The SiteVisit
Leadership in construction with perspective from the job site. A podcast dedicated to the Construction industry. Construction professionals, General Contractors, Sub trade Contractors, and Specialty Contractors audiences will be engaged by the discussions between the hosts and their guests on topics and stories. Hosted James Faulkner ( CEO/Founder - SiteMax Systems ).
The SiteVisit
Transform Your Home: Expert Tips on Foundation Waterproofing and Repair with Gavin MacRae (GJ MacRae Foundation Repair) | EP95
In this episode, James and Christian are joined by Gavin MacRae from GJ MacRae Foundation Repair, the leading foundation repair business in the Greater Toronto Area.
Gavin's family has a deep-rooted history in the business, dating back to 1975 when his father founded the company in the GTA. The conversation begins with a discussion around a somewhat obvious fact, a basement, if you have one, is a fairly significant part of your home, and with the demand for density increasing, which means more basement-dwelling, keeping your foundation healthy matters more than ever. Things deep dive from here into hand-excavated residential basement waterproofing, weeping tile systems, sump boxes, structural foundation repair, foundation wall replacements, and basement underpinning. Gavin also shares some intriguing historical connections between Scotland and England and dovetails into Scottish heritage before returning to foundation repair and the evolution of construction tools. Additionally, Gavin recounts fascinating stories of unusual finds during excavation jobs and the challenges faced while working in tough environments and some cities. The episode concludes with Gavin sharing a wild story from a project he did in Hamilton, Ontario, that includes a midnight police chase and a suspect hiding in one of their underpinned basements. Check the GJ MacRae YouTube channel for some highly educational content, link below.
Gavin MacRae owns GJ MacRae Foundation Repair, a second-generation, family-run basement waterproofing, structural foundation repair and underpinning company based in the Greater Toronto Area, providing the highest quality repairs available. They are pioneers in the GTA basement waterproofing and foundation repair industry, with over 45 years of experience and 10,000+ projects completed to date. They offer a wide range of high-quality basement waterproofing, foundation repair and underpinning services, and industry-leading repair methodologies.
When the experts don't know, they call us!
EPISODE LINKS:
GJ MacRae Foundation Repair Website: https://wetbasements.com/
GJ MacRae Foundation Repair YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@gjmacrae
PODCAST INFO:
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Welcome to the Site Visit Podcast leadership and perspective from construction with your hosts James Faulkner and Christian Hamm.
Jesse Unke:Business 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:You read all the books, you read the E-myth, you read Scaling Up, you read Good to Great you know, I could go on.
Sebastian Jacob:We've got to a place where we found the secret serum, we found secret potion we can get the workers and we know where to get them.
Cam Roy:One time I was on a jobsite for quite a while and actually we added some some extra concrete and I poured like a broom-finished patio our front of the site trailer.
James Faulkner:One time a guy 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.
Zack Staples:Own it, crush it and love it, we celebrate these values every single day.
James Faulkner:Let's get down to it
Christian Hamm:We've got a guest joining us from the other side of the country in Ontario, correct Gavin?
Gavin MacCrae:That's correct. Yeah. The GTA
Christian Hamm:The GTA, we've got Gavin McCray, from CJ McRae foundation repair is that is that the company is he gj? What did I say CJ? GJ? Yes, si. GN John, my apologies Gavin GJ
Gavin MacCrae:No problem.
Christian Hamm:Got that on the notes. I see that GJ foundation repair. But thanks for joining us today, Gavin.
Gavin MacCrae:My pleasure. My pleasure. Thanks for having us.
James Faulkner:Us? Is someone else on with you?
Gavin MacCrae:Well, you know, it's the hour. Well, the I was always always somewhere close. But it's you know, it's a family mission. So I always refer to things and got it sort of kind of, you know, so that's yeah, that's that's the way the Klan operates. All right. It's always the the US thing. So
Christian Hamm:Love it. Love it. And we're gonna get into your story here. But a little bit more interesting conversation. When we were lining up some of the notes for our conversation you said, You know what, I'm down to talk anything from Bitcoin to bitumen.
Gavin MacCrae:Correct. Yeah, you know, I, I thought, hey, that's a pretty widespread. These are things I'm fascinated with both sides. And wherever you guys want it to go. I'm, I'm a passenger. I'm really
James Faulkner:Cool.
Christian Hamm:Well, that's fantastic. We'll get into the maybe the Bitcoin thing as we get them. Oh, yeah. There's a story unfolds here. But on the on the bitumen side, obviously, that ties into what you're doing with your business. So why don't you give us a little bit of a background Coles notes on your history through construction and the family company?
Gavin MacCrae:Sure, sure. So, my father John started in 1975 Here in the GTA, you know, he was kind of one of the first, you know, back in the 70s, you know, even the 80s You know, basements, especially in older homes, they were never really considered, you know, valuable real estate per se, right? That's, that's where you'd sort of put the food and the storage and it always leaked, then you'd have the, you know, occasional Hogmanay down there and such, but basements were never sort of viewed as as valuable as they are today. So he was really one of the first people that I, you know, I was aware of kind of looking back that really sort of looked, you know, and kind of looked at basements and thought, you know, what, this is something of value, you're paying property tax already, to add an addition to go up or out, you know, versus cleaning up and drying up the basement, just generally, significantly less to sort of clean a basement up. So you really got involved in Yeah, sort of basement waterproofing and foundation repair in the GTA is kind of one of the first kind of guys around doing that. And, you know, a lot of that application came from the roofing world, you know, where would you know, when he was a younger man, he spent a lot of time up on the roof. And, you know, as he sort of studying have roofs, you know, stay dry through through membranes and applications inside, she thought, you know, while foundation walls are a similar kind of premise, although vertical and concrete, you know, sort of keeping them dry, keeping water moving away, positive grade, positive weeping tile systems, sort of making sure the whole thing is in working order. So that's really where the idea of sort of began with him. So he started in 75. We came along in the 80s, myself and my two sisters. And it was probably the late 90s, where, you know, I started to sort of get seriously kind of involved, you know, weekends at first and such in school and whatnot. But, um, yeah, you know, we kind of just grew up around this stuff our whole lives, and that's always what the family did. And, yeah, you know, all of the victories and defeats that were found out there, we sort of shared as a family, it was quite a special, you know, sort of upbringing and coming up, you know, tough go, no doubt, but, you know, even even in that photo that you referenced before of us three kids, you know, in, in one of our old trucks on our website there, you know, for us that was like You know, that was, that was an event, right? That was a huge deal. Like, you know, we just got a new pickup truck like this is, this is a huge deal for our family. Right. So, you know, what a year was that photo of us? That must have been? I would guess 919 9089, maybe some somewhere around there. Late 80s, maybe 1990. On the dot type thing.
James Faulkner:What type of pickup truck are we talking about?
