Explore the fascinating fusion of personal journeys and the invisible art of sound in our latest episode. A British expat recounts the tale of swapping London's relentless pace for the community-focused comforts of North Vancouver, complete with the quirks of adapting to the local weather. Meanwhile, sound expert Paul Marks unravels the primal role of acoustics in our lives, from survival instincts to emotional resonance, and how it impacts everything from balance to our sense of place.
Our auditory expedition doesn't stop there. We navigate the corridors of a Burnaby-based acoustics consultancy, delving into their expansion and the acoustic landscapes they sculpt within healthcare, education, and residential projects. Their work underscores the importance of early acoustic planning, demonstrating how raised access flooring and savvy soundproofing can transform spaces into havens of productivity and tranquility.
Finally, brace yourself for an icy adventure as we recount a close encounter with the majestic polar bears of Nunavut. This story of raw nature and professional adaptability epitomizes the episode's theme: the integral role of sound expertise in our projects and lives. Our discussion underscores the far-reaching impact of acoustics, from the serenity of high-end residences to the dynamic demands of multi-use cultural centers. Join us for this symphony of personal anecdotes, expert insights, and a harmonious blend of sound and space.
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:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thesitevisit
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesitevisit
Explore the fascinating fusion of personal journeys and the invisible art of sound in our latest episode. A British expat recounts the tale of swapping London's relentless pace for the community-focused comforts of North Vancouver, complete with the quirks of adapting to the local weather. Meanwhile, sound expert Paul Marks unravels the primal role of acoustics in our lives, from survival instincts to emotional resonance, and how it impacts everything from balance to our sense of place.
Our auditory expedition doesn't stop there. We navigate the corridors of a Burnaby-based acoustics consultancy, delving into their expansion and the acoustic landscapes they sculpt within healthcare, education, and residential projects. Their work underscores the importance of early acoustic planning, demonstrating how raised access flooring and savvy soundproofing can transform spaces into havens of productivity and tranquility.
Finally, brace yourself for an icy adventure as we recount a close encounter with the majestic polar bears of Nunavut. This story of raw nature and professional adaptability epitomizes the episode's theme: the integral role of sound expertise in our projects and lives. Our discussion underscores the far-reaching impact of acoustics, from the serenity of high-end residences to the dynamic demands of multi-use cultural centers. Join us for this symphony of personal anecdotes, expert insights, and a harmonious blend of sound and space.
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:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thesitevisit
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesitevisit
So fresh in from Henning and the UK originally. Originally yeah yeah, so was it always like London to Burnaby? Was that the transition?
Speaker 2:No, actually North Van North.
Speaker 1:Van. Yeah, that's actually a really good landing spot. The North Shore is very good for someone from the UK.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it had a real neighborhood feel.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that was really nice. You know, I was living in London, came out of South London, so it was really nice to arrive somewhere where there was a proper community. So yeah, it was a little quieter than London perhaps, but yeah it was a really nice arrival.
Speaker 1:What were the shocking things, being a Brit coming to Vancouver.
Speaker 2:What were the things you were?
Speaker 1:like oh my goodness, this is weird.
Speaker 2:I think it rained six weeks straight when I arrived here, which was you know. You knew it rained in Vancouver, but I didn't know whether I had to start London's. Pretty wet too it is, but I was thinking about building my ark at one stage.
Speaker 1:Well, North Van gets a little sleepy.
Speaker 2:Things that surprise you. Seeing the Queen's face on bills right yeah, I had not expected that. I thought that wouldn't be there. It was so easy to assimilate. That was the greatest thing about it to just feel like you were at home. Because you're a long way. You are a long way from Britain because you're a long way you are a long way from Britain.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Site. Visit Podcast Leadership and perspective from construction With your host, james Falkner. 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. You know you read all the books, you read the email, you read Scaling Up, you read Good to Great. You know I could go on. We've got to a place where we found the secret serum. We found the secret potion. We can get the workers in. We know where to get them.
Speaker 1:Once I was on a job site for a while actually we had a semester concrete and I ordered like a Korean-Finnish patio of fun to just say chill these days. I was down at Dallas and a guy just 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 Favour Connect platform on your guys' podcast. Own it, crush it and love it, and we celebrate these values every single day. Let's get down to it, paul. How are you? How are you doing today? I'm good. How are you? Yeah, paul Marks.
Speaker 2:Great name, thank you, yeah, marks and Sparks. Yeah, that's right, proper British name. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So BKL, amazing. I went through the website. I'm interested in sound stuff. To begin with, I do sound engineering for my music. Obviously, you can tell I use Logic. I know what Hertz are.
Speaker 2:I know what those things are.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of a cool thing. For me this is a very educational thing. Obviously, the different types of services that your company provides. I mean, when it comes to music, that's just one pillar of services you guys do, but I'm sure it's interesting work. So you did some work with government buildings and you know sustaining or what do you call it.
Speaker 2:Sort of sustainable development, and acoustics is a part of that or containing sound is a huge thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, you know we are. You know, essentially, these two funnels that we've got on the side of our heads. You know we are still cavemen running around, so we need sound. You know we needed it to save ourselves, we needed it to hunt for food. So we need to have those sensors on the side of our head to be able to hear other people, communicate with other people. We need to be able to work and concentrate. So sound hits you every day and affects you in everywhere you go, not just in the broadcast studio. As soon as you walk out onto the street there'll be noise that you, you know you get that. The fancy term is soundscape, but it gives you a feeling of where you are, how that oral conditioning around you makes you feel. You know, sound in films gives you, you know, those feelings of am I meant to be? You know I'm scared. It's a scary movie. That's because the music is.
Speaker 1:Or on minor chords.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly, and that's you know, that's how sound affects you. It sort of unwittingly affects you in every aspect of your life.
Speaker 1:And also there's, you know, just in terms of your equilibrium. You know, when you've got one thing wrong with one ear, it can completely check your balance. It can make some weird stuff going on, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, your ears form part of that sort of a balance. You use the sound to locate yourself. You know you've got two so you're able to work out how far sounds are away from you, how close they are to you. The characteristics, the frequency of that sound can affect you as well. So, yeah, it's a 360, 100% sensor that you have, you know, just stuck here on the side of your head, and most of the time you don't even realize it's happening.
