Cellulose Insulation in Atlantic Canada: Fire Performance, Retrofit Moisture Risk, and the Net-Zero Shift | Thermocell & Greenfiber

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0:42Welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Very excited to have today Matthew Brennan, National Director of Sales for Thermocell and Greenfiber Canada. Thermocell Greenfiber Canada is North America's largest manufacturer of cellulose blown-in insulation, and local to the Maritimes their facility in Debert, Nova Scotia has been in operation since '87. So welcome, welcome aboard, Matt. Thanks for being here, man. Yeah, thanks Dan, it's a pleasure. All ready for Christmas? Just about — I got him some skates and a hockey stick here. We just turned one, so we're

1:17starting them early. You love it, man. Yeah, love it. You got your retirement plan in there, right? Yeah, exactly. I still have my wife to chase down, but yeah, as long as he's looked after. Christmas — are you going to get out to see some of the World Juniors? I am, yeah. Yeah, I did get tickets, so we're going to try to check out a couple of those games. Pretty pricey, eh? Very pricey. Did you buy direct? I did, yeah. So I won the draw, so

1:39obviously you can't go to every game, but we are selling a few of them, and we'll definitely make our way to — well, probably six of the Canada games at least. That's awesome, man. Good for you. The city's going to be buzzing. It's going to be fun downtown. Yeah, it's going to be really exciting. I was talking to someone about this — like, we're not going to see this level of hockey in the Maritimes for a really long time. I don't imagine so. Yeah, it's great to see.

2:05Here in however many years ago — yeah, I think it was 2003 was the last time. Every 20 years. Yeah, I mean, it's a big spectacle. It's good for Moncton too. Awesome. So you're a St. Mary's University graduate? I am. Give us a little background on your journey prior to leading up to — hard to sum it up in a few minutes, but yeah, I'll try to give you a quick rundown. Yeah. So I started — I guess in the building materials, building supply

2:30industry a long time ago. So I grew up in Truro, Nova Scotia and worked for a company called Kingston Aluminum. I had a boss there, John Connors — probably one of the hardest men in building supplies. Yeah, great guy, a hard cat, and old school, doesn't mess around. Yeah, a serious, serious guy. Probably when I was 14 or 15 — I don't know if I was a huge fan of him — but looking back, yeah, obviously one of those great experiences to have someone like

2:55that. So I worked in the building materials industry for a long time, then obviously went to school. Wasn't exactly intending to continue in this business, but we ended up coming out of school not too long after 2008 — so I had taken finance and economics, and yeah, like, oh, you know, this is great, we'll all be bankers, it'll be a nice easy life for us. And obviously — AAA ratings, man. Yeah, exactly. We were way off base. So pretty quickly when we all got out of school and none of us had

3:22jobs except for call centers, we learned that okay, we've all got to look at different careers. And so I ended up joining a company called Solder at the time — you know them as Atis Tree now. So they would supply interior finished products, interior doors, moldings, trim. They've got a location here in Halifax. Really great group of people there. Félaine Renée Landry, who's now — I believe the GM at Shaw Resources — was the fellow that hired me there and he was a great guy. I got an opportunity to learn

3:53from him. And there's still some great people there that I worked with when I was there. Sean Mitchell was another one of my bosses there — he is at East Coast Countertops here in Halifax, he owns and operates that now. Kind of when you're first starting your career, it's pretty important to have really good mentors. And I had a really great opportunity with all those guys and that whole group to learn a lot, and was able to work on a large number of projects probably at a younger age

4:21than I probably should have been. Yeah. And eventually took on the role there looking after New Brunswick and then also Prince Edward Island for the company there. And then that brought me — after four or five years there, I joined Thermocell, moved back here to Nova Scotia, and took on the position here. And it's kind of just made a couple of jumps since that time. So it's been six years. Yeah, a fast six years. You've been national sales manager for the past — probably about the last

4:49three or so, give or take. Yeah. So you mentioned mentorship — like, that's such a big thing. As a young guy, you know, I was just kind of getting thrown to the wolves, and there's no other way to learn sometimes. You get out of school and you've got lots of great education out there, but until you're kind of in the thick of it — you know, you can relate to that in business too. If you start a business, like, there's no better way to learn

5:12than just getting out there and making mistakes. But yeah, certainly being surrounded by good mentors is — like you said, sometimes maybe you didn't like them that much at the time, but they were mature enough to not care so much about the immediate term, whether you liked them or not, but just make you better in the long run. So you thank them years later, big time. You realize that. And I think the industry as a whole — there's a lot of that, and you

5:36have to actively kind of contribute to that the best we can as we go through it and continue to fill those roles. I think labour and coaching is a big part of, you know, what the future of this industry is going to be if we're going to maintain it. It's an awesome industry to be in, right? You've got great people across the board, so it's a fun place to be. Speaking of making mistakes — I remember when I was in university, I started a company called Rockline

