, and they were just so supportive of it being an experiment and the main purpose of the build was for the learning rather than for the end product, even though something did have to exist at the end. They were really focused on, yeah, all the people involved getting something out of it and moving on in whichever way they wanted to. So I felt super lucky to be part of that. And while I was doing that we had Amazon Nails, which they were then called and existed as a training and construction company specialising in straw bale building. So they came on as consultants and they came and delivered courses for us. So I met Barbara and B through that and just got to be friends and did as much as possible to work with them and eventually ended up moving up to Toddmadden to have a job at Amazon Nails again in the office, but still getting closer to the building site and I started delivering straw bale building courses for them as well as managing the office and, yeah, getting a little bit more hands-on work, and started taking on a few of my own little jobs as well. And then after I left Amazon Nails I then after a while went to I did some more volunteering projects but then ended up getting onto the building craft apprenticeship with the Princes Foundation and that was basically meant that I could go after that program. I could go full-time as a builder and I worked for other companies for a little while but then really quickly moved to setting up on my own with my own clients and that was really because I was just couldn't deal with the culture on the building site myself. It was really getting me down. I couldn't handle the way that I was being treated, the sexism and the homophobia I was receiving and also a real lack of care which I was experiencing for each other but also for the job like I really desperately cared and wanted to do the job, and I was found myself a lot of the time with people who just weren't enjoying the work, didn't want to be there, and in an environment which really fostered not giving a shit and also not giving a shit not giving a shit about the work and not giving a shit about each other. So, yeah, i quickly partnered with some other people and had got my own clients again on a project by project basis. So not setting up a business business together, but doing some work together, yeah, and then, like, well, i suppose the rest is history. I've now been working with my own clients for about seven years yeah, six, seven years and have fully focused really on now pretty much solely on renovation of older properties, doing a lot of line work, carpentry, anything that's required to bring back older buildings to work for the yeah, for our modern lives.

Speaker 7: 15:07

I've been in the construction industry most of my adult life. It was an industry where people didn't seem to care about the environment and people. It is a throwaway culture. I knew that something had to change. I was unhappy. I wasn't looking to change my career at this point. I just needed to have something different to look forward to. So I booked myself on a round with timber framing course in the woods with the man himself, ben Law. It was a four day course. The course was a change that I needed. I loved the laid back environment, working as a team with nice people. They're sitting around the fire and cooking the peace and quiet not only in the evenings but whilst we were working too. I applied to Ben's woodland apprenticeship scheme, living and working in the woodland for the coppy season, adding value and understanding the role woodlands have in our lives. I was accepted. I handed my noticing and began my new life. It was very humbling that first season cutting short and long rotation, sweet chestnut meeting head foresters of the local estates. But my main drive was to round with timber frame. Ben decided that he wanted to scale back on building projects. I loved my new work in life. It was still so much to learn, and I couldn't imagine doing anything else built by art. Sands was born. To date, we haven't built the same thing twice. Each building we have created is truly bespoke.

Speaker 2: 16:41

We love building beautiful buildings that are created with natural building materials my route into sustainable construction was I did a degree in building surveying and I had a really cool lecturer there called Dennis Wilkinson and he was really inspiring and really he loved old buildings and sustainable building and they cut two kind of go side by side. So he encouraged me to look at sustainable construction during my degree and when I got my degree I would design little extensions and stuff for people and garden buildings in natural materials and I could never really find anyone to build them so I kind of just did it myself and absolutely loved it all right, so I'll add to that a brief summary of my route into whatever it is that I do.

