The Conscious Builder with Casey Grey

Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Green Home Podcast! I am excited today to have Casey Grey as my guest!

Casey is the founder of The Conscious Builder. It is based in Ottawa and has a podcast and a YouTube Channel. Casey has been in the construction industry for over seventeen years, and he has had his business for a little longer than ten years.

Both Casey and his business have been growing and evolving. Casey has managed to carve out a great little niche in sustainable building that complies with the Canadian Passive House, Net Zero, and R-2000 certification standards, and his business continues to grow in that area. At The Conscious Builder, both their renovations and their custom homes comply with Canadian certification standards.

Casey is joining us today to share his story and talk about the building industry, climate change, advances in technology, and what you need to focus on when you are building or renovating a home.

Why Casey decided to become a builder

Growing up, Casey thought he would become an engineer because he loved to build things. He ended up getting into building instead because engineering was design-focused, and Casey was good at building and wanted to get involved as a hands-on person.

Improving the building industry

Casey is working to improve the building industry as a whole, and he wants to make sure that other people know how to build. He loves it that he got forced into that world with other people who he says are smarter and better than him, and he gets to learn from them.

Climate change can create some problems

From talking to other experts, Casey has learned that the unusual weather patterns that we are currently seeing are the extremes of climate change. Those extreme weather patterns can sometimes create problems which make it a lot more challenging for Casey to build homes.

3-D printed houses

Casey likes to follow technology, and there have been a lot of really cool things happening lately, like 3-D printed houses.

Renovations

People are often astonished to find out that you can certify a renovation as sustainable, green, and energy-efficient. It is not always easy to do those renovations, however, because many things cannot get figured out ahead of time.

Learning from doing renovations

Casey recommends that younger people who are getting into construction should find a small company that does major renovations. There is a different level of skill required for that, but they will learn way more from that than they would from building a new home.

Comfort

Casey builds and renovates for comfort. He points out that when you have a comfortable home, you will also have an efficient home.

Casey’s specialty

Casey’s specialty, for the most part, is making sure that people have airtight, well-insulated, comfortable homes with HVAC systems that work well. He explains that the most important part of a house is the part that you do not see hidden behind the drywall and the cladding.

Something important that people often overlook

When it comes to heating and cooling systems, most homes have systems that are too big. That leads to short-cycling, which means that your house will get up or down to temperature quicker than it needs to, and the furthest rooms in the house will never reach the correct temperature.

A properly sized system

A properly sized system will run for longer and save you energy because it will work efficiently throughout the whole house.

Online education about building science

A lot of education and some tools are available online if you would like to learn more about building science. Casey is working on a resource called The Conscious Builder Academy, so keep your eyes open for that.

Building a house

Casey explains that a lot more goes into building a house than most people think. To build your own home, you will need to understand how the whole system works, apart from simply following the prescribed building codes. And it will also be a good idea for you to hire an energy advisor.

An integrated design process

Casey believes that the best way to build a home is to use an integrated design process, and that would involve bringing all the contractors on board right from the start.

Links and resources:

The Conscious Builder