00;00;00;00 - 00;00;01;04 Unknown here in the US. 00;00;01;09 - 00;00;20;11 Unknown Now we're seeing all of our building codes, a demanding, an envelope, a tightened envelope. Right. We're seeing the cost of energy starting to really get excessive. We're seeing, you know, occupant health, being somewhat problematic where we're in a lot of families, right? 00;00;20;11 - 00;00;37;24 Unknown So the importance of building a good envelope and creating that safe airspace is critical anymore. And the tighter the envelope, the more critical it is that we manage the airspace, which is what we do with Oasis. We're since we're essentially just really managing the airspace 24 over seven. 00;00;51;17 - 00;00;58;26 Unknown Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Your Project Shepherd podcast. We've had a bit of a break for a while. We had a few changes around here. 00;00;58;28 - 00;01;16;18 Unknown But we are back. And I've got a new podcast producer sitting behind the console back there. I've got Francis Ramos. I'm really happy to have Francis with us. Danilo was with us for the last couple of years, and she did a great job of getting this podcast kind of off on the right foot and in a good direction. 00;01;16;21 - 00;01;35;25 Unknown The she has moved on to bigger and better things. And so I am super happy to have Francis on board. He's been killing it already, too. And, marketing stuff for for crafted, and Shepherd and really happy to have him, sitting behind the, the console back here on the podcast. So, Francis, thanks for thanks for being with us. 00;01;35;25 - 00;01;57;17 Unknown And we'll do something else in the future where we kind of meet him a little bit more. So, so I'm here today, again with my friend Ken Nelson from Panasonic. This is Ken's second time on the podcast. Ken, you and I did a podcast episode, about a year or so ago, and we talked mostly about Swigert at that time. 00;01;57;20 - 00;02;16;21 Unknown You and, Jim. Right. So you're now joining a small but, exclusive list of repeat guests. I'm going to be the the lucky five timer here pretty soon, right? I hope so. Yeah, that'd be cool. And you might catch up to toner one day, and, you probably know it a build, you know, July 20th to catch up to toner. 00;02;16;22 - 00;02;36;24 Unknown He's closer though, so it's. So anyway. Well, Welcome back. Thank you. Happy to have you. You know, I've, I've been, fortunate to get to hang out with you a lot over the last couple of years. That Panasonic stuff at ibis, at IBA, all kinds of stuff. We we get to see each other. We we play pickleball together. 00;02;36;24 - 00;03;04;14 Unknown Now, Ken and I are pickleball buddies. He kills me every time. Well, I don't know about that, but, so we've been, working on a project. Crafted has been working on a project with Panasonic now for the last few years. And it's been top secret up until now. We couldn't talk about it. And so now that, that project has wrapped up, we can finally have a conversation about it. 00;03;04;17 - 00;03;23;12 Unknown In fact, Panasonic is doing a, opening event tomorrow at the at the at the house. Of course, by the time this airs, it'll it'll be a week or so out, but, so craft that has been building a concept house for Panasonic for the last couple of years. For some new things that they've been doing. 00;03;23;12 - 00;03;46;05 Unknown And that's. We're here. We're here to talk about. And that new thing is Oasis. Oasis, our outdoor air system as well. How I've been kind of referring to it. But it and we have to get a better name than concept house. I, I keep wanting to come up with something more clever, but I haven't, I haven't got there yet, but our concept house and Curtis, you guys have done a great job with that and we're excited to have it. 00;03;46;07 - 00;04;09;18 Unknown But the the the goal of the concept house is to capture data, right? We're we're we set up our new Oasis Hvac system within the house. And then we want to capture data inside data outside data and how the two correspond or how they how they move. And kind of, a symphony of movement where it's when things occur outside, what happens in the inside? 00;04;09;18 - 00;04;34;06 Unknown Of course, we want that to be nothing to happen on the inside. Right? Our goal is to have the inside of the house be this sanctuary of environmental space where where the air quality is perfect, the temperature is perfect. The humidity is perfect. Regard Atlas of, of your Houston environment, which is all over the place, right? Hot, humid cold humid. 00;04;34;08 - 00;05;07;28 Unknown Windy. Humid. PM 2.5. Saturated. You guys have a whole plethora of of environmental and environmental issues that occur outside. And we want to make this home a sanctuary for for anybody who's concerned about healthy, healthy air, healthy living and healthy breathing. Yeah. So it's funny, you know, in the let's see, we we kind of finish the house, let's say in December, Panasonic started moving some stuff in setting up and we were in, in, in mid-March now. 00;05;08;01 - 00;05;28;12 Unknown But in the last, you know, three months since we finished it, Euston has had this just this crazy weather, which is, I mean, you know, we always have crazy weather, but usually it's crazy on the on the heat extreme. In the last three months, we've had everything from, you know, low 20s and six inches of snow, which is crazy for Houston. 00;05;28;15 - 00;05;55;05 Unknown And it's been as high as 90 during that same time period. Right. So, you know, just in three months, we've had just this wide range of, of environmental conditions. But, you know, as we go through, you know, the next 12 months through the first year of the, of the house being in place and completed and occupied, I'm really excited to kind of see what that data shows. 00;05;55;08 - 00;06;24;05 Unknown Well, I'll tell you that. So, and this is, this was such a boon for us, right? I mean, holy cow, we have we had a cold snow, episode, so to speak. Right. So which is my northern claim, and I'm from Washington state. We get cold, wet, humid, and we build our houses accordingly. Here in in Houston, in your south central southeast climates, you have hot, humid climate and you build your houses appropriate for that climate zone. 00;06;24;07 - 00;06;47;15 Unknown But in our case, you know, being data data collectors, we got to see all three scenarios that we were looking for. One was the cold climate where, the temperatures dropped down into the mid 20s. So we captured data looking at what inversion layers are doing here in Houston in dry, humid or dry humidity with cold temperatures and how that affected the house. 