6:03Painting. And my father had a painting contracting company in Ontario and Nova Scotia for a short time. And that was a place that I obviously worked really hard — started able to put myself through school with it — but holy smokes, do you ever make a lot of mistakes when you're just learning on your own. You've got to have a little bit of help along the way. Yeah, exactly. And you can look back now and think, like, what was I thinking doing

6:26that? And doing this — like, people just got to watch you make your mistakes. There's not much you can do. You've got to learn. And then, almost, those lessons are learned — you can feel it in your bones when you know that's not a good idea. Been there, done that. Exactly. Yeah. So give us some background on Thermocell, just specializing in blowing in insulation, cellulose — a little bit of background of the company. Yeah, about — I'll do a quick history

6:51lesson here. So with Thermocell, the company started in 1987. East Coasters would probably be familiar with Kohler Windows — so Peter Kohler and John Ballard started Thermocell and Kohler right about the same time. To this day, the plants are actually right next to each other, essentially, in Debert here in Nova Scotia. Over two of many plants now across North America. Yeah, I should be clear — so we have 15 plants all across North America. Wow. Five of those service Canada. Next year, I think we are aiming to add two

7:21more to the Canada profile. For anybody that hasn't driven by Debert — like, you know, doesn't look like there's much there — you take a drive through the woods there and there's just huge manufacturing plants all through; you wouldn't even know they're there. Yeah, it's incredible. You've got Home Hardware there, you've got Sobeys, you've got Kohler, you've got us — all with great big facilities there. So they've been there for a long time. They started manufacturing cellulose originally because a lot of these municipal recycling

7:49facilities right across North America — they had all this paper and they didn't know what to do with it. And they eventually learned that the paper fibres within the paper were really good at insulating, and if you treated them with fire retardants they were a completely safe insulation material. We've probably taken it a long way since then. Really nice too in the fact that it's hygroscopic — so it's able to actually handle moisture a little bit. So when we talk about retrofits, we can talk

8:17about that later. But yeah, it's a great product for that because often you're dealing with the unknown — you don't know if you have a perfect assembly, like new construction like we often have. And so it's been able to fill that void historically really, really well. And it's a carbon-negative product, right? Yeah, it's a carbon-negative product. One of the only ones, really. So for people that are looking to spec or trying to control the amount of embodied carbon that they're using, cellulose

8:41is a great product to kind of help offset the reality that most products aren't carbon negative. And we're trying to balance, essentially, what's best for the environment, what's best for the building, and what's best for resiliency. And to use cellulose as an insulation product really, really helps. So is it wood fibres and paper fibres — is that the main ingredients? Exactly. So when you boil it down it's the cellulose fibre, and if you were to think microscopically, it's very much like a wood fibre.

9:09And then those fibres will essentially link together — that's what forms the cellulose, which provides the insulative properties. So for those that don't know, cellulose is a blown-in product, so it requires a machine to blow it in. You'd find a bag at your local hardware store, put the bag into the machine, it would break it up, blow it through the hose. And typically about 85% of what we sell is in attics right now. We do see a lot more growth into — that's a bit of a different assembly

9:36— a different process — but that's cellulose essentially start to finish. And you mean interior walls and exterior walls? Yeah, sometimes — exactly. So primarily the building envelope walls. If you're talking interior, the main reason you're doing that is for soundproofing. Cellulose again is a great soundproofer as well — on par, arguably, with some of the rock wool type products. What about burn time compared to some of the mineral fibre stuff? Is it — yeah, so it's phenomenal in terms of that. The big thing —

10:06and we talk about insulation — people very often talk about R-value. That's what we spend most of the time talking about, because that's what's spec'd, right? That's kind of like the front piece of data you're given. Yeah. And so we expect that. And there's also a bit more discussion on air tightness now, which is another component. And one other thing that we talked a little bit about is density. So along the spectrum you have fiberglass, which is a very light, non-dense product; then you would have closed-cell spray

10:35foam, which would be very, very dense; and then you have cellulose, which would — obviously not as dense as spray foam, but significantly more dense than a fiberglass product, for example. It's a big part of the reason that it's much better for soundproofing than, say, fiberglass would be, but also more resistive to air and fire. So when you're talking about fire specifically, you need air to fuel that fire. And if you had a dense-pack wall assembly as well as an attic assembly with

11:05your cellulose, this has actually been tested in what they call the "big burn." They actually built three identical houses — one with nothing, one with fiberglass, and one with cellulose — and they ignited those houses just to see what would happen in terms of burn time. This is a historical test you can look up on YouTube. Trivia question — yeah, I think it was a lab out in Colorado. I'll have to dig those up. So it was done

