3-23-23-Boxcar-Universe-Podcast_Climate Tech Review_

The transcription is about Steve Dubelle's show, "Boxcar Universe," which focuses on container home living and sustainable lifestyle. Steve interviews Joe Steggs, owner of Mythic Sound Lighting and Shade, and Alma Jessup, owner of Climate Tech Building Systems. Alma talks about her company's mission to offer advanced technology for building thermal mass structures using plastics and foam. The systems are versatile and can be used for various types of buildings. Alma explains that thermal mass is the ability to slow down the transfer of heat and cold in a structure, and their systems achieve high sound transmission class ratings. She also discusses the challenges faced by the building industry and how Climate Tech offers a solution. The company's systems are patent pending and ready to be rolled out once the plastics are tested. Alma emphasizes that their systems are user-friendly and do not require major changes in the construction process. The website of Climate Tech provides videos d Since the dawn of time, mankind has searched for ways to shelter themselves from the elements. Over the centuries, these shelters have evolved from bamboo huts to concrete towers. The last few years, there's been a push to save the planet. Are you ready to embark on a more sustainable lifestyle? Look no further. You're about to enter the Adventures of Container Home Living, and now, contractor, radio and TV personality, and your host for Boxcar Universe, Steve Dubelle. Hi, I'm Steve Dubelle, host of Boxcar Universe, along with my co-host, Mel Alva, and here's what's coming up on this week's edition of Boxcar Universe. We're talking with Joe Steggs, owner of Mythic Sound Lighting and Shade. The theme is going to be talking about a lot of high-tech electronics. That's the name of the game when it comes to your cave, cabin, container home, or castle. Also joining us is Alma Jessup, the owner of Climate Tech Building Systems, and you can control your climate. What are you going to choose when you build your house next? Alma has your answer. That and more on this week's edition of Boxcar Universe, your home for container, sustainable lifestyle living. All right, we are back, and you're locked into Boxcar Universe right here from the palatious Boxcar Universe studios here, and I want to thank Joe Steggs for being our guest and our brand-new great sponsor here with Mythic Sound Lighting and Shade. We're going to be hearing a lot more from him in the near future, and you're going to see some great information coming your way. But right now, we want to talk to our next guest, Alma Jessup, owner of Climate Tech Building Systems, and I love to take control of your home's climate. We had met at the Builder Show back in Vegas back at the end of January, and we've been talking about it, and Alma has had time for it to be on her show today, so we want to thank you for taking some of your time away from your busy schedule, because I know you've been working feverishly on some of those spec sheets and everything else that we talked about, so tell us a little bit about your company and your mission statement. So basically, our company, we design plastics and foam to be able to use the two in conjunction with contractors' current concrete-forming equipment to let those contractors be able to build thermal mass structures. And we have a couple different unique ways of doing it. We have some systems to generate thermal mass on concrete walls, and we have some systems for generating the thermal mass on concrete floors. And so, it's a very unique, innovative approach to what's been going on out in the building industry. So that's pretty much the mission statement, is just to be able to offer that, to offer the clients, the architects, engineers, builders, some advanced technology to create these types of structures that they haven't had access to before. All right, so tell us a little bit about who are your clients. So our clients would be anyone who is actually going to build a building. Now, that would mean a commercial building, a multifamily building, a residential custom home, or a tilt-up building. Buildings of all types is what we're actually looking for. So ours isn't necessary. Our systems aren't specific to an exact product type, like multifamily or just residential. I know there's a lot of products that segment themselves, and they're really kind of designed for specific things. Ours are very, very broad and very wide range of the possibilities of designs that the people can build. So basically, that's what it is. Okay. What about, for instance, the term building thermal mass? Is that a technological term for the particular type of buildings that you build? Yeah. So thermal mass is basically what's the – it's what happens when you build with a particular type of material that can slow down the transfer of heat and cold from within and from inside and outside of a structure. And so there's a lot of different products on the market that obviously do that. Ours, the one that we've got is we're using concrete and rigid foam, expanded polystyrene insulation to generate that system to be able to create the wall or the floor, which will ultimately result in thermal mass. And these also are systems – when someone's going to build