00;06;47;18 - 00;07;13;26 Unknown And we also saw the extreme with high temperatures, high humidity. And then we saw the there's the sweet spot that we're trying to manage. And this is the most difficult Hvac challenge in all of the southern climate zones. And that is we saw shoulder site, shoulder style temperatures, meaning that it was 73 degrees outside with 8,087% humidity, 73 degrees inside. 00;07;13;28 - 00;07;39;07 Unknown But we wanted to keep the inside at 5050. In this case, it was 57% humidity. And then how we can affect change with each of those. If we wanted to. But the the data that we're collecting is, is really showing some spectacular results based on the Oasis system. Yeah. It's it's crazy to walk in there, and see all the, all the sensors and data loggers. 00;07;39;10 - 00;08;04;05 Unknown So, you know, like every wall in the house has got, like, six sensors on it, and they're measuring, temperature, humidity, indoor air quality and all these different points on every wall of the house. Yeah. And I want to apologize for that. Right out of the gate, because I know as a custom builder, you know, and I've seen images of some of your past work and, and you build some beautiful houses and then we came in and just killed it with, 00;08;04;07 - 00;08;23;18 Unknown Every room has at least three monitors of some sort. Yeah, some of them have nine monitors. Right. So, Yeah, it has become a test house, and and I apologize to you for that, but I promise you, we still appreciate how beautiful that house is. Well, it's funny because when, when when they first started doing that, I was kind of like, oh, I don't want to see all this. 00;08;23;20 - 00;08;55;01 Unknown The stuff on the walls. But when I saw the the dashboard, that was the result of that and the data that was being log, I was blown away. I was like, wow, this is really cool and important. Yeah, right. How important is that to your home buyer? To be able to look at a dashboard and say, I can tell you exactly how your house is going to respond at this temperature, this humidity, I can tell you how it's going to respond at this temperature, that humidity, you know, and and what happens when the the fog rolls in and it brings all of these particulates from the coast, petroleum facilities into our area, you know, and 00;08;55;01 - 00;09;13;18 Unknown all of a sudden, you know, the kids are having allergy allergic reactions or grandma's having allergic reactions. I can tell you why, but I can tell you where it's not happening. And I can show you that on this dashboard. Yeah. So what what's kind of back up and talk about, kind of the why for all this. 00;09;13;18 - 00;09;29;20 Unknown Right. So, you know, and I'm not sure if you know this because, you know, you're just you're still early sales and building science guy. You know, you're not the upper the upper the upper top management. Right? But you know, why did Panasonic decide to come up with this Oasis concept? Like, what problem were they trying to solve? 00;09;29;20 - 00;09;50;21 Unknown Or or what is traditional, Hvac models? Get wrong. So there's a, there's a number of things going on in, in the industry. Right. So and Panasonic is a global organization. And to be clear, we've done this Oasis style heating and air conditioning system for 20 plus years in Japan, in Japan and in different parts of Asia. 00;09;50;24 - 00;10;14;23 Unknown So and all of those started out with, an enhanced building envelope, right? They wanted to start building a better envelope. They knew they have humidity and moisture problems in in those climates. And they had to figure out a way to make it more affordable for their occupants and home buyers as well. So this this process has been around for some time here in the US. 00;10;14;27 - 00;10;43;21 Unknown Now we're seeing all of our building codes, a demanding, an envelope, a tightened envelope. Right. We're seeing the cost of energy starting to really get excessive. We're seeing, you know, occupant health, being somewhat problematic where we're in a lot of families, right? I mean, and one of my favorite statements with. And I tell this to builders all the time, when you have a customer, you just ask how many people in your family have breathing issues, right? 00;10;43;21 - 00;11;01;16 Unknown Whether it's asthma, allergies or whatever. And it used to be like one inch four, but now it's one inch three will say, oh, in my immediate family, you know, I have, you know, allergies or asthma, but in my extended which is grandparents and whatnot. You know, there's always people in that group that are that are have potential triggers. 00;11;01;18 - 00;11;27;00 Unknown So the importance of building a good envelope and creating that safe airspace is critical anymore. And the tighter the envelope, the more critical it is that we manage the airspace, which is what we do with Oasis. We're since we're essentially just really managing the airspace 24 over seven. I think that, you know, as you said, I think the, the, the tightness, the building envelopes have changed over the years. 00;11;27;00 - 00;11;52;13 Unknown You know, thinking back like 100 years ago, the house just kind of breathed the house. The house was just open. There's very little insulation. The house was not built tight. A lot of the air changes. Right. And then from, say, maybe the 19, 1980s through the early 2000s, it was kind of this weird in-between period where things were starting to get tight but not tight enough. 00;11;52;13 - 00;12;13;18 Unknown Sure. And in fact, on, on my kind of forensic, consulting business, like, most of the problems that we see are kind of with these 1980s, early 2000 houses, kind of the in-between period. And now the houses are being built really tight. And, and that requires a whole change in mentality on how we're on how we're ventilating our homes. 00;12;13;20 - 00;12;34;23 Unknown Because, you know, the house is not just going to have all these air changes on its own anymore. We have to mechanically create those air changes with these tight building envelopes. And so, you know, one of the things that, you know, that we've done on the Oasis home is, you know, as we we have mechanical ventilation through our RV. 00;12;34;23 - 00;12;57;10 Unknown So we're so we're, we're measuring the ventilation. We're it's being calculated. We're getting it right. We're, we're but we're also not just dumping in a bunch of fresh air from the outside. Right. The RV is helping us manage the ventilation. Right. So we want to stay away from random air. Yeah. You know, and historically, right in the way back, that's what it was. 00;12;57;10 - 00;13;18;27 Unknown It was random air. So you would have whatever's outsides inside. Well and but you didn't always know where it comes from. Remember we have, air moves from high pressure to low. So as I heat up the inside, I'm creating this high pressure system. So it's going to migrate out. So the air that comes in most likely will be from a lower spot closer to the ground source. 