Speaker 1: 17:36

I began by doing a degree in product design. I actually did industrial design, which is like product design but kind of more, more involved in the how the the product works. By the end of that degree I think I'd lost the love for product design. I became a graphic designer, did that for about five years, lost the love for that, went to Canada, became a snowboard instructor. Definitely kept the love for teaching. That has been a theme throughout all of the the following work I've done. I traveled around Canada. I found people that had built their own houses, was incredibly inspired and found myself an immersive build course. That was at a place called aprivatio. If you've listened to the episode with Alex Gibbons, he and I first met there. We both did our training together and that was a seven week introduction course where we built a small house using straw bale, timber, framing, earth floors, cob all the kind of different processes to make a building from there. I'm sorry I spent two years at aprivatio. I hung around after the course had finished, got involved with finishing the build that we'd started and then proceeded to sort of hang around even more for some some further further stuff they did there, spent about two years there and then I went to community rebuilds, which is in Utah that is, building straw bale houses for low income families. Definitely worth checking out if you would like to get into this industry and you live certainly in the States. At some point I realised I had to come home. So I found the Princess Foundation course and I really wanted to use that as a stepping stone. I'd met lots of people in the North American natural building scene, didn't really know anyone in the UK but knew that I wanted to be in the UK. So kind of used the Princess Foundation as that as an introduction to lots of people. After the Princess Foundation I kind of spent my time, sometimes building festivals, sometimes being a plasterer, sometimes building straw bale houses with the School for Natural Building. For that time I was very much just getting by, getting my head around, being self-employed and doing a lot of work which wasn't necessarily within where I wanted to be, but it was construction work. So I was hands on, i was on tools, i was learning how things went together as observing details that I liked and some that I didn't, and slowly over time I dropped out the stuff which wasn't interesting or kind of focused in the right area and kept going with the bits. So, yeah, i did a lot of lime plastering Whenever I could, i did clay plastering. I was doing occasional earthen floors at that point, yeah, and I suppose eventually that culminated with starting Heartwind. We talked about that in the very first episode. Nice to go full cycle, did Heartwind for three or four years, three really great straw bale buildings, and now I'm doing whatever it is I do now, which is some sort of hodgepodge of all of those things. But whatever it is, it's always with the moral focus of natural materials trying to be as sustainable as possible. Let's get back to the others. What advice would you give to anyone wanting to get into this industry?

Speaker 4: 21:26

If you can get yourself on building sites and you can get some trial skills or, depending on what material you're using, some tool skills and just become good at it. It takes years, to be fair, it's not quick and sometimes it's quite boring. But yeah, i think, just graft away, don't expect things too quickly, but also just know that if you put in the time and you become good at things, then soon you are useful to people. And, equally, if you are someone that is able to get out and meet people, networking social media, create blogs, go to conferences, try to just find ways to meet similar people doing what you do, which is a lot of fun, to be honest. Anyway. And the natural building world is I would say it's a pretty friendly place, having been in the more conventional side of construction too, and the Lyme, the Lyme tribe, are a friendly bunch too. And, yeah, get out. And yeah, if you can help people on sites in different parts of the world, different parts of the country, that's all really positive too. That experience stands you in really good stead, because you see different ways of doing things and there are many, many different ways of doing things, that's for sure.

Speaker 5: 22:51

The best advice I could give anybody wanting to get into the sustainable building industry, of course. First of all, listen to the Building Sustainability podcast and from there just really do your homework. Read as much as you can, learn as much as you can. Try and do some training courses. Reach out to some lovely builders doing the right thing.

Speaker 6: 23:20

The Building Craft Apprenticeship Programme with the Princess Foundation is incredible. It was just so wonderful to have that opportunity. So if that suits anyone, I would definitely recommend that. And then, once trained, I would really recommend having a really, really strong idea of what it is that you love, what your values are and what matters to you, because the culture of the industry is so incredibly strong. I definitely found myself getting pulled into being, a certain way, a very macho way. That really doesn't suit who I am, but was happening because it was so much stronger than me. So I kind of had to pull back a little and think about what matters to me, what my values are, and then I could work from that place. And also there is so much incredible work in this industry and I think someone said or I can't remember who it was that your no is as sexy as your yes. So just knowing what you love and what you wanna do and don't be afraid to niche down to very particular types of either clients or work, so that you can say no and you can specialize because I've definitely found that otherwise it can all get too general and I can't focus down on the things that give me the most pleasure and also that I can do best.

Speaker 7: 25:05

For me, the best route in are volunteering and training courses. This will give you a taste of each discipline and you may find your passion. Most natural builders try very hard to publicize what they do. So Google natural builders. Speak to them. Trust your heart. It's a leap of faith to try something new, to try a different way of working, maybe a step back in earnings. Most natural builders do what they do for love and not money.