Gavin MacCrae:That was a Chevy Cheyenne. The Cheyenne. Yeah, that was a 1500, half ton, Cheyenne full box. They didn't call them crew cabs, then it was an extended cab, I guess you would say sort of a half, half size thing. But, you know, previous to that, you know, that had an old Dodge, and you know, everything was always kind of used up to that point, which is totally fine. But the reliability of something new is, you know, was was really sort of a turning point for us where, you know, it was like, wow, like, yeah, you know, he's, you know, Dad's really doing it out there, you know, and it was, it was, yeah, you know, just an amazing thing. You know, nowadays cars come and go, but, you know, stuff was very special for us as a family back then especially tied to this business. So that's kind of where it came from, you know, sort of seeing that basements will be valuable in the future. And of course, now, you know, basement underpinning and dry basements and all that people live in the basements, they rent them out, it's a huge benefit to homes and structures to have that basement, you know, full height and in working order. And that's kind of how things evolved. You know, I kind of got involved, more and more and more as time went on. And, you know, Mum and Dad sort of retired four or five years back, and we're just kind of carrying on the tradition out here.
Christian Hamm:You know, it's funny, you talked about just people undervaluing a basement. I remember growing up in a house, parents still live in it, actually. And it was, I guess, built in 89, or 90 largely unfinished basement it was going to be done at a later time this thing floods every year, like they had, they had to redo a whole bunch of stuff. And then they started finishing up my buddies and I would always like a couple guys, and you know, crash late on a Friday, whatever wakeups like soaked. There was a big storm or something like that. On the floor. Yeah, like guys, whatever. Yeah, the sleeping bag. Yeah. And so, but in, in dealing with foundation issues, and I'm sure there's lots of things with where you are in location, etc. But now with the density that we just have all over the place. These are dwelling units that people might never even they might spend a lot of life in them
James Faulkner:Well it's typically the whole footprint of the house. Yeah. Yeah, a lot...
Gavin MacCrae:You know, especially nowadays, with housing, and just just everything real estate prices, you know, the National provincial situation, just everything, you know, everyone's looking for that just extra little bit of something. And you know, that, that basements already there, you're already paying property tax, you know, interesting caveat with underpinning is property taxes only reassessed when you go out or up, you could theoretically, you could, theoretically underpin two storeys down and not
James Faulkner:Take us through underpinning.
Gavin MacCrae:Sure. So, underpinning is a method of reinforcing a foundation wall and its footing, sort of vertically down type thing. So generally, underpinning is used for one of two things, or two or two things, you know, if there's movement in a foundation wall, or there's damage existing to a foundation wall, you know, engineers would likely recommend underpinning that wall. And what that's going to do, it's going to lock the wall, where it stands at that moment in time. So there's sort of a structural underpin application, which, which is pretty common, as well. And then there's another underpinning application where you combine those, excuse me, individual underpins around the whole perimeter of a house, and that gives the ability to actually excavate the basement floor and bring the ceiling height in a basement up to eight, nine or 10, even, you know, 12 feet per se, right, that this it's, it's kind of limitless, the depth, you can go per se, but most common is eight or nine feet clear. So, yeah, so yeah, underpinning is, you know, flexible in that sense as well.
James Faulkner:So you're chipping out the concrete that was there in the original foundation, then, if you want to excavate down?
Gavin MacCrae:Well, what we do is we leave everything in place, we actually excavate beside the existing footing or beside the existing foundation wall and then we burrow underneath it. At that point, we sort of form that up, and then we pour concrete in sections. So if you sort of picture the side profile of a foundation wall and footing you know, you'd have a 12 or 14 or even 16 inch foundation wall and it reaches down to a footing which is you know, say double the width of that wall per se. What we do is we match the contour of that footing vertically down Some, say two feet or three feet or four feet, we excavate under that piece of footing just about four feet wide. That's a pretty safe round dimension so that the actual footing in the concrete wall above can sort of hold its own weight, under, you know, under about a four foot wide dimension of underpin. And then yeah, we sort of form that underpin up, fill it with concrete vibrated, let it dry, and then sort of repeat the process next to it and keep repeating the process around the whole inside perimeter. So the walls stay in the footing stay. And really what we do is we vertically extend those footings in the form of underpins.
James Faulkner:I got a question for you. So, a buddy of mine wanted to make a music studio in his basement. But he gets in there and realizes like the height is, you know, it's really, yeah, it's a little people place. So he's like, okay, we can excavate but he's in, he's in one of these beautiful, like old duplexes in Vancouver, anyway, so they get in there and realize, if they excavate down that the, the wall in between the two duplexes is only at ground height. So if they excavate, they got a hole in between, like this airspace completely underneath both. So they have to now then make that other dividing wall on the deeper side of the excavation. So essentially, that they couldn't just do it on half of the duplex.
Gavin MacCrae:Both yeah,
James Faulkner:so what would you recommend there that would they be able to just do half of it by just doing that 5050 wall down the center of the property,
Gavin MacCrae:You know, oftentimes, you know, structures, you know, in Toronto, some of the older row houses from the turn of the century, they're, they're sharing that middle parent wall, when when one client at a certain address wants to underpin, you know, essentially, we would go around the whole perimeter, install the underpins, you know, sort of normally, but a byproduct of that, is that, yes, those underpins actually stretch into underneath the neighbor's footings, basically, so the client gets an underpinning, everything was fantastic. There, the town's good with that engineering is good with that. But in essence, both neighbors now have one wall underpinned, should they want to do the same? Right? Sure. So it's kind of a byproduct of, sort of both type thing. So
Christian Hamm:How this is a pretty involved process, right? Digging underneath the house? And how wide are the because you said you do them in sections? How wide is it underpinning section? Typically, they're coming off are you doing at a time?
Gavin MacCrae:Sure. So, you know, generally four feet wide is kind of a pretty good standard, most engineers are good with that, you know, we tend to work with the same engineers over and over, you know, so they know our stuff, you know, they they trust our judgment in that sense. So, you know, yeah, between three and four feet, depending on the soil conditions, the existing condition of the wall, things like that. But yeah, generally within that area is safe, right. So you know, you would you would excavate four feet wide, generally skip eight feet, dig another four feet, skip eight feet, dig another four feet type thing. And, you know, the idea is to kind of get those underpins excavated and poured by the end of the same day, if possible. You know, so that's, that, that's kind of always the objective is to sort of get those undermined, formed and poured in the same day. So that night, of course, there's concrete in that void, currently drying. Exactly, you know,
James Faulkner:crazy. What are the are there? Have you gone through any changes in from a regulatory point of view over the years with you and your dad on seismic stuff?
Gavin MacCrae:Hmm. Well, it's a good question. Um, I'm definitely not caught up too much on geology sides of things. But I do know, in this part of the country, the Canadian Shield is a huge chunk of this area of the province and seismic history or anything to do with earthquakes, anything like that, I think is really really rare in this part of the country. So I'm sure there are some stipulations in building code when it comes to stuff like that. I can't say it's jumped out at me through you know, through the last 10 or 15 years
Christian Hamm:you know, it's a funny it's a it's a good question because we're here on the west coast and in building very everything is seismic everything so it's like ingrained in you and right and but when you think about it, like even when James asked him like, why are seismic and then I remember oh yeah, I built I built a couple hotels in Ontario and it's completely different. Like lots of different stuff is different even with moisture and envelope and all that kind of stuff but specifically with regards to seismic which is crazy because you don't think about it
Gavin MacCrae:Yeah, like it's it's it's not really a common term is you know, even in lexicon or like MIDI or anything here you know, if you stopped anyone on the street in Toronto City, we're but earthquake this same earthquake with the No like no no, you know, we we think of the west coast the Pacific. Yeah. You know all the activity the famous activity out there California and such and like, wow, that's That's wild stuff, right but here yeah, like I can't say I've ever had a specific specification and or structural project that referenced seismic reinforcement or anything along those lines. I can't say I've seen that before accents.