00;13;18;29 - 00;13;40;29 Unknown Typically under the house or added around those connections. Right. Between the foundation and the and the ground source. So everything that was in your dirt or whatever would migrate back into the house as the heat warmed it up, it would create that stack effect or chimney effect and drive it out the top. So if you were in a climate zone where you had potential for radon, you would get radon in. 00;13;40;29 - 00;14;01;14 Unknown If you're in a climate zone where you have potential for pollen in your yard or from falling leaves, or who knows what, that's all going to migrate in from that path here in your climate zone, in, in this this hot, humid climate zone, we air conditioned the house. So now I have a hot high pressure outside and a cooling low pressure inside. 00;14;01;14 - 00;14;24;13 Unknown So that air is going to migrate from the top part of the house into the hot. So everything that's aerosolized. So if you have, petroleum products or, you know, you have your petroleum systems out on that coastline and that moves in with that onshore flow, all of those are going to come over to your house, and now it'll be drawn into the house, but with a tight envelope. 00;14;24;13 - 00;14;49;23 Unknown We're going to prevent that. And with managed ventilation, we're not going to allow that depressurization to occur. So we do this with that ERV. You know, I can pressurize or depressurize, but you're right. We don't have the random air. So any air that comes in is being filtered as it passes through the air. It's also being tempered and either humidified or dehumidifier humidified depending on where, where the target is. 00;14;49;23 - 00;15;11;16 Unknown Right. So so the air these are really kind of the one of the one of the big magic items in that, in that, in that process, along with the air air handler, air conditioning space that we're managing in and the supply fans. Yeah. So it's really being intentional about about what we're doing instead of instead of just leaving at the chance. 00;15;11;16 - 00;15;36;07 Unknown Right. And so I think that's one of the ways that you know, it going back to, you know, what a traditional Hvac systems kind of get wrong or like the way we've been doing things, how is that getting it wrong? Yeah. We're not managing our ventilation. We're we're just running the AC. We're we're heating and cooling and right, dumping in some fresh air. 00;15;36;14 - 00;15;58;27 Unknown It you know, just kind of randomly and hoping it all works out. Right. So now we're we're intentionally designing the whole system to, not not only measure the fresh air that's coming in, but also we're designing the system to where it's it's consistent that you don't have these big ramp up ramp down periods of heating and cooling. 00;15;58;27 - 00;16;16;25 Unknown So one of the great things about Oasis that that I've observed over the last few months is that the temperature is very constant in the House. You're not going to walk in and it's going to be 78, and then the system's got a blast for five minutes and get it back down to 70, and it's going to hold it there and it's going to ram back up. 00;16;16;27 - 00;16;44;05 Unknown The system is very consistent with its temperature management. Right. And that's one of the things that we're finding in the whole building science community is that that that heating and cooling cycle is probably the most inefficient cycle, you know, and and don't get me wrong, there's in our history, we had to have that because we didn't have the mechanism to give you complete and perfect air temperature and air quality throughout the house consistently. 00;16;44;07 - 00;17;06;18 Unknown And if we did, it was expensive. It was obscenely expensive. However, now that that is all changed, we know our Panasonic products that we install into this system are so efficient. I mean, we're running this house, 3000 square foot house for less than 1000W of energy, which, you know, it's just so remarkable that we can do that. 00;17;06;18 - 00;17;21;08 Unknown Okay. So what's what's one other thing that, that, you know, traditional Hvac, nothing maybe not gets wrong, but like, what what issues are there with a traditional Hvac model that maybe we're trying to solve with Oasis? 00;17;21;08 - 00;17;44;00 Unknown So. So one of the things that we see as being a great advantage is the the repair function. Let's say something did go wrong with a traditional system. If you're if you're air conditioning is out, you know, it might take 3 or 4 days for someone to get there. Well, I can tell you right now that you'll have, you know, you'll have a Chia Pet in parts of your rooms because of that, moisture load is going to fire in there. 00;17;44;00 - 00;18;08;16 Unknown It hit a cold surface. Adhere to that phase, change to water and grow something. Right. So with the Oasis system, repairs are simple and and they don't require the whole system to be lost or shut off or, or diminished. Well, I mean, to, to some degree, right. Because if, because we have redundancy with the air conditioning and so forth. 00;18;08;18 - 00;18;34;04 Unknown So, so I would say, you know, if you're if you've ever experienced when your heating and cooling system is failed only in the summer, only in the summer and, and then in the northwest, it would only be in the winter. Right? Right. You will really like this Oasis system because of that redundancy. Yeah. So I again, I, I don't want to go into like all the, the, the specifics on, on, on the design and how it's put together. 00;18;34;04 - 00;18;52;10 Unknown But at a high level, I mean, in our concept house, we've got two Panasonic Mini split units, which are kind of the core of the system. So I would say the two, but the two mini split units and the E RV are kind of the heart of the system, right? Agreed. And then beyond that, we've got some D modification happening with the whole house. 00;18;52;10 - 00;19;15;24 Unknown Do you, do you miss a fire? And then we get our transfer fan system. But because we have those two mini split units at the core of the system, if one does happen to go down, the house can function on one of those mini split systems. Absolutely. And that's actually kind of a testament to, to the, to the building envelope, because you think about a 3000 square foot house that can be cooled by a single mini split system. 