Speaker 2: 25:31

I would say read tons of books. The English Heritage ones are great. James Henderson's book is amazing. There's loads of great books out there and even the books aren't so great, have pretty pictures and they're really inspiring in that way. So, yeah, definitely read tons of books and don't be scared of spending money on them. And if you spent a hundred pound on a really decent book, you could be spending two, three, 400 pound going on a course, plus all the fuel and stuff to get there. But sometimes you get just as much from a really good book. Also three things suppliers info. I used to geek out on suppliers info so much you know like go on Cornish Lyme's website, lyme Green's website, mike Wise website, t-miles website, heritage Cob and Lyme do some great ones. They're all free downloads about how to use their products and obviously their products are sustainable and it gives you some real, real like. It's like books, but without all the rubbish. It's real concise and I used to love well, i still do. I used to when I started building. I would make little ring binder files like you have at school with your revision in, and I used to print out all their suppliers info and put it in and then put indexes to it and it'd be like a book and some of them were as good as books. Yeah, papers as well, scientific papers from you know, when you Google something, you sometimes get loads of scientific papers come up that people at uni and stuff are done and they're always really interesting and again, they're mostly free. So, yeah, read times The ones that I read that were the most helpful. I probably tried the Timber Research and Development Association. They have a book of details that they I don't know it was fourth edition when I did it, but it's probably like eighth edition now and I just read that and that gave me loads of help. You know, it's basically loads of approved details that you can use and a lot of it's just drawings. So that was really useful and the English Heritage Lime book was really good. So another bit of advice for people wanting to get into the industry is do stuff for free. It can be as good as going on a course. So like, basically, one of the first things I did was I built a straw bell studio for a friend. It was a drumming studio and I built it for free. He paid materials and I put in the labor me and two friends for free, like I don't know. Four weeks labor, maybe a bit more, and we learned absolutely tons. We learned about client builder relationships. We learned about detailing. We obviously had to read books to get the right details. We had a wall that went all rotten because the roof leaked and we learned about how to fix things and it was really, really useful. And then, after that one, i did an extension for somebody. No, i didn't, i did a garden office, not for free, but for like as cheap as I could possibly do it in terms of labor, just to get some more experience. And then I did another. I did a kitchen extension for another friend. Again, it was basically a cost price. And after that, after those three projects, i'd learned an absolute ton and I was confident to start charging people properly. And each one didn't take very long and you could pay to go on a year's course or two years course or whatever. But you'll learn tons from just doing a project like that for somebody.

