Unbuilders: Canada's Leading Deconstruction Company | EP86

In this episode, James and Christian are joined by Adam Corneil, Founder & CEO of Unbuilders, Canada's foremost deconstruction company.

Adam shares his journey in the construction industry and the inspiration behind starting his own business. They discuss the distinction between demolition and deconstruction, highlighting Unbuilders' unique approach to salvaging materials. The value of reclaimed wood, the practical side of unbuilding, and the impact on the industry are explored. They delve into the future of construction, focusing on innovation, prefabrication, and the importance of sustainable practices. Adam also shares insights on the value of deconstruction, the output side of the business, and the goal of being a catalyst for change in the industry. The conversation touches on the significance of being environmentally conscious, Adam's take on plastic straws and his experience on Dragon's Den (Spoiler, they made a deal!). Overall, the episode offers a comprehensive look into the world of deconstruction and its potential for transforming the construction industry.

Adam Corneil is a builder and entrepreneur with an extensive background in Passive House construction, deconstruction and reclaimed wood use and is the Founder & CEO of Unbuilders and Heritage Lumber. While building homes, Adam saw a need for major changes in the demolition industry and thus began his journey to start Unbuilders. Passionate about his family, mountain sports, and protecting our environment, he is committed to providing a more conscious and efficient future for the next generations to enjoy.

Unbuilders is Canada’s foremost deconstruction company. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, they unbuild homes by hand and salvage almost everything, including irreplaceable old-growth lumber, windows, doors, cabinets, fixtures and appliances. Unbuilders maximize the material salvage to minimize the cost, hassle and environmental footprint. The salvaged goods are then donated to charity generating a tax receipt for the building owner and reducing our cost below traditional demolition. Their preferred charity, Habitat for Humanity, uses proceeds from material sales to build affordable housing. Thus, hiring Unbuilders satisfies the triple bottom line - planet, people, and profit. They are proud to hold the City of Vancouver’s highest recorded salvage and recycle rate at 99.2% of a single-family home.


EPISODE LINKS:
Adam Corneil LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-corneil-20799989/
Unbuilders Website: https://unbuilders.com/
Unbuilders LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/unbuilders
Unbuidlers Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unbuildersdeconstruction/?hl=en

PODCAST INFO:
the Site Visit Website: https://www.sitemaxsystems.com/podcast
the Site Visit on Buzzsprout: https://thesitevisit.buzzsprout.com/269424
the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
the Site Visit on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cp4qJE5ExZmO3EwldN1HH

FOLLOW ALONG:
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Transcript

Christian Hamm: 0:00

All right, James. We are here in a new studio. As promised, as we discussed with everyone in our latest podcast, we are here.

James Faulkner: 0:10

Yeah. It seems as though we've been saying that for weeks. Well, finally we got video. I mean, it's been an interesting, like to be able to with all the stops and starts and trying to figure it out ourselves. And we've kind of gone really deep here. If I look forward and all the equipment and Dave, producer, I mean, lights everywhere and we got a dedicated place. It's like, oh my god. Okay, there's a lot going on.

Christian Hamm: 0:36

It does feel pretty legitimate. We're going to see in the next couple of weeks here, that particular episode that we just recorded our first with Adam Corneil from Unbuilders and Heritage Lumber. Fantastic episode. Yeah. But you're gonna see clips on social you're gonna see YouTube and just full video as promised, and we just looked at some of it looks awesome.

James Faulkner: 0:57

It does look awesome. The deco behind us looks deadly.

Christian Hamm: 0:59

The decal looks great. Our sign guy was here right till the beginning of recording our sign guy.

James Faulkner: 1:05

Me, Us. Us. I've got a little story here. And this is just before we get started. This one's really good. Yeah. So the sign was, oh, I have to have a shout out to vinyl labs. I said it would. Yep. Vinyl labs. Thank you for rushing and getting this for us. David Fisher, from vinyl labs. Thank you, David. Appreciate it. Dave. David, not sure.

Christian Hamm: 1:30

Dave Fisher

James Faulkner: 1:31

He's good. Okay, so what happened was, it came in like a we had to put the decal up and it wasn't very easy to do. And we cut the shape part of it off with an exacto blade. And so we put the one piece up, and then I was trying to get the secondary piece. And then I was trying to use the level and stuff and it fit like a puzzle. And you're like, why don't you just put the puzzle piece back in like, Yeah, great. So yeah, you wanna you want that. And that was that was awesome.

Christian Hamm: 2:02

I don't often correct someone that has previous experience as a professional in that in that space. But that was kind of obvious.

James Faulkner: 2:11

You don't exactly get a certification for doing science. But so a professional I guess I did get paid for it. So that is considered professional anyway. Okay. Yeah, this was an awesome episode. And it was great to have Adam here for the debut.

Christian Hamm: 2:26

It absolutely was. I was just looking for something here one more time. Okay. We also need you for vinyl labs give a shout out to Nate Cara. Nate also coordinates a lot of stuff that we do for vinyl labs. So Dave Fisher and Nate Cara, big shout out. This is obviously just for those listening in the British Columbia Western Canadian base, but great fit for all your vinyl needs. Boom. But we are talking today, like you said, Unbuilders, unbuilding deconstruction, awesome episode. This thing was really thought provoking. And I think our audience is going to love it, too. Yes. All right. All right. Well, here it is our conversation with Adam Corneil founder and CEO of Unbuilders ana Heritage Lumber, enjoy.

James Faulkner: 3:07

Welcome to the site visit podcast, leadership and perspective from construction with your hosts, James Faulkner and Christian Hamm.

Jesse Unke: 3:19

Businesses as usual as it has been for so long now that it goes back to what we were talking about before and hitting the reset button and

Justin Bontkes: 3:25

you read all the books you read the email read scaling up you read Good to Great, you know, I could go on

Sebastian Jacob: 3:30

we got to a place where we found the secret serum we found secret potion we can get the workers in we know where to get them

Cam Roy: 3:37

one time I was on a jobsite for quite a while and actually got some extra concrete and we poured like a broom finished patio, up front of the site

John Reid: 3:45

a guys hit me up on LinkedIn out of the blue and said he was driving from Oklahoma to Dallas to meet with me because he heard the Faber Connect platform on your guys's podcast

Unknown: 3:55

on it, crush it and love it, we celebrate these values every single day.

James Faulkner: 4:03

Let's get down to it!

Christian Hamm: 4:10

where you are Adam corneal from Unbuilders as CEO and founder as well as Heritage Lumber. Thanks for joining us, man. Yeah, my

Adam Corneil: 4:17

pleasure. Happy to be here.

Christian Hamm: 4:19

This is This is crazy. I mean, we won't have this is not about us. This is about Adam but we are here in a new studio. For the first time we actually have video we've been telling our audience for the better part of since we re launched in November. We're gonna have video there's going to be video with nice little snippets. But this is legit. And this is going to be the first one and you're I want to say guinea pig because we have tested this. We're good to go

James Faulkner: 4:44

two minutes ago.

Adam Corneil: 4:46

The paint is still drying

Christian Hamm: 4:47

The paint is still drying

James Faulkner: 4:48

exactly yeah.

Christian Hamm: 4:49

But Adam, it's awesome to have you here. We've been chatting a little bit back and forth. I know the last couple years was a little crazy but and you've been very busy. But we got you in here and we get to unpack The unbuild your story, as well as your story in construction. Yeah. deconstruction, the construction construction. Yeah. Why don't you give us and our audience just a little Coles notes on who Adam is? And yeah, how you got your starting construction?

Adam Corneil: 5:14

Sure. Yeah. So I mean, I was always kind of obsessed with building architecture from a young age, you still like draw blueprints and stuff like that as a little kid. And it's kind of oddly attracted to that. So I was always drawn to construction, when I was in high school, and my teenage years flipped, flipped a house with my dad did a lot of renovations as a kid, with my, with my family. So I was always kind of involved in some degree. And when I went to university for something unrelated, as you do is in a Bachelor of Arts. And when it came out, I just knew I want to be back in construction. And I want to be pushing sustainability where I can so starting in the construction space as a GC, and then just my path led to shifting from a builder to an unknown builder, and, and then that's where I've been for the last five, six years really starting to build that, that side of the industry as we can and build those businesses.