00;19;15;26 - 00;19;34;23 Unknown That's pretty impressive. Yeah, a single two ton system is is basically one fourth, one fifth of what you would have at a traditional 3000 square foot house. And it will do just fine. It and a lot of that is we go back to that e RV that year of you is going to diminish that Hvac load required. 00;19;34;29 - 00;20;02;09 Unknown That's, that's coming into the house because it's preconditioning the air as it comes in, actually taking that humidity out so that the, the, the ductless system or the mini split system doesn't have to work as hard. That yeah, I would say, you know, you talk about the heart, the ear V and the and the mini splits are certainly the heart and then the, the distribution fans and the supply or supply fans, if you will, are the vascular system if we're going to humanize this, the vascular system. 00;20;02;09 - 00;20;24;22 Unknown And I have to tell you the even though we have a dehumidifier in that space, it's not coming on. It's not running even in the super high days. And I, I want to double check that data as we get more of it. But right now we're not seeing dehumidification as from a, from a specific device, being even necessary. 00;20;24;22 - 00;20;42;18 Unknown Yeah. So far, but we I want to like you. I want to see what a year's, you know, worth of data looks like. Yeah. But we've seen all the, you know, the swings and and and sags as well. So. Yeah, we'll we'll see 100, 110 in July with 80% humidity and see how I see how it rolls then. 00;20;42;18 - 00;21;02;02 Unknown But see, and that's a lot of water in there. There's friction. But yeah, I mean, I, I think that because we're already getting some D modification from the mini splits and from the RV, the, the whole house, the amount of fire we spent on this project because it's Houston, because most of our homes here, we do that now. 00;21;02;05 - 00;21;21;07 Unknown But it'll be it'll be interesting to see as we as we gather data, if that component is, is 100% necessary in this home. Right. So right. And and if it's not great, that's another, 1500, 2000 bucks that someone could save on you least, right? On, installing the system, if they can cut that out too. 00;21;21;08 - 00;21;49;00 Unknown Well, that's another important part of all of homebuilding, right? Is affordability. And it doesn't matter what house if you buy, first time homebuyer, a move up homebuyer or a luxury house. Everybody wants it for less, right? No matter what. That's just a standard thing. I want it for less. And making things affordable. But livable is always the challenge because an affordable or first time homebuyer, you know, you may not be able to afford those higher end comfort products. 00;21;49;07 - 00;22;22;27 Unknown But with this system, we can we can give you 99% of that for the same price as a luxury house. It's pretty remarkable how that how this is scalable, both from a functional standpoint as well as a pricing standpoint. Yeah. The the cost of the components involved are not crazy. So that's one of the questions that I, that I've gotten from people as I have, you know, showed them the house, talked about the house, is, you know, what is this cost versus a traditional Hvac system? 00;22;23;00 - 00;22;41;24 Unknown And, you know, it's, you know, this was a prototype house, right? This is the first the first time that we've done in the US, although, as you said, they've done a ton of them in Japan, you know, tens of thousands of them in Japan. But here in the U.S, this is the first one. So it was our Hvac installers first time doing this as well. 00;22;41;24 - 00;22;58;11 Unknown So obviously he's going to charge me a little more. First time as you know has never dealt with it. But now that he's been through it he's like oh yeah that that was not difficult. You know, it's it's too it's too many split units. It's running dedicated like home run, duct lines for the for the transfer fans. 00;22;58;13 - 00;23;37;14 Unknown And there's nothing crazy about the installation. The the installation magic is in design. Yes. Right. That comes before the house is even out of the dirt. It comes in that that architectural design, that engineering design that you're going to receive. And almost all of the complications should be resolved right there. And when I say complications, there's no, you know, you have to find, four foot by two foot plenum chase, you know, type thing to to move trunk lines from A to B and then have them balance because you're reducing sizes and and you've got grill registered diffusers throughout that are trying to modify airflow. 00;23;37;16 - 00;23;58;04 Unknown None of that occurs. Right. We measure that with the outbound supply fan. And we just have a fan for each of those spaces. And it's predictable. And quite frankly part of our process is that we test the fan where the air comes into the fan. And we're going to test the fan where the air comes out of the fan and make sure we have that same airflow in, the same airflow out. 00;23;58;06 - 00;24;27;11 Unknown And now the house is going to be perfectly pressurized. It won't be. It won't have more pressure in one space, less pressure in another. So now you're start for cooling or heating in one spot and you have too much in another. You won't have stratification issues. All of that is resolved in design. Yeah. And so on. On the design side, and again, I know that our project was a little bit different because it was the prototype, but I think it's going to be the same model probably moving forward. 00;24;27;18 - 00;24;52;12 Unknown So you've got your architect. So in this case it was Katie Guy. So we got our architect, we got the Panasonic team, and then we've got our building performance designer who were kind of working together, on this. And so talk about how those three in the builder, of course. Right. So talk about how those parties Panasonic performance designer, you know, architect and builder kind of all worked together during design to figure this out. 00;24;52;14 - 00;25;15;06 Unknown Well, I think that again, I go back to saying it starts with design. As a builder. You look at a set of floor plans and it's intuitive, right. What you see is intuitive. Well, if the floor plan shows this, these, these Hvac pathways, if it shows open web trusting, you know, how to manage that, that's not a big deal for you. 00;25;15;08 - 00;25;38;19 Unknown It's more problematic for you when you have to build. Like I said earlier, these large chases and create, you know, air conditioning rooms up in the attic where you can get some sort of that transfer system occurring, or a booster system or recurring. This is it. We start with the with the design, we get engineering to look at every cubic foot of space within the house, and they're going to say how much airflow we need in each of those spaces. 