11:29in a huge lab somewhere — like, the houses were there. Yep, exactly. You can watch it to this day. I think it was about 45 minutes after the fiberglass house fell before the cellulose house fell. And so, from a fireproofing perspective, a lot more peace of mind. They're both rated Class 1A fire rating materials, but just naturally that density really helps with that. Yeah, wow. So from the birth of the company, was the focus residential for a while and then eventually commercial,

11:58industrial — like, did it kind of expand into those different tiers? Yeah, like there's been a huge evolution in terms of insulation products over the last couple of years, and we're taking from 1987 until now — we see just a huge acceleration in that. In terms of what's demanded, in terms of our minimum specs. And I would probably argue that right now our minimum specs probably aren't what they should be — we need to aspire to have probably a bit higher specs in most

12:28— sorry, to get back to your question there. Yeah, I was asking about from the birth of the company, like, what was the focus — is it residential at first and then eventually into the different markets, institutional, commercial, kind of thing? Yeah, exactly. So residential is probably the primary focus for sure. And is it still the primary focus? Would you say it's probably our highest use case? Yeah, so it's like a big revenue stream still. And we have a new product which we launched in the

12:57States, which is a two-hour fire wall, which is primarily geared towards townhouses and multi-res. And that's a cellulose-filled interior assembly? Exactly, yeah. And that's — that sounds neat to me as a contractor. Like, I didn't even know that was possible — maybe I'm behind the times. But yeah, it's a new thing, right? Fairly new? Very new. So we just launched it — we started R&D on it a few years ago and launched it about a year and a half ago. And really this

13:21past year was the first year we kind of — I think our mecca for it is Atlanta, actually, where we started our first target market, and we've expanded that to a huge degree. The main reason for that is there's a product called shaftliner, which is what they were using there. Yeah — shaft wall. Exactly. This is the one-inch-thick green board with the C-studs — elevator shafts and different things like that. Yeah. And they were having to build that essentially

13:51floor by floor and then bringing in the shaftliner at each intersection, right? And it added a lot of time to the construction. Yeah. And so what they were able to do with the cellulose was they were able to fill that whole cavity essentially a lot faster, improve their times, and also they weren't losing any performance — in fact they were actually gaining a little bit. And from an insulating contractor point of view, there was a huge shortage of that shaftliner product right now, so it's been a huge

14:18challenge. So it's really kind of helped fill that void and offer another avenue for people to go. So for our listeners that are really keen on this — the nerds like me — how does that work on site for the installation? Is the wall assembly kind of completed with the rough-in and then it's filled after a certain height and then it's completed? Or is it done from the top of the wall assembly? How does it work? It's generally done from the top of the wall

14:44or from the ceiling grid or something like that where there's room to. With this particular assembly it's very, very region-specific, right? We have different municipalities and different building codes. So we really have to work and make sure that everything is lined up exactly. And so that's the one thing about that product that's perhaps a little bit more challenging — there's much more communication required. But once that's done, it is an approved wall assembly. We've gone and gotten all the

15:12approvals for it. It's just really managing the different municipal rules and regulations, which we sort of said — so it's tough to talk about on a broad scale. Excited to see that being used a lot in lieu of shaftliner? Like, that kind of method is touching on a lot because it's new, right? So it could really take off and see it more. Yeah, it's been tremendously — where it's been successful or where we've focused in those markets, it's been tremendously successful. Those markets being in the States, and

15:40primarily in the States. So we haven't launched it at all in Canada yet. So really, I was just on a call a couple of weeks ago where we were talking about, okay, what do we need to do to align this here in Canada? But right now I think the focus has been the Phoenix market, which is one of the fastest-growing markets in the States right now. Atlanta, which is another very rapidly growing one, and I think in the DC area as well is where we've been focusing that.

16:03And they've made a ton of progress on that over the last couple of years. So what's the entry point there when you have a new product like that, a new installation method? Are you approaching it from the top down — are you approaching building codes, are you talking to architects to spec it, are you talking to contractors and educating the installers? Is it all three? Is it more than that? It's like a big undertaking. It's all three for that one. Yeah. So that's the

16:30biggest undertaking right now in terms of involvement. The other areas that we would get involved would be passive house, net zero — sure. Often with those, you're dealing with an engineer or an architect, and actually it's excellent in those cases because they're often a lot more prepared than a lot of people that we would deal with. Sometimes it's just a homeowner — just the client — so they might not be educated on why this is better or exactly what it is. And so we're really walking them through the process

16:55start to end to explain — okay, this is what you need to do, this is what your targets are. And we're internally working on that right now, trying to educate our own staff. For example, this year I'll be getting my Passive House consultant course and designation done, to be able to assist better. I think in Canada here, it's very important to have your credentials and kind of look after those things. So we've been working away on those sorts of things. And we've worked

17:22with Habitat for Humanity Halifax — there's a project going on called — well, it's a panelization project run by Nick Ridnicki. Essentially, ReCover is the name of the initiative. And that's a whole concept which is trying to tackle the problem of retrofit. So essentially what they're piloting with the support of the government here is actually to have a bolt-on wall system — so you're taking a house and essentially adding another envelope onto it, right? In essence. Yeah, just like putting

17:56on a jacket. Exactly — and a jacket you can wear all year round. Yeah. And so they're fastening that with some pretty heavy-duty fasteners. And I think they're working through that — I think they have their first pilot coming up, which was a pretty big success for them and for that project. And then we also have your typical retrofit, which would be, you know, what your typical homeowner would do or call a contractor for, where they're blowing into the walls from the outside.