James Faulkner: 6:10

So how did you make the decision for the leap? To start your own thing? Like, was it uh, was there some sort of moment where you're like, Okay, I gotta do this.

Adam Corneil: 6:19

I'd say it was like a succession of things that happened. But one thing that happened, I was, I'm a certified Passive House builder. So I was building high performance homes. But we were building these homes with products that I didn't agree with, they weren't, they weren't products that could be reused, they were something like spray foam, you can spray foam or Passive House and have the entire assembly not very healthy for you know, breathing in those those fumes and whatnot. Also, there's no reuse on the back end. So I realized I'm building high performance homes, which is great for sustainability in terms of the performance of the building, but it's not good in terms of how that building was built. So this is not lining up with what I want to do. So really, at that point, I decided, you know, my goal, my target in my career, from you know, now until the end of my career, whatever that may be, is I want to build the best buildings. And that's performance, that's healthy building materials that's designing for deconstruction. And using a lot of reclaimed materials in the build. So I thought this is sort of my, my target, this is where I want to go, how do I get there, and I broke it down into the stages to get there. And, and for me, it was, you know, we need healthier building products, we need to build those out of reclaimed wood primarily. In order to do that on a large scale, we need a lot of reclaimed wood in the market. That means we have to look at the demolition industry, and how can we influence this industry to turn from a demolition industry to a deconstruction industry. And that's really where on builders came from as a as a stage one in my career in our business growth, to not only build a great business in itself, but hopefully influence other contractors of the demolition owners to start shifting in this way, and also work with policymakers and industry to see how we can make this happened for you know, where the world currently sits that we need to be smarter with our resources.

James Faulkner: 8:04

The I'm always curious, is is the moment of the name. So when you're like, oh, what should we call this? And then you're like, Yeah, is that like,

Adam Corneil: 8:17

I wish it was like that? Cuz it was it was actually our second name or first name was terrible. I'm so glad we didn't go with it.

Christian Hamm: 8:24

Terrible?

Adam Corneil: 8:26

Terrible.

James Faulkner: 8:26

that's terrible, tear down plus, ya know,

Adam Corneil: 8:29

so we like I first we pulled like, some of our, our network and some of our following say, you know, hey, we're, here's four. Here's four names. We're looking at naming our deconstruction company, what do you think? And and builders was like, second, it was always coming second, it was second with us, too. And we had this other name we were about to roll through with branding. And myself at the time, I had a another business partner and my my executive coach, we were all sitting, having nachos and beer. And we just kept, I'd say, every five or 10 minutes, one of us would just be like on builders, and we would just kind of sit with it. And then we kept the conversation going. And after about an hour, at the end of the conversation, we're like, No, we're on builders.

James Faulkner: 9:09

That's it's cool. Yeah.

Adam Corneil: 9:11

So I guess it was an aha moment, but it was over a staggered timeline.

Christian Hamm: 9:15

Well, kind of in your intro, it really rolled off really nicely when you said from builder to unbuilder Yeah, right. And even in your explanation of healthy building products and everything like that. You talked a lot about the building up and now the deconstructing of it, right, right. So kind of what they said but you are not in terms of reconstruct you are not on the building side at all.

Adam Corneil: 9:36

No, we're we're building building products,

Christian Hamm: 9:39

building building products

Adam Corneil: 9:40

with heritage lumber, so we're making flooring, countertops, cladding, so we're making components for construction. And the next stage of that business is to have fastening systems so that those can go in and come back out. We're not there yet. So at first, it's just for right now it's the products built with reclaimed wood.

James Faulkner: 9:58

So you know, we sell flooring. thing that you can put down that came from buildings of Vancouver. So your your product has a story. That's amazing. So then we're gonna, yeah, the shorts. I saw this interview seeing these videos of that flooring that snaps in and the guy jumps on it puts the boards down this railing. System. Yeah, that's in the floor. Yeah, I think they install some kind of like, you know, like, scaffolding underneath or some kind of like track that goes on track and it snaps in. Yeah. And then they pull it up with the suction cups, like you would put a windshield into a car. Exactly. So cool. So can you, you know, incorporate that kind of structure underneath

Adam Corneil: 10:34

yourself to be able to have that. That's that's the plan. I know who you're talking about. I think there's a proprietary. Okay. But either Yeah, partnering with a system like that. is most likely what they

James Faulkner: 10:45

need materials. So yeah, can be like the signature line that you provide the stuff on the top. Exactly. See how cool that is?

Christian Hamm: 10:51

That is cool. You okay, so I think for our audience, it'd be good to to make a distinction between demolition and deconstruction, we can get into the heritage lumber story, which I think that's really neat. I didn't even know anything about how you're doing that with Brooklyn products. But if you can outline that, maybe

Adam Corneil: 11:07

Sure. Yeah. So I mean, deconstruction and on on builders, I mean, we we label it UNbuilding as its own its own thing. It's a complete paradigm shift. So demolition, you're coming. You're looking at an old building that how do I get this down, down and out as fast and cheap as possible? That's, that's the prerogative. We're looking at an old building, as you know, like a material bank, how do we get the most value out of that building, extract it, while doing it as fast and cheap as possible. But the number one goal is maximize the salvage, what we can't salvage we recycle what we can't recycle goes to waste. So it's drive, it's pulling out the value and minimizing the waste and then doing it as fast and cheap as we can. So it's so do you

James Faulkner: 11:50

get that contract altogether? Or do you ever dovetail with a demo company?

Adam Corneil: 11:55

No, we work with demo companies all the time. We don't have our own machinery. So as we scale into bigger projects, we're pretty much always partnering with a demolition company. So does

James Faulkner: 12:04

he does your bin show up and there bin shows up?

Adam Corneil: 12:08

Our flat deck trailer shows up okay, and we're loading lumber onto it. And we get a bin that shows up for waste, waste and recycling. Yeah. So

James Faulkner: 12:15

and you guys are pulling nails out at your at your your factory or your your warehouse or whatever? Are you trying to do that as much on site?

Adam Corneil: 12:22

No, we do it off site. So the first two years we were doing it all on site. And that was one way we look to save time for a contractor say listen, we're going to shift this whole process off site. Gotcha. Get off site as quick as we can get the builders building. Yeah, so we shifted it to now it's going to Maple Ridge, we've got a mill in Maple Ridge. So that's what we're doing all of that work.

James Faulkner: 12:42

Have you seen those people who use like old nails and all that kind of stuff. And then they they, they create like, and they put them all in epoxy and they make like tables or like they make ornaments and stuff. I have seen that. Yeah. So to all the nails do you like keep all of those? Yeah, we

Adam Corneil: 12:56

normally eventually turn them in for scrap metal. But yeah, it's kind of climbing the square nails. We keep around because those are from turn of the century. And yeah, they're pretty pretty wild hand forged nails. They're also really hard to pull out.

James Faulkner: 13:09

Yeah, because the tops pretty much come off because they're so thin on the top and then you're just left with

Adam Corneil: 13:12

no, the metal is really strong. So the top doesn't come off. It's just they're in there. They've been over 100 years like they're like grown into the woods.

Christian Hamm: 13:19

What do you do with them and just keepsakes? Yeah,

Adam Corneil: 13:22

we give them away or you give them if someone wants to buy them? Sure

Christian Hamm: 13:24

yo u find some real gems. Hey, when you're

Adam Corneil: 13:24

Yeah. Actually, not as not as much as you think taken apart, heritage buildings are older and a heritage you always put like older buildings. like we find odds and ends. We still haven't found like that briefcase of money hidden in the wall. But yeah, have they done that

Christian Hamm: 13:40

they shared a story about Yeah, actually gave it.

James Faulkner: 13:43

Yeah. To back to that. That lady right. Yeah. She had tears.

Adam Corneil: 13:48

Oh, yeah, I know those guys too. Yeah, I've heard of I've heard of some stories and like Gastown and some older parts of Vancouver have some some interesting things being found in demo. We haven't yet. But yeah, what would be

Christian Hamm: 13:58

the because you said as fast and as cheap as possible? Because Okay, so I did years of project management working for General Contractors, you know, margins can be razor thin, you're always looking fast and cheap sometimes. Yeah. Obviously, quality plays into it as well and safety and everything, of course. But what was deter anybody from going from demolition to because initially, you would think, Oh, man, if someone's gonna come and sort through this and take a little more time and kind of deal with it proper, or the way it needs to be? It's going to take a lot more time. It's gonna be a lot more money, but clearly you guys have found something.

