To watch a video version of this podcast, click here: https://youtu.be/gcF3wVu0630
In this episode, Tessa Murry and Reuben Saltzman welcome Isaac Scott, a builder from Louisiana, to discuss his company, Clare Homes, and the innovative building practices they employ. Isaac shares his journey from working in the construction industry to starting his own business focused on energy-efficient and resilient homes. The conversation delves into the Fortified Home Program, which aims to enhance the resilience of homes against natural disasters, and the importance of building science in creating sustainable living environments. Isaac also discusses the challenges and learning curves faced in the construction industry, particularly in Louisiana, and how they are paving the way for better building standards.
Here’s the link to Inspector Empire Builder: https://www.iebcoaching.com/events
You can check Clare Homes’ website here: https://www.clare-homes.com/
Takeaways
Isaac Scott is the co-founder of Clare Homes, focusing on energy-efficient homes.
Clare Homes builds to ENERGY STAR and Fortified Roof standards.
The Fortified Home Program enhances resilience against natural disasters.
Building science is crucial for creating sustainable homes.
Isaac emphasized the importance of community resilience in building practices.
The cost of building fortified homes is often outweighed by insurance savings.
Indoor air quality management is essential in high-performance homes.
Isaac’s journey reflects the evolution of building practices in Louisiana.
The construction industry is seeing a shift towards better standards and practices.
Isaac encourages collaboration among builders for community improvement.
Chapters
00:00 Welcome and Introduction
02:52 Meet Isaac Scott: Builder and Innovator
03:55 The Journey of Clare Homes
08:49 Building Energy Efficient Homes
14:31 What Sets Clare Homes Apart?
17:26 Understanding Fortified Certification
25:05 Cost of Building Fortified Homes
25:38 Understanding Fortified Roofing Systems
28:39 The Importance of Continuous Load Paths
31:01 The Growing Interest in Fortified Homes
33:04 Insurance Incentives for Resilient Building
34:56 Cost Considerations for Fortified Homes
37:00 Building Techniques for High Performance Homes
39:28 Air Quality and Humidity Management
45:48 The Evolution of Building Standards in Louisiana
TRANSCRIPTION
The following is an AI-generated transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is mostly accurate, it will contain some errors due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Reuben Saltzman: Welcome to my house. Welcome to the Structure Talk podcast, a production of Structure Tech Home Inspections. My name is Reuben Saltzman. I’m your host alongside building science geek, Tessa Murry. We help home inspectors up their game through education, and we help homeowners to be better stewards of their houses. We’ve been keeping it real on this podcast since 2019, and we are also the number one home inspection podcast in the world, according to my mom.
Reuben Saltzman (00:01.174)
Welcome back to the show Tessa. Great to see you. How is sunny, Florida?
Tessa Murry (00:06.024)
Hey, good to see you too, Ruben. We had a hint of fall today. It was like in the 60s this morning, and everybody’s running around talking about how cold it is. And I’m like, yes, first day I could open up my windows since I think February. I know, bust out the long sleeves and the sweatshirts. so that’s exciting. But how are you doing, Ruben?
Reuben Saltzman (00:13.773)
Reuben Saltzman (00:19.374)
Yeah, you better bust out your winter jacket. That’s cold for you guys.
Reuben Saltzman (00:31.312)
I can’t complain. Life is good. I did a ride along with Cory yesterday on this huge old house in Minneapolis. I’d love to talk about it, but you know, we got a guest on today, so we’re going to save this for another day. And but before we get to our guest, I want to give a shout out to our show sponsors, IEB, Inspector Empire Builder. And what we’re talking about right now is, well, you know what? By the time the center is, it’s going to be too late.
Tessa Murry (00:45.33)
We do, okay.
Reuben Saltzman (01:00.782)
To go to the mastermind, but let’s talk about IEB unite that’s gonna be coming up March 4th through the 6th in Orlando and We’re gonna have big industry experts coming out to share stories talk about system strategies That help businesses and business owners grow their home inspection businesses faster Always the big one that comes every year. So I’ll be talking more about that
But if you want more information about it, you can go to our show notes. We will have a link to that event there. But today we’ve got a guest and this is another one that you brought on Tessa. Why don’t you make the introduction to Isaac for us?
Tessa Murry (01:42.324)
Yes. Well, we are so honored to have on an amazing builder who’s winning awards from Louisiana. His name is Isaac Scott and his business partner is Kendall Gilmore. And I met them at the EEBA conference back in September in St. Paul. And for anybody listening that doesn’t know who EEBA is, they’re the Energy and Environmental Building Alliance. So great conference, lots of builders from around the country that are trying to build better.
better buildings. They’re aware of building science, building performance. And so it was just a very, very interesting conference and had the honor of meeting Isaac and thought we got to get him on the show because we were diving into different challenges and hurdles that builders are kind of facing around the country. And how are you dealing with that? How do you
How do you have a successful business these days? How do you build your houses? What have you found works, what doesn’t work? And so we’re gonna dive into that and more today. But first, I just wanna welcome Isaac. Hi, thanks for coming on the show, Isaac. It’s great to have you here.
Isaac Scott (02:52.488)
Hey Tessa and Ruben, thank you all so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be on y’all’s podcast and it’s great meeting you in Minneapolis, Tessa. yeah, looking forward to our discussion today.
Reuben Saltzman (03:05.313)
Yeah, and real quick, before we get into it, I got to know about Isaac’s literal background here, what I’m seeing behind him. It looks like you’re doing this outside in a covered type of structure. Where are you?
Tessa Murry (03:05.694)
Well, Isaac… Yeah, go ahead Ruben.
Isaac Scott (03:16.037)
yeah.