Speaker 1: 29:24

That is brilliant, excellent advice there. I guess I sort of wanted to summarize. So heritage skills heritage is a really great way into the eco-building natural materials world, because heritage is, by definition, using natural materials, unprocessed no petrochemicals, that sort of thing. It's also much more established. There are lots of MVQs. There are training courses all focused on heritage. So it is a great way if you want to learn, so doing those training courses, but also if you're looking for a job, you can find yourself someone with heritage in their business name and you will be doing the similar sort of things And, as Becky said, you will be getting trial skills. You'll be becoming more knowledgeable of sort of site appropriate behavior. You'll be seeing practices and processes. So that's a really good way. It is a slightly different mindset but, as I said, there is a big crossover. Episode 98 with Marianne is a great example of that crossover. If you are interested, as mentioned, doing courses is a really great way to learn some stuff. In many ways it's kind of better for the people you meet and that might be the person that is running the course and you can chat to them. There's quite often nice long tea breaks on courses like that where you can ask questions. But also afterwards, don't be afraid to send an email, ask a question, be interested. You can ask if they've got any projects they need help on. But also, i think, on courses, the course participants are often really interesting as well, like most courses I've ever been on. Someone is there because they have a project that they're about to do and they want to learn the skills to do it themselves. And chat to those people, ask if you can go along and get involved and help out. And this sort of leads me on to what Will spoke about, about doing work for free. That makes me feel very uncomfortable to recommend that Really. I mean, i don't want this to be the best advice that I've got, but getting a van that you can sleep in the back of is probably still the best way to get into like sort of straight natural building, because there's lots of projects going on that don't have any money to pay And if you can be self-sufficient, you can turn up and you've got a place to sleep and you can cook yourself a bit of food. There will be many opportunities for getting hands on and learning stuff, and all of this stuff you should be really judicious to document, whether that's a social media account or make a website. I made a website because I was a graphic designer for a while and that's what got me this stupid name. But yeah, have a, have a log so that people know. When you've completed a project, say what you did and let people know that you're you're sort of about and you're interested. As I say, i don't like the. I think the that route into the industry of getting a van and going working for free or for cheap is, i mean, it's it's exclusive, isn't it? If you've got a family or if you're not, so you're financially able to, to just kind of drop everything and go, then it's it's quite exclusive. I think other routes in could be going to a more conventional builder building company. Quite often they will have things like eco or green or ecological or conscious in the company name And they I think they would tend to be more in sort of in cities. I can think of loads in the Bristol area and they will be doing sort of retrofit projects And if you happen to go along at the right time or if you keep, keep sending the occasional message, there might be an opening for a laborer and you can go in and you can get paid from the beginning And with the right attitude. So if you are keen to learn and you're going to work hard, then there will be opportunities to progress And you'll get on the, on the tools at some point and you can make yourself more and more helpful and more and more skilled. You might end up putting foam insulation on the outside of a building, and that's the sort of the reality is when companies are working for clients. There will be a budgetary constraint and not everyone will opt for wood fibre insulation. They might put something rather nasty on it, would. There's so many transferable skills from that. Yeah, don't, i'd say, don't, be too snobby, is like that thing. As you get more experienced, you can phase out the things which aren't completely aligned with with what you want. Those are my bits of advice, i think. Oh, one final thing is just kind of underneath the attitude. If you are excited to learn and you ask questions and you spend the tea break saying, yeah, that's interesting, why have we done that, or could we have done this? I think it shows you're interested and it will show as you, as you learn more, those questions will become more involved. So, yeah, definitely be interested. Be proactive as well, and I don't just mean in sort of searching out jobs on the building site, and I always said this to everyone at the beginning of a Heartwind build. If you find yourself stood around sometimes it's not appropriate to ask what you should be doing, but if whoever your boss is finds you just stood around, then it doesn't look good. There is absolutely always something to tidy you can sweep up. You can straighten a pile of wood. Be busy and you will be an asset to any site you're on. And also just be nice. You know, get on with other people. Don't think there's anyone below you on the site. Be nice to everybody. There are people who I have worked with who are very skilled but not particularly pleasant people to be around, and I would choose someone pleasant who has the right attitude over those sort of more skilled, more difficult people. All right, so that was a long waffle from me. So next up, what is the best bit of advice you have ever received?

Speaker 4: 36:43

I remember I think it was Roland Keeble said this to me about being free with information, not feeling like you've got secrets, not feeling like you've got to keep it all to yourself to be ahead. I think that's not true. I think if you share and you open and you collaborate, i think other stuff comes your way. It's like a kind of flow of information, a flow of goodwill. I really believe that, because in the early years I was a bit more cagey and felt I had to sort of guard what I knew And I just don't think that's healthy and I don't think it gets you more work or more opportunities either Anything else I would say. There, i guess there's that thing about being connected with people that's important And, yeah, maybe there's a thing about tradition and the past as well. Like for me, i'm so interested in old buildings anyway, that's my route into all of this and I love looking at old stuff and digging around And we're doing research on Neolithic Orkney just now and my goodness it's so extraordinary what folk could do 3,000 years ago. So there's a lot to be learned from the old stuff and from the ancestors, and I'm not saying we should be slaves to it and, yes, we have different standards now, but that sort of responsiveness to land and to local diversity is hugely relevant now. So I think it's good to make that connection between heritage and sustainability.

Speaker 5: 38:19

The best bit of advice I've ever received is to live and work in line with your values. We started kind construction based on the three core values of positivity, sustainability and kindness, and as long as you stay true to yourself, build in a way that's true to you. I'm sure, with meeting the right people, doing your homework, you can carve your own way into the industry.