Speaker 1:Well, it's interesting because we have a new thing behind us, which you can probably hear. They just installed this video conferencing thing right behind you that was not there two days ago. Can you hear them?
Speaker 2:back there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like thanks for that. You know, like, on a situation like this, I mean I'm not going to put you on the spot here. You know, like, on a situation like this, I mean I'm not going to put you on the spot here, but maybe a little bit but whose responsibility is it to contain sound? Mine, if I don't want the sound is? Do I go next door and say, excuse me, like do you have any idea? This is bleeding through the walls? Or did they say you're trying to record stuff, that's your problem?
Speaker 2:part of part of our job is to help people like that make sure that when they put those type of facilities in, that they're able to contain that sound. Yeah, um, this is just, you know, a classic example of someone going hey, I'm just going to put this in and there's no thought around. Okay, what's the acoustic impact of this? What effect am I going to to to cause my neighbors by having that? Um video conference is so popular now we see it in virtually every workplace that we deal with. It's a standard way now, post-pandemic, of communicating not only with people on the other side of the world, but sometimes people in the same office as you. And there's so many acoustic requirements so that you have the right sound isolation between other spaces that might not want to hear that, yeah, but also you need to have the right conditions so that you can understand and people can understand you more importantly, when you're talking on those video conferences yeah, exactly, I mean the reverb going.
Speaker 1:The natural reverb in a room is obviously going to create feedback et cetera.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, so you have that sort of you want to have a natural sound to your voice so that people on the other side of the microphone can see and hear you as they expect to hear you. You don't want to have those unusual acoustic effects. So, yeah, it's very important that the room conditions finishes reflect what the message you're trying to send and how you're trying to send it.
Speaker 1:Thank you for coming in here, because you know, I said to Tatiana like this company looks cool and I'm like, well, I want to talk about this stuff. So maybe just and before we get into your background here, I'm just going to do a little biopic of you. Let's just chat a little bit about the company and just, you know, if you're a quick elevator pitch on what you, what you guys do, what the bulk of the work you guys do is, et cetera.
Speaker 2:So we're a company that was formed in the lower mainland in Vancouver in 1966. So so 50, whatever years ago that is. We went from relatively small, humble beginnings, just two guys sort of working out dealing with typically they were dealing with noise control issues for neighborhood noise. The business sort of evolved during the 70s and 80s into something that was a little more scientific and a little bit more robust in terms of its delivery. I came to the business in 2013. At that stage we had 13 people I was the 13th, unlucky 13th person in the business and since then we are now 32 people, 24 engineers and consultants, working again predominantly from the lower mainland. We do have a couple of people that work remotely from other parts of Canada, but yeah, we're based in Burnaby. Basically, the work is the easiest way to describe it is we have a team that works with noise and sound outside of buildings and then noise and sound inside buildings. Okay, and so the guys outside are dealing with tending to deal with big infrastructure, port work, road schemes, that type of thing. The side that I'm working on is architectural. We call it architectural acoustics. So we're dealing with the design of buildings, design of spaces, conditioning sound within buildings and also the noise that escapes from buildings. So we use those sort of the building form and the finishes to create those soundscapes that we were talking about earlier on, just to make sure that the acoustic conditions are appropriate for the uses within that building, right? So that's typically the work. That covers the sort of scope of the work.
Speaker 2:At the moment, our main projects are predominantly around healthcare a lot of healthcare, since the pandemic Hospitals are a great example of how acoustics can go horribly wrong. You need to have sound isolation between spaces. Oh yeah, absolutely you need to have sound isolation between spaces. You need to speak to those healthcare professionals. You want to tell them all of what you're experiencing and you don't want to have that fear that someone else can hear what you're saying. So we've got that element of it. We need to have that speech intelligibility within those spaces.
Speaker 2:If you've got hard reflective surfaces, sometimes it's difficult for people to understand what's being said. Maybe if english isn't your first language, maybe if, um, if you've got a hearing impairment, you need to have good conditions. So we're designing spaces so that people can understand, inclusive spaces that everyone can understand and um, and then obviously there's the the aspect of the healthcare professionals who are working at that area. Their work is needs a lot of concentration. They need to think about what they're doing. They need to make sure that they're not making mistakes. Yeah, maybe they were. Maybe they're working in an operating room and the last thing they need is someone, loud noise or even vibration. We deal with vibration as well. So, yeah, it's a wide aspect of working in those type of environments. But the other sort of work we're doing with is schools and university buildings Lots of the same sort of issues there, understanding comprehension of what's being said. Residential buildings, mixed-use residential buildings. So you know, I don't know. I live in a condo.
Speaker 1:Same here, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I can hear my, unfortunately, I can hear my neighbors, you know, on a daily basis. Now, you know there are issues. I mean I sit on my couch and work out what's wrong. Um, that must be terrible for you. You moved in here.
Speaker 1:You're like, oh boy um, how much thicker do I have to make these?
Speaker 2:walls exactly. So, yeah, that's the. You know, those are the type of um type of uh projects that we're working on um pretty much any sort of space that needs sound isolation or speech intelligibility, privacy or low background noise conditions for just working, concentrating work, rest and play.
Speaker 1:I'm going to take a note on the speech interoperability. Did you say Intelligibility? Intelligibility, understanding what's being said? Wow, I like that. Okay, we got to dig into that one again Speech intelligibility I like that. I'm going to talk to my daughter about speech intelligibility. Actually, she's fantastic at it. Okay, well, that's cool. So that gives us the idea of the company. If people don't know, it's bklca. Yep, great URL. Wow, yep, not easy to get three letters.
Speaker 2:No, it's not.
Speaker 1:Not a dot com, but still, let's just talk about you, paul. So from the UK, as in the intro, why did you want to move here?