James Faulkner:Yeah, I guess that, you know, in the West Coast when we hear the word seismic, we obviously think earthquake, I guess in the East Coast. You just think of the liberals. Oh, was that? Was that was that out loud?
Christian Hamm:Hey, earthquake and Politics?
James Faulkner:I'm just, I'm just taking a cheap jab any opportunity. So...
Gavin MacCrae:It's, it's a big country. Lots of ideas. Yeah.
James Faulkner:So Gavin. So in terms of, you know, I think it'd be really cool crescendo if you've cool this, but I mean, it's just sort of like, just chatting about the history with the family a little bit. Yeah, this whole Scottish Highlander kind of like theme you guys have with the company is Yeah, so within your in the mid 90s was your favorite movie So I Married an Axe Murderer of Mike Meyers. Oh,
Gavin MacCrae:oh, you know what Mike? You know, he's I think he's from Scarborough here. Yeah. borough Toronto. You know, fame. That famous guy Jim Carrey is actually from like, half hour north. No. You know, so there's, there's like a pretty good SCTV and all that crowd. Yes. Yeah, Toronto was pretty, pretty good with comedy Dan act right. And all that stuff. So they did pretty well. Yeah, yeah. No, sorry. Miramax murders classic, classic, classic movie. I actually forgot about that movie until you mentioned that but
James Faulkner:Data, it's the it's the Scotch playbook. Do you guys have like Jackie Stewart and like, Bay City Rollers like posters around in these reclaimed basement so you guys have put together?
Gavin MacCrae:Oh, man, all sorts of stuff down there. Remember, in three acts were under the dad was sold, which which was Mike Myers as well. But Mike Myers, his dad, my god, that was, you know, seeing that for the first time, that was just the funniest friggin thing I've ever seen. Right, just like a classic, classic. But yeah, you know, with with the family in the old country and such, you know, that dad was born early 50s, they came over after the war, moved to London, Ontario, big family, you know, 910 kids, you know, it was, you know, the classic, you know, after, especially after the war overseas, you know, the Second World War, of course, the, you know, the United Kingdom. And, you know, the Allies had won, per se, but really, they were really, really, really left in a dire situation, you know, they had won the war, but the economy was non existent. And especially up north and Fort William, kind of where we're from in Scotland. That was an old shipbuilding sort of industry location, and the war sort of jam of a lot of that up, you know, everyone, yeah, you know, there was no work there was not really a lot going on in the UK. So, you know, like their ancestors before them at the turn of the century said, you know, what, we're leaving Europe, and we're gonna go to, you know, the New World per se, right. And Canada was a very, especially at that time, from what I understand, it was a very easy entry, sort of bring being a part of the British Commonwealth to begin with, you could get access to Canada very, very swiftly. And I think it was Canada or Australia, and they chose Canada. So yeah, they, they kind of left in the early 50s, sailed on over move to London, Ontario, and sort of started there, from London eventually moved into Toronto, into a area of Toronto called Cabbage Town. which nowadays is, you know, a very chic, you know, kind of like Brooklyn, in that sense, you know, back, you know, back in the day, let's say even in the 70s, even in the 80s and the 90s. Brooklyn was pretty wild place, you know, nowadays, maybe not so much, but Cabbage Town is in Toronto, somewhat equivalent, right, you know, it was Cabbage Town, because cabbage was the cheapest food you could eat and it was full of Irish and scotch, and it was full of Eastern European stuff like that. So that was kind of a, you know, sort of a rougher part of town and such and that's sort of where the family moved and got integrated into that and dad got into boxing and, you know, all sorts of stuff there. So that's, you know, that's that's kind of the the trip over the ocean, per se, anyways,
James Faulkner:cool. Did you was there this significant? It's, your dad had a thick, like Scots accent.
Gavin MacCrae:You know, what, that that lasted relatively quickly, you know, because he was kind of like, you know, wanting to fit in age or growing up in Toronto in that sense, right. And, you know, Toronto was still multicultural back then. And, you know, there was all sorts of different guys, you know, yeah, Eastern Europeans, Caribbean, you know, all over the world. Everyone was kind of there so he kind of dropped the accent but his mother and my grandmother didn't.
James Faulkner:That must have been comedic had. Oh,
Gavin MacCrae:It was it was it was, It was Special was very special to hear that depth of a tongue in that sense. They're just very, very thick. And she was, yeah, no grandmother, Josephine was a very special woman. So
James Faulkner:The when you when you have that kind of when you're talking about, you know, the British Commonwealth, etc. It's interesting that the connection of Scotland and I mean, even in the royal family, you know, when the Queen's funeral when she has that Highlander, the bagpipes go off in the distance. And they always used to spend a lot of time. You know, I think, you know, duck hunting and stuff like that.
Gavin MacCrae:Yeah. vacationing, yes.
James Faulkner:See those pictures with the, you know, the Range Rover and they're up there with their, that's the tarps, blankets and having tea. That's kind of an interesting thing. Like, that's the part of the history of, you know, Great Britain and, and Scotland is, it's, it's pretty, pretty connected there. And the weird thing is, is that, you know, England itself, you know, just, it's sort of has decoupled itself from the Scots thing. And it's like, you know, London and South London and all that. It's all it's, it's one thing, and then, but yet, their monarch has all the Scots stuff in the celebrations. So it's kind of interesting.
Gavin MacCrae:It's, it's, it's amazing. And the story, in a sense, is, it's kind of simple. So, you know, the, the Scots, especially in the highlands, for untold millennia, were sort of doing their thing, sort of up there. And then, you know, the, down in England and the South, you know, they were getting a lot more powerful as centuries past navies and, you know, conquering the world, right, they were kind of doing their thing, they were a Super Empire. And they were sort of bordering, you know, a country of Clans. And, and, you know, yeah, very basic ways of living, right. And so those two, opposites eventually sort of had to cross and they essentially did, and, you know, the history there is pretty rough. But at the end of the day, really, you know, England, sort of put Scotland into submission, in a sense, Ireland as well and Wales, and, you know, they have their history in the United Kingdom, you know, it is what it is. And so that that kind of happened in the you know, the 1800s kind of rolled around. And, you know, the Scots weren't really allowed, per se to, you know, own weapons, own steel, on anything that they could use to sort of create armies to maybe fight the English, their their tartan dress was banned, you know, sort of the standard. You know, I hate to say it, but the standard way, empires deal with barbaric or whatever. Yeah, yeah, you know, so they have sort of a certain operating procedure of how the civilized world deals with what they perceive to be maybe not civilized. So anyways, they, they kind of banned the Scottish way of life, per se. So a couple 100 years passed, and the Scots were kind of like, Fuck, what do we do? You know, there's not a lot we can do. So, you know, the English said, Well, here's something you can do is you can join the army. And we're going to send you to the worst places to do the worst things, but it's better than staying here. And so they scooped up a lot of the young man. And that's how they sort of cut the knees and of any potential idea of revolution or anything like that. So they, the English, were very, very sly with how they did it, but regardless, so all those things happen, and sort of the, the Highlander way of life was was kind of made illegal, in a sense. Anyway, so they were up there sort of in the highlands, you know, doing their things still, and there was I forget her name, but she was a writer in late 1800s, in London, and she went up to Scotland and spent time and she was pretty well respected in her day. And she was painting and writing and Amberlynn bales. Oh, man, off the top of my head. I'm, I don't recall her name like I could, I could Google it there. But regardless, she she, you know, created this huge body of work that sort of highlighted and told the history and the story of the Highlanders, to sort of, you know, posh London in the 1880s. And so posh London, you know, powerful, you know, wealthy London, they fell in love with the notion of everything to do with the highlands, its rawness, its beauty, its grit, its all these things. So that was sort of the era where the royal family started to grab the tartan and the pipes and they, you know, they, it was a really cool thing for them in their day to sort of associate with that. And then they just carried it on to today, right. So it almost looks like synonymous sort of with that. But, you know, it was just, they, they just, you know, added it on to their thing, which Hey, you know, It is what it is. But that's kind of where the integration really came from was, you know, it was viewed in the 1800s. And it's like, really cool to be aware of that history and to have connection to that stuff, even though hundreds of years previous, you know, that was criminalized,
Christian Hamm:Suppressed. And yeah,
James Faulkner:that makes perfect. That makes perfect sense. So, Gavin, I have to say that you have passed the Scottish test. Okay, so
Christian Hamm:well, that was it. Yes.