Speaker 6: 38:48

I've received so much amazing advice over the years. I had a brilliant placement as part of my apprenticeship with the guy there and he said he said to me building is easy. It's just a matter of repeating very, very similar hand movements. So the building work is easy, but what's really hard is your approach. And that really helped me to one gain confidence, because I was really focused on not being good enough at soaring something or cutting through a straight line And I was like, actually that's just a matter of practice, I can get that easily And what I want to focus on is how I approach the work, So having more confidence in putting time in advance to get the setup right So I can be doing these tasks, whether they're repetitive or not, in the most easeful and efficient way. So when he said that, that really helped me. The other amazing thing about this guy is that he cast a molten lead, a lion's head, for every project that he did And then he fixed that up with a copper nail inside, So kind of hidden inside any work that he did, so that it would be discovered potentially in the future, which I thought was really really brilliant.

Speaker 2: 40:25

One bit of advice was you're a line worker, now go get a van and write line plaster on the side. And I took that literally. But I think the guy was taking the mickey because I'd just done a course in, like a two day course in line pointing. I forget the guy's name, but he's quite a well known line worker in Derbyshire. I think he might be retired now and I wish I could remember his name. And I did a two day course and at the end of it he was like hey, you're a line worker, now go get a van and paint it on the side. And I think he was joking. Actually, i'm pretty sure he's joking, but I took him literally when I bought a van and said I was a line worker. So, yeah, maybe try that.

Speaker 1: 41:13

So I think the best bit of advice I ever received was from Yanto Evans, the cob builder, and he said the older he gets, the longer projects he's willing to take on. And I think at the time he was in his 60s and he said nowadays I think nothing of taking on a project where the payoff won't be for another 20 years, and that really stuck with me. I remember distinctly a conversation when I was in my early 20s with an older chap. I said to him that I really wanted to be a carpenter And this was when I was a graphic designer. Still, i said to him that I really wanted to be a carpenter but I felt like it was too late now. And he just laughed directly in my face and told me about how many times he'd changed his career and he'd picked up sort of carpentry work much later. And I was being held back by this idea that anyone who'd been a carpenter since they were 16 or 18 or 20 would be so far ahead of me that I would be. Yeah, it wasn't even worth me doing it, and I can't believe how wrong I was. I didn't really become a carpenter until maybe into my 30s, early 30s. Yeah, i wish I'd started sooner, Is that phrase isn't there? When's the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago, second best time Right now. Next question for the All-Star team is what is the industry lacking? And this section really was aimed to be for the people already in the industry who might have the opportunity to make it better.

Speaker 4: 43:11

There's always been a lack of jobs. Actually, i still struggle to train people because I literally don't have enough consistent work to get teams together. Maybe less so when I was doing more jobs, but yeah, we just we were always doing more Lyme than we were. Earth. Earth was a now and again kind of job, so to get a crew together for it was always quite tricky. And then, i suppose, adding to that, well, if there's not enough jobs, why not? and that's because it's not given the value or the prestige or things aren't costed right, are they? you know, earth buildings seem expensive, but if we cost in the the real costs of, you know, using crap, using horrible, toxic, carbon-heavy, non materials that create pollution and weight, you know, unhealthy waste, if we had the real cost of that to the environment, then earth and fibre and all those wonderful materials would do much better. So something about accounting and the cost of the future, and then I suppose that's an answer for the policymakers and the bureaucrats and to to create a more supportive, balanced, holistic industry. The other thing that occurs to me is that we need to be better at being multidisciplinary, especially in learning and education. Actually, you know, in all ways I think there's a thing about we tend to get stuck in boxes and specialties, and and there's a reason for that, because that means you can really push your knowledge and expertise down a track. But I just feel like so often we're lacking in the way we join the dots between different perspectives and different ways of working. And when we're teaching, i love it when I have a range of specialties in the room, so if there's an architect and a severe and an engineer and an artist and a writer and a scientist, then things get really exciting and people really learn from each other and the solutions, the big solutions, i think, come from this kind of integrated approach. But actually the thing that's really really lacking is on the way is how we put all this into practice. It's the people side, it's how people get along together. It's how you know the policymakers work together to allow things to happen. That the materials and methods to me are the easy bit. It's the the system that's a bit broken, that needs some serious work.