18:19We have a lot of old housing stock in the Maritimes, and so it's a really big problem. I think 30% of our used carbon is contributed from our buildings — particularly our older buildings. Yes. So if we're ever going to tackle that, it's a pretty big leap we have to make. Yeah. And so using a product like cellulose in those wall cavities and also in the attics is a huge contributor. What about some details on why it's better to use cellulose on these retrofits? Is it

18:46because of the existing moisture? What are some of the variables that make it a better product to use? The big thing with any retrofit job or renovation-style job is the unknown, right? Yeah. So new construction — we have the luxury — cost-wise and for everything else. Yeah, exactly — your costs can expand really quick in those types of projects. And with cellulose it's very forgiving, like I say. So if you do have a small leak, as far as

19:13it's functioning once it's installed. Exactly, yeah. So pretty resistant to water. Where it has that hygroscopic component, you can put it in a lot of different assemblies. You do always want to be mindful and have the discussion, or at least have an idea about where your vapour barriers lie within a wall cavity when you're putting it in the wall. But as a general rule, cellulose is quite favoured for the retrofit market. Yeah. And so for our listeners, just on a basic

19:43standpoint — cellulose is what you're going to see blown into attics in residential; that's where you're going to see it. But now it's also just kind of slowly becoming — you know, it's used on the full envelope sometimes. What about exterior walls — how is it applied there? So exterior, like specifically to the exterior side — we're not using cellulose there. It's going to be on the interior side. So you always want to have some kind of a

20:08water barrier that's going to protect — yeah. What about between floors — is it ever used there? Big time — soundproofing, right? Because of the sound rating. Yeah. So a typical wall assembly — it's an STC of 54. Obviously you get a thicker wall and that expands. But that's quite good when you compare that against products like the rock wool type products, mineral fibre stuff. Yeah, exactly. And the burn time you were talking about earlier too is really, really good. Yeah, it's phenomenal. And

20:40also when you look at the install costs too — right now, especially — some of the price increases, and we certainly haven't been immune to this either; our product has increased. But it is something that's pretty accessible to a lot of people. People are able to use our product — it's not going to absolutely break the bank by any stretch, and it's going to provide a lot of benefits. It's kind of one of those products that punches above its weight class in

21:05terms of its cost versus the value that you're getting out of it — especially when you compare to products like spray foam, for example, which is a very high-cost product. There are some inherent issues that sometimes come with spray foam, as it's often essentially manufactured on site. Yeah — isn't there weather-dependent conditions that allow for that, whereas there might not be for your product? Yeah, definitely. Like, I've gone through the spray foam training myself, and there are a lot of ways to mess it up

21:36when you're talking about spray foam. There are a lot of variables — you're considering substrate temperature, you're considering exterior air temperature, you're considering your product and how old it is, for example. All of those things you're considering, and you are taking those into account when you set your variables on that machine and essentially manufacture it on site. Yeah. So if you're not very dialled in — for the most part, I will say the installers and contractors in the Maritimes are quite good; we don't see this as much of an

22:04issue as in some of the larger markets where there might be a bit more running and gunning going on. But as a general rule, our product is made at our plant — there's no manufacturing on site, so it is ready to go on site; there's no real concerns there. What about like integration — are you training a lot of the contractors who want to start to use these methods and use your products? Providing that — but like, is there a specific machine used for

22:32blowing in that's specific to Thermocell and Greenfiber Canada, or can you just use anything — is it kind of either/or? There is an education component there. Typically, for the average person who's using our product, they're probably getting it from a building supply centre. And we would stock all the building supply centres with the installation blowing equipment. A contractor would have varying degrees of machines — some small, some larger — and there are some settings and things like that that we'll teach them. We

23:01actually have techs all across North America that will come and actually set that up. And we're in the process now of setting up a training centre here in Atlantic Canada, which would really help the contractors here and give them a leg up in terms of particularly these wall systems and understanding exactly what it is that they're looking to do. We have a system actually called the EnviroShield wall system, and that's a CCMC-approved wall system where you're dense-packing cellulose. The big difference that we have to teach