Adam Corneil: 14:31

Yeah, yeah. So we've got a unique business model. On a residential, your typical residential project, we've got partnerships with a few charities, Habitat for Humanity, the reuse people. And so what we do is all the stuff we're going to salvage including the lumber, we have it appraised by a third party for donation, and the homeowner gets a tax receipt for everything that we salvage, so they actually get money back for everything we salvage, and that tax receipt plays into the overall financial picture which makes us competitive a demolition. So upfront deconstruction is more expensive, or has it takes more time. But then the tax receipt makes us either cost competitive, or a lot of time, we come out a little bit ahead. And so that's where the owners are, are hiring us. In a commercial level, it's a bit different because the tax receipt doesn't have the same value for corporation. So then we actually acquire the lumber. So we'll put together our deconstruction price, and then builders heritage lumber, we'll assess the lumber give a rough value of what could be extracted, if it's a full deconstruction, that would, you know, offset some of the costs. And that's how they then compare with traditional demolition.

James Faulkner: 15:35

Sweet. That's pretty cool. So on the corporate side. So there's obviously you have homeowner clients. And then do you have you've done a lot of old warehouses and stuff like that, like down at the docks and all that kind of stuff? We've done

Adam Corneil: 15:49

some of that work? Yeah, I would say that residential is has been our bread and butter, and a lot of our work, but we're, yeah, we're doing more and more commercial work every year. So yeah, we've done some some historic big buildings, you know, we finished a 30,000 square foot building in October in Victoria, that was built in 1908. So that's definitely an area where we really want to focus more like the downtown core, the old buildings that need, you know, heritage, facade, retention. And now I know city of Vancouver city, Victoria are looking at those ones saying, Hey, we're making you preserve the facade, we don't want you demolishing the rest of the building. Because that's actually historic material. We want you to salvage it. So now, we're trying to really positioned ourselves to work on those projects that that's where we come in. That's

James Faulkner: 16:34

awesome. Pull up mic a little just little bit closer to There you go. You're good, man. So is there a certain era from like Vancouver's history where you see the better quality stuff? Was there a change in the 70s when it kind of got crappier? Yeah

Adam Corneil: 16:55

there's there's a few different eras of of the wood and the way it was milled. And so the older the better. It's like wine. So pre 1920 is the best material. It's it's rough sawn, and all sides, old growth like super tight grain type of what are we talking like? It's pretty much all Douglas fir. Douglas Fir is on Pacific Northwest. Yeah, we see some cedar. primarily an exterior stuff, okay. So it's almost all for and, and then from, there was evolutions in milling technology, which coincided with the ends of the wars. So obviously, you know, troops came back money was being kept in the in the country. And the mill saw an evolution in their technology. So around 1920. The lumber went from rough on all four sides to being rough on two sides. And then it was a little smaller, so a two by four, which was two inch by four inch in 1919. In 1921, it was an inch and three quarters by three and three quarters. So that was another era of awesome, it's still old growth, it's still super tight grain, beautiful lumber, got a great color. But that was until about 1945 That that lumber, so we sort of classify the lumber by those eras. And then in 1945, to 1950, depending on the region in the mill, there was another step in the evolution. And that's where you started seeing smooth on all four sides, and a two by four went down to inch and a half by three and a half. And from 1945 1950 until about 1975 It was still usually old growth. So really nice grain tight lumber. Great to re manufacture with. And in boat in sometime in the 1970s. It transitioned to second third growth, the second growth at that time. So the lumber is it's more of an open grain. It's not as hard and as strong, still beautiful Douglas fir. But yeah, pre 1970s Is the cream of the crop and really pre 1920 is the premium stuff.

Christian Hamm: 18:48

So I've been construction on my whole life. And I didn't know a little bit of the history of lumber. I should have known that. It's cool.

James Faulkner: 18:55

It's pretty fascinating. Like you remember the the Yaletown office. Yeah, the beams?

Christian Hamm: 19:00

Yeah. And those were like big rough sawn

James Faulkner: 19:02

I snapped off, like drill bits. Oh, yes. Like it's like concrete, that stuff. So what what's the composition of that makes it so hard.

Adam Corneil: 19:11

So it's because it's been drying for so long. And because it's old growth, so it has really tight grain. So the, like, the way that wood develops over the years, it's got a hardness off grain based on the winter in the summer months. So the summer is when it sees the most growth, which is the softer grain. And so when it's really tight grain, that winter layer, they're they're closer together. So the wood is like concrete, it's really hard. And then it's been dry for 100 years in a place like Yaletown. And so it's almost like it starts to petrify Yes,

James Faulkner: 19:44

it literally is that hard. Yeah. Yeah. So

Adam Corneil: 19:46

we and we see that at our you know, with our mill and with our machinery that we've got Douglas fir which is the hardest softwood but it's milling like a maple or walnut trowel, heart it is.

James Faulkner: 19:58

So in in respect to value of that stuff. So I think the beams were what 15 inch square. I think about that. More than foot.

Christian Hamm: 20:10

They're like they're they're large might have been rectangle but they're large yet this small detail doesn't where they

James Faulkner: 20:18

rectangle I think there were square in the Delta and the one who else on office were big.

Christian Hamm: 20:21

Yeah, very large cedar beams. So in terms that they differ Fir. oh Yeah. Fir?

Adam Corneil: 20:27

Yeah, it would be Fir. Yeah.

James Faulkner: 20:29

So what is the structure? What is the value of that stuff? Per like how first of all, how is it measured? does it measure it? Because obviously you've got isn't per square inch or

Adam Corneil: 20:38

per board foot. So board foot? Yeah, so board foot is one foot by one foot by one inch thick. Okay. So if, if like modern lumber today is, I mean, it ranges a big timber like that would obviously be more expensive per board foot, or per linear foot. It can be anywhere from three to four times more valuable than lumber up today. So if Yeah, modern lumber is anywhere from $1.50 to 250 a board foot depending on the size, the old wood is anywhere from six to 850 aboard foot and to

James Faulkner: 21:14

to reshape this stuff or to cut it down or whatever I mean, or, or all the tool companies blade companies that they making stuff for the stuff that that hard.

Adam Corneil: 21:23

No, we're using regular blades. We just we go through them faster.

James Faulkner: 21:26

Oh, okay. Yeah. So I see that just degrade just way quicker. Yeah. Nice.

Adam Corneil: 21:30

Yeah, the one thing where we're seeing a new company come up with, like a new machine, specifically for this is on the D nail inside. So there's a company in San Francisco developing technology to pull all the nails out, scan it, everything like that all fully automated, which we're very excited about when they can get to that, that level of commercialization on it.

Christian Hamm: 21:51

Yeah, no doubt. Now you are the sole founder of Homebuilders. Do you have a founding team when you got going?

Adam Corneil: 21:58

So I had at the time, I had a partner that that started it with me. I mean, on builders really came out of my contracting company. We were already deconstructing we had several deconstruction projects with my contracting company. So it was already in the works. And then I just needed help to get it to get it really to life. And so I did have a founding partner at that time, who he's not with the company anymore. And then we've got we did an investment round about two years ago when we were on Dragon's Den, and we've got some some minority shareholders in the company.

James Faulkner: 22:31

So what was Dragon's Den? Like?

Adam Corneil: 22:33

It was, it was great. I mean, it was really intense, intimidating, nerve wracking. But for me, the main thing it did is I mean, we got great exposure. We did close the deal with to two dragons. So we have two dragons in there in our shareholders. Who are they? Arlene Dickinson and Michelle Romano. Oh, cool. Okay. And so what, but what the show did, or the preparation, the show was it made me really condense the vision and what we do, because it's easy, we're doing a couple of different things. And there's a lot of different opportunities of where we can go with the business. And just prepping for that show to be laser focused. It cut out all the periphery, this is what we do. This is where we're going. And and this is what we've done to date. And so it was Asian boot camp. Exactly, yeah. And I actually did like some mock Dragon's Den with some other entrepreneurs and some successful founders in the region beforehand, and they grilled the crap out of me, they were actually harder on me than the dragons were. And that was the best thing I ever did. Because it made me it made me go into there. I was still nervous because it's a studio the stage, they're like two steps up looking down at you. It's all built to be intimidating. The actual process? I was telling I was in for I was pitching for over an hour. Oh, wow. Okay,

Christian Hamm: 23:54

they really cut those things down. And it's like, what? Yeah, like 10 minutes?