00;25;38;22 - 00;26;04;14 Unknown And then they're going to also talk about how much, how many fans is it going to take to move that airflow into those spaces. And then for you, they're going to hand you a package that says, listen, here it is. This is going to work. And now for us, our certification for the builder comes down to, I need you to be able to look at the plan and make that plan come to fruition and not, you know, we have a lot of oftentimes the builder, the builder can shortcut the practices. 00;26;04;14 - 00;26;30;17 Unknown But with this this is a design system. Shortcut thing. There's no shortcuts. We're already bringing you every shortcut known into that structure. So it's it's an easy build for you. You don't have to be super creative. And and you know, your feedback back to the designer also is is super important to help the designer create these these you know, less complicated applications. 00;26;30;23 - 00;26;49;20 Unknown Yeah. So on the design side, when we've got, you know, a traditional AC system, you can kind of just stick the stick the, your handle in the furnace kind of wherever you want in the attic or in or in a closet or, you know, a small a small closet or whatever. With Oasis, we do need a little bit larger dedicated space to house the system. 00;26;49;23 - 00;27;10;22 Unknown So, so during design, you know, that's that's going to be, again, the architect working with the Panasonic team. To make sure that we have that space for the mini splits, the transfer fans or the supply fans. And just understanding kind of where that's going to live in the floor plan, how those ducks are going to get to where they're going. 00;27;10;22 - 00;27;33;24 Unknown It's not it's not rocket science, but it's just it's just, you know, again, knowing what the loads are in each room is going to tell us how many fans we need. Right. And so based on that, you know, we can look at can we locate this in a closet. Can we locate this in an attic? Whatever. But but that that's all something that's figured out during design by the team. 00;27;33;25 - 00;27;49;18 Unknown Right. Whereas normally with HPC stuff these days, a lot of it's kind of done in the field. It's like, hey, we know we're we're putting in a furnace and an air handler. Let's frame it. And then we're going to figure out where the unit is going to go. Hvac guy comes in and says, Curtis, I need a a platform in this space. 00;27;49;18 - 00;28;05;22 Unknown And it's got to be air by this. And you're like, yeah, I need you to. I need you to pop a case in the corner or whatever. Right. And so it's kind of, you modify these truss arms and you're like, oh. A lot of times, you know, traditional Hvac installation is a little bit more on the fly. 00;28;05;24 - 00;28;25;06 Unknown You know, we're just going to do it in the field. And that's worked for a long time. But, you know, again, with, with the building, all of us that we have advanced planning is more important. But with a system like Oasis, it's just the way it's configured. It's really important for all the parties to decide before construction ever starts. 00;28;25;06 - 00;28;45;28 Unknown Where is this going to live? How are things getting from point A to point B? So, you know, using web trusses for, for a two story structure, you got to do it right. So I think we used to in web trusses, 24 is is really a better way to go if you can if you can swing 24 with your building height requirements. 00;28;46;03 - 00;29;13;25 Unknown We had to go 20 inch, I think, on ours because we had a max building height. But a 24 inch web truss would be better. But you knew that design. Yeah. Not after the thing was set on the site. Right? Right. Yeah. But the fact that all the ducts that we used are all six inch ducts, you know, made that very manageable because even though we have a lot of ducts all coming to a central home run location, they're all six inch. 00;29;13;27 - 00;29;33;05 Unknown And again, during during the design with with the architect, we knew that we had, you know, x number of ducts running up into the attic space, X number of dogs running down into the subfloor. And we had all that laid out before we ever started. So it wasn't anything where we're on site, and we get surprised and we're scratching our head like, hey, how are we going to make this work? 00;29;33;08 - 00;29;59;06 Unknown Right? And, you know, there's a phrase that I love, and I use it all the time, and I use it with ventilation. Right. We always want our ventilation to be predictable and uneventful. And that's the same way you want every job, right? You it's it's probably the best thing in the world when you can look at the plan here in the office, make your order to your supplier for a product and then have it show up on the job site and put it together as soon as it shows on the plan. 00;29;59;08 - 00;30;20;14 Unknown And then everything just works. There's no, you know, no modifications required. I like predictable and uneventful, like I you're at your air conditioning should be boring. Right on. Oh, yeah. Ventilation should be invisible. Like you don't want to be thinking about your air conditioning. Like if you're thinking about it, it's because you're getting too hot or you're getting too cold. 00;30;20;17 - 00;30;40;29 Unknown Like, you shouldn't have to think about that if you're if you're ventilation, if you're air conditioning, HPC system is functioning right. You shouldn't should just walk into the house and it feels good. You're not worried about constantly tweaking in. So and those are the there's two things that I think are really difficult for the builder to try to, to gain value out of. 00;30;40;29 - 00;31;13;28 Unknown Right. One is healthy indoor air quality and the other is comfort because the homeowner, the home buyer, he expects both of those automatically. So how do you create value in your presentations to assure that homeowner that he's getting both of those? Because that's critical, right? I mean, that's oftentimes that's the reason somebody is coming to you is they are they have a pain point from a previous living experience, whether it's an apartment or a house or whatever, that either leaky, cold, hot, sweaty, who knows what. 00;31;14;01 - 00;31;39;02 Unknown But there's something oftentimes driving them into that product. And now you're you have to make them feel good about it. And this is a great way to do that because we can show data. I can show you how things, these things work. You have user experience where it is comfortable and you know that. And you can, you know, we need to create like a model home, I guess, to some degree to be able to have that user experience really be expressed. 