Aron Jones is the Co-founder of Big Dog Construction in Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada.

He started his career in the military which led him to become a construction technician and then ultimately a builder once his service ended. In Canada it is common to enter the trades through an organize apprenticeship program call Red Seal and although Aron was already building, he received his carpentry Red Seal in 2002.  His experience with the Red Seal apprenticeship program instilled in Aron a desire to teach and be a mentor himself, which he now is also bringing his true passion for building science too.  His desire to both teach, and give back is making the industry better and may be best exemplified through his co-founding of International Flashing Awareness Day in 2021 with his friend Mike Guertin. This annual event on Instagram is used to demonstrate why flashing is important to a building and what happens when it is not installed or used properly.

Aron Jones on LinkedIn

Big Dog Construction

Red Seal program

Canadian R2000 Program VB installation

International Flash Me day 8/26/2025

I spoke with Brent Davidson, the Creator of the US heat Pump Summit which will be held in Worcester Massachusetts on November 18th and 19th of 2025 and again in September of 2026. Brent saw an opportunity to develop a niche conference that is gaining momentum alongside the push to electrify our homes. The aspirations of this summit have grown to not only tackling the technical side of air and water heat pumps but also the business opportunities that are arising quickly from the tremendous growth and interest. The summit will have a full track for owners and managers of businesses addressing issues like growth, sales and marketing, employee training, and managing that age-old question of working in the business or on the business. The Summit will also host presentations and conversations with regulators, rebate providers and implementers, energy industry experts, members of the private equity investment community, and a full exhibitor hall.  If you are working within the world of Heat pumps or just interested, the US heat pump summit might just be the place to go this November. 

 Brent Davidson on LinkedIn

US Heat Pump Summit

[email protected]

Over a 30-year career in construction, Fernando Ruiz has become a dedicated proponent of building innovations and their relationship with affordable housing. He is the author of Building an affordable house which became clear in our conversation is not the same as building a cheap or poorly performing house. Fernando’s fundamental goal is to use his understanding of the rules contained in building codes, science, and value engineering to break the norms of our traditional thinking, to build homes that are attainable yet still essentially meet the needs and aspirations of his clients. It became clear to me that our building philosophies are aligned with each other. First, set a goal for each project, develop design parameters and principals for the project, and determine the most cost-effective way to achieve the goal. My goals often revolve around how the home performs and Fernando’s revolve around affordability, but you will see that regardless, our paths intersect.

Fernando on LinkedIn

Building Affordable Website

Building Affordable on YouTubeFernando on Facebook

Farndon on Instagram

Beau Brown is the founder of C & H inspection, a family owned and operated home inspection company located in Salt Lake City Utah. Beau started his career in the construction industry with his father and grandfather at the age of 10, building houses and garages all through his teens and early 20’s.  He then gained experience leading teams as a Chemical Technician conducting waste clean-ups with hazardous spill response teams. He went to school for a business degree, and you will see that although college was not for Beau business is and he has been able to leverage his business, marketing, and people skills to make C & H inspection one of the most respected home inspection companies in Salt Lake City.

 Beau has a large presence on social media, and we spent the first half of our time together diving deep into how social media works and how it has helped his business grow. Next, I learned that Beau is a people person, with a strong work ethic and integrity is a field that can be potentially fraught with conflicts of interest.  Since I started my first company offering home inspections, I was particularly interested in how the industry is now managing these conflicts. We ended our conversation talking about a new building code reference app that Beau is helping to launch, that potentially has the power to demystify the building code by putting the answers to code related questions at one’s fingertip.

Beau Brown on Instagram

C&H Inspections

International Association of Certified Home inspectors InterNACHI

American Society of Home Inspections ASHI

Homeowners UniversityCode Pro App

Brian Shanks is the Manager of National Accounts and Governmental Affairs for Beazer Homes.  Beazer is a production home building company based in Atlanta, Georgia. The company is the 11th largest homebuilder in the United States and now operates in 13 states.

Brian’s construction career has been aligned with energy-efficient and performance building in the world of large production builders, and now he is part of the team at Beezer Homes that is continuing the home builder’s evolution from building 100% EnergyStar home to committing to build and certify DOE Zero Energy Ready Homes. 

When they had a presence in Colorado, my former companies did all the energy code and EnergyStar compliance work for Beezer Homes, so it was particularly interesting for me to learn more about Beazer’s continued efforts to build high performance homes in the production building arena. 

Thank you, Brian, for sharing your building journey with us and for explaining some of the unique issues that production builders face.

Brian Shanks on LinkedIn

Beezer Homes

DOE Zero Energy Ready Home Program

Leading Builder of America

National Home Builder Association

SouthFace Institute

Lisa Morey is a professional engineer and architectural designer who starting building with adobe bricks while living and working in New Zealand in the early 2000’s. While there she worked with a design/build firm that constructed nearly 50 earth block homes that was the catalyst for her company Colorado Earth.  Lisa is now a champion for earth block construction, not only how to make the earthen block and build the house, but also to understand how the science of thermal mass works. Lisa continually demonstrates the efficiency, resiliency, and carbon neutrality that can be gainusing earthen blocks and was recently recognized as a woman making contributions to reduce carbon emissions within the building sector.