Isaac Scott (03:22.192)
Actually, I’m at my house. This is my back patio at my house. that’s a, we have a six month old at home and yeah, I’m kind of on dad duty a little bit today. I got a little reprieve for the podcast. So, but as soon as it’s over, I’m back. Yeah, I appreciate it. So yeah.
Tessa Murry (03:22.314)
you
Reuben Saltzman (03:24.396)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (03:27.1)
Nice.
Reuben Saltzman (03:27.285)
Okay. Okay. All right.
Tessa Murry (03:41.45)
glad we could help.
Reuben Saltzman (03:43.253)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (03:45.876)
Well, Isaac, okay, tell us about your company, Claire Holmes, and tell us a little bit about your background and how you got to where you’re at today.
Isaac Scott (03:55.634)
Yeah, so my company is called Clare Homes. We are based in Lafayette, Louisiana, which is located about 120 miles due west of New Orleans, a little northwest, but not much. We’re about 60 miles west of Baton Rouge and 60 miles east of Lake Charles. So we’re two and a half hour drive to New Orleans and about a four hour drive to Houston.
Yeah, so I attended LSU with my business partner and dear friend Kendall. And we graduated in construction management at LSU back in 2011 and have been working. Before we started Clare Homes, we both worked in the residential and commercial industry for about a decade before we
broke off on our own in 2021 and we started, it was called Zero Energy Homes when we first started the business, but we sort of learned that we didn’t want to pigeonhole ourselves in a market that doesn’t really have a great understanding and demand for Zero Energy Homes. So we knew that we needed something a little more marketable and
Tessa Murry (05:15.636)
to.
Isaac Scott (05:22.523)
We settled on the name Clare Homes. It is an acronym for Clean Air Resilient Efficient Homes. And it’s also my wife’s name. So it’s a bit of a double entendre.
Tessa Murry (05:31.37)
Nice
Yeah, clever name. Clever name. So, okay, so you’ve been running this business since 2021, you said, with Kendall. Okay. And I’m sure there’s been a steep learning curve over the years. What are some of the… Well, first of all, I guess, how big is your company and what types of houses do you build and how many do you build a year, roughly?
Isaac Scott (05:46.438)
Yes.
Isaac Scott (06:02.642)
So we’re very small. It’s literally just Kendall and I, and we sub everything out. so a little bit more about our background is that we both were project managers. We were superintendents in the field. So our background is really in the field. And running the business has been a little bit of a challenge to us. I mean, we both can go out there and be in the field all day and run a business, but learning QuickBooks and
Tessa Murry (06:07.956)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (06:25.279)
Yeah.
Isaac Scott (06:30.758)
doing taxes every year and insurance and all those things, that has been our steepest learning curve. We can both build houses. That’s what we do. Like I said, we grew up in the field, so we can spend the whole day out on the job site and we’ll just have a backlog of administrative work that we finally have split up the duties to where Kindle’s gonna be in.
Tessa Murry (06:36.852)
Soon.
Tessa Murry (06:44.372)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (06:52.169)
Haha
Tessa Murry (06:52.522)
It’s no fun.
Isaac Scott (06:58.361)
in the field running the day-to-day operations and I’m just going to manage, you know, making sure invoices go out, trades get paid, doing our insurance audits and staying on top of taxes and all that because we’ve really grown this last year to where it just wasn’t working when we’re both just out in the field all the time. There’s too much other.
Reuben Saltzman (07:15.703)
So, so how this happened? You guys flip a coin and you lost? Is that what happened?
Tessa Murry (07:16.052)
to.
Isaac Scott (07:21.242)
No, it’s just, it’s just kind of a strength and weaknesses determined how that was going to shake out. And yeah, that’s just kind of what we, that’s what we decided to do. So.
Reuben Saltzman (07:22.549)
you
Reuben Saltzman (07:28.557)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (07:35.893)
Okay, all right, very good.
Tessa Murry (07:38.446)
Yeah, you’re working, what do they say Ruben, on the business, not in the business these days because of your growth.
Reuben Saltzman (07:42.838)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, do the field stuff. like that. That’s more of the fun stuff. I mean, that’s it’s like that’s the meat and potatoes. And I feel like for the home inspection business going out and inspecting houses, I mean, that’s the most enjoyable part of the job. Interacting with clients, finding stuff, going out there, the stuff I do, you know, nothing against doing podcasts or doing blogs and all that. But.
Isaac Scott (07:45.819)
That’s right.
Reuben Saltzman (08:09.985)
Every time I get out in the field, it’s just so energizing. It’s fun. And I got to think it’s kind of the same for you. It’s like, well, I’m sitting at home doing administrative work. Not as fun, but very important.
Isaac Scott (08:14.299)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (08:14.302)
Okay.
Isaac Scott (08:22.313)
I totally agree. I love being out in the field. But we just kind of reached a tipping point where one of us had to stay on top of the administrative duties.
Reuben Saltzman (08:31.041)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (08:31.664)
Yeah. Well, so what motivated you to build houses that were ideally, I heard you say zero energy ready, which is, you know, a standard set by DOE to try and build houses that were more energy efficient and better built. How did you get to that point?
Isaac Scott (08:50.865)
So you gotta go all the way back to college for me. Like I said, we were both in construction management and one day while I was in college, my mother said to me, why don’t you build sustainable homes? And that always just stuck with me throughout my entire career working for other builders. And…
Tessa Murry (09:04.692)
Hmm.