out of a climate tech building system, they're going to end up with one of the highest sound transmission class ratings of any building. That's like the holy grail of what contractors are after. Everyone is after the better sound transmission class or they're after thermal mass insulation, reducing their HVAC sizes. And we're able to accomplish all those things with our designs. How did you create the company? Because I remember you telling me a little bit about you had seen that there was a definite need for it in your field before you started your business. Yeah, absolutely. So there's – I guess if you're – that would be probably more like the industry facts. The building industry is rapidly changing and contractors, developers, builders, everyone, they're all looking for something more energy efficient. And for years, those contractors and architects and engineers, they've looked to the ITF industry or Insulated Concrete Form Industry to give them that option to build those buildings of that type. But the problem is there's a lot of challenges that engineers and builders particularly face when approaching the design and building using today's current ICF block systems and floor systems. And so because I'm a general contractor with a very big background, I've got an extensive background in framing, concrete, general contracting, and all those types of things. And design. I've designed some other equipment as well. I just saw a need for it. I'm like, you know what? There's got to be a better way. So the wall system, creating and designing the Climate Tech wall system, that was – I've been working on that one for about 20 years. But the floor system, that one only took me about four years to get it done. But we've got them now and they're all patent pending. They're ready to go. And we're just in the final phases of testing our plastics. And once our plastics are tested so that we know some specifics about them and assuring and the strength that they're going to hold when they break and things like that, just engineering specifications that our clients are going to need. Then we'll be able to actually roll them out and be able to sell them to the clients. And we've got a lot of people. We come back from the show. Builders of all types were really just blown away at what we created because they've seen a lot of systems out there but their problem was every other system in the market didn't fix their problems. And one of the biggest challenges was in the floor systems, particularly most of the insulated concrete floor systems out there on the market like VanDeck or LightDeck or QuadLock or I could name off a whole bunch of really, really big companies that have been around for a long time. Well, as far as I'm concerned, from a general contractor standpoint, those companies missed the boat and they just made it too difficult for the average contractor or the majority of contractors, like take a national builder like Shea Homes or something like that. They would never be able to implement their systems because they're too difficult. They don't actually work with today's current heating and air conditioning equipment. And so a big company, national builder like a Shea or a Dell Pulte or whatever, they would not take that and just run with that because of two reasons. One, it's not a complete system. It doesn't work with their current labor force. And they have to have specialty equipment, specialty hangers and brackets and all these other things. And especially a labor force is designed and actually knows how to put that stuff together. The labor force doesn't exist. Well, with Climate Tech, our labor force already exists. We're not asking the entire country to retool or do anything else other than just continue business as usual. The only difference is, is they're swapping out the particular types of things they're doing with Climate Tech. And so you go from ICF blocks, instead of using those to form the walls, you have a foundation contractor brings out his, like down in Phoenix, for instance, the wall company. I've met with those guys before, but I was trying to sell them their easy produce form system years and years ago when I lived in the valley. Huge company. That company could easily take their aluminum forming equipment and start building above ground concrete homes or buildings of any type using our Climate Tech system because of the way we designed it. Is most of your clients, is it residential work or commercial or is it good balance of both? It's going to be, it'll be for both of them. It doesn't matter. So if you get onto our website, I've actually, I did a couple of demonstrations, videos that are on the website. They're right on the homepage. Anyone can just go to climatebuilt.com, click on the homepage and there's a couple of videos in there. One is a 3D video that basically shows how the tie systems work for the walls and how the concrete forms get pulled in and off. That's kind of a quick little unique video that helps them understand. And then I personally demonstrated both systems, the floor systems and the wall systems and uploaded those videos and they're on YouTube, but there's a link on my website. So those videos can help people really grasp the concept of what it is that we're doing. Yeah. And I think it is definitely