Adam Corneil: 23:57

Yeah, I think my bit was like seven and a half minutes in the end on TV. But yeah, I was in there for well over an hour. That's cool. Like to the point that they were asking me like, What was your revenue last month? And they were it was very detailed. And you had to know all of it, or the whole story starts to unwind?

Christian Hamm: 24:13

Well, that imagine it's, I mean, it's TV, right? So it's got to be produced and edited and all that kind of stuff. But it'd be not much unlike a VC meeting when you're spending, you know, an hour at least right sitting down and not just you're not gonna have multiple meetings with the dragons, though. You're just gonna have the one chance was there exactly.

Adam Corneil: 24:29

Is there like many pre diligence that they do? Know? So that's real, like when you walk on stage, they've never heard of you or seeing you? So that's interesting. You're pitching for the first time. They're totally unaware. And then after the show, there's due diligence, and that's where like deals change or they fall apart.

Christian Hamm: 24:46

So yes, did you stay pretty close to what was pitched or what was originally agreed upon?

Adam Corneil: 24:50

It did? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we had we had some investors here locally in Vancouver, so the process with the dragons was was taking some time. And we had local investors that were ready to go. So that was, that was actually a good thing because it made it made the whole process get come to an end. Because otherwise it felt like it was going to drag on forever.

Christian Hamm: 25:10

Drag-ons den, as soon as I heard Dragon's Den, okay. All right, keep moving. But how big is the team at home builders now?

Adam Corneil: 25:20

So unbuilders, roughly 25 between Vancouver, Victoria.

Christian Hamm: 25:26

And those are the two cities in which you guys operate right now. Yeah, that's right. Nice. We were chatting.

Adam Corneil: 25:31

And we're that we're dabbling in the Okanagan to we've got a job there right now. So we're starting to work into the interior a little bit.

Christian Hamm: 25:37

Yeah, what we were chatting a little bit before. And we can or can't get into this further if you want. But so you've gone on Dragon's Den. So you and you had some investors here locally, you were kind of talking about before coming on raising money in the times when we know kind of it's interesting times. But obviously, that's for the purpose of something. Right. Do you want to get into that at all? Is that tied to the heritage lumber stuff?

Adam Corneil: 26:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, we're in in another investment round now, mostly tied to heritage lumber, and scaling some of our products and our production. We also bought bought a mill, as I said, in September, and it was sort of we, we made the move before we had the finances lined up. So we did that with, you know, some short term lending, just to get it done in the timeframe we had to and then to work on the long term financing after the case. So it's like purchasing that mill and then scaling some of the product lines that we have is really the meat of of the race. But yeah, it's been a it's been a landscape that I didn't think we'd be in. Which I mean, you're I think you guys are well familiar. But yeah, it's like every week, and every month that continues the economy and the the forecasts get worse, and investors are holding on to more and more money. So it's, I've been told by multiple VCs and people that raise money for their companies that this is the worst market they've seen in 30 years raise money. So our timing is perfect.

James Faulkner: 27:07

Yeah, the timing is perfect. So when you when you went, where is this mill, first of all,

Adam Corneil: 27:12

so it's in Maple Ridge? Right?

James Faulkner: 27:14

Yeah, right on the farm. That was an old. What's, uh, what did you get with that mill? Was it facility? Was it like equipment? Like? Yeah,

Adam Corneil: 27:21

it was. It was the full the full production. So staff business name, all the equipment and the site. So it's a it's a CP site. So we don't own the site. But it's, it's on a, you know, a long term lease. And yeah, it's fully operational reclaimed wood mill. So it was a competitor, partner of ours. We were sort of sending our material to them to manufacture these products already. So it was a natural fit and wanted to just get out. You guys took it over? Yeah. The owners. He was he's retiring. Oh, cool. Well, he is retired. That's a good story. Yeah. So you know, I've worked with him for five, six years. And that was always that was one of my my plans from day one is, you know, I hope to get to a point I told him this five years ago, I hope to get to a point where we can sort of purchase you as you want to retire. And and so that's, that's gonna come come to fruition now.

Christian Hamm: 28:08

And the name and the team, or did you?

Adam Corneil: 28:11

Yeah, so we kept the name for now. And now we have to navigate kind of, you know, blending heritage lumber in with with that brand. Yeah.

Christian Hamm: 28:21

Interesting. As things go. We were we were up in Whistler over the weekend. VRCA had their construction Leadership Forum. And we had a pretty interesting conversation with George Benson. Right, the Vancouver Economic Commission, commission about that, right? Yeah. And he brought you guys up. Do you guys do any work together? Or there's some pretty interesting projects they're working on and some things that they're gaining internationally, experience wise, and Intel wise, almost?

Adam Corneil: 28:49

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we've done a lot of work with the VCC and Georgia particular. He's great, really smart guy, colleague of mine, and I did We did like a BCIT capstone project where some students focused on our business and, and how to look at scaling, deconstruction in general. And George worked with me on that one. And then the beans, the VTC, we've done some work, like we've provided lumber for some stuff in their office. And I mean, they're really there to help businesses in Vancouver, especially small businesses. So they've opened some doors for us and been, you know, a great resource for us.

Christian Hamm: 29:26

Is there. You're talking about case studies working with schools. Is there a lot of other players in the space or is this still like a freshly navigated area that you guys are that you guys are in and for see yourselves in for a while?

Adam Corneil: 29:43

Yeah, it's, I mean, obviously the demolition sector is well established, been here forever. And so I think that a lot of demolition contractors have done a small level of salvaging historically because, you know, like those beams you're talking about in Yaletown, you go into building like that. Even if you're, you know, tear it down, smash it up kind of contractor, which is most that's what they're paid to do you see those beams? Do you think I'm gonna pull those out with my machine. So that's always sort of happened. But as a pure deconstruction company, we're really the first and Canada in this new era, you know, there's small players starting to come online. Now, some competitors, it's a little bit more of a mature market in the US in certain areas. Like there's been mandatory deconstruction in the Bay Area, Portland, Seattle, and some other progressive cities in the US for, you know, five or six years. So there's there's other companies out there, but we're trying to look at it on a larger scale is, you know, how do we make deconstruction the industry standard? How do we get UNbuilding happening in every city in North America? And so that's, I think that's the different lens that we're looking at. And, and yeah, we still really are sort of in a league of our own in this region and in Canada, and we've positioned ourselves to be the leader in that space. And as we look to grow and sort of shift the business model in certain ways, which we touched on before. The Yeah, we want to make sure that we're in that position to help demolition contractors make the shift, because it's, it's coming, whether they want to know it, or believe it or not, the shift is coming from a policy side, and also slowly with, you know, a demand side in terms of what the clients are going to expect.

Christian Hamm: 31:27

Totally one thing I found really interesting about our conversation with George and I, and kind of my experience as a project manager, I was largely doing light industrial warehousing, where I did a couple LEED projects, and going through that whole process. Right, right. And knowing that there's portions of it that mean, you're building new, so you're not dealing with salvage, necessarily, but you're dealing with waste. Right? Yeah, where that goes. And so we kind of get a bit of a glimpse into that. And, and there's some funny things with with with LEED and third party and all that kind of stuff. And we did chat a little bit about that. But then getting into like, the real practicalities of like, if you actually, like what you guys are doing, like to focus purely on that side of things that. And I don't want to totally slam that whole process that you go through through lead, but you can do things that just kind of get your points. Yeah, right. For sure. Whereas to have a dedicated focus on it, like you're very intentional about the practical side of where these things actually go, actually taking them and doing something with them. Or looking at an existing building being like, we don't have to demolish this entire thing and haul it all away. Right. There's things we can do here. And I just I found that really fascinating. And the fact that you guys jumped into the fold, to actually provide the practical solutions. There was really cool.