Speaker 2:A bit of a whim. I'd been in the UK working in the UK 20-odd years and I just thought, well, hey, maybe it's time for a break. And I was looking around looking for work and saw this job advertised in a country I'd never been to, a place I'd never really even thought about. And I looked at the job and thought, yeah, this looks like I could do this. And we had a couple of Skype interviews and six weeks later we are arriving in a very, very wet North Vancouver. We didn't know anyone and everything we owned was in a tin box somewhere on the Atlantic. What month did you move? October, oof Whoops, thought I'd wait for the end of summer, when it's really nice, and hit that winter. So yeah, it was. Look, it was. The guys who I interviewed with sold the job to me, sold the company to me. More important, I'd come out of a very big multidiscipline consultancy in London, but the same industry, but the same industry, exactly the same industry, so you're fully seasoned.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. I mean they're basically buying technical knowledge at that point, right? Yeah, hard to come by because it's a community pretty small, right yeah?
Speaker 2:exactly. Yeah, I mean, I think there's some really great acoustic consultants here in the Lower Mainland and I probably know all of them and you know I was able to. I I felt that I was able to just mesh in with the rest of the guys that are working there. Um, even though it was a relatively small company and you know we're.
Speaker 2:Look, I'm super proud of the company and I know everyone else in the business is super proud of the company because we are we are doing great work. You know we're doing great projects. You and anyone that lives in the lower mainland has probably been in a building that bkl has helped design the acoustics in there. Um, so you know that. You know, if you've been to a hospital one of the newer hospitals in in in the lower mainland that's you know there's a good chance that's a bkl. If you've been into a number of schools, university buildings maybe you've been into the RCMP detachment, one of the newer ones you would have been probably into a BKL building and I find that gives me some satisfaction.
Speaker 1:Are there any new hospital builds? You guys are involved in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're doing the Royal Columbia, burnaby, lionsgate and I don't know if you've seen this one. There's a little one down on Pacific there called St Paul's. We're working on that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't want to ask you, hey, did you get the St Paul's project? I didn't want to hear the no, we didn't get that one. Congratulations, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I can imagine't want to hear the no we didn't get that one Congratulations. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Because I can imagine like, especially in like trauma wards, exactly Like you know, like in the in the emergency, I mean hearing somebody screaming from pain. Yeah, I mean, you don't want that bleeding through the hole.
Speaker 2:No, you know, I think no pun intended. No, you know that's a really important. That's a really important. You know that's an extreme example, but yeah, you don't want to hear that. You know you don't want to hear, you don't want to. I don't want to hear people in pain and I don't want them to hear me in pain.
Speaker 1:They don't want you to hear them in pain.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly really important part of that.
Speaker 1:It's also sleep and stuff like this. You're not hearing wheels going around and all that kind of stuff, especially hospitals or rehabilitation centers. You need to have a holistic view of that. So let's just chat a little bit about where does a consultant see, like this acoustical god, it's such a mouthful. Acoustical consultants like. Where do you get involved in at the architectural level early? How early, depending on the building, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does sort of depend on project to project. But or roads, or outdoors, yeah, or any of those it can be.
Speaker 2:It certainly can be at feasibility stage where you're just planning that seeing whether or not you can pull off that kind of outcome because a lot of the as you know, as we were talking a lot of the, a lot of the inputs we have influence or are influenced by a number of the major components of that project. Whether it's the mechanical, hvac, whether it's the structural, we are affected and we affect those parts of the project. So certainly, from our point of view, we like to be involved in projects early on because we want to make sure that we can promote good acoustics from the beginning. It's very different the longer you go through that project, the harder it becomes to influence that materially so that you can achieve that, that acoustic, well-balanced acoustics, in any of those spaces. If someone's already selected the wall types for, your for your hospital ward.
Speaker 2:It's very hard to say, okay, well, no, that that isn't good enough. You need to have this wall type and they're going. Well, we've priced all this and this is. You know, we can't change this now, so it's it's better for us to be early on, at early stages of the project, so that we can help that.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, know, we've been doing the job long enough now that we sort of understand those pressures around pricing, around schedule, around delivery, availability of products and lead times, so we're able to help select acoustical products, whether they're just, you know, that can range from straight drywall through to to very specialist projects but we can have products. We can certainly help identify those and say, okay, here's, here's what you need very early on in the project. This is what you're going to need. Um, you know, we're seeing more and more with projects now that there's really long lead-in times of elements of that of the deliverable. So mechanical items can take longer than your design stage to arrive on site. So early identification of those is really important and that's where we feel we bring that added value to those projects by saying, hey, sustainability, et cetera.
Speaker 1:And then you go down the stratas of different developers who create whatever condo project made out of sticks. So in Canada, I'm sure the UK is different because there's probably lots of different regulatory things, because especially in London it's packed. The more it's packed, the more it's a problem. Where is what percentage, would you say? Just you could be within 10% error from all, on average, from all commercial or residential buildings. Do consider acoustics Early on enough in your opinion?
Speaker 2:Oh, early on enough, maybe 10 or 20% of buildings.
Speaker 1:What?
Speaker 2:about in the UK? It wouldn't be a huge amount more but, it would be nearer the sort of 30% to 40% that they're getting early intervention Right. You know, I think a lot of developers are very aware of acoustics. Now we hear this so many times, where a developer comes back to us and says, hey, do you know what? You gave me a prize for doing some work last time and I just felt it was you know, I didn't need it.
Speaker 1:I couldn't return that yeah.
Speaker 2:And then next project. You know, do you know what? When we built that place, the first people that moved in just complained all day long about we'd missed something. I'm not going to do that again. And so we're really, really proud of the fact that a vast majority of our clients are repeat clients. They come back again and again and again because they like the way we've given them those services, but they also recognize that they need those services.
Speaker 2:It's certainly you learn through your experiences, I think, if you're a developer, contractor and even an architect, that if you make a mistake, that fixing that is a damn sight more expensive than taping those steps at the early stage and getting it right at the first step, um, so yeah, it's a, it's um. It's something we're seeing more and more of people are more aware of of sound and acoustics and the and the benefits of, uh, acoustic conditioning and comfort within their spaces. You're right, you're certainly right. Right, that sort of government-funded projects are building this in at the beginning, but we're seeing more and more of that Very responsible developers and contractors coming to us and saying, hey, we want to make sure we do this, we do it once, but we do it right at that time.