Isaac Scott (09:15.281)
We also worked, Kendall and I both worked for large production home builders. We both worked for national and regional production home builders for seven to 10 years each. And we saw a lot of things out in the field that you guys can imagine that we just really weren’t, didn’t align with our values. But we were young, we were in our early 20s.
back then and in our time with the production builders and we had always talked about even when we were college roommates going out on our own one day together. obviously when you’re 20 in your early 20s, you just don’t have the the business acumen or the experience or the financial wherewithal to be able to go out on your own. At least we didn’t. So
We put in our time with other builders working for other people learned a lot because I will say one of the things about working for a national or a large production home builder is that you learn a lot at a very rapid pace and the experience is really invaluable. know, good, bad or indifferent in terms of the builder you work for, whether or not you you’re proud of the
Tessa Murry (10:35.306)
Thanks
Isaac Scott (10:43.472)
product you’re putting out there is, it matters, but also just putting, just getting that experience and doing thousands of walkthroughs with homeowners is an invaluable experience. we, I think we were both, was 31 when I quit my job and so was Kendall. And when we quit our jobs and we went out on our own and by that time we,
We knew that we had at least enough experience in the field to be able to execute the kind of home that we wanted to build. And at that point, it was just a matter of going out and learning what we didn’t know. Like I said, we named the company Zero Energy Homes. But I think at the time in my mind,
Tessa Murry (11:28.723)
Mm-hmm.
Isaac Scott (11:38.448)
I just thought you could put solar panels on a co-built house and you’d have a zero energy home. We weren’t connected with EEBA when we first started the business, but when we connected with EEBA, it really sort of rocketed us into the world of building science. And we really started to learn about the programs like Zero Energy Ready and Passive House and Fortified Homes. And we really started to learn
Tessa Murry (11:55.018)
Thank
Tessa Murry (12:00.446)
Thank you.
Isaac Scott (12:07.396)
how to build better, how to build a resilient, energy efficient, healthy home. And getting connected with IBA has been an absolute game changer for us in being able to do what we say we do.
Tessa Murry (12:11.22)
you.
Tessa Murry (12:15.601)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (12:26.475)
Sure, You know, I wanted to ask you quick and this is more just kind of personal curiosity. And I’m asking this because I’ve got a son who is looking at going into construction management next year. And I’m just wondering when you started working for big builders, what were you doing? Well, I mean, what was it? What was the first thing you did? Were you were you swinging our hammer? Were you framing houses? Did you go right into management? How did that start for you?
Tessa Murry (12:27.186)
Bye.
Tessa Murry (12:40.01)
Okay.
Isaac Scott (12:40.12)
Mm-hmm.
Isaac Scott (12:55.087)
So we both started out and this is pretty typical of the industry I would say Ruben is that you start out as an assistant superintendent and you shadow a superintendent who is normally in charge of an entire subdivision. All the homes built in that neighborhood and they’ll be in charge of the construction from permitting all the way to closing with the homeowner. you get, mean it’s management and there may be a little
bit of hammer swinging just depending on your capability. I can change a doorknob, I can install a piece of cord around, there’s certain things that, but it’s really just, it’s really management. It’s managing the trades and it’s doing the walkthroughs with the homeowners, working with the sales representatives and.
Reuben Saltzman (13:32.119)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (13:50.349)
A lot of glad handing, it sounds like. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (13:52.788)
Thank you.
Isaac Scott (13:53.122)
glad handing. Yeah. Well, I’m not familiar with that term, so.
Reuben Saltzman (13:59.404)
Well, just just PR relations like like you’re the liaison between the homeowner and the home. And OK, OK. All right.
Isaac Scott (14:04.662)
Yes.
That’s right, absolutely. Yeah, that’s right. mean, and it’s a great experience. mean, that’s like going to college if you want to be a home builder. If you can go work for a builder, then you will learn a lot.
Reuben Saltzman (14:25.705)
Interesting. Okay. Thank you. I just had to get that little part personally. But Tessa, I’ll turn it back to our technical topics. I’ll let you keep going on that panel.
Tessa Murry (14:25.812)
Hmm.
Isaac Scott (14:32.415)
I totally understand.
Tessa Murry (14:37.578)
Well, you know, so I want to dive into kind of hearing about what sets you guys apart, Claire Holmes, compared to other, you know, typical residential builders in Louisiana. You you said when you started, I find this interesting that you just thought if you added solar panels to a code house, it would be a zero energy ready. And you learned quickly that there’s way more to it than that. And the building science, the building performance, the resiliency.
So what does Clear Homes do that’s different than your competitors that kind of raises the bar for your homes?
Isaac Scott (15:14.222)
Yeah, so every home that we build has a backstop of at least being ENERGY STAR and Fortified Roof certified. We won’t build the house if it’s not to those standards at a minimum. And then we will, let’s say if we’re building a spec home, because we do build spec homes, we build custom homes. We’re a young business. So in the beginning, Kendall and I were, we were swinging the hammer when we first started the business. We were
flipping houses ourselves and installing fences. And then we finally were able to get funding to build two spec homes. And we did those with fortified roofs only. They weren’t even Energy Star certified. We did a lot of, we implemented a lot of Energy Star techniques, but our investors just said, hey, y’all can do the fortified roof, but no Energy Star. So, and then we gradually built up.
Tessa Murry (16:06.026)
Thanks.
Isaac Scott (16:08.461)
from that and then now everything we do is at least Energy Star and Fortified Roof. so yeah, mean, that’s our, we’ll offer zero energy ready, we’ll offer Fortified Gold, we’ll offer, if somebody wants to do a passive house, we’ll get passive house certified and we would love to do that. We looked into it for one project that we have coming up, but they ended up just doing zero energy ready. So,
We did just complete the first zero energy ready home for sale in Louisiana in 2024. And that’s the home that we won the award for at EEBA.
Tessa Murry (16:44.724)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (16:50.194)
Nice. And what was that award again?
Isaac Scott (16:53.608)
It was for excellence and resiliency.
Tessa Murry (16:57.756)
Okay. So can you speak a little bit more because a lot of our listeners are in the Midwest. know, StructureTech is located in Minneapolis, St. Paul. We don’t have to deal with hurricanes on a regular basis. We might get tornadoes here and there, but this whole term of resiliency was new to me when I went to IBA this year. I hadn’t really heard much about it before. I blame it on my geographical location, not being on a coast, but or wildfires or anything like that.