Adam Corneil: 32:47

Well, like, to that point. That's, that's one of the major things that drove me into unbuilding was I was LEED certified before as Passive House certified and found, okay, we can build a LEED building with horrible performance, because we've, you know, picked things that have LEED certification terms of products that are low impact, whatever, but this might be a really inefficient building. Yeah. So then I want to get Passive Hosue certified like we can build a high performance building with horrible products. So LEED and Passive House are sort of focused on opposite thing. Yeah, there's Living Building Challenge, which is the ideal perfect world, it's, it's so stringent that I think there's one Living Building Challenge project in Canada, because it's, it's 50 years ahead of its time. But it's sort of mashes lead and Passivhaus together, but people aren't going to go there. Because the cost is absurd. And so for me, it was like I can, I can focus on you know, doing custom homes, and you know, getting up to a point where maybe we're doing five to 10 custom homes a year in a high performance way, maybe making some good product selection. And that's great. And I can't wait to get back into building and developing which is where we'll be going over, you know, the next five to 10 years. Or I can focus on this year and try to have a bigger impact and so for me I've always been driven by impact more than you know, financials I'm not trying to my main driver is not let's get as rich as I can, I wouldn't have chosen this pathway for sure. This is not the pathway long road Yeah, this is a long road. Mine is how can I how can I have the biggest impact and it's not it's not for an ego thing. It's not about me and my name it's how can how can we build a business and have a great team to have as big an impact on the industry as we can to positively influence the planet the people everyone around so that we're we're really working into the future so that's really my my driver and so that's that's why I've shifted from building on building I see it as an opportunity to not only build our great business but also influence the industry and you know, I've heard from multiple architects and, and builders that our work with them and even just our presence is starting to help shift the thought of have, what are these materials? And what does that building look like in 50 to 100 years when it comes to the end of its life or the end of its use? And for me, that's really exciting that unbuilding could start to actually influence the design side of things as well.

Christian Hamm: 35:13

I was just going to say that because LEED was such a craze, not a craze, I don't want to like I said, I don't want to trash the whole thing. But like, there was a lot of money stuff involved in how that all came together. Yeah. Passive House, then is instilled is probably the current, big thing. Yeah. Right. And you're saying now going for impact. And it does sound like, you stick with this and you go, it will probably start, like you're saying influencing design and architect or from the design point of view, which is the beginning of everything. Yeah. Right. So when you start to get there again, then you can rethink the process from the start to the end and the whole thing through. So kind of almost, do you see maybe this as the next progression of people's thought in terms of building?

Adam Corneil: 36:00

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of them, there's, there's, there's a big, I think the next 10 years in construction, is going to see more innovation than the last 100. And the Pacific Northwest in particular, we're in a hotspot of innovation in construction, which is really exciting. I mean, even between SiteMax, and you know, when you look at contact, but then also the real rise of prefabrication. And not not like modular homes, like we're used to seeing like trailer parks, but really beautiful, high end projects, big scale projects, prefabricated. I think that's a big move that we're we're right at the startup scene. There's a lot of great companies evolving right now in this region on that side, designed for disassembly, and high performance like Passive House. I think LEED has, it's done a lot of great things, which is it's made people start to really think about what materials, what products they're using, how do those go together. So I think lead has served a really great purpose. I also think it's full of problems. As I mentioned, you can build with nice products and have horrible performance. Passivhaus house is like the data speaks for itself, when you look at a passive house building. Passive House is a terrible brand name for it, because it it actually works better on high rises, like the whole system. But it's science driven, I don't think Passive House is going anywhere, I think it's only going to get bigger and bigger and become more of the standard. Because the performance speaks for itself. And and the added costs a lot of the time on passive houses is easily made up on the savings on utility bills over you know, 710 years. So yeah, I don't think it's going anywhere, at least the thinking behind it. It's it is it is scientifically driven, data driven, it makes complete sense. But it's now taking it to that next step that kale its source, good materials, let's make sure that we're not doing things so that in 50 years, we have to smash this down anyways. And the next narrative that's already been talked about in Canadian building code, as well as code in the US is looking at embodied carbon. So not only looking at the storage, yeah, yeah. So not only just looking at how the building performs when it's operating, but what went into that building to build it. Yeah. And also, what happened to the old building sat on that property. Yeah, what is the full lifecycle of all of that embodied carbon and all of the products all along the way, and that's on the reclaimed wood and the the material side, for our other business? That's really exciting for me, if we start putting embodied carbon calculations on new construction, then reclaimed materials are going to see a massive rise. And you kind of need both because there's there's municipalities that are mandating deconstruction. Well, if you do that, and the demand for reclaimed wood and salvaged materials doesn't increase, we're not really solving a problem, because now you're just shipping materials to a yard to rot. So you really want to see both at the same time. And that's that's part of why we have the two companies because you can't just focus on the deconstruction without focusing on where the materials go.

Christian Hamm: 39:01

Right. You can't You said something that caught my ear designed for disassembly. Yeah. Now we think of buildings when you build them that you know, their 100 year buildings. Right, does it is there a point where and this goes back to the embodied carbon conversation we had with George he was showing examples of buildings around the world that didn't get demolished completely. One there in city centers and hauling them out from a cost perspective. And I appreciated this from like the practicality of like a business case, hauling it all out from a city and then building from scratch again, there's things you could do with the building that was existing. Yeah, but design for disassembly, does it and this is just my curiosity. Does that mean that buildings get designed? Not to not last longer, but that you could modify them easier down the road and build upon them again?

Adam Corneil: 39:52

Exactly, yeah. Either end of life that you know, so you build a three story warehouse commercial building, and in 50 years that's gonna be zoned residential, you can take that building apart and build a tower, or it's an office tower, and in 20 years, you know, everyone's working from home and offices aren't needed anymore. And you can adapt that into a condo building. So it's kind of it's either or. But it's really thinking about is not building a building that's, you know, less structurally sound and not going to last, it's building, it's smart with the right fastening systems that it can come apart. And, you know, when you look at how we build buildings in North America, especially residential buildings, stick frame homes, and you compare that to any other industry, it's totally insane. Like when you, when you want to buy a new car, you don't hire a team of five mechanics, they show up in your driveway with some metal and some parts, and they just start building a car in your driveway. That's the way we build houses. It's, it's pretty crazy. And this is where I see prefabrication with a massive future, because it only makes sense. You can automate it, you can make it super efficient, you can actually reduce the number of workers you need, which in this market is needed, because there's not enough people, you know, historically, that'd be a bad thing. Because we were you know, you're taking jobs, but there's not people to do the work. And so the way that we build buildings right now is pretty crazy. And so we need to see that shift, and we're seeing that shift, which is exciting. And same with the end of life, like when your phone when your car comes to the end of its life, it doesn't just go into the, into the dump, the car is broken apart, the components are broken apart, the metal is scrapped, the fabric gets taken out, the glass gets taken apart, it's the same way we have to treat buildings. So this is it only makes sense. Like it's just logical that this is where construction and deconstruction are going.

Christian Hamm: 41:44

This is okay. It's really interesting because your mind automatically maybe for some, when you think of modular, you go cookie cutter, everything's gonna look the same. We're gonna live in boxes, you know, it's like, but then you also said, you know, when people build a house, it's like, five mechanics show up to a place and start from scratch, again, mechanic, whatever, five engineers or whatever, yeah, start from scratch, which is kind of true. And I think people do love the idea of, oh, I want to build a home one day needs to be some uniqueness and personality to it. But like, what if, I guess the components that were putting it together? Were somewhat standard? Right? And it's like anything else you build? The shelf doesn't have to look like somebody else's. But components can be standard. I don't know if that translates, but it does.

James Faulkner: 42:25

It totally does. Because, you know, you look at this thing in front of us here made out of Lego, right? So they're at Legos headquarters, they had they have a library of pieces. And they go, what can we make from that? And why is that? How can we make an f1 car can we make, you know, the Star Wars, you know, space galaxy, we can make all of these different things. So you have that layer on top of an architect, which is, here are the components. And then, depending on how universal those are, you can make some pretty modern super cool stuff. You can even have stuff that looks old, that is component base that has a classic look to it. Exactly. It's just all snapped together. And I think that that, you know that there's so much efficiency around that because you're not inventing. Right? You're designing? Yeah, and which is kind of cool. And I visited a custom prefab

Adam Corneil: 43:18

company in in Austria, five or six years ago. And they were building the most custom houses you've ever seen. I can't remember the name right now. But it was all prefabricated. And so that basically blew my mind. That's exactly you're talking about they have their their catalogue of components. They're building barrel vaulted houses, curved walls, all prefabricated. So yeah, it's kind of like the sky's the limit. It's just depends on how big that prefab company is. So what are the resources to be more adaptable? The smaller you are then the more cookie cutter you have to be. Yeah. But yeah, it's it's not that we're all going to live in the same house. No, no,

Christian Hamm: 43:55

that's very interesting. I mean, we could dovetail on this one for a while. That's pretty neat. There's no this is obviously where heritage lumber comes into play with building products and you were talking right at the beginning there about the snap togethers and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, but is this then this is where that side of the business really its future exists?