00;31;39;02 - 00;32;04;27 Unknown But bringing value to comfort and healthy indoor air quality is critical. So one thing that we that you just touched on there, we touched on briefly at the beginning is, is air quality. So that's one of the other things that I think, Oasis gives that a lot of traditional Hvac systems don't provide is just an improved air quality, not just because the air is being filtered as it comes in. 00;32;04;27 - 00;32;31;12 Unknown You know, with the RV, but also talk about, you know, air purification water. But let's talk about all the different ways it gets filtered and cleaned, but also how the purification works as well. So, so outdoor air coming in first cycles through the RV where it's going past a Merv 13 filter into the air RV where it's being, the air V simply wants to bring everything to the middle. 00;32;31;12 - 00;32;49;20 Unknown So if I have a high temperature outside a lower temperature inside the air, using a lot of those temperature streams to to kind of meld into one another. So it's going to reduce that hot air that's coming into the house, and it's going to reduce the cold air that's leaving the house by tempering that hot air coming in. 00;32;49;23 - 00;33;10;29 Unknown So you recapture that that heat in temperature, and then as it passes. And that's also part of the dehumidification process, because one of the ways that we move heat temperature is through moisture vapor, right? That water vapor carries more temperature than air. So it moves from from hot to cold, from wet to dry and high pressure to low. 00;33;10;29 - 00;33;44;02 Unknown So heat is high pressure. More moisture load moves into that cooler airstream. It's drawn off, pushed out, bring in the heat, and now it's pushed out of the house. Now that air is put in front of the the, air conditioning room or the air handler room where it's drawn in, where we have our two, mini split heads in there and the Panasonic Mini split has a unique in that they use what they call the nano X technology, which the nano X technology is essentially, a positive charge hydrogen molecule. 00;33;44;02 - 00;34;09;21 Unknown It positively charges hydrogen molecules, if you will. And as that air passes through that, that that's that head assembly, it's being charged and it uses what they call a hydroxyl radical to, to charge that, that that molecule, that hydrogen molecule and what it does is it hits that molecule and it gives a little static charge. That molecule lives in that space for one, maybe two seconds. 00;34;09;24 - 00;34;35;20 Unknown So it relies on that large air flow. So we're, you know, on a, a mini split head will move between 300 and about 750 cfm of air per minute. You know, that's cubic feet per minute. So we have two of those moving that air. So there's a lot of air that's being pure and I shouldn't say purified, but it's being treated as it passes through to be redistributed out to the house where it's now diffused into that space and brought back in. 00;34;35;20 - 00;34;55;16 Unknown And the process starts over. In addition to that, we have some, of our whisper air repairs, same process in the I don't know what we call that, but it's like just off the kitchen area, where you have a lot of, VOCs that get out gas from cooking and cleaning and whatnot. It's also a big gathering area for. 00;34;55;16 - 00;35;15;07 Unknown It's a big. Yeah, people. Exactly, exactly. So and one of the, one of the metrics we're going to be able to look at is how is CO2 handled. Right. When when you get a bunch of people in there and we have an occupant, of course, is, you know, living there in his family. And I keep encouraging them, you know, hey, you guys need to whoop it up on the weekend so that we get these people over. 00;35;15;09 - 00;35;36;19 Unknown Yeah, yeah, we'll put a party. We want to see these spikes and then how fast they get dropped off. Right. I want to see. And one of the challenges with air RVs and using, indoor air quality monitors is because you have constant diffusion, constant turn of the air. Your monitors get pretty boring to look at. So it takes a lot. 00;35;36;19 - 00;35;58;29 Unknown And unlike where a house with no airflow, where it takes very little to to create a, an IQ trigger alert, once the air starts moving and we're moving the air, I think three and a half times per, per hour, every 17 minutes, every cubic foot of air in that house is being spun through the, the air handler room. 00;35;58;29 - 00;36;27;14 Unknown And where the where the nano X is taking place. It's being spun. It's being diffused with ERV air, fresh air from the outside every 17 minutes. So it's going to be difficult to get spikes. Yeah. We've even looked at it. The initial data, we had one spike in the initial data, and at that point we had 20 people in the house, and the spike only occurred in the CO2 and dropped off within ten minutes of everybody being gone. 00;36;27;14 - 00;36;45;10 Unknown Wow. So, so this is the kind of data that we, we look for and we're excited to see. Yeah. Again, we want it boring when it comes to exactly the data, too, right. Exactly. I don't want to just by people probably fell asleep as I explained all that, but I'm so sorry. You know, it's it's just, 00;36;45;12 - 00;37;08;25 Unknown But to your point, it, you know, our our comfort level and our health levels, we shouldn't have to fight for those every day, right? We should. We want that just to be our space. Yeah. So I mean, that's that's really kind of the whole point of Oasis and, is, is just this general well-being and comfort, right? Yes. 00;37;08;28 - 00;37;49;25 Unknown And, so, you know, on, on this, on this, concept home, you know, we've got the, the Oasis Hvac system. We've also got, you know, the Whisper air repair, which technically isn't part of Oasis, but it's another great product that we that we used in the house that that plays well with that concept. We've got our solar, we've got our volt solar system, in the house, which, which is also really cool kind of on that, on the one of the dashboards they got created, you know, we we were able to see, what the houses energy usage and kind of what's, what's being produced and stored versus what's being 00;37;49;25 - 