So can you talk a little bit more about kind of what this fortified certification is and how you meet it, I guess, what it does?
Isaac Scott (17:38.967)
Yeah, absolutely. So the Fortified Home Program is a program of IBHS, which is the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety. It is a nonprofit organization that is funded by the insurance industry to study the effects of natural disasters on homes and businesses. So…
Tessa Murry (17:58.228)
Pfft.
Isaac Scott (18:07.533)
IBHS, they actually have a facility in South Carolina. I can’t remember the exact location, but it’s near Clemson, near that area. And they have this big warehouse where they actually have a huge wall of like 200 or 150 big industrial-sized fans and a giant overhead, effectively like giant
sprinkler system and they are able to simulate high wind events and hurricanes and now they’re doing wildfires. They have a wildfire program now that they’re developing and they can build structures on these huge platforms that they roll into their facility and they’ll build one to code and then they’ll build the same structure
Tessa Murry (18:49.428)
True.
Isaac Scott (19:05.876)
right next to it to the Fortified standard and then they’ll turn the fans on and the sprinkler system on and they’ll actually there’s some there’s some really cool YouTube videos that you could just search that you could just search you know Fortified when test and that’s how they’re able to validate all of their their studies and their their claims and everything so that’s what Fortified is it’s the insurance it’s a program of
Tessa Murry (19:11.774)
Thank you.
Tessa Murry (19:29.812)
Good.
Isaac Scott (19:34.141)
IBHS, the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety. if y’all want to get into the weeds, you know, like the sticks and bricks of all that, I’d be happy to.
Reuben Saltzman (19:45.294)
I do. I want to hear more details because it’s like, okay, you got this notification. What does it mean? I mean, what do you do different? How do you got to get this? What type of test does this now pass and why?
Tessa Murry (19:47.274)
Is it just a ton more brackets?
Isaac Scott (19:49.504)
Yeah.
Isaac Scott (19:59.444)
Yeah, so absolutely. So the first thing about a fortified home is that every fortified, there’s three levels to fortified. And that’s fortified roof, fortified silver, and fortified gold. And fortified roof is the minimum standard for fortified. And it is an above code roof assembly. So it is…
Isaac Scott (20:32.054)
It’s tighter nailing patterns. It’s better edges like your drip edge. Your drip edge is thicker. It’s 26 gauge drip edge is required. And it has to be nailed every four inches in a staggered pattern. I mean, typically a roofer will go up there and they’ll put up a 28 gauge metal and they’ll just sort of arbitrarily nail it.
Tessa Murry (20:44.02)
safe.
Isaac Scott (20:58.526)
but there’s a specific nailing pattern that you have to follow and document and get verified. It’s just like with Energy Star, how you have to have an energy rater. Or with Zero Energy Ready, you have to have a third party verification process. With Fortified, it’s called an evaluator. So the fortified evaluator is the equivalent to your energy rater if you were doing Energy Star. So your fortified evaluator
Tessa Murry (21:17.514)
Thank
Tessa Murry (21:23.946)
So, we’re stop.
Isaac Scott (21:28.03)
comes to the site and verifies that you are complying to the fortified standards. yeah, I it’s, I’m trying to think of how they say it. It’s stronger edges and enhanced nailing patterns. And then what they really did is, well, let me take a step back. So,
your roof decking is nailed with a 2 3 1⁄8 inch ring shank nail. Every four inches into the rafter, that’s one of the big differences. And you have to, yeah, every four inches, right? Instead of just sort of being arbitrarily nailed with a two inch roofing nail that may or may not be ring shank. mean, in fairness, most…
Reuben Saltzman (22:03.927)
Bye.
Tessa Murry (22:04.892)
Every four inches. Wow.
Isaac Scott (22:21.276)
most builders are already using ring shanks, but not necessarily 2 3 1⁄8 inch ring shanks and not nailed every 4 inches of the rafter. So Fortified’s research has shown that a ring shank nail can can improve wind uplift up to 80%.
Tessa Murry (22:24.81)
So I’m
Tessa Murry (22:30.554)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (22:44.094)
Okay. Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (22:45.665)
And then for the shingles, you said you need more nails than those. Standard shingles, you need four nails. I’m assuming you’re going with six nails.
Isaac Scott (22:54.249)
Well yeah, so for the shingles you just, you’re following manufacturer spec for your wind region. And like where we are, it is six. Yeah, you have to have six. So, but taking a step before the shingles and after the nailing pattern on the decking, what Fortified really did that they really pioneered was something called the sealed roof deck, which is basic, which is so.
Tessa Murry (23:18.954)
Thank
Isaac Scott (23:22.73)
You know how whenever you’re installing roof sheathing you leave an eighth inch gap between the pieces of sheathing for expansion and contraction? So what Fortified really pioneered is what’s called the sealed roof deck and you achieve a sealed roof deck by either using an approved roof deck tape to apply over that seam over the whole roof
Reuben Saltzman (23:30.285)
Yeah, true. Yeah. Yeah.
Isaac Scott (23:52.783)
or using a peel and stick membrane over the entire roof. Because what they found is that whenever your shingles blow off and your underlayment blows off, the water that’s getting in and causing all of the damage in the home to the insulation and the sheetrock and the carpet and your personal belongings and causing mold and having people move out of their homes.
Tessa Murry (23:57.524)
Mm-hmm.
Isaac Scott (24:19.64)
is the water that gets in that little eighth inch crack.
Tessa Murry (24:23.505)
And… Hmm.