going to definitely help energy efficiency in the building itself because there is, it's designed to, and I think it has to be an individual looking to do something, whether it be commercial or residential, has to put something, a plan together. And once they decide on using your system, all the other pieces of the puzzle, like you had said, are a little bit different than your average track home builder. And those are things and systems that need to be put into place because obviously there's going to be a difference in cost between your system and a regular track home system. So it's something to take into account. Yeah. It's never something to consider. We're anticipating the final cost to come in less than what the current ICF market is and a little between that cost and between conventional lumber. And the only reason why I say that is obviously we're a brand new company. We don't have hundreds of millions of feet that are being produced every day. So our purchasing power isn't what it is going to be. And it will be, the costs are going to do nothing but go down for us in the future and for the clients. So that's actually a good thing. We're also hoping that as the market continues, we will see some relief in some of the concrete and foam manufacturing costs due to the supply chain being kicked back up. Because I don't think you guys are obviously aware of the supply chain issues that the building industry has had in the past few years. So anyway, that's kind of where we think we're going to end up being at. Yeah. I think everybody's suffering from a little bit of supply chain, you know, horror, you want to call it? Grief or whatever, you know, because yeah, it's causing havoc in a lot of different professions. But you know, all we could do is just try and work through it. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we're going to take a short break. When we come back, we're going to have more information from Alma regarding his company and Climate Tech Building Systems. So I want everybody to stay tuned. Don't go away. You're listening to Boxcar Universe. All right, we are back. And you are listening to Boxcar Universe here. And we are talking about climate-built homes. And we are here with Alma Jessup, who is the owner, and talking about some of the benefits of his building system. And you know, Alma, I, you know, during the course of our conversation, I just, I don't know how I thought this thought, but you spurred an old memory. I remember in my other life, when I was growing up back in New York, back in the, when I was in high school, I'm going to date myself here, but back in the mid to late 60s, I remember my dad, who was part of a company that was adjacent to the company that he had worked for for as long as I was on this planet, actually started creating concrete walls and things. And they were all prefab. They were all done in the factory. And they were all flat walls, and they were loaded on a trailer. And I remember him going up the Major Deacon Expressway, stopping at every bridge to make sure that there was enough height to clear it, because obviously, some of those things, you know, 13.6 is the given height throughout the country. And they used to take these, and they craned them in place. And I think that must have been the start of people thinking about putting these types of structures up. And you see some of that today. I don't think, I mean, I was just downtown Phoenix before, and you see some of the structures that are going up. That system is still in place. But, you know, when you see the advantages of the system that you created, I think, you know, thinking about the utilities that go in the walls, in the floor, you know, from electric to plumbing, you know, to HVAC. I mean, your system has a unique capacity, the way you designed it, to be able to be very, shall we say, utility-friendly? Very, very mechanical contractor-friendly, that's for sure. And, you know, what you're talking about is basically was the beginning of what I would call the tilt-up industry today. The concrete, they're precast concrete walls, and there's a lot of companies that do, they still do them. There are a lot of companies that make those. They'll cast them in the factory, bring them out, set them up, they'll make basements out of them. Some of them are complete structures or whatever. But tilt-up for the commercial industry is one of the, like, it is the go-to type of construction. I spent a lot of time when I lived in Phoenix out there on projects of tilt-up construction projects. So I learned a lot about tilt-up. And today, Climate Tech Building Systems, we actually have a replacement, insulated concrete roof replacement for those tilt-up roofs. And those tilt-up buildings roofs are currently manufactured using metal trusses. And then they'll put trusses on it, and then they'll pour concrete on top of that. And then they'll build the roofs. But the challenge that they've got is they're not very well insulated. And so what you've got is these great big tall commercial buildings that people have that have very, very low insulation ratings on them. And so that's one of the things that we were tasked with as soon as we got back from the world of concrete. One of the local builders here, a big builder, Hughes General Contracting is who