James Faulkner:So this is, it wasn't a test. But I was just thinking about why this guy knows a lot about the heritage of Scotland. And, you know, often you see people adopting a sort of a motif around some kind of a thing for their identity for their company. Yeah, it's really cool that you've got that crest with the Highlander in there, and then you were able to give us all this depth. So yeah, I just got one last question. And then it's all construction. I'll
Christian Hamm:say something about Okay.
James Faulkner:Oh, yeah. So the question is, Gavin, do you own a kilt?
Gavin MacCrae:Ay, I do, laddie. And I was I was I was married in it. I found a beautiful wife and I, we we had a Scottish theme sort of wedding it was during COVID very small and only 10 or 11 people there. You know, sort of in nice Highland tradition, right? We just kind of made the best of what it was. And it was it was the best day of my life. So yes, I'm very sure I'm tightened up.
Christian Hamm:That's, that's awesome. No, I mean, to James's point, they're just you're sharing of everything. I've never been to Scotland the way you're describing it, and like you were saying that they were trying to even communicate, even romanticize everything. Back in the 1800s. Like you were saying, it's capturing my mind right now as I'm just thinking about it, because I was watching a golf in the Scottish open this past weekend. Oh, nice, which was very cool. And the and Robbie McIntyre was almost there. The Scotsman there, who was golfer was in the lead at the end didn't quite pull it off. But man, that would have been a cool national story. Anyway, that's my contribution on Scotland.
Gavin MacCrae:I've heard that I've heard it. I've heard golfers from there. I can't say I've ever played golf myself, you know, mini putt and stuff. I Yeah. You know, but, ya know, famous famous sport there for sure.
Christian Hamm:What is that beautiful country?
James Faulkner:Okay, yes, really? Well, what is that? What is that furry fuzzy thing right in front? That goes right in front of the midsection of a male next to the on the what does that a purse? What is that thing?
Gavin MacCrae:I think they call it a Sporn?
James Faulkner:And what do you do with that? Is it a pocket?
Gavin MacCrae:Yeah, it's sort of a carrying case type thing. You know, I think the sporran carried all sorts of stuff. Like there was actually one one last little interesting story to, you know, with sort of the, the kilton, that whole sort of thing, you know, when you see someone in public or a Piper or, you know, even with the royal family stuff, you know, you see them, you always look, you know, sort of down into their sock, and are always carrying this small little dagger, and usually very ornate, you know, very nice, it's usually very small nowadays, too, of course, and then, you know, the sports there and stuff, but the idea of the dagger, really interesting thing is that, you know, because of the you know, clashing of a, you know, a Super Empire in Westminster and Scotland through centuries, and such, you know, civil war and war, and all those things, you know, even today, you know, a byproduct of those, even when they sort of stop is that thing, around the place where a war was fought, it becomes really like, violent, you know, systems break apart, everything is like screwed up, you know, so it really sort of takes a toll from the society, it kind of damages them more damages, society more than the bonds do, in a sense, but so back in those days, when you got married, in Scotland in the 16 1700s, the idea was that, you know, everybody was armed at all times a period, like, everyone rolled around Scotland armed, just because things were so wild, right, you just didn't know what was going to happen next, and so on, and so forth. So everyone always had some level of weapon on them. And 90% of the time, it was concealed underneath, you know, walls and tartans, and all sorts of things. So you never really knew where the weapon was, but you knew everyone kind of had one. You know, just just a dangerous time to be alive and a dangerous part of the world. So the idea was that when you had a public gathering, or a marriage or something along these lines were sort of, you know, friends and family would come and enjoy themselves. It was a huge, huge sign of respect to them. If you exposed your weapon, where you showed them where the dagger was, like, you don't leave the dagger at home, cuz shit could still go down. But, you know, you let everyone know where it is. And that was a huge sign of like, this is my friend or whatever. So that's, that's where the sort of the exposed dagger in the kilt dress comes from this. You know, it's not that you're not ours. But you're letting everyone know where it is, I guess you could say so you get to
James Faulkner:expose daggers basically.
Gavin MacCrae:Yeah, there you go.
Christian Hamm:I knew it was coming. I can see the look on his face.
James Faulkner:I can't help it
Christian Hamm:is as good as as something else. But anyway,
James Faulkner:that's okay.
Gavin MacCrae:Too easy.
James Faulkner:I mean, you said she had a couple of minutes ago saying,
Christian Hamm:oh, yeah, of course. This is construction conversation. And, you know, we don't often. A lot of times we just rip from not question to question, but point to point, just move a conversation along to be able to, like, unpack that there's a lot of richness to that, and it's part of your story. And it's, and it's something that bleeds into your business. So why not unpack it? That's pretty cool.
Gavin MacCrae:Appreciate you guys bringing it on me. Appreciate that.
Christian Hamm:Yeah, absolutely. Back to let's Okay, so we were talking about underpinning, but you also do a ton of stuff, what, what percentage of your business is underpinning? And then what percentage is everything else? And then let's talk about some other stuff.
Gavin MacCrae:Sure, sure. So like, you know, the, like, we're still, you know, sort of a small family run business, you know, so underpinning projects are pretty significant for us, you know, they they last five, six weeks, you know, everyone and everything is tied up focused on on sort of completing that. So we take probably in a year, three or four complete underpinning projects, we could likely take more, but, you know, the basement waterproofing side of things, is is a little more straightforward, in a sense for us, you know, we can we can sort of, you know, get projects done, wrap them up, you know, there's there's not, you know, we could say there's not as much liability and stress with those kinds of projects, even though they're, they're tough in their own regard. So yeah, so basically, basement underpinning, sorry, Basement Waterproofing is really sort of our staple, you know, exterior, basement waterproofing, interior, basement waterproofing, anything to do with weeping tiles, and some boxes and things along those lines that sort of deal with hydrostatic pressure. You know, so keeping basements dry. First and foremost, that's kind of our baileywick. The second item we do is, you know, when foundation walls are damaged, or moving or decayed, or, or maybe non existent, in some instances, you know, we can come in sort of shore up, shore by house, shore up a brick line, sort of hang that house, excavate beneath it, remove those damaged foundation walls in the portions, report footings rebuild, foundation walls that are blocked, generally speaking, and sort of rebuilding and repairing complete foundation walls. You know, we do sections, sometimes we do entire perimeters of a home sometimes, you know, so anything to do with foundation, repair physical replacements, or reinforcement of a foundation structure. And then the third thing would kind of be underpinning which kind of meshes all of those things kind of into one. You know, there's the structure in the form of the underpin, there's the excavation that we have to do with Basement Waterproofing already. And then, once the excavation is done, there's an interior weeping tile system that's installed and sumps, drainage board, you know, kind of things like that. So, yeah, we kind of break it down into those three categories. Basement Waterproofing is really our first and foremost thing. Foundation Repair physically is the second and then the third would be basement underpinning.