Speaker 5: 46:01

I think what's lacking from the industry at the moment is just readily available access to training courses. We need to now focus on teaching natural and sustainable building materials and methods really at apprentice level.

Speaker 6: 46:18

The construction industry is an absolutely fantastic industry to be in and I have met loads and loads of brilliant people here, especially in the sustainable construction industry, and what I haven't I think what I feel as though has been lacking in my journey as I was going along was has been mentorship. There are, i think there's an organization called Built By Us who run a mentorship program now, which is absolutely fantastic, and I think we need more, so much more, of that, partly again going back to the fact that it is really hard to to get by sometimes because of the culture, and a culture that doesn't allow us to ask for help and share how we're feeling about things and to work for our values rather than for the money, because the profit margins are so incredibly tight that it's hard to put the values first sometimes, and I think having a support from a mentorship to come back constantly, come back to what are your values and how is it actually possible to deliver them within the industry and to have that kind of support would make an incredible difference, and I've often thought about how much I would love to build that now for myself more peer mentoring, which I haven't tried or given to myself, but to have peer mentoring, or mentoring as someone who's further along in the industry could be, yeah, really, really helpful. so we're not always reinventing the same thing that other people have done and we can share yeah, share our successes and our failures together, so much more.

Speaker 7: 48:23

What is lacking in industry is resources and funding for the trainers and trainees. I'm inspired by this industry. I'm inspired by natural builders building with their hearts, building holistically and building as a community.

Speaker 2: 48:40

What's lacking in the industry to create more or better new builders? I'm not really sure, but maybe respect for the craftsmen or like acknowledgement that that it's a genuine and fulfilling career, not just something you do. If you're not academic, you know when, when you're younger, you're always. You know people say go to university, do this, do that, do the other. But no, we really encourage you to be a builder or to work with natural materials. So much so, yeah, maybe a bit more acknowledgement for the craft. I don't know, maybe I don't know if natural building could be in the, you know, the master craftsman guild or whatever it's called, but it's certainly something. When I did building surveying, i didn't really think of it as a career, you know, looking at buildings and stuff and when I read the course outline I was like, oh wow, that sounds really interesting and I certainly never thought, ever thought, i'd be a builder, plasterer, anything like that when I was younger, because it wasn't really an option that was given to you.

Speaker 1: 49:49

That's brilliant. Final question, then, is just if there are any more pertinent thoughts on this topic.

Speaker 4: 49:59

Oh yeah, one last thing I wanted to say was this thing about heritage and history and sustainability and how it's. to me it's the same narrative, because there's so much to learn from the past, so many ways of doing things that make sense. Yes, we have to adapt to our modern standards and comfort and you know and I'm not saying we all go back to the Neolithic, but actually working I'm literally working on Neolithic Orkney just now and the incredible, responsive, diverse way of working with local materials in those sites is just fantastic and there is a lot of lessons we can learn from that.

Speaker 5: 50:41

My advice to kind of conventional builders who are wanting to make the swap. It's really again just looking into training courses, being bold and brave with your clients, just reaching out to different merchants, finding out some information, just trying to introduce natural materials slowly. Don't try and do it all at once. Perhaps just see if you can do some insulation swaps, then plaster swaps and once you've started working with natural materials, you'll be hooked.

Speaker 2: 51:16

I guess don't be scared to get things wrong. So many people don't want to have a go at stuff because they're scared of getting it wrong. but actually you learn so much when you get something wrong, as long as you put it right, don't be scared to get it wrong, but also don't be scared to then put it right. But yeah, you learn a lot and don't be scared to ask questions and look like you admit that you don't know everything, because nobody knows everything. Also, maybe go on a normal building site, like a Wimpy's home building site or something, and you'll see the kind of work that goes on there. and when I first worked on a big site like that, i was like oh, maybe I am a builder because I'm a lot better than these guys, so that's something that boosts your confidence.