Adam Corneil: 44:13

Yeah, absolutely. And so as I said, you know, on builders sort of always for me, like stage one of this, you know, chain of vertically integrated companies and the start of a supply chain. So it's, it's extracting materials. I see us as like urban miners, urban Lumberjacks. So we're coming in, we're extracting lumber, but not from cutting trees down but from old buildings to then go into the supply. We're now creating building products and we'll scale those and continue to adapt them and we're not looking at it. Again. There's a lot of reclaimed wood shops in this city in just about every city in North America. Doing either custom furniture or some of the same types of products. We're making, like flooring and custom timber packages. But we know as deconstruction picks up steam and starts to be man David across North America, that means there's gonna be a lot of reclaimed wood on the market, which is what we're excited about. So we need to make building products that can consume and use a lot of that wood. So that's why we're looking at flooring and walls. We're also making sheets and panels right now. So you could, you could do all your walls and reclaim sheets that we're making that are entirely from salvaged lumber. And so we're looking at it on a on a bigger scale, just like on builders, we're looking at the lumber, we're not accustomed, if you want a custom piece of reclaimed furniture, we can supply the wood, and we'll give you five great wood jobs to call but we're not going to do it. We're looking at large scale building products.

James Faulkner: 45:35

Right? So what is the exact business model on the input side? On the output side? Sort of? Are you? Is there a certain price that you're paying this, let's say I've got a Vancouver special? Okay, and it's got some stuff you wanted? On or Off? You would miss 60s 70s building? So let's say I was want to tear that thing down. You guys. Okay? Do you guys go on price, what you think's going to be there? Who gets the money? The tax receipt? Like how does that all work just on the input side of the supply?

Adam Corneil: 46:07

Yeah. So we'll we'll show up to a project and then we're going to, we're going to price it would that makes the most sense. So, as I said, we're working with demolition companies, we've got some partnerships that we've got in each region, and we're gonna make sure that the shoe fits for the right job. So Vancouver special, it probably doesn't make sense to do a full hand deconstruction, the cost versus the benefit, it may not be there, we still we still will probably dabble and put that price together, get it appraised and see if it works out. Right. But we're doing a lot of hybrid work now where we're bringing the machine in, we're ripping the building apart in big sections, it's almost like de-fabrication. So pull it apart in big sections, drop those down on the on the yard, if we have space, if not, throw it on a trailer, bring it back to our yard, and then dismantle it from there. And you know, so we're doing a lot more of that hybrid work, where it's sort of in between demolition, deconstruction, just to keep, keep us busy. And also try to adapt because not every person in every project is going to, you know, make sense to fully deconstruct so.

James Faulkner: 47:09

So the homeowner of the property, let's say who wants to redevelop their property? They're not selling it. They just want to tear it down. New house. Yeah. Okay, so let's not talk Vancouver special because this components suck. Let's talk about like, West of Dunbar case, old house 30s, or whatever, right? It's got the stuff you want in it. So you go in you price, what you think is going to be there? Or do you price it once you know what you've taken out?

Adam Corneil: 47:36

Like, how do we know what we priced in advance like we worked on, we work on fixed pricing. So we're gonna go in there and price in advance all No, I can know from just looking at the BC assessment on the era. And Google Images, I can give you probably within 5% of how much wood we're going to pull out of that building. So we can we can do it. Without even really doing a site visit. The site visit is needed to know like, what's the cabinetry, what's a Windows with the flooring, the other goods that we donate to charity? Yeah, to drive the tax value. That's, that's what we really need to know. So we do require a site visit to estimate something. But we're giving upfront estimates, and we're giving upfront appraisals, initial appraisal. So you know, what would it cost to deconstruct? What will I get back? Yeah. And does that make sense? And

James Faulkner: 48:19

most of the time, is it a checkmark? Yes. Do that. Or is sometimes they like No, no, no,

Adam Corneil: 48:25

it's it's a variety. Like we don't we don't land every job we quote, I wish. Okay, yeah, we have similar sort of success rates as most demolition, like are there

James Faulkner: 48:35

times that you've communicated the value and they go, Wow, I didn't realize we had that. And then you're like, Oh, shoot.

Adam Corneil: 48:42

It's, you know, I'd say that the biggest, like misnomer right now is either people call us assuming that we're going to be cheaper than demolition right off the bat. Because like, while you're getting materials, you're going to be cheaper. It's like, Yeah, but we have, you know, four or five people versus one machine operator, like we're more expensive. Or same with the wood. They'll think, oh, it's reclaimed wood. So it's, it's cheap, right? It's, it's crap. It's like, no, no, it's more valuable, because it's better wood. So yeah, people people don't fully understand even even like green builders, I've gone to jobs for the first time when we're first meeting them. They're building high performance, greenhouses, sustainable homes. So obviously, they're going to call on builders. It makes sense. It's a it's a value alignment. But the basic there's no value in here, right? Like 1920s house is just full of full of junk, like no, like, it's behind the walls. That's the value. And so there's yeah, there's a big educational component to deconstruction and reclaimed wood in general. And that's, you know, that's why I like to do podcasts. That's why I like to talk as much as I can because really got to get people up to speed. Okay, kind of funny question.

Christian Hamm: 49:46

Does that mean that the jobs that that you bid on and don't win, unfortunately don't get unbuilt correctly?

Adam Corneil: 49:53

100% there Smash.

James Faulkner: 49:55

There's somewhere like smash the cash. Yeah, yeah,

Adam Corneil: 49:59

I don't I got, yeah, I don't I don't cry myself to sleep anymore. I've just gotten used to it. But ya know, there's there's some that are really sad that like it's gorgeous material. There's no way that it should be demolished. But we don't make those decisions. Well, I

Christian Hamm: 50:15

mean, that's kind of where the education play comes in, right. Like you were saying, coming on here going elsewhere. I mean, you've got a good network behind you. But even if it's not you winning it, just the fact that there is the value there, and that someone could take the initiative to do it. Yeah, it's happening, at least, for sure. And, and even the demolition company, as I said, like they, they're providing supply for other business a lot of the time. So

Adam Corneil: 50:39

yeah, I try to make it really clear, because sometimes people think that, you know, I'm out to like, get the demolition contractors, when, in fact, we're partnering with a lot of them, we need the demolition contractors, and I hope that they'll adapt as needed. But, you know, they're also our suppliers that are partners. And so it's not, the problem is not the demolition contractors, the problem is the system. And that's what we're trying to work on changing. And, you know, there's, there's some pushback like Victoria city, Victoria district in North End have recently mandated deconstruction on single family homes. So in District north end, right now, as of January one, if you're going to take down a pre 1950 house, you have to deconstruct and salvage it, and some contractors are really fighting this and having a hard time. And in Victoria, it's gonna be September one, the big argument is time and costs, it's always a thing. And that that's a valid concern. It's it's real, it costs more money up front. And it takes more time. And so we're trying to work with the policymakers. Because both those regions, they consulted with us for many months, if not years, to figure out what's the right policy to get this into play. And so I'm trying to really make make it loud and heard that you've got to look to incentivize this, it's great to mandate it from a sustainability level. But from an affordability level, you are adding costs, you are adding time, which adds cost. So that project in the end is going to be more expensive and therefore less affordable. So sustainability and affordability are in contrast, most of the time, it's good point, that's where green are, that's where good policy has to work, to bridge those gaps, and make sure that we can achieve our environmental standards that we're trying to push as a society and not make it less affordable. And so we're trying to see early permits to deconstruction you can build earlier than if you demolished it and incentivize it so that those concerns which are very valid, or actually met with good policy.

James Faulkner: 52:45

Okay, so now, I want to finish the second part of the business model, the output side. Yeah, so yeah, I just want to get that clear. So the input side your you, you said how that all works. So on the output side what what are the what are the buckets of revenue that you see? Like, what where's the where's the main part of your revenue coming from on the on the output side?