Christian Hamm:Now, foundation repair is in the name. How much of business? Is it exclusively existing structures? Or do you do on the waterproofing side, or anything else new construction at all
Gavin MacCrae:99% of the time, it's always existing structures, you know, with brand new, brand new construction, like, you know, generally, the guys that developers call in to sort of waterproof, maybe poured concrete walls or something along these lines, usually that application is sort of an auto robustness level is significantly less than ours, right? They come and sort of spray their foundation coating and then they put the drain to put on boom, they do the whole house in a day or two days. You know, our waterproofing application is you know, like a five, a five layer process it's very expensive to get done. But you know, of course lasts a huge amount of time. So with with developers and stuff like that, especially mixing in material and in the home warranty programs and sort of them looking at everything from from a high elevation. Generally they look at our stuff and say, Okay, it's just way too expensive for us to put on this wall. Because in three or four years, we're not actually liable. If this subdivision house leaks anymore, the the teardown program sort of expires. So there was never really a clear kind of match with developers and fresh construction. Generally the only time we do brand new, brand new waterproof waterproofing on brand new foundation walls is if a client is actually building the house themselves, or they are they have someone that's building it for them. And they say, Hey, I like your stuff, you know, seen on YouTube seen me around great word of mouth here in the area, I want your waterproofing system around my house. And in that sense there, that's, that's something we definitely do.
Christian Hamm:So you said, YouTube, you have a YouTube presence?
Gavin MacCrae:Yeah, we, you know, we, we kind of started recently, the last six or seven months of, you know, trying to sort of, you know, maybe build out a little bit of a channel and, you know, with kind of what we do, and looking at YouTube, we didn't really see anyone kind of doing what we're doing, per se Yeah. And I thought, you know, if, if, if we could record the job and make a time lapse of the project, that would be really cool. And I can do all the camera work, plus I'm on the job. So I can sort of, you know, do all that I'm already kind of there. And then to think you know what, to be able to sort of explain exactly what we've done in this time lapse, I kind of pull it back, and do kind of a top down camera, no pad sort of kind of explanation. It's, it's kind of a starting point for us. But you know, we we do have a little YouTube channel and some explainer videos is what we kind of call them, top down explainer videos, and we kind of explain what we're about to do, and sort of draw it out. And then we kind of do it, you know, type thing so?
Christian Hamm:Well, it's cool, because when you're dealing with homeowners and users that are, you know, they're going about life, and there's an issue, you know, they need someone to call being able to put that stuff together in an a nice YouTube channel and educate, right, this is the huge education component to that.
Gavin MacCrae:That's exactly it. You know, even even all of our videos when YouTube asks us, like, what's the nature of this video, we tag every video with, you know, this is an education video. And you know, it, you know, the, the amount of views, we, you know, we kind of get every week, you know, it's not viral or astronomical, but it's very consistent. A lot of people are kind of watching our stuff and thinking like, well, you know, that's an, you know, an issue I have as well. And, you know, to go and see a job, you know, oftentimes, you know, the solution is xy and z. And, you know, we happen to have a, you know, an explainer video to go along with an estimate. You know, some, some clients do like that, to be able to see things in advance and say, Wow, this is exactly what I need done as well. And you get to sort of see it all beginning to end. You know, that's, that's been very helpful for us as well. Now,
Christian Hamm:you guys have a pretty unique approach, you've kind of laid a few things out here, I don't know how much you want to get into it, but the hand digging?
Gavin MacCrae:Yeah, so, you know, with, with basement waterproofing, especially, you know, even the foundation repair, and underpinning as well, like, you know, it, the hand excavation method back in the 80s, or early 90s, when, when dad was kind of starting out, you know, the, the idea of owning an excavator in the 80s was like, that was a, you know, that, that was a big, big deal. You know, nowadays, you know, owning or renting an excavator, you know, it's, it's not as big of a deal. They're more common, you know, they're, they're kind of around. So, anyways, you know, that is to say that all of this work back in the day was always done by a shovel, and a tarp and a pick. And that was kind of it, you know, the overhead was low, the labor level was extremely high. But it's something that, you know, sort of the common man per se could could could partake in, you didn't need a lot of overhead, and insurance and trucks and floats, and all sorts of things related to big machines. So, you know, the spirit of this really started with a shovel, you know, a pick, buckets, you know, very, very basic stuff. And as time went on, as, as, you know, I grew up and, you know, around this stuff, you know, I learned to, you know, hand excavate all of our guys do as well. And, you know, it's one of those things that we look at that now, it's actually an easier route, at the end of the day, to expose foundation walls and sort of get things done, because oftentimes, you know, actually, all the time, nine and a half percent of our repairs are, you know, to existing homes, a lot of the time there in Toronto access is very tight between these homes, there's garden beds, there's concrete pads that are locked deck, gas lines, all sorts of stuff in the way, you know, so involving machinery, and that kind of stuff is really can be very problematic at the end of the day, you know, pretty exactly, you know, and it just goes on and on. There's danger involved in that as well. And, you know, insurance is very, very high to use machinery to do that a lot of the guys out there don't actually pay or have proper insurance for their machines, but that's kind of up to them or whatever. You know, so we always viewed it's, you know, how simple can we make this and that was kind of the King occlusion as time went on, it's like, you know what hand excavation for what we do, it makes a lot more sense than being stuff and that and percent of the other guys in the in the area, they all sort of choose the machine route you know, type thing so we we do kind of have our own thing going on in regards to that some some guys and engineers and contacts we have out there the you know, they they call us in specifically because this is hand excavation and when we're done, and it's backfield and power tamped, and everything's cleaned. It's you know, it's miraculous to the customer like, Oh, my God, I cannot believe how clean and tidy this is given what it looked like yesterday. Right. So that that's a big sort of selling feature for for some homeowners as well, you know, it's Oh, total excavation and stuff is, you know, can get really gnarly. So,
Christian Hamm:yeah, it's quite an invasive process, right? Like in the amount of the damage, you leave in the wake of it all too, right? Or there has to be repaired and fixed. And it's pretty intricate work that you're doing. So you might as well do it with something a little more
James Faulkner:tiny to cool when I when I do it, but like that the hand excavation I always think about the first scene in Jurassic Park, remember? And they're all like, yes. With the paint brushes. Yes, yes. Have you guys have you guys ever found anything super weird while you're doing that?
Gavin MacCrae:Hmm, um I found cars before.