00;38;12;12 Unknown bought from the grid. And so that's really cool. So, yeah, the house is really kind of, it's just a big concept of, of efficiency and healthy living, right? Yeah. The the fun part about the house is ultimately when you do describe it from a real higher level, it's not just a net zero, it's a net positive from time. 00;38;12;17 - 00;38;55;08 Unknown Most of the time, I mean, I her score was minus three for heaven's sakes. Yeah. So so we couldn't be more excited about the ability to create such a space for occupancy. Right. So, literally we can create a space for and and part of that, that minus three, her score and part of that, not just net zero, but, net positive is the way that we reduce the expense or the energy consumption of the house by making it a super tight envelope, by having super efficient products that heating and cooling, by not allowing it to spike temperatures because we're running continuously rather than trying to, you know, shove hundreds or thousands of cfm 00;38;55;08 - 00;39;20;16 Unknown of air into the house, heated which air, by the way, is the worst medium to carry heating and cooling. But we want to keep that house at that right level all the time, not just wherever the setback occurs. Yeah. I thought of kind of a car analogy, you know, you're you're if you watch your, your miles per gallon indicator on your, on your dashboard, on your car, you know, when is it sucking the most gas? 00;39;20;16 - 00;39;41;04 Unknown When you when you're if your fuel efficiency drop down to five miles per gallon instead of 20 or 30, it's when you hit the accelerator, it it has to speed up and work the hardest. You know what. That's one of the the features that was that has changed behavior. Right. Is the dashboard. And I, I know that my wife has a Prius and that Prius shows just as you described. 00;39;41;04 - 00;40;07;25 Unknown Right. It shows you when you're using more energy than, than creating it. And and she works really hard to keep that energy at an appropriate value so that it's not, you know, drawing off excess energy or excess fuel. The same thing with the house. If I can keep this house right in my target zone, if you will. It's not going to take excessive amounts of energy to heat and cool it, to bring it back to where I want it to be. 00;40;07;25 - 00;40;24;13 Unknown Yeah. Kind of the last thing on that, on that topic of all the different products that are in there. So on the solar side, you know, we we also have the, the ever volt batteries. So we also have kind of a, you know, it sounds kind of corner corny, but we also have an oasis if the power goes out. 00;40;24;13 - 00;40;45;14 Unknown Right. So so we have that backup capability and we have our critical loads that are tied to our every volt battery and smart box, so that when the power goes off, which we have a lot of power outages here in Houston and unfortunately, especially during hurricane season. So when that power goes off, you know, our, our Oasis air conditioning system is going to keep operating. 00;40;45;16 - 00;41;06;05 Unknown Our refrigerator and freezer is going to keep operating some basic wiring circuits. Right, right. So we're not trying to run the entire house with that backup because it's it's kind of a waste of stored energy. You know, you don't need every single, light switch and phone charger in the house to, to run when your power's out. But you want to maintain basic levels of comfort and safety, right? 00;41;06;09 - 00;41;36;29 Unknown Right. And so by managing those, those critical loads, we've also created this again that cheesy. We've created this oasis during during a storm. So and not just not just oasis but sanctuary I keep coming back to that term. I love that term because if you're compromised in a you need whether it's oxygen or you need some sort of health care in your house that requires power, and all of a sudden the power goes out, all of a sudden this this has a whole different feel about it, right? 00;41;36;29 - 00;42;02;02 Unknown Yeah. Or if you're, sensitive to high temperature or low temperature and the power goes out all of a sudden, this is a bigger problem, you know? So, as you said, we can we can basically take that battery package in and give you power, you know, 6 to 8 hours, depending on the load. Of course, by by just doing your critical load sources. 00;42;02;04 - 00;42;23;10 Unknown I know that one of my issues and I'm trying to do this at my house, right? I want to add solar battery, but also my EV chargers. Right. Because one of the things about stored batteries stored energy is it has no value just being stored. It has value when it's used it's drawn and recycle. Right. Because with solar and recycling, that energy. 00;42;23;12 - 00;42;42;13 Unknown So my my big goal is I want to, I want to get a heavy car and I'll have my EV charger, my battery, and I'll just charge my car off my battery because I want to constantly use my charged energy rather than having it just sit there like a, like a can of gas or, you know, and in my house currently I have a generator. 00;42;42;15 - 00;43;08;03 Unknown It's a propane generator. I keep, you know, ten gallons of propane and my generator at the ready, but it's never used. So, so to me it has more value if I'm using it and then it's ready when I need it because it's it's not you know, it's not constrained to my utility. There may or may not be able to provide service like I need it to. 00;43;08;06 - 00;43;33;09 Unknown So kind of the last thing that I wanted to, touch on in our, episode here is talking about implementation of Oasis. So, you know, I'm sure that you have to. I've had a lot of builders, here in Houston and some builders from around the country who reached out and said, okay, if I want to implement Oasis, if I want to try it, what do I have to do differently from what I'm currently doing? 00;43;33;09 - 00;43;58;06 Unknown So, you know what? What what do you builders have to change in order to, to try it? And that's actually a great question because, you know, I would state it's going to start at the design, right? Once you once you create this new design process. And we're going to help you with that. And and, and to be honest, there's a, there's a certification and a certification fee for the builder. 