23:27contractors — or anyone that's going to do a wall system — is it's different than an attic. With cellulose, typically you're dealing with two, maybe three installation methods in Canada. You have loose-fill, which is the easiest of them all — we can all do this, right? You just go up to your attic and you hold the hose. And that's it — it's like taking a — pretty much. And essentially you're just going to your desired height and, you know, you're stopping and you can call it a

23:53day. Yeah, we're probably oversimplifying that a little bit — there are some details you want to have in preparation — but as a general rule it's quite easy. Yeah. In your wall systems, the big thing we want to avoid is settling. So in an attic system, you're blowing air and you're blowing cellulose; eventually that air is going to dissipate and the product's going to drop down a little bit. And because it's a denser, heavier product than, say, fiberglass, it will naturally settle more. It is designed to

24:18do that. That's probably a common misconception. A lot of people will say, "Ah, you know, I put 20 inches in and I have 18 inches — I must have lost some," right? Yeah. And they didn't lose anything. That's completely exactly what is supposed to happen by design. There are a lot of conversations going on on the job site — like, oh okay, yeah, everyone arguing over that. Yeah, everyone panics a little bit because they think they lost something. But at the end of the day, no, that's

24:41exactly what it's supposed to do. It's designed to do that, and we have to test that through CCMC every year, and through different organizations. We have to get that verified. Now, in the situation of a wall, the last thing you want is settling — you want a uniform cavity throughout. And so what we do is we train people to essentially put the right amount of material in the wall so that the product becomes dense. So really, if you were to scoop out that product,

25:09just to walk you through it a little bit — the common practice would be to put a mesh or a smart membrane over your stud wall on the interior side. This is for new construction? Yeah. You would essentially staple it to your studs — this is after all your electrical and mechanical is in. It's always going to hold that. Exactly. And if you — I understand you come from a family of drywallers, so you'd probably recommend that we strap this first. Yeah, yeah, so that you have a nice, clean

25:35finish. The foreman doesn't get, you know — yeah, exactly. And so you can do it that way. For anyone doing it the first time, that's probably what I would recommend. As people become more professional with this, they're able to get away without the strapping. And so they're able to insert the blowing holes into that, behind that mesh, and allow that material to get denser and denser and denser until it reaches the desired density where it will not settle. You have a

25:59completely uniform cavity — it will fill every void, get behind every wire. Every time. Is there a set time like — I'm thinking of, like, concrete? Is it 48 hours of working time before it sets? Yeah — there's really no, if you're dense-packing, by the time you pull the hose out it's set, right? Yeah, exactly. So in your attic, yeah, it definitely will take some time — like, next day it's not going to have dropped the two inches. But you're not in a six-inch wall

26:25cavity there — it's a little bit of a wider space. Exactly — more air and movement and stuff. From a building science standpoint, I'm thinking about pull tests and you know, roof testing and all that kind of stuff for moisture. Is there on-site testing for this product that you do to collect data and whatnot? It's heavy on the building science side for sure. Yeah, like it can be — we try to simplify it the best we can. Generally what we'll tell installers to do is actually track their bags, like

26:50— really, fundamentally what we're asking people to do is: the design target density is 3.5 pounds of product per cubic foot. So we have a chart that helps you with that, or you can reach out to us and we'll help you with it. At that point it won't settle. And so we'll generally tell people, say, okay, take a 10-foot sectional wall — mark on the wall, you know, we should have six bags done and blown at this point. And so that's just a check and balance where

27:16you really can't screw it up. That's the simplest way that we've been able to achieve that — just break it up into pieces and go. Now, if you're doing a passive house, for example, there's definitely some accreditation that we have to go through, and those wall assemblies are tested — tested for density; they'll do core samples. That's a little bit different. And so in that case, what they'll do is essentially take a core sample, weigh what's in there, and just

27:38make sure that that's the right weight, or take a whole section of the wall. Yeah, exactly. So that's generally the validation process there for passive house — there are a couple of different ones depending on which organization. So you've got two locations in Debert — what square footage are these plants? Oh, that's a good question. I don't know what our total square footage is across the board — I'd have to follow that up. I mean, we're capable of

28:09— a ballpark, our absolute max is probably about 130–150,000 bags per month. Right, and that's what's produced at the Debert plant — that's for Atlantic Canada, or is it going across Canada? Okay, yeah. So you've got two or three hundred employees as the national sales leader yourself throughout the country. How are things specifically in Atlantic Canada right now? What's the layout for the company here — a couple in each province, is it much more than that? Our

28:37sales right now here, local to Atlantic — so sales are really strong here in Atlantic Canada. For the most part, we're in the middle of a boom. And on top of that we have all of these added programs right now in terms of installation and building envelope. So yeah, it's really — actually, it's tough. We talk about this frequently about forecasting. We obviously recognize that a lot of people are projecting there's going to be some kind of a pullback. We haven't really seen much of that yet. So there's