Adam Corneil: 53:07

So we've got products, we got raw material. Yeah. I mean, those are two buckets, which is bigger, though. Products products, for sure. And those those products are so just take us through the Yeah, so we've got wide plank flooring, okay. So right now we're making solid flooring. So it's three quarter inch thick, solid wood. We're moving over the next few months to engineered flooring, just to have a bigger market. wall cladding, so tongue and groove cladding that you could do walls with,

James Faulkner: 53:37

like old 70s stuff, like that kind of thing. To stuff that people used to hate. No, no, not like not like, not like wall paneling. This like faux wood. It's not like like the real I'd like old rec rooms from the from the 70s. Yeah, but it had the shag below it used to have the woods and used to have like a bar downstairs. And that's kind of

Christian Hamm: 53:54

a look at Oh, it's just coming. It's different, but it's still Yeah, a wall covering.

Adam Corneil: 53:58

Okay. All right. Okay. Sorry. Yeah, I don't I don't want to associate that through the 70s. So I think it's kind of a dark era of design.

James Faulkner: 54:05

Because I guess what's the what's the post and beam kind of look? Yeah. 70s 60s 60s Yeah, we take some of those down Frank Sinatra stuff. Yeah, from like Phoenix and all that kind of stuff with the you know, the the

Adam Corneil: 54:23

post and beam then would Oh, yeah. So what does that 60s That's more 60s in the 70s but it's 60s. Cool.

Christian Hamm: 54:30

You taken it down James, relax or just...

James Faulkner: 54:33

my over a buddy of mine has a house like that. And what he did was he kept all of the cool stuff. It's got like a spiral staircase. He put new Shagun brand new and whatever that stuff is like that. And that White Rock kind of look like your similar stuff is like bright white. It was kind of rock work. Okay, anyway, he's got that going down the spiral the metal spiral staircase downstairs. He's a movie guy. He's James Bond shrine and it's amazing. It doesn't look like we're talking. seriously amazing design. Not like cheesy. We're talking in his house was in Design Magazine. Nice photos. Yeah. All right, fine. Okay, I'm

Adam Corneil: 55:13

so off track. Yeah. So flooring walls, we what we call beam wrap, which is like full beams. So we cut like a layer that you can make. That's cool. A beam look like a real beam. And then custom cut timber packages, counters and desktops. So we're not doing custom furniture, but we're doing like standard desktops, countertops. And, and then the raw material

James Faulkner: 55:38

is there. When you were saying that if you were to take down something that had a significant history to it, that wasn't a heritage site, or just had a story to it as a certain does that go along with like, do you QR code, this stuff? We're like, Id this stuff. So that as it goes through the story kind of goes with what those components aren't.

Adam Corneil: 56:00

So we don't do that yet. But that's definitely the Signature Series. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a big goal of ours to get to that level that bar. Yeah, rebar code. Yeah, of every piece of wood associated with the Java came out of, we can do that. But it's basically all in my head. Yeah. So it's like, oh, we know where that wood came from. But there is there is that component to it, too, with a lot of our customers that they want. They want that story. They want to know what buildings that come from

James Faulkner: 56:28

cache, though. I mean, it's almost like, it's that luxury thing where somebody says, Do you realize that this part of my home was built with? Here's where it used to be? And here's the photo on the wall, like, that's so cool.

Adam Corneil: 56:39

Well, and, or, when, and we're starting to get some projects like this that, you know, this part of my house was built from the old house that was here, right? Yeah. And that sort of those are the those are the stories we're really excited about, especially when we're looking at like commercial, historic buildings, I won't call them heritage, because they're coming down. Yeah. But the developers that we're working with, that are looking at, okay, you guys deconstruct it, ship it all to your mill, and let's manufacture all the flooring, all the new products that we can out of that for the new building, and keep it all within the same site.

James Faulkner: 57:12

As soon as people call like that, kid, this kind

Christian Hamm: 57:15

of work, you're getting into a little bit more of the business model and scale and all that kind of stuff. But with locations in Victoria, Vancouver, and a project in the Okanagan, and you've talked about a vertically integrated company, what can you talk about in terms of the scale play? I think you kind of did talk about a little bit before we started recording. Yeah, what ultimately you can grow to do and get this in other locations?

Adam Corneil: 57:38

Yeah, I mean, ultimately, our goal is, I mean, we're, we're growing a great business in ourselves, but we're really trying to be a catalyst for change. So we want to, we want to be part of the movement of shifting from demolition to deconstruction. So as I said, there's a lot of great demo companies out there, our goal is not to put everyone out of business by any means our goal is to work with these companies, and see how we can help them adapt as well as ourselves. So we're looking at a few different options of how to expand on builders, it expands differently than then heritage lumber. But, you know, there's either going out of franchise model, which is going to be rather difficult. Construction franchises, historically, have been fairly hard to get traction with, you know, getting beyond sort of the central region, or looking at more of a licensing model where we can take our systems take our knowledge, and package that our training and start to teach other contractors and how they can shift and so that's that's sort of where our focus is can see that moving forward.

James Faulkner: 58:42

Yeah, cuz definitely the the the getting the bills, the, the businesses, yes, its relationships, etc. And knowing what projects are coming up. So there's obviously some experience you have there. But that can be learned pretty quick. But I think that that process of what you guys do with it, and the products that you have, on the other side, those two vectors there, definitely have that proprietary kind of thing to it. So we Yeah, investing in those systems, like no one can do it like we can in there might even be some tooling, some kind of thing you have patents on. Yeah. That you can sort of dig into that value proposition out there that as you say, you could just sell the system.

Adam Corneil: 59:23

Exactly. Yeah.

James Faulkner: 59:24

That's awesome. So cool.

Christian Hamm: 59:26

It is. We've talked then a little bit about the catalysts for change. What are you most excited about about the future you know, the next three to five years not just for your business but the industry. We've talked about where it's going but what what gets you excited?

Adam Corneil: 59:42

I mean, I'm excited to see this movement towards prefabrication. I think it's going to be more efficient buildings less waste both on both on the construction side and deconstruction demolition side and really just seeing, seeing different products that have you No healthier inputs in terms of their raw materials and also their finishes on them. Are they less chemical based, because there's a lot more people with chemical chemical sensitivities as well, in this world, especially, you know, younger generations seems like people are more more sensitive and allergic to things. So, I mean, I'm just excited to see where the industry is in five years, because I think it'll be, you know, fairly different from where we see it today. A lot more automated, a lot more prefabricated and just smarter in general.

Christian Hamm: 1:00:29

Nice.

James Faulkner: 1:00:30

Wow. I know, it's gonna be interesting. With with prefabrication. You. And we always talked about this about, you know, how the job site will change over the next amount of years. And, and, you know, what activities couldn't be augmented by or replaced by, you know, robotics? And the more predictable the materials are, the more prefab they are, the easier that is to, to, to happen, I would imagine. So do you think you're gonna see, like, what's your what's your vision of what a, let's say, a home will look like, from a building point of view in the next, let's say, 20 years from now, which, like, elements of construction, do you think you're going to have the most change from excavation to final cladding to, I mean, I think area finishes,

Adam Corneil: 1:01:24

I could see sort of your your coverings as a big part of change. So when you think of like your drywall, your flooring covering your siding, because most of that is built for single use, like you look at drywall, if you put a hole in the wall, or even if you have a problem with your electrical and need to find it, you have to know dig a channel in it, you got to put new board on. It all is single use and then has to be replaced. Whereas if that was a panel, you could literally take the panel off work on it. But the panel back Yeah, same was siding. Same with four edges. I

Christian Hamm: 1:01:57

mean, even saying that right now, it just seems like yeah, what are we doing? What have we been doing for so long? Like? Yeah, like, I don't care if there's a minor seam in my wall, necessarily. Maybe it's totally it.

James Faulkner: 1:02:07

I know, I was just thinking that exact same thing that so we have, like, created a huge amount of waste. Because we don't like to see seams in paint.