Speaker 1: 52:06

We have got one final segment for you and this is a little recording I made with Jules from Kind. You've heard from him already. We got the chance to sit down briefly on a job and just chat through a little bit more. I think it's got some great advice for anyone wanting to get into the industry.

Speaker 5: 52:27

So a few of the kind crew have come from different backgrounds. We've got a potter who Tom the pot, who was very obviously used to working with clay and natural materials. Other people come from more traditional building backgrounds and have found us either through word of mouth or seeing our work on Instagram. We've been fortunate enough over the last year or so where we've been in a position where people come directly to us asking for jobs. We've not had to advertise a great deal. The key thing for us is the kind crew having our values. So everywhere we go we're very lucky and we get the compliments that either clients or other trade partners that may come to the job always say what a lovely bunch that we have working for us. I do remember being on a project and one of the plasterers that came in he actually helped us with the clay plaster. He walked in and just said what an amazing group of smiley, happy builders. I think that's a really important thing for us everyone being kind, being positive and then obviously being sustainable. And a lot of our crew have come in because they've got an interest or a background in sustainability and then obviously got some building knowledge and some past experience and then we've helped refine that and helped find their role within the company.

Speaker 1: 54:05

Do they just send you an email? Yeah, generally email inquiries at kind construction Just open the door to a load of emails now.

Speaker 5: 54:15

Yeah, we've had a few recently. We've had a few like really exciting females that have got in touch as well that come from different backgrounds, two of which have both come from stage and theatre and are carpenters and are looking to get more into site carpentry and been recommended our company. Also one volunteer from the wood store in Brighton. She's been passed on our way. So it's trying to find a right mix of people with great experience, like previous experience within building, because most skills are transferable. We're not doing anything completely radical. We just use natural insulations rather than synthetic ones and carpentry based works generally the same. And then the plasterers that have come on with us. We had a previous plasterer who very much came from a conventional world. I used to work with him at previous company only ever really used gypsum and he came in and it picked up the skills quite quickly because he already had that real good basic trowel knowledge. He started working with Lyme and Clay did a bit of homework. We got some other people in. We got Will Stanwyx in on a project where Will actually made all the Clay, delivered it down to us and then spent the day kind of giving one of our guys a bit of an induction, then just handed over the rest of the job, which was really helpful and much like. We're done with you in the air floor, jeffrey, don't worry, we'll get you back for the next one so it's sort of like the right mentality is almost more important than yeah, having.

Speaker 1: 55:59

The experience of the natural materials yeah.

Speaker 5: 56:03

So as long as you've got the right mentality, the right work ethic and EFOS wasn't that the Greek god of EFOS? I live in line with our values and EFOS. Yeah, having the right mentality then, having the passion to want to kind of do the right thing or build the kind way we like to say if, like if you were starting your journey into sustainable building again yes what would you tell yourself?

Speaker 1: 56:44

I get a haircut you blowed up go get a job in Tesco?

Speaker 5: 56:52

no, definitely don't get a job in Tesco guys. I don't like Tesco guys. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that on the podcast what I would say is slow down and don't try and do too much too early. Just try and specialise in a few, a few skills and really get to grips with those, rather than trying to learn everything all at once. I get quite excited about the prospect of lots of different materials and techniques and may have jumped across a few quite quickly rather than really specialising in one for a shorter period of time, maybe a bit more like the old-fashioned journeyman style. Really know that part of the trade, then kind of moving on and really understanding the next part. What else would I tell myself? it's a good question podcasting is my job. I find the good questions. You do find good questions. Slowing down, taking the time to learn as I go and not being afraid to ask questions that's a big thing. I think originally you're, and especially when you start up a company, you're expected to know everything almost, or I put the pressure on myself to know that, whereas the further I've gone on the journey realised I don't know everything and we've created a good network of people that I can call on to ask the right questions. Yeah, that's good advice. Listen, listen to other people. Don't let your ego get in the way.