29:02lots of high interest rates, material pricing's up, but nothing's slowing down and the housing stock is still way down. And that's the thing — it's tough to gauge. I think I've had a lot of conversations over the last couple of weeks about this. Generally in Atlantic Canada we don't see the big dips and dives as in other parts of the country — kind of benign to the big swings. Yeah, exactly. And

29:31right now it seems to be that that's the case. And when we look at sales across Atlantic Canada, it's incredibly strong. One of the biggest challenges we've had is trying to manage through COVID and through the pandemic — that demand logistically. Yeah — logistically. And we do also ship in through — there are plants here in the Maritimes as well. So we've used some of our other plants to assist and offload that, and allow a little bit more capability here for the

29:59Maritimes. We've built higher levels of stock going into the fall season, which is primarily the primary installation season. That's what most people typically think — that's when they want to be working on those envelopes. Yeah — before the cold weather hits. Exactly. New construction is kind of wrapping up at that point, or at least closing in, and then your typical homeowner is saying, okay, I paid a lot in power last year — what can we do about this? And on top of that we have all of

30:25these programs right now that are taking place — whether it's for low-income or medium-income households, upgrading the building envelope is pretty crucial right now, especially given what we're seeing with power prices. Yeah. So what about a little more on passive house and net zero — what's the term, Sanctuary home? Oh, that's a great question. Yeah. So I'll back up for a second. Thermocell — we're actually in the process of a big brand change. So I mentioned we have all these plants south of the border. In 2015,

30:58Greenfiber actually purchased Thermocell, but we had never really formally merged until now. And so we have the great opportunity now where Greenfiber has been doing a lot of the legwork essentially for us here in Canada. And so as we're merging and creating those brands, we're going to have a lot more access to all of those assets and things that have already been created through Greenfiber. And so when we talk about Sanctuary — Sanctuary was a new product actually

31:24that we launched about two years ago in the U.S. I believe it was the runner-up for the most sustainable product with Home Depot — I think last year — in terms of new product entries that they had into their stores. The Sanctuary bag is essentially a rebranding of the bag that we have here in the Maritimes, which is the Therma-Shield bag — that's what most people would know our product as here in Atlantic Canada. This bag is geared a lot more

31:51towards the end consumer. We've often focused on the pro consumer for a really long time here in Canada — meaning the contractor, the GC, or the builder, exactly — and not that we've left out the end consumer, but we haven't really geared our focus or our message toward them. I think part of that is there's been a huge shift in the last couple of years in what the consumer actually wants. For years we've had this great green product that performs really, really well, it's

32:18carbon negative like we talked about earlier, but that message if we rewind 10 years really kind of fell on deaf ears. Unfortunately, right — it wasn't a huge motivator for people to purchase, or there wasn't as much concern about the environment. We didn't really feel that connection that we do now. So that's proof then — if this is working for a company the size of Thermocell — that the client, the home builder, the homeowner, is conscious enough about net zero and about the products that

32:51they don't need to educate them and they're going to go with your products for those reasons, without there necessarily being an architect involved leading them toward that. Yeah, that's a good sign then. It's a huge change — it's a complete sea change. Like, I remember going into meetings even in 2015 and talking about this and people would say, hey, you know, they just don't care. And you know, right or wrong, that's what I would have assumed. Yeah — might

33:16still be the case. Yeah. And now we're seeing this change — like, we just done a survey and it's 83% of people: if given the option to buy something that's environmentally conscious versus something that's not, they're going to choose the environmentally conscious product. And that's a huge, huge change in the market. And that was a North American-wide study — that wasn't just Canada — who might even skew a little bit more concerned. That's really good news. Yeah. So it's a huge, huge change. And there's a lot of people who just want

33:43to support good businesses that are doing good things and contributing positively to the built world we create. Yeah. And that's really what we're trying to do. Coming back to your question about a Sanctuary home and what that is — we've launched actually a number of concepts that kind of support this. A Sanctuary home in essence is a home that has used cellulose in its walls and attic — it's a very

34:12soundproof, very comfortable home for anyone to live in, and it's going to be a very healthy home. That's kind of the goal. We don't contribute to all of that — we just focus on the envelope. But with proper air exchanging — I think you had, I forget his name, but was it the Conscious Builder? We did have Casey from the Conscious Builder, who's located in Ottawa, who's a net-zero builder. Yeah, and he was talking a little bit about that

34:37whole-home wellness concept, which was really cool, and it really aligned with what our product essentially is. It's contributing to that — a nice, comfortable sanctuary to come into. Where you have your cellulose in your wall, you essentially have a soundproof home, a very, very comfortable place to be. And also very, very efficient from an air changes per hour standpoint as well. Awesome. Yeah. And just like — one of the other things we have there is the Sanctuary Builder program