Speaker 1:So yeah, from the commercial side of things, when it comes to selling, let's say, properties, condos, houses, whatever it is, has it made? Has acoustics made it into the selling zeitgeist as a value proposition?
Speaker 2:It's beginning to. It's beginning to yeah, we're beginning to.
Speaker 1:So you see the little tag there that says this is a so-and-so building that has a decibel blob, or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've certainly had had clients that have that have asked for that I had. We had one particular client who was very keen to to promote how sound isolation of his building was going to be better than other buildings that you could choose in that area. It's have the element of being a luxury item, but I think people begin to recognize that actually good sound isolation isn't a luxury or shouldn't be a luxury. Yeah, um, you know, and that the, the, the guys at bc housing are promoting a good, consistent level of sound isolation within their, within their schemes and right you know, again, that's a.
Speaker 2:That's a great thing for us to see because we can take that uh information and those requirements and say to other developers hey, hey, look, these people are asking for this. You should be asking for this because why should there be any difference in the house or apartment that anyone lives in? You know, everyone needs the right to peace and rest.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Everyone should be getting that. That isn't a luxury, that's a necessity for us all. Yeah, everyone should be getting that. That isn't a luxury, that's a necessity for us all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it does all come down to who wants to pay what for what. Eventually, I mean, a developer is going to be X amount price per square foot. It's not necessarily they have to cut corners, but they can only do some stuff. It could come down to the finishes on taps, faucets, all that kind of stuff. But what I find interesting is that acoustics is innate. You're either controlling it or you're not. You don't decide whether you have acoustics or not, it's just a decision.
Speaker 2:Yeah it is there, and you know that's the old adage that people don't always recognize good acoustics. But everyone's an expert when it comes to bad acoustics and you know that's what we're aiming to do. We don't want people to say, hey, every building you go in, this is great acoustic. Great acoustic because we know that isn't the real world. But we don't want people going into our buildings and saying, do you know, I can't hear the bank teller when I go to the counter, or I can't hear what time that flight was going because I was at the airport and I can't hear anything.
Speaker 2:So it's all those sort of things. We want to make sure that good acoustics just happens and people don't have to necessarily appreciate it, they just accept that that's part of their day-to-day life. And a lot of these treatments are not going to place a high financial burden on the project if they're brought in at that early stage. Most of them are just conditioning and selection of products that you already were going to probably look at. So instead of having one particular product, you can choose another one because it's got a better acoustic property and it's no different in price, and so you paid no more for getting that good acoustic finish that you wanted.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Hmm, okay, let me ask you some technical things. So you said that you also your company consults in vibration as well. Okay, so where those intersect? With sound is how low the hertz are. So at what level could you not hear bass anymore? The lowest, lowest, lowest. Is it below 30 hertz?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's a bit of opaque where you go from physical, airborne sound to part structural, so your body then starts to react, so your chest cavity. So, hey, when I was younger I used to go to nightclubs and what I really liked is that heavy bass where you could actually feel the thump. Is that air moving? That's basically, yeah, part of it's air moving, but it's also your chest beginning to just move in a resonant frequency right.
Speaker 2:That's so awesome so you can really feel it. But a part of this is going back to that caveman thing that the vibration. We're super good at recognizing vibration, because there used to be a time when a woolly mammoth would be chasing you with your club, you know, and you'd be going heck, I got to run and part of that was feeling that in your feet. Or would be chasing you with your club, you know, and you'd be going heck, I've got to run and part of that was feeling that in your feet. So we're, you know, and then you get some sound, some airborne sound, and then you get some structure or vibration. So it's around that sort of 20 hertz feeling and then that drops down. You know, you can get down. We've been sort of seeing some sort of very low frequency vibration, sort of around the single digits hertz, which is… Really yeah.
Speaker 1:Single digits, yeah, whoa like nine eight yeah even lower than that.
Speaker 2:So you know, for instance, like a train movement you know a big diesel loco going along that can really start to vibrate some of the soil toppings, and yeah, we can see those at sort of three, four hertz, something like that.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so the big question is is that, when you're talking about containment of sound, whose responsibility is it? Is it the responsibility of the person or the organization that is producing that sound to minimize it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, typically that's what we're seeing that the person who's generating the sound has a responsibility to control that sound so that it doesn't disturb or materially affect other users of a building. I see and that can be, you know, whether that's a residential building or any sort of multi-use building where you might have some noise generating activities, you may have some sensitivity. We're actually doing a very high tech lab facility in Vancouver and one of the issues there is that you've got laboratories where you've got some activities that are going to create vibration and we've been helping them design their structural floors so that the people on the upper stories, who are just in a more of a standard working environment, don't get disturbed by activities that are happening on the lower floors. So those are I mean, it's a pretty specialist part of our job, but those are the type of things that we're looking at on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice. I had Russell Cook on from Calgary, from Cook's Construction, and they do raised access flooring.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And how is that for sound?
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, there are issues with it, but generally it's a really good way of having those services nicely tucked away. But there are issues with potential sound going through the plenum, the floor of plenum, in the same way that you would have that in a T-bar ceiling that you might have mechanical equipment up there ceiling that you might have mechanical equipment up there, right, um, we've done raised floor access buildings where we've we've sort of put, uh, integrated noise control, um, measures.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that could be, that could be the opportunities to have that exactly, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So you've done that before yeah, yeah, we've been doing that. There's a. There's a couple of examples here in in the lower mainland where we've started to do that. So you know, because typically you might have um a meeting room video conferencing your friends next door yeah, hello friends, they've calmed down now.
Speaker 2:Um, we'll have that sort of space next to you know the open office, right and. But there's there's slightly. Well, there's very different acoustic requirements for those spaces. You can live with a lot, you know, a higher background noise level in the open plan than you can in that video conference room where you need that lower background because you need to hear the what's being said over the the loudspeakers or you might be talking, you might want to have private conversations in that space. You know we've sort of been designing what is effectively a plenum barrier for the floor so that you can protect that space. I see, and it's a relatively easy, you know something that the contractor can do during the installation and it's effective. But you're just having that knowledge, that experience of what works and what doesn't work and how when you put that in the schedule when it needs to go in. But yeah, no, we've done some of those projects and raised access floors are….