James Faulkner:That's pretty good cars for cars underneath.
Gavin MacCrae:Yeah. Yeah. Like not, not, you know, not even just a bumper but like a full like, wow, this is a car like a full car. You know, four or five, six feet down. And, you know, luckily, they've never been directly in my repair area, but we've exposed them sort of at our sidewalls. You know, when you know, to start digging, you know, you kind of hit mentally think, yeah, you know, it could be scrap or whatever. But then it's kind of Chrome and you're like, that's a strange thing to bury. And then you keep going and going and going and it's a door and then well, that must have been a mirror. Oh, it's a backdoor. Oh, shit. There's two tires. Like it's like, there's like a car in here. Like, I'm not going anywhere near that trunk. I don't know, like, geez, you know, like, I don't even want to know. Yeah, so most recently, a car, a full car. Something really, really common as old bottles. We have a big collection of really, really old class bottles from like, it's amazing how that stuff survives down there. You know, cans or anything metal aluminum stuff usually decays. But sometimes we do find some of those. But yeah, glass bottles like old apothecary medicine bottles from the turn of the century. That's pretty cool. You know, when when Coca Cola became a thing and glass bottles, like really old stuff? Yeah, I'd say the most common thing we find not every day, but would would be like ornate glassware in the form of that kind of stuff. Women's makeup stuff or perfume things and the glass always survives everything else rots. Yeah. But you know, oftentimes, it's interesting. You know, you can find some of those glass bottles, and you can read the dates and times and it's like, oh, wow, you know, like this. This is the era this house was built in. Right. This is probably one of the workers.
Christian Hamm:Yeah, exactly. That is what they were dealing with at that time. Yeah,
Gavin MacCrae:yeah, exactly.
James Faulkner:And so you keep all that stuff, then? Oh, for sure. If you get a little trophy case for that, you got it. Yeah. What about the car though? That cars. I mean, when I think of all of this, it's not like you're gonna bury a car with you're not going to drive it around and drive it around until it's gone. No gas left in it. There's gas and that gas tank for sure. And there's oil, there's oil in the engine? There's antifreeze, probably there's all that stuff that's under there. That's probably for like, today, if you were to excavate that crisis, you'd be in like remediation for what like a two years because there was a car in there.
Gavin MacCrae:You know, I hate to say it, that's part of the reason you know, we kind of get there and the derby you know, I'm I'm certain that the details of removing that are just you know, especially nowadays probably just massive.
James Faulkner:Hey, just pour the concrete quickly. Just just in case. Like that all
Christian Hamm:the time that people Yeah.
Gavin MacCrae:It's wild, wild stuff. Yeah.
James Faulkner:Did Could you tell what type of car was?
Gavin MacCrae:Um, you know what I couldn't I usually know car bodies pretty pretty well, but this one, I you know what, I could look back at photos. I still do have photos of it. It was blue that I do know. I would guess it was from the 60s 60s. Early 70s would be my guess. Like, you know, it wasn't like a Thin Lizzy Model T but it wasn't, you know, a 2000 Mustang either. So I think it was, you know, late 60s, early 70s style of body type thing, but yeah, tough to say why somebody would do that. You
James Faulkner:know, so when you when you hit the roofline, like how much further Are you going down? From that? Let's say the roofline of a typical cars like what five feet Another thing? Probably right? Yeah, five feet. And then you see you've got another five feet to down where the baseline of the tires would be. Are you going down that distance? So you end up with this car in the middle?
Gavin MacCrae:Yeah, literally, it was it was always down.
James Faulkner:What do you guys do? How did you get that out of there?
Gavin MacCrae:Luckily, it wasn't directly in the area. But you know, it was probably for three and a half, four feet off the wall. So whoever buried didn't put it right up against the wall, which was good. Because if you know, in turn, especially with the winters here, you know that that car could actually start moving. And then of course, you know, break or fracture that foundation while potentially but yeah, luckily, it was just about three and a half or four feet back from the wall. So we got to sort of dig past it. But in that sense, there we were down, six and a half feet. And I would say the car was buried below grade three feet. So it was almost in the middle. Just kind of hanging there. Chillin in the dirt and doing its thing. And yeah, it was it was. It was it was quite something to see.
James Faulkner:I'll get an old car story. Just very, it's very short. Yeah. So there's this parking lot that had this super smooth, underground parking lot would go down like six levels. And my friend and I went for like 15 we used a skateboard all the way down. So it was awesome. You just haul the whole way around and ran around. Yeah, and when you get to the bottom, there was this 50s car that had a smashed front. Headlight sort of quarter panel with blood all over it. And blood on the windshield with a smashed windshield. This is like one time you saw us or every time No, it was always was always there. You get you get to the bottom. You're like, what did that thing kill? Wow. Right? Because it hit it hits something. Oh, it was blood everywhere. It just left it. And that was it. Yeah, it was just it was. So it looked like it could have hit a deer or something. Yeah, because it was just blood all over the hood and then a smashed window with blood on it. Anyway, back to construction. Sorry,
Christian Hamm:though. That's funny. I mean finding things that people leave behind on job sites. For some reason that always ended up because I did four or five years of formwork when I was in university and so being a golfer I always ended up with a golf ball in my in my tool belt. You tee it up on a spike and you know take your hammer and boom see how far you could but I'm poor day I had I've ever had a golf ball I just pop it in the corner of a of a foundation be like you know what, just for the other one day someone will see this zebula ball and know the technology we had to deal with. Although it's obviously all out there. But But yeah, so I was I always left golf on the corner of the it's inconsequential to the structure or the wall or anything it's like on the outside of the foundation wall so of course right. But yeah, so I totally understand the whole finding little things along the way and it's it's neat it's cool to cool to see so I'm sure you got lots of trinkets and stuff so you don't want
James Faulkner:to lay the groundwork guys you like hanging out? Hey, do the golf ball. We
Christian Hamm:got to do this tomorrow. Hang on guys. But since we're since we're not talking about any equipment, Gavin let us know. What is the shovel to be envied. today?
James Faulkner:Well, Chevelle,
Christian Hamm:yeah, what's the tool of choice? What are you guys going after?
Gavin MacCrae:Honestly, the best shovel through the years through the decades has always been, you know, find find like the, you know, the good building supply close by not, you know, not Home Depot, per se for this, but you know, Home Depot shovels, they're constantly trying to reinvent the wheel. You know, which, which is how it you know, that's, that's the world they live in. And that's totally cool. Right? So they have carbon fiber shovels, that this that all these kinds of different shovels that they you know, try to sort of sell out there but really the best shovel at the end of the day. Is that off brand normal wood handle, you know, forged steel blade, blade kind of shovel 10 bucks at you know, the building supply in that sense. Yeah, like the best shovel. A shovel. Yeah, and, you know, we we go back to that one time and time again, you know, I don't even think there's a brand on these things. You know, I'm sure there is somewhere but but it's not advertised, it's a really basic would handle to Hackney shovel. That's literally why like, yeah, you got it exactly, just just the most basic thing. And that's like the most perfect form of shovel, you know, they they try to reinvent the wheel. And again, that's cool. But, you know, there's always caveats with that kind of stuff, reinventing something, you know, it's kind of like a hammer, or, you know, a hatchet or something like that. It's like, you know, what, this has been applicable for like centuries. And you know, you can add some things to the hammer to make it cool if it's light and titanium that's cool. Or, you know, whatever. But yeah, it's, it's the exact same hammer, basically as 1910. You know, boom, boom, right? And it's As you tried to adjust that formula, it just doesn't really play out and shovels are very similar.