Speaker 1: 58:49

I think the ego is definitely like. I always had a thing like just be humble. There are so many different possibilities, permeate, permutations and combinations of materials and situations that you can't know everything and if you put ego up front, you just go yeah, you do it like this, then you fail, yeah but there are. I'm just repeating what you just said. There are people out there. People email me loads saying you know what? what should I do here? earth floors how many meters can I lay in a day? yeah, is it stupid to try and lay a hundred square meters in a day?

Speaker 5: 59:33

yeah, let's do it. Let's do it now. Yeah, here goes a big one. Um, yeah, just, yeah, just slow it down, take some advice, listen to other people as well. Yeah, just don't be afraid to ask questions. And what I found, especially in the natural building world, there is a a lot of people are really willing to help, i think, because I think, like we're all kind of on this journey together. It's quite new to a lot of us and even though a lot of the techniques are quite old, i kind of think this quite often we we knew how to build really well for thousands of years hit the industrial revolution and just forgot everything that we'd learned, went backwards massively. So now we're all in it together, just rediscovering lots of knowledge. So, yeah, ask questions, ask Jeffrey.

Speaker 1: 1:00:34

I was someone less busy. I suppose part of that, then, is networking and I hate that term it makes me really angry. I know Alex Gibbons, who's friend of the podcast he said of networking. He says like when did making friends get called networking?

Speaker 5: 1:00:54

yeah, very true and it is.

Speaker 1: 1:00:57

It's horrific and the very. If someone said this is a great networking event, i would just not go because I'm so socially awkward, but it is one of the best things for finding those people to ask questions is just be at events. Go to clay fest. Go to future build. Talk to a, can you know? go to the building limes forum. Listen to people talk, even if you just note down everyone that presents something yeah and then you'd send them an email.

Speaker 5: 1:01:35

Yeah, it really yeah, it is networking's the. Yeah, i haven't put it like that. Networking, it's professional term for making friends and learning stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:01:48

We can coin a new term yeah, what did you do when you're a kid? you just like do you want to play in the sample with me?

Speaker 5: 1:01:54

yeah, it's basically what we do now. Yeah, do you want to go and just find some clay with? me yeah, i said earlier on, i think in the other record, about lots of good resources. A can group got fantastic videos online. Yeah, suppliers websites are a wealth of information as well and can always email Sam at Kynesupply.

Speaker 1: 1:02:29

Sorry, sam yeah, i mean obviously listen to this podcast yeah, jeffery's podcast, your podcast.

Speaker 5: 1:02:38

I've got loads from it's. It's probably is, like the, the one source of like natural and sustainable building knowledge. It's there's got so many good guests and loads of really good in-depth conversations where you've taken time to kind of peel back the skin and have a chat and just open up different avenues and you put all the links and resources on as well. So, yeah, your podcast is the one. Just listen to Jeffery's podcast and then you can get a job in natural building well. I did all right.

Speaker 1: 1:03:25

Thank you so much to everyone for their excellent contributions. Maybe you've listened to this episode and you've got some thoughts on how people could get into the industry. Maybe you want to share your experience, so head on over to the building sustainability community that's Facebook group. I'll post up this episode and I'd love for people to to pile on their thoughts, make it a really useful resource. And, and speaking of resources, i am gonna just chuck in loads of links in the show notes from this episode. Yeah, dig in. And again, if you've got resources to add, please send them to me and I will pop them in. What else to say? oh, yes, so if you are looking particularly to get into earth building, then I recommend checking out episode 33 and 34, which features four different earth building trainees perspectives on their route into earth building. What's left to say? if you've enjoyed this episode, please do share. Tell everyone which of the last hundred episodes you've enjoyed the most and why. That would be great. I really hope that you have enjoyed this, the first hundred episodes of the building sustainability podcast. I hope there's gonna be a hundred more. I look forward to going on a journey of exploration and intrigue as we explore this stuff together. I'm pretty tired right now. That's it, i've got a bed. Thank you everybody. I hope that you have got as much out of this podcast as I have. I look forward to coming back with more wonderful people doing excellent things, and you are a wonderful person doing excellent things. Until next time, bye, bye.