Speaker 1:They're becoming more popular. Yeah, for sure, like way more. So this is taking enough to…. Yeah, and the technology is evolving.
Speaker 2:For sure, Getting those services to people in working areas you know. So you need your power, you need your Ethernet connectors, whatever else you need in those spaces. That's a great way of doing it, having it nicely hidden away yeah, it's a quick way of….
Speaker 1:Got less stuff running up and down the walls. Yeah, exactly yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a quick way of getting all of those services into that building and then hiding them behind this floor. That allows people to carry on working without realizing there's all that stuff in there?
Speaker 1:Do you only work in British Columbia, or do you guys do work?
Speaker 2:outside. No, we work all across Canada. Oh wow, I'll put you in touch with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that'd be very good. Work all across Canada. I'll put you in touch with them. Yeah, that'd be very good. So when a building I think this is probably an obvious question, but when there has been appropriate or professional acoustic treatments done for a building, let's say a high rise work environment or residential, obviously adds value, I would imagine. So, dollars in, dollars out, is that an even or even higher?
Speaker 2:For me? I think you can't for me.
Speaker 2:I think there's a dollar plus for the final building, A multiple return yeah yeah, you know that sort of ability to say this is a space that works acoustically, amongst the other sort of factors, is really important. You know productivity is affected by people's ability to concentrate. You know, if you can't have a private meeting in a meeting room in your office space and you have to go out, you've wasted time traveling to and from wherever the coffee shop you've gone to to have that conversation. So there's a lot of you know there's a lot of hidden cost benefits around acoustics.
Speaker 2:But more importantly, I think you know that sort of way people work, or people at home are able to rest, knowing that they can just go and have that peace and quiet in their home or be able to work in their working environment, or when they go to the hospital, that they're not going to be bothered by noise. You know they are going to be able to recuperate, they're going to be able to rest and and recover. That's really important. Um, those are really important factors that it's difficult to say hey, well, you know your average hospital you know, millions, billions of dollars now to build If people in there can't recover what's the point of that?
Speaker 1:What's the point of doing that?
Speaker 2:If actually they say, hey, I went in, I had the room and I didn't get any sleep because I could hear the carts going up.
Speaker 1:I could hear the carts going up. So when you did consulting for hospital, do you get involved in? This is where how far emergencies should be away from certain wards.
Speaker 2:Those are typically driven by the authority themselves, and sort of the advisors?
Speaker 1:Do they ask you those questions?
Speaker 2:But certainly we're part of that consultation afterwards saying, okay, we to have these buffer zones. You know, this isn't, this is a noise generating space. We and if you want to have a noise sensitive space, there's only so much we can do, recognizing that there's only so much you can do here. We need to have a buffer between that. So that's our conversation with, with our, our architect friends or our mechanical consultants or or whoever the healthcare providers. Sometimes, you know, I really enjoy having, at the beginning of a project, having a discussion with healthcare professionals, because then you understand some of the challenges they face.
Speaker 1:That's the hand towels.
Speaker 2:I know someone who can help you with this.
Speaker 1:The problem is that I don't want to put any more money into this.
Speaker 2:I can't take the money out.
Speaker 1:For sure, I want a new studio.
Speaker 2:But yeah, look, I think there's that sort of ability to help people make spatial planning decisions, to help them choose a mechanical item, so saying, hey, don't put that item there, because if you put it there it's it's got a residual noise issue and either you're going to have to pay a lot of money to fix it or, more importantly, you can move it to somewhere else and it not be a problem because you put it in a buffer area.
Speaker 2:So identifying those sort of items early on is is is really beneficial to the overall project. Um, I did a an adolescent mental health unit in in burnaby, coquillam, and meeting the, the staff at that stage, prior to the project even kicking off, just having that consultation with them, gave me so much background, so much more appreciation of what they needed in terms of their acoustic requirements, how how sound can affect someone who's maybe having uh, you know, having some issues and and how loud noises can make that worse. Sometimes having quiet periods can make that worse as well. So having that understanding of the way that's working, uh, in the way that that acoustic environment works within that space, is super important. And comes back to that you know, hey, I can, I can do a better job if you tell me what you need on a day-to-day basis, and the earlier we do that, the quicker we can involve that into the project and the, and we can do that in a cost-effective way for everyone.
Speaker 1:So in terms of there's obviously two just with buildings. This is a construction podcast so we could talk about roads et cetera, sort of traffic stuff. But on the building side, I think there's probably two areas where you get involved. There's pre-construction and then you're doing stuff after the fact when there's problems Is there. Do you use software that's attached to BIM that has diagnostic predictive sound like? Can you in BIM, for instance, can you, do you have a plug-in software that you can say, based on these materials that are going to be using, this is what will happen. And is there an acoustic rating for each material so that you guys can plug that all in? So it gives you numbers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we we have. You know, we have a lot of software, predictive sort of software, that that that links into BIM and and CAD software that we can transfer that information and then start to do that analysis, and CAD software that we can transfer that information and then start to do that analysis. It's sort of it's not just sound isolation, it's also around reverberation control.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, you know acoustic comfort, so can you fire in, like you know, a range of hertz in there and see what the result will be?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we've got software that sort of does this ray tracing Like Screaming Child.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, Alarm, fire alarm, whatever that sounds like. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You can do that. So we take the frame of the building and then we can insert the sound source into there and give that the sort of conditions that it needs. And then we can look at the room finishes, dimensions, shape to see if we can condition the whole space to give you the response you need. We can look at various parts of that space so we're able to look at it and say, hey, look, if you treat this area, you get a really nice response in this area. We've just done a wellness cultural center up in the Yukon actually, and it was a big open space. But they wanted to have simultaneous activities taking place within this one space. So we were able to design the finishes so that they could have sort of a group discussion area at one end and then have a dining space at the other end.