Adam Corneil: 1:02:15

Yeah, like it. It kind of, it kind of drives me nuts, all the attention. It drives me nuts. But yeah, it's also important, like all the attention on straws, and single use plastics, like, yeah, we need to get away from them, I get it. Although it takes 10 uses of a paper bag to replace the embodied carbon of a single plastic bag. So now we're all using paper bags. It's actually way worse for the environment. But no one thought about that before they made that rule. During the plastic straws again. Yeah, plastic straws are coming back because people don't like paper straws. are the ones so work those ones. Yeah. But you look at you look at the you're talking about volume of waste, like the amount of single use plastic straws we use in Canada is equivalent to like two houses we deconstruct all across Canada. So when you're talking about where should the attention be? No, no, we're dealing with single US housing, not just single use straws. And so this is why we're trying to be loud and clear that this is a major problem. But it's a major opportunity. This isn't, you know, something scary that we have to reinvent everything. deconstruction used to be the way that we took buildings down pre World War One. I mean, if you think back to your grandpa, I'm sure that they had jars of old nails in the basement and little pieces of scrap wood, because coming out coming out of you know, the 19th century into the depression, we saved everything, we didn't smash buildings down and throw them all in the dumpster. They used to take them apart. So deconstruction is as old as construction is just demolition roads that have a time of abundance when we thought materials are infinite. It's way cheaper and faster, just get rid of that one and get a new one. And now that's starting to change as we were realizing resources are not infinite. And there's a better way to do things and we need to start looking at how we can reuse things and keep them in production. Keep them in supply.

James Faulkner: 1:04:02

That's awesome. Well, I

Christian Hamm: 1:04:03

gotta say the whole conversation is pretty refreshing. You know, there is a lot there can be a lot of you know, alarmism I guess around certain things just kind of getting a little bit worked up about the example you just gave of plastic straws versus two houses deconstructed. Like if we look at the practicalities of where the battles are that we could be fighting and actually seeing significant wins in Yeah, like that's kind of eye opening.

James Faulkner: 1:04:31

It is specifically to you because I think that on a number of times you said to me like it just there's so much stuff for the sake of stuff and you go What impact did that really have?

Christian Hamm: 1:04:43

I'm like, I'm like a pretty practical guy like you know, I was on the tools originally you know when the project management but like I just look at it, like hit me with a logical argument or conversation or just facts of something that I can see tangibly and stuff like that. Right? So like this and even our conversation with George was just like, just see I'm very practical. And I'm like, Yeah, that's awesome. Because like, that makes sense. Why you got to smash him when he walks?

Adam Corneil: 1:05:07

Yeah, I mean, I tried, I try to sit in a place of optimism. It's, I mean, it is disheartening at times to look at the world, but I have to believe that we're going to innovate, we're gonna evolve, we're gonna make it better. And, and we're trying to do that. And there's some of the great companies trying to do that. And so yeah, I have to remain optimistic that we're going to solve this thing and build a better future Good on you, man.

Christian Hamm: 1:05:31

That's a great way to tidy this conversation that we always love ending by putting our guests on the spot a little bit. But no, actually just getting to know them a little bit more and allowing your audience the same, is there anything you'd want to leave with our listeners, this could be our audience, it could be those that are in your network, or even future employees or customers of yours, anything you'd want to leave them with?

Adam Corneil: 1:05:54

Maybe to just like, stay persistent, I suppose is sort of our you know, one of the values that we drive because this is this is hard, like doing, doing what's always been done is the easy thing. Doing something different is extremely difficult. And so yeah, we just got to stay persistent. And and we need support and, and partners and all the help we can get to really keep driving home the mission that we're on. So yeah, it's it's a, it's a team effort. I know, that's kind of cliche or corny, but it really does take take everyone working with us. So, you know, we need our team, we need our partners, we need our competitors at all. It's all kind of tied together.

Christian Hamm: 1:06:35

Nice. That's awesome. Great way to tidy it up. Three questions for you, Adam. Ready to go? All right. Okay, what is something that you do that someone else would think is insane?

Adam Corneil: 1:06:48

I sleep five hours a night, that's probably probably it

Christian Hamm: 1:06:51

are you in bed early, up early or late in?

Adam Corneil: 1:06:55

So I mean, I have to work a lot. Because we've got the two businesses and just, we're still early stage. So that's requires a ton of a ton of effort. I also have a three year old and a wife at home. And I've made it, you know, my mission that I'm going to spend significant time with them every day and every week. So that just doesn't leave much time to sleep. So it's been three years of sleep deprivation. I mean, it's definitely catching up with me. But yeah, I think most of my team and most people that know me think I'm probably insane for for that.

Christian Hamm: 1:07:33

Yeah, you know, and if you can do it, and you can figure out a way to operate on it kind of becomes the day to day the routine.

Adam Corneil: 1:07:40

Yeah, I mean, I look forward to sleeping at some point. Yeah, yeah, it'll come.

Christian Hamm: 1:07:44

All right. If you weren't doing if you weren't building on builders and heritage lumber, what would you be doing?

Adam Corneil: 1:07:51

I would, I'd be building houses and buildings I'd be developing in construction. I don't really see another another pathway. For me. It's it's involved in construction. I guess if you're talking outside of the industry, it would probably be something to do with with animals. I studied biological anthropology. So I was studying like primatology and human evolution. I am like a bit of a dog whisperer. I love animals. So I could see myself having gone into like primatology, working with primates, something like that.

Christian Hamm: 1:08:23

That is the kind of answer we were looking for. That's pretty out there. But I think it's pretty cool that I mean, obviously you're clearly passionate about what you do. And so that's awesome. But last question for you were called the site visit podcast. We're a podcast that's obviously about construction. What is your favorite story or most memorable moment from the jobsite?

Adam Corneil: 1:08:49

That's a good one. I didn't I didn't have the time to think about this one in advance.

Christian Hamm: 1:08:54

It's funny, oftentimes, people will say it's like a sometimes people will have a great story and it's often not shareable on the podcast.

Adam Corneil: 1:09:01

Yeah, I've got a few of those. I'm trying to think of the best one that I could share. I'll think of one this is this is kind of a a negative story for us, I suppose there was when I was contracting, we had a really difficult client and they got more and more difficult as Job went on. I mean, we did a good job they're actually happy in the end but they made it clear that they weren't happy all along the way just to try to grind us down and make us feel terrible. And I remember we're coming we're like 95% done. We're coming to the end of the job and and we went and grabbed coffees or something like that I came back to site and the client was on site fuming about something minor. And as I walked in the door my my labor like moved tool and his glass railing that we just installed shattered right in front of them as we're trying to get this thing done. And that led to you know, the following day him telling us he's not paying us our final check and, and my personality. I'm kind of like a quiet I had nice guy, and probably to my detriment nice guys finish last. And this guy was like you're at Classic alpha male type. And from all the work I've done, and I tried to be the nice guy with him, the whole job was like, this isn't working the way that I'm being the nice guy to him. All he's doing is taking advantage of me. And so he's like, I need to get that final check. So we sat down, and I literally had to yell at him and tell him how he was an a hole and how he'd made her life miserable for months. And how we did a good job. And we're all trying to feed our families, and it's time to get our paycheck. And that actually worked. So yeah, it was it was funny to like, put on a whole different person persona to try to get this done, buddy. Yeah, exactly. So that's great. I don't know. I don't know why that came to mind.

Christian Hamm: 1:10:45

We actually haven't had a story quite like that one. That's really good. It's a good example. And sometimes it means construction. It's it's sometimes it's part of the game almost right. Which is kind of sad, but also, I will go exactly right on. Adam, this has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you for being our first guest in the new sitemap or site visit studio. I think everything went well went okay. We think so. Yeah. We'll see when we get off here if it's all on there. But we wish you the best with and builders. And here's lumber and we'd love to do a follow on episode down the road to see how you guys are progressing along.

Adam Corneil: 1:11:23

Yeah, I'd love that. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

James Faulkner: 1:11:24

All right, one last shout out to Dave, our producer, a producer

Christian Hamm: 1:11:27

Dave.

James Faulkner: 1:11:29

Here he is. He's smiling. He's there. Happy to have you here, man. We are. All right. Thanks, guys.

Adam Corneil: 1:11:34

Thank you.

James Faulkner: 1:11:43

Well, that does it for another episode of the Site Visit. Thank you for listening. Be sure to stay connected with us by following our social accounts on Instagram and YouTube. You can also sign up for a monthly newsletter at sitemaxsystems.com/the site visit where you'll get Industry Insights, pro tips and everything you need to know about the site visit podcast and SiteMax the jobsite and construction management tool of choice for 1000s of contractors in North America and beyond. SiteMax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building!