Christian Hamm:It's funny, I've seen the progression of hand tools. I grew up on an acreage. And again, like I say, my parents are still in this place. But my dad, he likes to get out there and get active in the yard. And he's constantly going to Home Depot, like east wing was the brand. Yeah, well, that's yeah, that was a hammer. Yeah. Right. The blue handle? Yeah. And the he would he would always go on I'd go in the shed because you know, come help them out on the weekend or something like that. Or my son's there now. And oh, that's a new shovel. Oh, this is the latest. Oh, this is that and just keep seeing the lace. Oh, that one fell apart right away like a cart like the carbon fiber handle or whatever. He's watched kind of the evolution of Hansel just by going into my dad's shed, constantly upgrading, like, every season, what's the latest? What's the latest that but, but when you do it for business, and this is what you do every day, you're gonna go
James Faulkner:try see through all the BS, see through all the crap, which is interesting. Like I was fine. Like, when in the consumer products, you see the the evolution of marketing when it comes to like, you know, I mean, the shaving products for men are like the razor, specifically the blade razor. You know, when you start talking about airplanes, and like turbines, and like, Turbo Mach three, razor, I mean, is it gonna go Mach anything? So that's like, when you start to pull in all these other terms that define performance, essentially? Yeah. So when you've got like a shovel that's called the turbo X shovel, it's like, does that have a turbine on it and not taking exhaust gases and compressing fuel? No, it doesn't say, come on.
Gavin MacCrae:It's, it's amazing, you know, the marketing thing, in a sense, just just with everything, don't even construction tools, but just with everything, you know, even I don't know, even with you know, every year Ford re releases the f150 or dodge rereleases. whatever they're doing, you know, and they consistently year after year, sell these things as unique or new, significantly more unique or new as the last year's model. And although that kind of stuff doesn't generally I don't think works on me. I find it interesting that they keep coming back to the plate every year. Yeah. It's just like you guys have. Oh, it's It's wild. It's wild, the quote unquote, creativity of rebranding things, year after year into something new. And people are like, wow, that's new. Like, actually, that's not new at all. It's because we're suckers. It's wild. Yeah, it's wild. I hate to say that, but the watching it is just like, wow,
Christian Hamm:yeah, the phone is the phone is the biggest culprit in all of this. Right? Absolutely. So like, the amount of times that you just continually upgrade, upgrade upgrade. And then you see your buddy who still got the, I don't know, iPhone seven or six SC or whatever it happens to be. He's like, Dude, I make calls in a text. Like, it does what it needs to do. And my reception is fine. And it's all good. Or the guy that's driving the 1015 year old f150, you know, are still our screen change? You're still there? Yeah.
James Faulkner:The typically like what you're, what you're experiencing there is the quenching of dissatisfaction. In general, like we all end feeling of inadequacy. This is why we need we need these other things. Because everything says Oh, you don't need the old stuff that new stuffs way better. So you're no good unless you have the newest stuff, which is a total myth. But it's just how we feel all the time.
Gavin MacCrae:It's, it's incredible, and you know, the corporate world or whatever, you know, to call it, they are fully aware of that and have been since you know, Santa Claus and Coca Cola got together in 2010 or whatever. Yeah. You know, like, everything has been following Chris everything. Yeah, exactly. Everything has been a slow roll for like a century. Right. Like, it's amazing. You know, like, even even the idea, I think that one of the things that really solidified engagement rings being diamond, or golden diamond, was the Second World War when all the soldiers went away. That was kind of low key societally, like, you know, my, my wife or my fiance's back home, and that's how I know that she's my fiancee, just because of that ring. And then to beers and all these companies, they flooded into it, too. And after the war, it was just an assumption. Like, oh, you're you're engaged. You know, where's the diamond? Like? Yeah, exactly. Looks totally skipped consciousness. And now it's just a fact that
James Faulkner:one century or whatever. One Yes. phrase has basically like done. A diamond is forever. But your marriage literally 50% of the time in your marriage isn't so
Christian Hamm:yeah, that's a different story. Right. But, and that one's fresh with you because that's only a few years old. Yeah, yeah,
Gavin MacCrae:no, no, it's it's amazing how that stuff works, guys. Yeah, no, no. Yeah.
James Faulkner:Oh, nice congrats. You did too. No, no, no, no, I was just congratulating you.
Christian Hamm:He said the COVID The COVID wedding. Oh, yeah. Oh, the kilt. Yes.
James Faulkner:Oh yeah. And what's that thing called again? The sports this morning Sporn was born Yeah little did you have your little give your mobile phone in that? So basically you got the Bay City Rollers as your ringtone? Yes. Oh, hang on a sec. Hello. Can I help you? JT foundation here? Can I do? The phone was on this morning there? Well, you don't put it on vibrate? That's a bit that's a bit much. Close?
Christian Hamm:Well, this this conversation before we maybe tidied up with that rapid fire round? Which I know Yeah. What What would you want to say? Because you've got that YouTube channel, you're, you're working directly with homeowners a lot. You know, our audience. There's a lot of people that are, you know, could be dealing with lots of different issues. What would you leave everybody with right now? What would you want to say about what you do? Or just even an educational standpoint from what you do for in work everyday?
Gavin MacCrae:Yeah, like, you know, I would sum it up simply that you know, owning a home, fantastic, fantastic thing. Without the structure, the foundation of that home sort of being in sort of top health, nothing above that really matters, per se, it's all going to sort of move or decay, if that foundation is, you know, sort of in poor shape. So, if people don't have foundation issues, sort of to date, that's fantastic. One of the ways to keep foundation issues, whether that's cracks or leaks or things like this from from occurring, really is is positive grade, keeping drainage away from that from from from the structure of the home, maintaining eavesdropped systems, making sure they're not spilling over, you know, a lot of homeowners don't know that every year part of the maintenance of the home, in addition to everything else, is you got to get those eavesdrops clean, you know, they have to have to be flowing well, they can't be dripping, leaking spilling over, you know, oftentimes, downspouts, you know, they'll exhaust or they'll drain right next to the foundation, and he'll be there for 20 years. And then we get a call on Oh, there's a crack in my head. I'm like, It's next to the downspout and nine or 10 times. There it is, right. And so there, there's kind of small things you can do to sort of keep away from having to get involved in this kind of work, right? It's, it's usually very expensive as well, to kind of get done properly. So yeah, each trough grade and keeping the volume away from the home that's going to really keep you it's generally in a pretty good spot. To not have to call us per se.
Christian Hamm:Okay, well, I'm gonna make a note. That was a that was a question for the audience. Not me. Okay. Okay. What was good to maintain good foundation? No, but no, that's super helpful. And good before we use the rapid fire James anything else to add any any any Scottish references anything that Nope, I got my Phil cars burden. Nope. Totally. That was pretty solid. Yeah. Gavin we always end our with our guests get to know our let our audience know a little bit more. Although I think they know quite a bit, which is great about you, but just some other unique facts. So we'll read through this. And what comes to mind first, how does that sound? Sure, right on. All right, Gavin. What is something that you do that others would think is insane?