Thanks for explaining earth block construction to me and for all you do in the construction industry Lisa.Lisa on LinkedIn

Colorado Earth

Perlite Insulation Institute

Energy I-corps

Lisa’s white papers

BOOK: Adobe Homes for All Climates

How did Sam Myers become the building scientist at Retrotec? Find out in this episode of the BUILDTank / buildCAST. Like most of us, the industry found Sam and a passion for building science blossomed. Unlike most of us Sam has created and grown his position in the industry on the back of his passion for finding unique ways of educating everyone that he comes in contact with. During the COVID most of the industry’s conferences and tradeshows moved to online platforms. To keep providing the industry with quality educational material, Sam built a virtual training lab athis home where he has taught and trained contractors and consultants all over the world. I enjoyed my conversation with Sam geeking out on building science and diagnostic testing and I think you will as well.

Sam Myers on LinkedIn

Retrotec

Retrotec on YouTube

Advanced Energy Raleigh, NC 

Green Building Advisor ZPD Testing

Thanks for listening to the buildCAST. In this episode we hear from Steve Baden, the founding Executive director of the Residential Energy Services Network or RESNET. RESNET is the governing body of the HERS home energy rating industry which was established in 1995 by the National Association of State Energy Officials, Energy Rated Homes of America, and the National Mortgage Industry Association to develop a national market for home energy rating systems and energy-efficient mortgages.  I was in the first energy Rater training and became the 32nd certified rater in Colorado in 1995.  Soon after I met Steve at the first RESNET conference held at the Florida Solar Energy Center when I was on the board of directors of Energy Rated Homes of Colorado.

Even before Jimmy Carter’s infamous, wear a sweater speech from the oval office Steve’s path to energy efficiency came though politics. He found himself in Alaska at the state energy office leading an initiative called “Warming Homes for Alaskans” which received the 1993 national award for the most outstanding state housing program, and which set the stage for a national home energy rating program that RESNET grew out of.

Steve has worked in the residential energy efficiency field for 30 years, including eighteen years with home energy ratings and energy mortgages on both the state and national levels, and ten years administering the Alaska State Energy Office. Steve is the founding executive director of RESNET and has just announced that he will be retiring on December 31st, 2025.  I have known Steve from the beginning of the founding of RESNET and my time as a board member of Energy Rated Homes of Colorado and was so happy to have the opportunity to recap his career on the buildCAST before his last day. 

Thanks for all you have done for the Industry Steve.

Steve Baden on LinkedIn

RESNET - Residential Energy Services Network

Thank you to Nicole Tysvaer Founder and CEO of Symbi Homes for being on the BUILDCast. Symbi Homes is a sustainable construction firm reinventing home building with an emphasis on wellness, energy-efficiency and technology. Symbi short for Symbiosis immediately got my thinking about building science, systems thinking, and the synergistic interactions that take place in construction of high performance homes. Symbi Homes has decided to follow the DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program specifications to guide their path to high performance building. Uniquely they have also chosen to apply these high-performance specifications to a Queen Ann Victorian complex form as well as in their current remodel and addition current project. To me this beautifully demonstrates that homes of all shapes and sizes can pursue high performance building when project goals are clearly defined from the start.

Nicole Tysvaer on LinkedIn

Symbi Homes

DOE Zero Energy Ready Home Program

Symbi Homes - Upcoming Educational Sessions

May 2025 - date and time tbd - Retro Rambler Pre-Drywall Walk Through (Kensington, MD)      

• Take a look inside the walls of this mid-century deep energy retrofit and addition project working towards Zero Energy Ready certification. 

August 2025 - date and time tbd - High-Performance Builder Expo  (Kensington, MD)      

• Tour the completed Retro Rambler high-performance home and learn about the sustainable products and processes used to create a net zero ready retrofit.

For more information and updates on these events, sign-up for news on the Symbi Homes website.

We dove quickly into the Water Efficiency Rating Sore or WERS system with Mike Collignon Executive Director & Co Founder of the Green Builder Coalition.  So quickly in fact that we did not have time to talk much about the other cool things the coalition is doing, so definitely check out their website in the show notes to find out how they are a uniting voice for sustainable home building especially for the custom builder community

In short, WERS is a performance-based water efficiency program for both new and existing residential properties. This approach to water efficiency preserves design freedom and product choice flexibility. Third-party analysis and data collection is utilized to generate both a score and predict water usage for single-family and multifamily properties. Especially here in the west and specifically in the southwest, more and more water utilities and jurisdictions are looking for ways to better manage water in the build environment so that builders can continue to meet our housing demand.

Mike Collignon on LinkedIn Green Builder Coalition

Water Efficiency Rating Score (WERS)

2025 Next Generation Water Summit

Other Water based buildCAST Episodes

#16-2021 Garry Klein's in Hot Water

#22-2021 Jonah Schein WaterSense National Program Manager

#1-2023 Teal Lehto Instagram's “Western Water Girl”

#2-2023-rick-schultz-water efficiency supervisor townof Castle Rock Colorado