Speaker 1:With an open space, yeah, with an open space. So it's open above eight feet, kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a double height space and it was really nice, we were able to Did you have to do anything above?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we put in a. We helped them design a raft.
Speaker 2:Bath ceiling, yeah a raft ceiling, yeah, that sort of sat above the sort of the area where they were going to have these group discussions so those guys could take that, have a discussion there, and we knew that the space at the other end so where you know maybe people I mean you know we're having their meals or whatever there wasn't going to be. There is a trade-off. I'm not saying it was perfect conditions for both, but there was enough of a trade-off so we could have these simultaneous activities taking place at once, and that made the space more adaptable, more usable. It wasn't sort of like oh, we can only use this for one thing at a time. Actually, you can use it for other items, other activities, simultaneously as well.
Speaker 1:So on the reactive side, when you have to go into a place because there's been a complaint or there's been whatever, do you have tools that you use, like hardware that goes in and gives you readings?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we have sound level meters.
Speaker 1:Is there anything more advanced than just those?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we certainly use an acoustic camera. Which is this amazing?
Speaker 1:item Okay, tell me about that, that sounds cool amazing.
Speaker 2:Okay, tell me about that, that's cool. So, uh, you basically uh, uh pointed at a sound source and you can actually sort of do a, a thermo sort of uh outline of where the sound is, and it's great for for using if you've got multiple noise sources on a, on a mechanical item and try and understand okay, which is, which is the dominant sound here, which which is the problem, and it's a way of sort of like fingerprinting for one of a better term fingerprinting the sound. I'm sure if you've ever stood next to a huge mechanical chiller or cooling tower or something, all it is is just a wall of sound, it's a Phil Spector wall of sound coming right at you. What can I hear? What can I hear? And it's actually quite difficult sometimes to just highlight, identify exactly what the problem is with that type of, uh, that sort of instrument. You can actually just go okay, we can just scan this a little bit.
Speaker 2:Okay, here's some. Here are the dominant noise sources. Here's, you know, here's this. This little widget here in the corner is causing all this noise. If we just treat that, wrap it, close it, isolate it, whatever that can, that can then mean that you haven't wasted thousands of dollars trying to do something you know, a massive screen around it and actually all it needed was a wrap around, a widget in the corner of the, in corner of the item.
Speaker 2:So those sort of um, those sort of instruments are are great. You know they're. They're very expensive, but they're.
Speaker 1:They're able to give that sort of analysis and and diagnosis of what the issues are in terms of acoustics yeah, it's interesting because I had, um, I had this house on vancouver island, that um, that was in this kind of a hilly area, very much like the North Shore, there are arbutus trees around, and this other house was up on a rock and we were lower down and they had a heat pump outside and it was. If you looked out our bedroom window you could see the heat pump and, honestly, at night it would go on. And you know, I said to the neighbor I'm like look we can't sleep.
Speaker 1:And they don't care. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So is it the fact that it's outside of the building not our responsibility? It's out in the ether, so who cares? Is that people's?
Speaker 2:No, no, people should have you know there's a responsibility. Is that people's? No, no, people should have you know there's a responsibility, should have a responsibility. That's the British way, yeah, but don't, but it would be. You know, again, it's a simple fix. This isn't, that isn't an expensive item to.
Speaker 1:But maybe it's just a cheap pump, though, right, I mean, or is it need servicing? They're going to be long for cars.
Speaker 2:There are, you know, and again, that's where your acoustic consultant can help you by saying hey, yeah, this pump might be cheap, but actually if you've got to pay to put a screen around it, it's way more expensive. Yeah, you know, you could select this pump which has exactly the same performance, but just happens to be 10 dB quieter or doesn't have, more importantly, doesn't have that annoying characteristic that you're explaining at night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that wee sound Exactly, but actually no, it doesn't have that Like 5,000 hertz. Yeah, exactly, don't like that there.
Speaker 2:And you know it's very distinctive, very noticeable.
Speaker 1:Is that because that's the average spoken voice, hertz Is maybe why it's disturbing us?
Speaker 2:I think at that stage it's just that sort of frequency or those higher frequencies, it's just so out of keeping with the natural timbre of the environment that you're living in. If you're living in that type of building on the island. You don't have a lot of 5 hertz.
Speaker 1:Exactly that's it, so it's very distinct.
Speaker 2:It has that tonal sort of characteristics.
Speaker 1:Are there sounds that maybe the client that you're working with would think, well, that's not going to be that loud, and then when you do an analysis, you go yes, but the perceived loudness of that would be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we are. You know there's a lot of our job. Is that sort of conditioned listening, that experience, that sort of experience of, okay, what's those acoustic features, whether it's the tonality of the noise or the intimacy of the noise, what?
Speaker 1:does tonality mean Just for people who…?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so effectively broadband sound. In the old days, days, when you turn the end of the TV, the end of the night, the TV would go off and you'd just get that white noise. That's just a broadband sound. All of the frequencies that you can hear are all pretty much Really.
Speaker 1:So that's basically just the color mush. Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay and then. But so the tonality is where you have these very discrete bands that are appearing, and typically that's when they're 5 or 10 dB higher.
Speaker 1:Those are called frequency bands.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the sound. Just think of your piano keyboard. Each of these all of these has different frequencies, so you can work your way up the left-hand side. You've got those low bass notes. They're sort of down at 80 hertz, 60 hertz, hertz, something like that, up to the top end there where you're getting those five.
Speaker 1:They're all the same notes different octaves.
Speaker 2:So the octaves are just the spacings between them. Yeah, if we just think of that across. So if you had enough fingers to press all of them, you'd get a. You know that's your. It wouldn't be one noise, but it'd be pretty close to it. And then, but if you just do your one finger, bing, bing, bing, that's the tonal, that's just a tonal peak of that, that one noise. Okay, and so that that that increases that sort of noticeability, that freak, that that feature of that sound, uh, becomes more noticeable to you. Now, humans don't hear sound in a linear fashion, you know? Going back to the cave again, I keep talking about this cave.