Isaac Scott (24:25.094)
But whenever you multiply that over that little eighth inch crack over the entire surface area of a home and the amount and the volume of water that you get in a major wind and rain event, it. Fortified says that it’s it it equates to like nine bathtubs of water getting into your home, and that’s really what leads to the the major cost and the suffering that
Reuben Saltzman (24:46.826)
I believe it.
Tessa Murry (24:52.862)
Thank you.
Isaac Scott (24:55.814)
that ensues after that. So the sealed roof deck is really something that Fortified pioneered that exceeds code because code doesn’t require a sealed roof deck. I mean, it actually does now in our region, but it’s not being enforced really well. And that’s really just with the adoption of the 2021 IRC.
Tessa Murry (24:58.41)
truth.
Tessa Murry (25:03.86)
Sure.
Tessa Murry (25:19.626)
Okay. Wow. So what percentage would you say, does it cost a lot more to build a fortified roof versus just kind of meeting the basic standard roof?
Isaac Scott (25:21.968)
So.
Isaac Scott (25:34.617)
No, Tessa, it doesn’t. I would say it’s one to 5 % more just for the roof to get to Fortified Roof Certification. Now, we can get into silver and gold if y’all want to because Fortified Roof is just the minimum for Fortified. And then there’s Fortified Silver and then there’s Fortified Gold. then the costs get a little more, but not
Tessa Murry (25:36.426)
Hmm. Hmm.
Tessa Murry (25:46.986)
Cheers.
Tessa Murry (26:03.304)
Yeah.
Isaac Scott (26:04.101)
Nothing crazy.
Reuben Saltzman (26:05.793)
Yeah, what’s gold?
Isaac Scott (26:08.712)
So, fortified roof and then yeah fortified silver which is fortified roof plus silver incorporates things like impact rated windows and doors and wind load rated garage doors.
Tessa Murry (26:23.53)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (26:27.26)
Okay. Yep.
Isaac Scott (26:29.031)
because what Fortified has discovered is that when your garage door gets sucked out or when your windows get blown out, it creates that negative pressure in the house and then some real chaos happens. So quick little story, I was working for a regional production home builder at the time that Hurricane Laura hit Lake Charles and we had
Reuben Saltzman (26:29.837)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (26:43.885)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (26:45.226)
Mm-hmm.
Isaac Scott (26:57.999)
neighborhoods in Lake Charles. And Laura was a five that hit Lake Charles, which is just an hour away from us. And so the Monday after Laura passed through Lake Charles, all of the superintendents from all over the state went to Lake Charles to help with the cleanup effort and just to kind of go assess the damage on the ground. And what I noticed when I was there is that
If the garage doors got sucked out, the damage was at least 50 % worse than if it didn’t. So I saw firsthand.
what Fortified has been saying and been testing in their facility. yeah, Fortified Silver is Fortified Roof plus either impact rated windows or if you just want a regular window, you can get impact rated shutters or some sort of opening protection. So to put it more simply, Fortified Silver is Fortified Roof plus opening protection.
Tessa Murry (27:49.162)
Thank
Tessa Murry (28:00.82)
Mm-hmm.
Thank
Isaac Scott (28:11.767)
and a wind load rated garage door. And there’s others like, you know, more details like, like gable embracing and things like that. But, and then, and then Fortified Gold, and we just finished our first Fortified Gold custom house for one of our clients. So Fortified Gold is Fortified Roof plus Fortified Silver plus an
Tessa Murry (28:12.051)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (28:21.458)
Okay. Okay.
Isaac Scott (28:41.958)
continuous load path basically and with an engineer stamp so it’s roof plus silver plus a continuous load path that goes from your Ridge, know tying, know tying your Ridge to your rafters your rafters to your top plate your top plate to your Bottom plate and your bottom plate to your foundation and it has to have an engineer stamp. You have to have an engineer of record that
Tessa Murry (28:45.044)
Thanks.
Isaac Scott (29:11.812)
designs the plants and then conduct site visits to ensure that you are doing what they prescribe.
Reuben Saltzman (29:23.309)
Okay, question about that. Maybe I’ll just really show my ignorance here, but I thought you always had to have a continuous load path no matter what.
Isaac Scott (29:33.976)
It depends. Well, you know, Ruben, you should have, you should have a continuous load path no matter what, in my opinion and your opinion and anybody, any, you know, anybody in the high performance world’s opinion, but it’s not necessarily always being enforced by code. mean,
Tessa Murry (29:34.014)
was thinking the same thing, Ruben. We’re both a little ignorant.
Reuben Saltzman (29:36.333)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (29:49.677)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (29:54.541)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (29:56.586)
truth.
Isaac Scott (29:57.932)
And a lot of where we are, there’s a lot of small towns that not where not in Lafayette, but like in some of the surrounding areas, there’s a lot of small towns that don’t even have code departments. So.
Reuben Saltzman (30:10.987)
Well, OK, so it sounds to me like the major difference here is that you got to have an engineer verifying you’re doing what you’re supposed to do on any house. OK, OK. All right.
Isaac Scott (30:19.375)
That’s correct. That’s correct. And in fairness to your point Ruben, in fairness to, you know, I would say most builders, like you already, most builders already, those good builders out there are already doing a continuous load path, you know, with their strapping or at least, at least, you know, doing hurricane clips and things like that that are sometimes code. So getting to gold is not.
The expensive part about getting the gold is getting through silver. Silver is where the big cost difference happens because an impact rated window, generally speaking, is more expensive than a non-impact rated window and adding impact rated shutters and all that.
Tessa Murry (30:52.234)
you
Tessa Murry (30:55.635)
you.
Reuben Saltzman (31:06.509)
Sure. So why would anybody even do silver? It’s like if you’re already doing that, why not just do the other stuff you’re supposed to already be doing and get the gold, right?
Isaac Scott (31:16.727)
I would agree, yeah. I would totally agree with that statement.