it is. They came to me and said, hey, look, we love your stuff. But what we want is we want a three-inch lightweight concrete roof that can span a 50-foot bay. Can you come up with that? So we did it. We designed it. We built it. I actually emailed you a copy of it. So you've got a copy of the cross-section of the engineering of that system that we'll be demonstrating and bringing back to them in about two weeks. So basically, our concept was to be able to take what's currently going on and instead of having to redesign everything, the builders can literally swap the engineering portion of their building out for the roof systems that they're currently using and use our patent pending climate deck system in order to create a structurally sound concrete roof that's insulated. But they're extremely excited about this. I had a guy, one of the customers or potential clients in Canada, he said to me at the show, he said, hey, if you can get this thing to span 45 feet, I have 10 million square feet of room for you. So that's the type of clientele that we're looking at working with. Well, that was surely an incentive. Absolutely. I'm just curious, Mel, you live in a high-rise downtown in Phoenix. I wonder how they created that building. Do you know how old that building is? I do. And actually, Al Beatle designed that building when it was finished in 1963, I believe. Really? So yeah, and a lot of different high-rise, different structures going up in a lot of different ways. And I think the visions, I mean, the one thing that we hear in Phoenix, and I don't know, how long have you been out of Phoenix? So I wasn't born and raised in Phoenix. I actually moved to Phoenix in 2005, just before, a couple of years before the crash in 2008. I actually moved there. One of the things that I was working on was I was designing and developing a new system for post-tension slabs. Because right now, and it was based off of the work that I'd done in my previous company that I founded, which was Concrete Form Services. And if you look on my website, I have a link to Concrete Form Services, where you can see the easy footing storm system. That's a phenomenal system. It just literally, it cuts labor by 50%, which is amazing. So that was one of the reasons I moved to Phoenix, because I was really into trying to add post-tension slabs to the line of products that Concrete Form Services had to offer. I haven't built it yet, but it's coming. Well, you know, the post-tension slabs are so important, especially in different areas around the valley, which I'm sure you know that have a lot of expansive soil. And one of the areas that they wish they would have done something on that was up in Anthem, because up in Anthem, which is north of Phoenix for our listeners who aren't familiar with the area, they just threw that development up in that more or less, we'll call it a sub-town of Phoenix. And they just threw the buildings up too fast. And then within a few years later, they just started having all kinds of products. So having the right engineering to be able to handle, and obviously a lot of people, if they're thinking of doing any kind of building, and you have a piece of property, that's why the city sometimes requires you to get a soils test, because we need to know what's there to make sure what you're going to put on top of it is going to be safe, and it's not going to start showing signs of cracking and sinking. And that could get really ugly and expensive. Yeah, that's interesting. Anthem was actually fairly new. When I moved down to the valley in 2005, Anthem was just, it was cranking. It was going crazy. But I didn't realize that they didn't build. Now, are all of the homes up in Anthem not built on postage slabs or just some of them? I don't believe that they all are, because they know my home inspector, my guy Dan, who actually had gone up and done quite a bit of inspections when these defects started showing up and trying to go back and fix them. Obviously, you need, we have some key contacts for some foundation restoration people here in the valley that actually, a good friend of mine who was a sponsor on my show years ago, actually, they actually fix concrete slabs for your home. They actually fix the slabs that are on airport runways, where they drill holes into the concrete and they inject this special foam underneath that expands. And when it gets to a certain point, it hardens really fast. And they could fix a sinking piece of concrete on an airport runway in a half hour, and they'll be able to fly in and out of it again. So this stuff is, again, having the right design, having all the right type of prep work, so to speak, to be able to research, to make sure that when you start building something, because if you're a homeowner and you're going to build a particular system, whatever type of home you're going to do, but with your particular system, to be able to go making sure that all these ducks in a row, so to speak, have been checked, double checked to make sure that when you build it, I mean, this is a major investment for many of us here in the country. So you want to make sure you spend your money wisely. And I'm sure your clients that come to you obviously say, well, I'd like to use your system, but I have this much budget. What could you do for me? Yeah, a