Speaker 2:You know that we, we, our hearing, evolved over time and was shaped by the fact that we needed to communicate to each other. So we had a and this really is to do with our physical makeup meant that we have a very good hearing, in a very discrete range.
Speaker 1:Ah, okay, which is that?
Speaker 2:sort of 20 hertz to 20 kilohertz range is where our hearing is best, and it tends to be even better in those mid frequencies around 500,. 1 kilohertz, 2 kilohertz that's roughly where you're.
Speaker 1:Is that where the spoken voice is typically yeah, typically yeah, 1,000. I thought it was like 5 grand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it goes up to that Typically. You know, you and I, we would be slightly lower. We'd probably be in the 250, 1k hertz.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Paul. I almost thought I was way higher.
Speaker 2:And then you know, then other people will be at the higher end of that. So we've got that very good acute sort of hearing in that space and if we get those frequencies that are sort of in that range either side, they're very noticeable to us, we pick them up very quickly so that perceived loudness can be related to that. The effect of that, whatever those you know the alarms, you're led in the hospital bed and all you can hear is the beep, beep, beep. Now the actual level of that, the dB, the decibel level of that.
Speaker 1:Isn't that high, isn't?
Speaker 2:that high, but because every other sound in that space isn't necessarily at that frequency.
Speaker 1:you can pick it out when it comes to, let's say, a high-end residential residence. You know a tower, $3,000, $5,000 a square foot, kind of thing. Is there analysis done to cut out, like would you analyze the sound of police and like emergency sirens and knowing exactly where those operate and you're doing things to mitigate those?
Speaker 2:project, getting to development permit, is to do that assessment and to work out what the existing background noise level is. Yeah, what are those features of that background noise level and what do you need to provide in terms of the envelope of the building to make sure that those sounds don't cause disturbance inside the building? And and that's part of that sort of early work that we can do is just doing that assessment of the site. Is it feasible here to do this? Are there products that we can put on the envelope that make sure that the noise inside the building after development is still going to be okay for people to live there? So, yeah, certainly looking at sirens is part of that whole analysis. You know, if you live near Skytrain, skytrain has a very distinct sort of noise characteristic. It does Making sure that that doesn't cause an issue. So, yeah, that's part of it. And then later in that, in that, uh, in that project, we'd also look at the um, the adequacy of the perimeter walls to the, to the apartment, to make sure that they're able to stop not only just noise but different types of noise. So there's a, there's a requirement not just to hit one number, say, okay, what's the overall number there. It is there, but we we sort of look at that also across um, across a spectrum, to make sure that there aren't effects from certain types of noises which shouldn't cause you disturbance. Um, it's not perfect, um, and it's work in progress, and but you know it is something that's evolving and we're seeing better standards, building standards, both being driven through code, but also the desire of developers to provide, particularly on high end right. So they want to have a building that attracts people that want to live the lifestyle that they want to live, you know. So it's important that that we address all of those issues early on and throughout the development of that.
Speaker 2:You know, most people want a space they can relax in in their, in their, in their apartment and, and you know our sort of recent development of having very hard surfaces. You know, the wood floor, the drywall finishes, with little sort of in terms of couches that absorb sound, and it does make for a very hard, harsh, sound environment which can be annoying, you know, can sort of grate on you after a while. But in the bedroom, I think you're right, I think that's sort of a space where you really need to think about, okay, the carpet, how I'm going to help reduce that noise within that space Obviously the bed and furnishings in those spaces because it does give you that feeling of relaxation, of just taking your heart rate down a little bit and just enabling you to to breathe, and you know, without being disrupted by sound when uh like we, maybe you can uh, you know, help a question for people when you know, on renovations, for instance, uh is the removal of the popcorn ceiling, because that's just, it's's just, that's a style thing.
Speaker 2:People are just done with it because it looks terrible.
Speaker 1:But did that provide quite a lot of acoustic refraction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it did, because you're right, you've used exactly the right word. There is a refraction to it, but there's also some absorption because of the granular nature of the material that finished it, you know. Again, it's a slightly porous surface, so you get some absorption.
Speaker 1:They're little foam balls too, aren't they? Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:So you get that sort of little absorption in there. But there's a lot of new products coming onto the market. You know that, are you know even the stretch fabrics that you can use which break up that sort of very monolithic ceiling? We've, I think we've you know, acoustically, sorry, architecturally we've fallen into this right everything's got to be monolithic.
Speaker 2:Like a museum yeah and that's very hard to control sound, yeah, but there are materials now that have that sort of appearance of that monolithic finish, that actually have some absorption behind it and allow you to have that sort of experience of reduction of sound, of absorption of sound within those spaces. Again, they're not cheap.
Speaker 1:Where do you find these venturics? It's not like aisle six at Home Depot.
Speaker 2:It's just part of our learning and development. We talk a lot to suppliers and manufacturers. We like to see new ideas. I think our team at BKL are super inquisitive about products. We quite often meet with suppliers.
Speaker 2:I would imagine, yeah, yeah because we need to know what those products are about and how they work, and understanding that it's easy to think, okay, well, your education's in the classroom, but for for us, as consultants, our education's in the office and in the job site, every day that we do that. We want to learn about products because, you know, if we can't tell architects, designers, developers about products that are going to fit their requirements, their non-acoustic requirements, and we just go back to the standard old yeah, you've got to use this, you know, this compressed fiberglass panel Not everybody wants that, you know, actually want something that reflects a more contemporary view of the world, and it's really important that we do that.
Speaker 2:As I say, you know I'm super proud of the staff we have at BKL because they've all got a thirst of that knowledge. That means that we can do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would imagine there's a pretty good intersection of where sustainable materials and acoustics are coming together to make great panels.
Speaker 2:Increasingly so. You know, sustainable development is big news all the time, and we are seeing products coming onto the market that are more environmentally friendly and, more importantly, more usable than perhaps they used to be. It's a challenge for us and it's something we're working really hard on at the moment. You know, we've got a couple of consultants that are very much looking at this around. Okay, what products are available? What products can we recommend, because we know they work, that are sustainable products, and there's some really innovative items out there that are just beginning to emerge, and we're making sure that we understand how that works and how we can bring that to to to projects that we're working on. Um, so, yeah, it's a.