Reuben Saltzman (31:18.005)
Okay. Okay. All right.
Tessa Murry (31:18.526)
Hmm. If you’re yeah, if you’re going to do silver, you might as well do gold is what you’re saying. Yeah. Well, so how many builders around you, Isaac, are are doing this kind of certification process for their homes? Are there a lot or you one of the few?
Reuben Saltzman (31:23.871)
Yeah, yeah.
Isaac Scott (31:25.582)
Yes.
Isaac Scott (31:38.137)
I would say if you’re talking just about Fortified, I am one of the few. Yeah, I mean, I would say there’s a couple now, but we were really the first ones to do it in our market and other builders have taken notice and we’ve been getting a lot more just interest in.
from other builders and from the general public in the program and how to achieve it. In Louisiana, there’s a grant going around to retrofit existing homes to have a fortified roof. And the insurance is so high down here that the insurance commissioner for the state is now really pushing fortified. So there’s a lot of buzz around it. And so a lot of builders have been
Tessa Murry (32:20.148)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (32:31.572)
True.
Isaac Scott (32:35.429)
contacting us to find out more about the program and stuff. And we’re more than willing to share that information. I because we see it as really, we want our entire community to be more resilient, right? So it’s not, we try not to be shut off to other builders. We try to be open source about it.
Tessa Murry (32:59.05)
rising tide lifts all boats. Right, Ruben? Yeah. Well, so that’s so interesting. I was just going to say, yeah, we’ve discussed how insurance is changing all across the country now and how that’s impacting the way that we build or how we inspect and what’s being required. it’s
Isaac Scott (33:01.624)
That’s it.
Reuben Saltzman (33:01.847)
High five, high five, amen, yeah. So what’s the big, go ahead.
Tessa Murry (33:21.698)
You know, being along the Gulf Coast, sounds like that’s you’re one step ahead of the competition, but it sounds like it’s everybody’s gonna be maybe building resilient or fortified roofing systems maybe in the next five, 10 years, you think, if they’re not already because of code and insurance that’s pushing them to do it. If not, homeowner or homebuyer interest.
Isaac Scott (33:44.566)
Yeah, absolutely. You hit the nail on the head, Tessa. The insurance, it’s like now there’s some laws in Louisiana that require the insurance companies to offer discounts to homeowners that build to the fortified standard. And they don’t dictate the dollar amount. I guess they can’t do that, and that’s understandable. But they do require that they offer some sort of discount on the wind and hail portion of the…
Tessa Murry (34:12.02)
Cheers.
Isaac Scott (34:14.85)
of the policy. And for example, we have the fortified gold home that we just finished. Our client is saving $4,000 a year on his insurance because he built to gold.
Reuben Saltzman (34:30.806)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (34:30.846)
Wow. Well, was just going to say, I mean, I know you said silver costs a lot more, obviously, the windows and doors and opening protection and that sort of thing. But if you’re just doing the fortified roof, you said it’s not that much more expensive to do it that way. It seems like it would be a smart business move as a contractor or builder to do that on every house because it’s going to give your clients or your home buyers a discount on their insurance. It’ll pay itself back.
Isaac Scott (34:31.939)
So there are some real savings there.
Tessa Murry (34:59.74)
short amount of time. It’s like, why wouldn’t you do that? Am I off with that assessment?
Isaac Scott (35:07.659)
No, absolutely not. You’re totally right, Tessa. you know, the most of the pushback on the Fortified program unfortunately comes from the local HBAs or the state HBAs because of the additional costs that they have to pass on to the homeowners. So as I see it, I think the only thing that can really incentivize builders to get on board is having appraisals reflect.
Tessa Murry (35:22.122)
Sure.
Tessa Murry (35:26.121)
Yeah.
Isaac Scott (35:36.533)
reflect the high performance building techniques. And I mean, that goes for Fortify, it goes for Energy Star, Zero Energy Ready and that. I think that would get more mass adoption than anything else if we could somehow get the appraisal industry to appraise the houses for more.
Tessa Murry (35:36.714)
Mm.
Reuben Saltzman (35:37.239)
Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (35:54.966)
Okay, so help me understand this. I mean, you told us it might add a couple percentages, a couple of percentage points more on the total cost of a roof. So it’s negligible what the additional cost is to make it a fortified roof. And then you definitely have some additional expenses for the overhead garage or in the openings on the house. But what type of expenses are we looking at here? I mean, is this gonna add?
$5,000, $10,000 to the price of a home? What is it?
Isaac Scott (36:27.106)
So I’ll give you an example with the house with the gold we just finished. not in terms of percentages, but just the dollar amounts. The client, they spent $800,000 on the house with us. And they spent, I would say, and I calculated this with the homeowner, it was probably about $40,000 to $45,000 to get to gold. Over 800, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (36:35.403)
Yeah, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (36:39.565)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (36:51.181)
Okay, that’s pretty significant. right. So they’re they’re okay. So their insurance payback might happen over a period of like 10 to 12 years, something like that, assuming rates don’t continue to go up, assuming they stay right where they are, which we know they won’t. Okay. All right. Got it. Okay. Yeah, that’s that’s a lot of money.
Isaac Scott (36:56.213)
That’s just to get the gold.
Isaac Scott (37:12.96)
Right? Yeah.
Tessa Murry (37:16.17)
Wow. Well, so thanks for diving into the fortified homes and all of that with us. Is there anything else that you guys do besides? Okay, so Energy Star is one thing. Walk us through what type of wall system you use or how you insulate your house. Are you using spray foam? Yes, no. Why not? I’m just kind of curious about the building envelope side of things.