00;43;58;08 - 00;44;20;27 Unknown But then we also are going to certify and, and I don't know what that fee is for the design. We'll probably use our internal design so that it's that fee is less onerous. I mean, I don't want to kill everybody in fees, but sure, the reality is, the design is going to be where it all starts. You you'll be a certified builder, which just tells us that you're going to adhere to the design that you see. 00;44;20;29 - 00;44;42;29 Unknown The engineering is going to come probably from us at this point, because we do know the engineering on this, hot, humid climates. We have worked with that for years and years and years. We can tell you if you make a mistake, we can tell you the result because it's been done before. So we're trying to avoid all those mistakes by again going back to that design. 00;44;43;02 - 00;45;10;23 Unknown But from the builder perspective, we need you to adhere to that design. Yep. And beyond that, I mean, again, modern, building codes are requiring tighter and tighter envelopes. But, you know, not all oh, not all states, cities are kind of on the newest version of the code, people or sometimes way back on adoption of codes or in some in some states and cities don't even mandate a certain a certain code. 00;45;10;23 - 00;45;38;19 Unknown But, you know, so building a tight building envelope is, is essential for the success of the system. You know, we we can't have a, we can't have a five year change in our, envelope for this thing to really perform at its best. So it's specifying the right products, it's making sure those are installed in the right manner, making sure we're doing testing to ensure that our envelope is tight before we move forward. 00;45;38;19 - 00;46;01;29 Unknown Right, right. And we're also going to test the system to make sure that everything that we that we've required and we said this device would do is doing what it said it's going to do. So it's there is on the from the builder perspective, there's design. There's testing, there's installation more testing. Yeah. You know, but at the end of the day it's a great product. 00;46;01;29 - 00;46;24;18 Unknown And the product is so you know it just works right. It just works. And it it doesn't require a lot of handholding to your occupants to teach them how it works. Probably requires more discussion with your occupants to just allow it to work. Yeah, right. Don't sit there and constantly mess with. Yeah, yeah. Don't overthink this process. 00;46;24;20 - 00;46;46;16 Unknown Set it and forget it. And, you know, call us if you feel like it's not there. But yeah, set it and forget it. It'll work. But again, from a builder's perspective, I think, hopefully builders are already trying to build with that level. I would, I would just go ahead and say, in my opinion, this is not a Panasonic position. 00;46;46;16 - 00;47;01;14 Unknown In my opinion, if you're at a low performance builder or if you don't care about a tight envelope, if you don't care about building science, this is not the product for you to to try. And a house, right? Like you, you need to have some dedication to I'm going to build a good product, I'm going to build a good envelope. 00;47;01;14 - 00;47;23;03 Unknown And I want to use good systems. Right, right. You know, so honestly, that builder is probably not going to call us, right? That builder's not going to call us that low. That barely legal builder is probably not going to be our customer. And he's, you know, and don't get me wrong, he satisfies a market niche. Right. But it's not where we're going to play. 00;47;23;03 - 00;47;55;21 Unknown We're we're looking at that market niche where everyone wants good quality, healthy air. They want a safe space to live in. They want a good envelope because they want to be comfortable and and not have, you know, the transaction. It's funny, when you buy a house, you have certain transaction points, right? You have a transaction point of when you purchase the house from that builder and then you have the rest of your life with a transaction point every month, or utility bills, comfort level bills, you know, do I put in space heaters because this bathroom's cold or whatever? 00;47;55;27 - 00;48;21;25 Unknown All of these continue to follow along for the rest of the life of the house. So really the, you can do you can do nothing with the house and build a very poor house and are barely legal house. I don't want to say a poor house. It's not a poor house, it's barely legal house. And reduce that transaction point or you can add a couple of points to that, that initial transaction, but diminish this all along for the next 25 to 50 years. 00;48;21;28 - 00;48;45;28 Unknown And that's a big deal, right? That's a it's a huge deal, honestly. And in the end, the sustainability of this product, going forward. Yeah. And with kind of that, that will that will upfront and transaction, cost. You're also probably not getting the, the health and wellness aspect. Oh absolutely. That point either. So again, I said this already. 00;48;46;02 - 00;49;07;22 Unknown To me, this is really more of a way of approaching kind of overall wellness, health, air quality. And that's what I like about the you. Yeah, the concept of the products is it's all about healthier living, right. That's exactly right. So well, I think that's a great point. Great place to wrap it up. So thank you. I appreciate you joining me today. 00;49;07;22 - 00;49;23;12 Unknown It's always great to see you. Yeah. And, I'm not sure if we can squeeze in some pickleball on this trip, but, I know you're busy with the opening event and got all the Panasonic folks here in town this week, right? I've got the whole family. But, I know that you'll be coming here a lot over the next year. 00;49;23;12 - 00;49;51;09 Unknown Probably as we as we get more into, starting to sell the system and demoing it and testing and all that stuff, I'm sure that I'll be seeing you around a lot. Yeah, yeah, I look forward to sharing some, some data dates, if you will. Yeah. Where we, put together all of the data and we'll come in and just talk about, discuss the data and look at how how can we affect change with data without, you know, moving walls or ceilings or who knows what. 00;49;51;09 - 00;50;12;21 Unknown But I mean, from let the does the data help with the design. And now I'll be reaching out to you for that. Yeah. Hopefully like a year from now we can do another one of these and just say, hey, here's what we learned over the last year. You're gonna in the background, we're going to put a whole pile of spreadsheets and graphs and charts and yeah, we get Francis to pop a bunch of graphics on the screen and all this stuff. 00;50;12;21 - 00;50;23;28 Unknown So. Well, thanks again, Ken. Always great to see you and hang out with you. Thanks, Curtis. I look forward to doing another day. Yeah, and thanks to all of you for listening to the Euro project. Shepherd podcast. I hope to see you again soon. Bye bye.