Speaker 1:it's a really interesting area and something that we're driving pretty hard ourselves I like the fact that, um, like to me, I always sort of see where things are going. These days, everyone's they're virtueing something, and luxury is a huge one. So if someone's virtueing, well, you know, I only eat this kind of food because I like these flavors. My olfactory senses are giving me xyz, that's great. I only drink these kind of things because the notes and the blah blah even tequila, now you know, it's oh what. This is rapisado, this has got blah, blah, blah. You've got this whole kind of thing going on. But the cool thing about acoustics is you, um, go and get in a rolls royce and you close the door. You can't even hear the road. You get in my tesla and I can hear every bump on the road, everything, yeah Right, and even if you go further down the spectrum, whatever car right. So there is a definite throughput or line to luxury of quiet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, look.
Speaker 1:Which can be a virtue, because everyone wants to be considered that they're, I don't know, it's a status thing. So if you live in a quiet, controlled, calm environment, apparently you have more status than being living on the street in India, where you've got stuff. You know, when I say India, I just mean as a country. It's chaos because of the sound. They get motorcycles and two, you know what are the two cycle engines or what are they?
Speaker 2:called Two stroke engines.
Speaker 1:I mean everywhere sirens, just no traffic lights, all that kind of stuff, whereas and then you are in a place where it's, so it's a different lifestyle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Acoustics forms are part of that perception of the quality, the luxury of that item. You know, cars are a classic example of that. I actually had a former colleague who worked for one of the Japanese car manufacturers and his job was to basically drive luxury cars and work out how they could replicate the sound of those vehicles within their car to make it sound like it had quality.
Speaker 1:I know. I know Because, like BMW would engineer the sound of the switch like what the window switch sounded like. You also have the tactile response, but then you also have the audible cue. Pretty cool, all right, paul. Well, I knew this was going to be exciting for me, so I enjoyed this. So this is a construction podcast. What is your most memorable story from visiting a job site or a past project? Something you're like oh my, what the hell happened there so many. Is there one that sticks out?
Speaker 2:Probably about before the pandemic.
Speaker 2:I was doing a project in Nunavut and of course I'd never been there, I didn't really know where it was. I'd sort of look on a map, see where it was. And we were asked. I had to go to the site, very remote little town in Nunavut, and it was meant to be going in the summer. The project was meant to end overran. You know usual thing I was meant to be going in the summer. The project was meant to end Overran. You know usual thing. We got to the end of sort of beginning in November, end of October. They said, okay, you can come out to site now.
Speaker 2:And I was like it's going to be a bit sort of cold out there and so I take this massive flight in Winnipeg, you know, winnipeg to um, winnipeg to Rankin. I got to Rankin and the weather just a snowstorm came in. I was stuck in Rankin for over two days, snowed in my some of my equipment got lost en route. I was like, oh man, what am I gonna do? Finally the weather broke. I was stuck in this hotel. There was no internet because it all comes on satellite, right. So there's no internet, there's no radio, there's no TV. I'm sat in a hotel kicking my heels for two days thinking, oh man, I'm getting close to the weekend, I want to get home. Finally, the weather breaks.
Speaker 2:Go to this little hamlet 2,000 people. They'd had a new community building, a beautiful new community building, so we were just doing some sort of measurements. I got there late because again, the flights were all delayed People. I ended up having to do measurements pretty much all through the evening and through the late night. Had a flight booked sort of mid morning the next day and there was a contractor there with me and he said oh, you know, I'll pick you up in the morning and, you know, take you back to the airport and 10 minute drive. So he picks me up in the morning and says, oh hey, um, don't know if you don't know if you're interested, um, but there's, uh, some polar bears. And we drove just to the other side of the site and there were polar bears Like I'd never. I'm a kid from, you know. Like I said, I'm a kid from, not quite the other side of the tracks, but, you know, near the tracks. Yeah, I just polar bears Me, you know that's cool.
Speaker 2:And yeah, there were just polar bears everywhere Huge right, oh man, they are huge. I just I had no idea. I felt like you know, I felt like I was in a nature program. It was amazing. We just sat there. We sat in this guy's F-350 and we were within well, one of them was as close as you are to me now Two or three meters away, too close for comfort. You know it was eating snacks at the city dump.
Speaker 1:Were they as white as you thought or more yellow?
Speaker 2:No, they're a little more yellow than I thought. Yeah, I mean, I had no preconceived ideas, so I still bore lots of people in the office about my trip to Nunavut.
Speaker 1:I like that story.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it was a great experience, something that you know I wouldn't have seen that in London, for sure I probably wouldn't have seen it in Vancouver either let's be honest, nice, nice but yeah, it was a great. It was a great great, you know, and that's part of that coming to Canada thing you know, well, yeah, you get the real experience. You get the real experience, get a polar bear visit, get a polar bear.
Speaker 1:yeah, all right. Anything at the end you want to say, perhaps for the company or anybody listening to this, how people should get in touch with you, what you should be doing, what they should be doing?
Speaker 2:Sage advice. Yeah, well, yeah, just to reiterate some of those things, you know, I mean, don't be afraid of coming to acoustic consultants and talking to them about your project early on. We really do feel that you'll benefit from, from our, our knowledge and expertise. Um, we're available. You know we've got a great, great set of staff. Um, you know, we're really keen to make sure that you get the right consultant for your needs. Um, you know, we all have different skill sets. You know we have different languages, we have different abilities and we can make sure that the person we provide to you suits your requirements. Actually, you know 100%. Yeah, we're based in Burnaby, bklca, and you know we'd be more than happy to help anyone. And you know, as I said, we think there's a lot of value in you guys speaking to people like us.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thank you very much for making the time coming down here and it was great to meet you, yeah good to meet you too.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thank you very much, paul. 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 our monthly newsletter at sitemaxsystemscom slash 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 job site and construction management tool of choice for thousands of contractors in North America and beyond. Sitemax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building.