35:07and the Sanctuary Contractor program — all under that brand? Yeah, all under that brand. So we're trying to essentially encapsulate everyone. If you're someone that wants that, you can reach out to a Sanctuary Builder — which is a program we'll just be launching this year — and that will be a program launched to all builders. Essentially, if you are building a show home, for example, we'll donate product for that show home to basically have cellulose in your walls and your attic for that home at no cost, with

35:37the ability, giving them the ability to essentially sell the consumer on, hey, this is a product that we could really put in your home — it could add a lot of value for you. Sure. And then also on the Sanctuary Trusted Contractor side, that essentially is going to be someone that's been fully trained on how to build a Sanctuary home, how to install a wall job correctly. That's really interesting stuff. Competition-wise — maybe we could focus on Atlantic Canada. Obviously in a way you're competing with

36:05the rock wools or the fiberglass products, or if people are going to choose batt as opposed to this — it depends on what's spec'd or if you have an entry point or not. But as far as a direct competitor — the same type of method, same type of product — how many, what's that like as far as competition for cellulose? I mean, really there's three, I guess, you would say. So you have fiberglass — all the

36:33fiberglass manufacturers out there; you'd have spray foam to a lesser extent. We talked a little bit about that earlier — those are different installations in lieu of your style. But like, not necessarily any other cellulose manufacturers that you're directly competing with right here in the Maritimes? We kind of own the Maritimes for the most part in that regard. Yeah. So Suprema has a plant in Quebec, and that's predominantly where they're based — that's their closest location. Yeah. And so they will dip

37:02in a little bit to the Maritimes, but very relatively rarely. Yeah. Historically speaking too, with cellulose manufacturers, they've always been small, right? So there's always been a lot of them — they've always been hyper-regional. And so from a perspective of competition, it's been really challenging for them to organize. And over the last couple of years Greenfiber has been able to merge — really over the last 15 years or so — able to scoop up a lot of those, and now we have a bit more of a cohesive message, which

37:30really, really helps. Because for years, really, everything was pocketed and it was hard to have a cohesive message against some of these massive multinationals like Owens Corning, for example. And so the message was essentially lost — it was a niche product that was really, really well accepted within the building science community and the energy efficiency community, because they were seeing the results. So the manufacturers were kind of local, smaller outfits. So now as Thermocell Greenfiber

38:02you can have a unique position in that regard — as a North American, full — it's a good spot to be in. Yeah, it's a really good outlook, too, going into the future. And there's a lot of builders who have this problem to solve — net zero is the goal generally by 2030 depending on each region and their codes. And that's a huge step. And one of the things that we're trying to do is educate as many installers as possible on how to get

38:31there. And really, everyone has to be involved in that. I think you've had some HRV people on the podcast as well, or ERV people? And all of these systems essentially tie together for that full net-zero package. So many elements, and so much change happening right now, I feel. Yeah, it's a huge change — we're in a big shift here. Yeah, exactly. So the future

38:59is really, really positive. I think there are a lot of ways to get there. Cellulose is probably going to have a very big role in that — mainly because, like I say, it's accessible; most people can get in there; it's not cost-prohibitive like spray foam is. And so it's really a product for everyone that's ultimately going to drive our carbon down. Yeah. And you're going to also see a huge benefit in efficiency. Is there opportunity to have some

39:27methods incorporated in large commercial envelope projects — on the commercial side, in lieu of like outboard insulation, maybe the cavity rock wool and comfort batts from rock wool? Is there opportunity there too? There's opportunity. Like, one of the big markets for us too — we very rarely talk about this one — is actually agriculture. And then also soundproofing. So soundproofing is the main one when you're talking commercial. You know, you can put cellulose in a sound floor, you can blow that in — it's

39:59going to do a phenomenal job. Or a sound wall. If you're talking about agriculture — which is another kind of broad-scale industry for us — with a certain method of envelope, like whether it's a Butler-style kind of barn building or right. Yeah, typically we'll see it in a lot of barns. So chicken farms, for example, here in the Maritimes — like down in the Valley, or potato farms. Yeah, and also northern New Brunswick. Yeah. Cellulose is pretty desirable for those ones. The fire retardant

40:28chemical that we use in our product is borate — or boric acid — and so it's very benign to humans; causes no issues for us. But naturally, animals and pests really don't like it. And so from an agriculture environment that really matters — rats out of the walls, yeah. Essentially, right? You don't want those critters in around your potatoes; you don't want them around your chickens. And it really hurts productivity. And they've even gone as far as to measure that — they've come back to us

40:56and said, look, we seem to get better results when we use cellulose than fiberglass in these builds. So how many employees work with you here in Atlantic Canada, under Thermocell? We're pretty fortunate here in Atlantic Canada. We have — I mentioned the company started in 1987 — actually one of our employees is still here from 1987. Exactly. And then we have a plant manager that's been around here since the early 2000s as well. So we've