lot of the projects that I'm currently involved in, that we're actually looking at are commercial projects and some really high-end custom homes. Some of the homes that we build are in the Park City, mountain areas, or ski and ski out communities. So they have bowling alleys in the basements and stuff like that. So they're like 24,000 square homes. It's a commercial project. But these people are very, very interested in getting a concrete floor, because a concrete floor is just, I mean, just the sound and with the insulation and the sound between levels, reducing that sound is just so important. And just one of those things that everybody's after. But you're right, back to the engineering part. Yeah, our systems are really cool because they're designed to just basically handle what the engineer for the builder in any location in the country, they're just going to grab their local engineer and they're going to say, hey, this is what I want to do. The engineer is going to run the calculations, look at it and go, oh yeah, climate tech will fit in just fine. And so that's the first check mark that's going to be off their list. Like you said, who are the people who are buying these? Well, these are people who want a better building, whether they're an investment group that's designed and building multifamily six-story units with double-story parking garages, or if you're building a 50,000 square foot tilt building, or if you're building a custom home, doesn't matter what, at the end of the day, you still have to have an engineer that stamps off on what you're going to build. Otherwise, you're not building anything. So that's number one. The engineer needs to stamp it, which they will, because our numbers work. Number two, the next thing is they're going to need a trade contract to actually execute the work. And that's another great part about our system. The trade contractors to execute our systems are all over the country. They're everywhere. So we're not going out and finding a specialty contractor. We're just converting an existing contractor into our subcontractor, which is really, really cool. So whether it be the foundation company, or whether it be the flooring company that's going to use the shoring equipment that's out there. I'm sure if you guys are downtown Phoenix a lot, you see big commercial buildings going up. You'll see a lot of temporary shoring that's going on between the levels. And all that equipment already exists, too. So that's something that's really one of the things that I'm actually really proud of, is that I was able to design a system that's so unique and offers so much, but has such a little negative, like almost zero retooling impact on the industry that's just amazing. You know, I think that's very key. That's very key. Alma, tell our listeners a little bit how they can contact you. They can get on my website. Go to climatebuilt.com, and they can just click on the contact us page, send us an email, or my phone number's on there. 801-910-6365. And yeah, just get in touch with me. I'd be more than happy to talk with them, look at their plans of their future projects, and at least I can start giving them some idea of what it would take to actually convert their, either what they were going to currently build as a ICF construction project or a stick frame or regular wood frame construction project. I can help them figure out how that they can actually convert that into a climate tech project, and then they're building with a lot of, with their very high ST-7 transmission class ratings, and probably saving some money for reducing their HVAC sizing. And overall, they'll actually end up with a much better building that can actually generate thermal mass. And they'll also have a lot of options, too, because of the way we designed it. We didn't design our system so you can only have three inches of insulation on one side or two inches or whatever, or even a rigid or a blown in, like a spray foam insulation. Our system's designed so it's extremely flexible for the architects and engineers and the designers and owners who want to build these buildings a tremendous amount of flexibility. So, and they'll be able to figure all that out once they get on our website. But I'd be more than happy to answer anybody's calls or talk to them, or they can send me an email. My email is just alma at climate tech built dot com, and that email is on our website as well. That's great. And Mel and I know several different architects that actually, I think your information we're going to share with them, too, because it gives them another tool in the toolbox to be able to offer to clients and be able to take a look and see what you're doing and see how it could work in to some of their customers. So, we will make sure we share that with them. And we want to thank you for taking time to be on the show today. You bet. Hey, thank you very much. It was really nice meeting both of you. I look forward to actually meeting you in person. All right. Sounds good. Well, we'll see what we can do about making that happen. All right. Sounds great. Well, you guys let me know if you need anything. Thanks and have a great day. All right. Thank you. That's Alma Jessup from Climate Built. And we want to thank him for his great company and being on the show today.