Isaac Scott (37:43.242)
Yeah, sure. So it really depends on the project, Tessa, I would say. If it’s a spec home, so if we want to use the spec home with the zero energy ready fortified roof spec home that we built where we could kind of decide how we wanted to do it. that was really a proof of concept for us to say, hey, you can build a high performance home for about the same cost as a co-built home. What we did there was we
We did 2 by 6, 24 on center, advanced framing. We used the Zip system with Zip R3 on the walls. We did a rain screen. We used the Zip system rain screen. We spray foam, open cell spray foam the the roof line, which
Nobody around here doing that on spec home. Everybody’s just doing blown in insulation on the ceiling But we did our 30 we did our 38 Spray for open cell on the attic fresh air with the humidification three ton system you know and we just followed the the checklist for zero energy ready and and we also did the fortified roof and we did it with the we did
peel and stick over the entire roof deck, but we also taped the seams under that. that’s in the walls we blew in an R because it was two by six, 24 in center. with the, the zip R three on the outside. So it ended up being about R 25 on the walls and we blew in fiberglass loose, you know, fiberglass insulation, not bats, the bib system.
Tessa Murry (39:18.026)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (39:32.714)
Wow.
Isaac Scott (39:40.769)
Um, and we, far as like, if you’re, if you’re building a spec to high performance, we really liked that assembly. Um, we found that it was pretty cost comparable to, to build in a code bill house. So we sort of have settled on, on, on the two by six and two by six, 24 or 16 just depends on the plate height. Um, you know, you can, you can get away with a 24 on center on like a nine foot plate height, but.
Tessa Murry (39:41.118)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (39:48.532)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (39:56.298)
you
Tessa Murry (40:02.346)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (40:06.227)
Okay.
Isaac Scott (40:10.752)
if you get nine and ten, but once you get over ten foot, then we kind of like to go about to a 16 inch on center for the wind loads around here.
Tessa Murry (40:24.104)
Yeah. And are a lot of your houses, are they ranch style, single story or are you building two stories as well?
Isaac Scott (40:33.084)
Mostly single story. done a, we’ve done a, like we did an ADU. We did an 1800 square foot ADU. It was two story and we did close cell spray foam on the whole thing because that’s what the client wanted. That one actually was a hers 19 because it had solar, it had batteries. So it just, so for anything else, any other projects, it just kind of depends on our client. You know, like the gold house, the fortified gold house we just finished.
They weren’t necessarily interested in doing zero energy ready, but we told them that we required Energy Star and they were cool with that. they just have R38 blown in the ceiling, but it is due by 616 on center, advanced framing. We have some, like I was saying earlier, we have some prerequisites for any client on the custom side of things that we require them to do. And if they don’t want to do it, then we’re just not the right builder for them.
Tessa Murry (41:32.81)
to circle back to something you said. You mentioned a three ton dehumidification system or just dehumidification. Is that something that you install on every one of your homes is a separate dehumidifier, whole house dehumidifier?
Isaac Scott (41:50.12)
Yes, yeah, we do. It’s inline dehumidification, yeah, we do it. And I think, if I’m not mistaken, you’re required to for Energy Star. You’re required to have fresh air for Energy Star. And so in our climate zone, if we’re going to bring in fresh air, we have to, you know, it’s just, we need a dehumidifier. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (42:10.538)
Because it’s so humid. Right. So it sounds like your houses are pretty airtight. You’re using the zip systems, the roofs, roof lines are super airtight. You’re using spray foam along the roof line, air sealing everything. And then you’ve got, you know, lots of insulation in the walls, tight windows. So are you are you guys doing blord or testing on your houses? And kind of do you do you know what like the air changes per hour at 50 pascals would be for your houses roughly?
Isaac Scott (42:38.368)
Yeah, absolutely. So our Zero Energy Ready Home, for example, the spec home that won the award, we were 1.5 ACH50 on that one.
Tessa Murry (42:47.751)
out.
Isaac Scott (42:50.643)
But on our Energy Star product, like if we’re not spray foaming, like the Gold House we just did, Fortified Gold House, they were at like 3.9 air changes per hour. even on our houses that were not building 2Zero Energy Ready, for what we’re building, we feel like we’re still getting really good blower door scores for houses that aren’t being built.
all the way to zero energy ready. we feel really comfortable being under four if it’s just a energy star house. We feel like we’re really delivering the kind of product that we want to.
Tessa Murry (43:25.726)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (43:30.986)
was going to say, there’s probably not a lot of builders in Louisiana doing bluor doors and reaching 1.5 or under 3, right?
Isaac Scott (43:41.437)
I’d say that’s pretty accurate to say. There’s, you know, in fairness to Louisiana, there’s a lot of people trying now that are doing better and, you know, it’s getting there. Even some production home builders, one that we used to work for is doing a really good job now of like, they do their own blower door tests and they started doing it when we were there and they’re getting consistently in the three to four range.
their energy star and everything. There’s a handful of builders that are doing it and they’re trying and they’re doing it right.
Tessa Murry (44:22.57)
That’s great. I had a little taste of Louisiana construction when I was working for Habitat for Humanity back in 2006, 2007. That was a very different world. I mean, we’d be lucky if our houses had…
Isaac Scott (44:35.048)
Well that was post- that was like right post Katrina. That’s- I know, I know what you’re talking about.
Tessa Murry (44:38.186)
It was. Yes. Yes. It was chaotic. I think I’ve shared this before on the podcast, but I had a site supervisor who gave me a sawzall one day, and I was very inexperienced. This is the beginning of my time down there. And they’re like, just cut a hole for the dryer ducts. I was like, excuse me. Like, yeah, just, you know, roughly the size of a dryer duct. Here you go.
And I’m cutting these holes in the side, you know, through walls and OSB. And it’s like, you know, it’s a disaster. And my site supervisor said, well, you know, if you can fit a cat through it, you can cock it. Not a big deal. And I I cringe now. And I think about that. You guys have come a long way. It sounds like Louisiana has come a long way to with, you know, builders stepping up and and, you know, meeting these other standards, these certifications, zero energy ready, energy star fortified roofs.