41:23got a lot of experience here in Atlantic Canada. And then we have a great crew of production workers at the plant as well. We run essentially seven days a week now due to the increased demand — we used to only run five, and now we're really just looking for ways to absolutely maximize our capacity to keep up with the market. Yeah. Unfortunately — like, we have some really, really good people, like I mentioned, that have been there for years. And

41:49without them, I don't think we'd be able to do what we're doing today. Because it is a real challenge. If you talk around the industry, most people will be hard to replace. I imagine — they certainly are. Everybody that has that experience is hard to replace, but just to find the expertise and the niche and that pretty particular skill set and experience — yeah, I mean, we could talk about that forever, because I think that's a pretty big issue industry-wide. Absolutely —

42:17skilled workers. Yeah. Yeah, I was at a conference not too long ago with the ABSDA — familiar with the Atlantic Building Supply Dealers Association? It partners with primarily the dealers — so the Home Hardware's of the world, the Castle's of the world. And they had someone in to speak to us all essentially on immigration and bringing additional workers in from foreign countries to meet some of these needs. And they had shared a couple of different success stories, but

42:45you know, you look around that room — everyone was talking about the challenges that they all have. And it's something that we've got to work on in the future for sure. Do you guys have any creative ways of looking at maybe immigration, different things like that, for future plans? I think going to that conference definitely opened our eyes to maybe that as a possibility. Yeah. Especially for skilled, qualified workers that may have experience — whether

43:09that's from Europe or abroad or other countries. There were some really interesting success stories they shared — some with Ukrainians that were brought over. Yeah, there was a Home Hardware particularly in New Brunswick — and Grand Nan, actually — who was really struggling with workers. They had brought some people in and kind of shared just how successful it was and what a big impact it had on the community. So after hearing those stories, it's something that I think as manufacturers and employers we have to

43:37look at those sorts of things as options — eyes wide open, recognize that it very well could be a part of the plans moving forward. Yeah, absolutely. We've had a recent guest — two individuals — and one was from Poland, almost from Ukraine. Yeah, just seeing a lot of Ukrainians here, just in personal life — out at dinner and stuff at the different places downtown. Yeah, lots of people moving here, and success stories — neat stories of whether it's apprenticeship, labour

44:08workers on site or working in a plant. And a lot of them — the cultural background, their work ethic — is amazing. That's often the feedback. Yeah. Sometimes you know the language barrier can be an issue, which is understandable — like, certain language barriers — and they're taking courses to enhance their English. But some learn really fast. Yeah. And I think too, it's important to recognize that we have really great homegrown talent as well. Like, you have

44:37people of course going to trade school, and we've got to be able to connect with those and put those together. We want to try to keep those folks home if we can, develop them, and bring them into the fold. And those are all things we'd be looking at as well. Yeah. And that's one of the things about — one of the spin-offs that we hope is part of what we're trying to accomplish with

45:00our media platform is just to shed light on a lot of those younger people and students that might choose NSCC or different courses within the construction industry, as opposed to, you know, accounting or lots of different bachelor's degrees — different paths you might take in university — that this is a great industry, and try to fill that gap. Because it's going to have gaps, and things will be busy. So hopefully we can contribute

45:27to that in our own small way. But yeah, there's a lot of support. I think given too, if you are able to catch on with a manufacturer here in Atlantic Canada — or even a building supply dealer — there are a lot of avenues that people can take. And those are all really good jobs that people don't necessarily recognize or think to aspire to. People really need to give things like that a thought. Yeah — good paying jobs, good benefits, good people. Yeah. Anything else that we didn't

45:51touch on? I'm sure we could open up many different topics — we could sit here for hours and hours. I'm sure you have places to be here on Friday afternoon, but yeah, we've all got to get our Christmas shopping done. That's right. No, like, I think that was a good talk, and a pleasure to be on with you for sure. Yeah, man, it was a real treat. And yeah, we'll look forward to this

46:15dropping — and you'll be — probably today's the 16th, so it'll probably be a couple of weeks into the new year. But yeah, it's very exciting to sit and hear about a great company, and congrats to you on your journey — six years as National Director of Sales. I'm sure the stress can get to you here and there, but hopefully you get a break at Christmas time here, get into some of the games like you said. Yeah, we'll try to — hopefully can we

46:39get some W's? Yeah, awesome, man. Alright, cheers! Cheers, thank you. This episode is brought to you by Cook Insurance — your trusted insurance broker in Atlantic Canada for 50 years. Insurance is complex, and the Cook team focuses on delivering comprehensive solutions for your construction needs, including builders risk, wrap-up liability, performance bonds, and project-specific construction insurance. A Navacord partner since 2020, Cook is one of the largest construction brokers in Canada and offers national strength with a local touch. Whatever your insurance needs are, Cook has you covered. We would

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