Gavin MacCrae:Oh, man, hand excavation honestly. That's you right? Yeah. I'm with you. You tell guys about it. No handed. There's, you're crazy. No, no, this is what this is what we do. So yeah, head excavation take takes a lot of people by by surprise sometimes. So they think we're crazy. But
Christian Hamm:clearly works. That's that's so far, so good. That's awesome. Okay, if you weren't doing what you're doing right now, and excavation, you know, building a great business. What would you be doing?
Gavin MacCrae:In a, in a different life, you know, I've always been in a different life, I would have imagined myself as someone involved in like mechanical engineering controls. That that sort of side of things I you know, in my personal time, I kind of gravitate towards some of that naturally and, you know, kind of minor machine building and stuff like that. So, yeah, it would it would probably be something related to that. You know, we work hand in hand with with engineers every day. So we're already kind of close to that world when it comes to structure but yeah, the, you know, the machine building world is something very Interesting to me as well, sort of on my free time. So yeah, I would I would say in a different life. Yeah. Mechanical Engineering.
Christian Hamm:Very cool. All right, this is always a fun one, we're called the site visit. So we're construction podcast, we get lots of great stories when we ask this one, sometimes sentimental, sometimes hilarious or ones that can't be told. But what is your most memorable story? From the job site? Geez, you can go into any direction you want on this one.
Gavin MacCrae:Okay, so, you know, other than, you know, kind of, you know, the guys we work with, you know, our crews and teams, you know, we're kind of like a family in that sense. They're I, you know, I really value their opinions. And, you know, I think they've helped you mine as well. And, you know, we have a really sort of tight knit, I guess what they would call it nowadays, culture, whatever. But, you know, we, we have a really tight knit sort of thing. And I always have, you know, a lot of the guys that work with my dad, in the past, you know, I work with their sons now. type thing, right, so we're kind of multigenerational, you know, thing as well. So it's, it's a pretty special kind of little thing here. So, you know, other than, you know, sort of jobs that that go very well, and you know, us sort of overcoming obstacles and sort of the nice feelings that come from that, which would take a lot of context to explain that, that is sort of most commonly, you know, the most memorable to me is kind of wrapping stuff up looking at everyone. They're looking at me like, boys, we did it, like amazing, and just that feeling of like, wow, like, this is incredible. Right. So, other than that stuff, that's cool. This story that comes to mind. I guess, the wildest, you know, objectively the wildest story, in recent memory of something that happened on a job. So, we were doing an underpin in a place called Hamilton City, just outside Toronto, a little bit smaller than Toronto. Nice city, you know, pretty, pretty tough history. That's that's where all the steel Yaletown Yeah, exactly right. And, you know, steel pieced out in the 80s and 90s, and kind of left Hamilton kind of a little bit high and dry. So, you know, Hamilton has its pockets of rejuvenation, and also has pockets of, you know, tough town, Hamilton's a tough town. You know, so there's a lot of, you know, people leaving Toronto, taking that, per se Toronto money, and bringing it to Hamilton, and that really buys you some really nice stuff out there, you know, beautiful century homes, Hamilton is full of them. They're everywhere. It's, it's a really interesting spot. Anyway, some. So we get a lot of underpinning work out there, because clients come they want to underpin the basements of century homes and sort of do you know, do the whole thing. So we've done a lot of work out there now. I would say probably five, six years ago, we were doing an underpinning job in Hamilton. It was wintertime, I think it was January, February. And yeah, we you know, we had been there for like three days, oh, sorry, three weeks, three and a half weeks. And you know, we had the all the underpins in and we're beating, you know, kind of beginning to dig the basement out with the conveyor belts and kind of going through that process. Usually, it takes a couple of weeks to do. Anyways, so yeah, we're just kind of chipping away at things. And I remember I got there. I was there first that morning, and it was probably Monday or Tuesday anyways, but and with underpinning jobs, like we always isolate sort of one of the basement windows, and that's our primary entrance and exit from the project. Like we don't come up through the, you know, the clients first floor, like they, they live isolated from us with heat and hot water and all that stuff, like we do these projects with people living in the house, you know, so we always open up a basement window, and that's what we use to get everything in to get everything out and for us to get in and out on a daily basis as well. So, you know, there's a window kind of open or usually we put plywood and sort of reinforced that sort of screws. And that's kind of the you know, the basic entry point for us on a daily basis. So yeah, just you know, seemed kind of like a another kind of day got there in the morning. We got there and yeah, Hamilton's finest you know, there was probably five or six police cars all over the street and our basement window entrance opening was gone. Right. So I'm, you know, I hop out of the truck, you know, when my rubber boots and you know, gentlemen what's going on, you know, in the police, who are you guys, um, you know, I'm doing the underpinning project here like what's going on? He's like, have you seen anyone in here recently that like, you know what, I just got here. I don't know what you guys are talking about. Anyways, you know, the police said you can't go anywhere near the house. And I said wow, that's that's pretty exceptional, but you guys are the police. So okay. Anyway, so I wait my guys get there. I tell them hey, let's just chill for a sec. You know, I'm not really sure Yo, what's going on here? So, the police take about half hour or so their own radios everyone seems really tense and I'm wondering like, What could this possibly be about? Like this is really exceptional. Anyways, finally the cops kind of get in the car and there's only one cop left police officer sorry and, you know, said okay, what's going on? He said, Okay, so here's what happened. Last night, there was a police chase down the street. And we were chasing a guy who hit an electrical pole, the electrical pole fell. He hopped out of the car. He had firearms on him. And he ran up the street ran between this house your underpinning and the neighbors saw your entranceway with plywood, kicked it in and he hid in your job site overnight. And we just picked him up, man. And I was like, What in the UK are you talking about? Like it was it was the wildest like there was a guy in there with the friggin gun all night, or whatever. Like, it was this huge, you know, when of course the police when there's firearms involved. Fair enough, right? Yeah, they were. They were friggin on level 10 Like it was really like frightening like when I showed up like, Hey, what's up? Oh, you Well, well, well. Anyway, so he's
Christian Hamm:Here to pick up one of the guy. Yeah.
Gavin MacCrae:Yeah, I'm here to fill a disposal bin guys like for real like, you know, but it was it was it was a really wild. And of course, it was on the news that night and all this. My guys look at each other like holy shit. This was our, our area that we're working in anyways. Yeah, it was just a wild drama filled like My goodness. So exceptional story in the last five, six years? I would say no, no, yet. Other than that stuff is real quiet and are and you know, people who are excellent clients are great. Normal people are just fantastic with us. So
Christian Hamm:well, that's a great story and some great sentiments left about your team there. Clearly you're doing you're doing something exceptional. And you've got some great people working for you. Appreciate it. But Gavin, we are really thankful for you joining us today and getting into story, the stories behind your business and in the family and where you guys are going. So we really appreciate that.
Gavin MacCrae:My pleasure. Thanks for taking the time. And yeah, let's chat again. And yeah, thanks again. We appreciate it.
James Faulkner:Alright, thanks very much. 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/thesitevisit where you'll get Industry Insights, pro tips and everything you need to know about the site visit podcast and SiteMaX the job site and construction management tool of choice for 1000's of contractors in North America and beyond. SiteMax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building!