Reuben Saltzman (45:18.263)
Yeah
Reuben Saltzman (45:21.867)
Yeah!
Isaac Scott (45:22.014)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (45:34.964)
So it’s coming along, but it feels like you’re kind of a trailblazer down there doing these things, not because you have to, but because you want to. And not even because the clients are asking you. Sometimes you’re turning down clients saying, well, we have these standards we want to meet. And if that’s not something you value, well, then we’re not the builder for you too. So I commend you for doing that. And it also sounds like, you’re dealing with a lot of the issues that
I think we’re seeing now too with as houses become more airtight and better insulated and builders are building better standards, more energy efficient, comfortable homes. There are problems with indoor air quality and humidity, especially in humid climates too. So you’re one step ahead of the game too with, it sounds like installing these dehumidifiers. Was that something that a program kind of that you were following made you guys do or is that?
learned experience from clients getting back to you and having building performance issues with humidity building up in these houses.
Isaac Scott (46:43.293)
I’d say it’s combination of both of those things, actually.
Tessa Murry (46:48.01)
Peace.
Isaac Scott (46:50.961)
We, like I said, we really learned a lot through EEBA and getting involved with Energy Star. We knew that we needed to start installing dehumidifiers and thinking back to my career working for other builders, I now can say, hey, I know why these clients were having all of these condensation issues in their house and all these.
Tessa Murry (47:18.762)
Hey.
Isaac Scott (47:20.817)
these mold issues around their AC grills and things like that. It all kind of makes sense now. Some of the warranties that I can recall going on 10 years ago when I was working for other builders. And now those builders are building to Energy Star. And in some cases, they’re installing dehumidifiers and…
Tessa Murry (47:41.908)
Mm.
Isaac Scott (47:48.093)
One of them even built a zero energy ready home. So yeah, it’s just kind of a combination of experience and building science knowledge that we have accumulated since we started our business that led us to these building techniques.
Tessa Murry (47:52.778)
Wow. Wow.
Tessa Murry (48:08.138)
Inspirational. That is very inspirational. Well, thanks for the update on that. You give me hope, I think, that we’re headed in the right direction. A builder from Louisiana where they don’t even have code enforcement in some places, as you said. You’re building these excellent homes that are high performance. So just thank you for doing what you do and impacting this industry in a positive way.
Isaac Scott (48:32.348)
Well, yeah, we appreciate it. yeah, things have come a long way from when you, when you were in New Orleans 10 years ago. And I’ve been, I’ve been a part of that too, because we, you know, we were both working for, we were both working for other builders back, you know, in those days too. So we, we have seen the change and, and, and most of the major parishes in the state, you’re seeing, you’re seeing code enforcement tighten up on.
Tessa Murry (48:40.435)
Yeah.
Isaac Scott (49:01.98)
on blower door tests and more resilient building practices. So it’s the rural counties that need to catch up.
Tessa Murry (49:07.114)
phone.
Tessa Murry (49:14.686)
Yeah, I think that’s you can say the same for any state. Big city versus rural. So there’s a difference there. Yeah. Well, we should probably be wrapping up here soon. But is there anything Isaac that we didn’t ask you or Ruben any questions you have for Isaac that that you want to touch on? Are you mentioned before we we close the segment out?
Reuben Saltzman (49:14.935)
Sure.
Reuben Saltzman (49:18.262)
Yeah.
Isaac Scott (49:39.452)
I don’t think so. I appreciate you guys reaching out to us. And if you ever want to do it again, I’d be happy to. But yeah, I mean.
Reuben Saltzman (49:39.49)
Hi.
Reuben Saltzman (49:49.643)
Yeah, well the obvious one, how can people find you and find Claire Holmes, Isaac?
Isaac Scott (49:55.397)
yes, certainly, thanks for asking. you can visit our website at clare-homes.com and clare is spelled C-L-A-R-E. There’s no I. My wife has an I. The business does not. So it’s a clean air, resilient, efficient.
Tessa Murry (50:11.178)
What was the acronym again? What does that stand for?
Reuben Saltzman (50:15.127)
player.
Tessa Murry (50:20.97)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (50:21.173)
Okay, and it was was Claire Holmes or was it Claire Dash?
Isaac Scott (50:26.031)
Claire-homes.com. Yep, we have an Instagram. It’s Claire.homes. And we have a Facebook. We are not great at posting, but we’re getting better. It’s part of our new marketing strategies to get better at the social media stuff.
Reuben Saltzman (50:27.373)
Clear dashed moments. Okay, all right, got it. Cool.
Tessa Murry (50:28.02)
Perfect.
Reuben Saltzman (50:52.205)
And when you say we, I bet you mean I, right?
Tessa Murry (50:55.018)
Is that your job? I behind the scenes admin? Yeah. I feel your pain on that. I hate social media.
Isaac Scott (50:57.379)
That is… Yes, that’s right.
Reuben Saltzman (50:59.373)
Yeah.
Isaac Scott (51:05.367)
Yeah, but it’s necessary this day and age if you want. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (51:08.858)
In this world. Yeah, in this world for sure. Well, you have been just a wealth of information. We could totally dive deeper on a lot of things, I think. So we will have to have you back sometime. But thank you so much for sharing kind of your journey and about your business and everything that you’ve learned building in Louisiana. So thank you so much for coming on our show, Isaac. And if people have questions, they can email you, it sounds like. Or if you’ve got questions for us, Ruben or myself, Ruben, how do they get a hold of us?
Reuben Saltzman (51:35.758)
podcast at StructureTech.com and we will catch you next time. Thank you so much.