Two years out of his time and Jake's already running boys on site. Matt reckons the trick isn't finding good tradies, it's giving them a reason to stay.

Part 2 with Matt and Jake from MS Constructions picks up on what happens after the apprenticeship ends. Jake talks about stepping into project management, learning the construction manager's side of the job, and copping the odd older tradie who walks straight past him to talk to someone who looks the part.

Matt gets into the systems side of the business. He's brought WonderBuild and AI into MS Constructions with help from Adam at WonderOps, and his crew are now running site diaries, photos and timesheets from their phones. His reasoning is simple: automate the background so the office team can spend more actual time with clients.

There's also a solid stretch on why builders need to stop hiding. Matt's built a network of builders around Australia he can ring about anything, and both he and the hosts make the case that asking the same question to a different person is often what finally makes it click.

What You'll Learn

Chapters

Hosts: Dean Backman & Luke Callery

🎧 Listen to the Build Insite Podcast on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Five carpenters. Four hours in the car. One day off the tools. That's what education looks like when a builder actually means it.

Matt from MS Constructions has driven his team down from the Vic and New South Wales border to the Bowens Rethink Building Hub, and he's brought his qualified chippies and construction manager with him. Joining him is Jake, who did his apprenticeship under Matt and has since watched two major NCC changes land inside his first few years on the tools.

In Part 1, Matt talks openly about scaling the business back, why turnover stopped being the scoreboard, and how hiring for attitude instead of skill changed the way his crew shows up every day. Jake shares what it was like coming through an apprenticeship with no clue what he wanted to do, and what he's learning now about condensation, wraps and passive principles that simply weren't taught a few years ago.

There's also an honest conversation about mistakes. Matt reckons he doesn't trust a builder who says they've never had a problem, and he explains why pulling failed work apart with his team has become one of the most valuable training exercises in the business.

What You'll Learn:

Chapters

Hosts: Dean Backman & Luke Callery

🎧 Listen to the Build Insite Podcast on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Day one on site, and there's asbestos. What happens in the next ten minutes tells a homeowner more about their builder than anything in the tender.

In this second half of the conversation at Callery Creek House, Zoe and Andrew get into the part of a build that most people only understand in hindsight: how communication actually works between a homeowner and a builder, and what happens when it doesn't. We recorded this on handover day, with the keys about to change hands, so everything is still fresh.

They share the advice they'd give anyone about to sign a building contract, from working out your own values before you start researching, to visiting an open home and talking to a builder's current client. There's also a warning about builders juggling too many sites at once, and a strong case for getting every site meeting decision confirmed in writing.

It's not all process. Zoe wrote a blessing and had it embedded in the concrete pour, which landed at the threshold by pure chance, and a gum leaf left a perfect stencil in the burnished slab that they chose to keep. We also talk about the night Zoe found herself at the Master Builders National Awards as a current client, watching her own builder go up on stage.

What you'll learn:

Chapters:

🎧 Listen to the Build Insite Podcast on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Most build stories get told by the people getting paid to be there. This one comes from the couple who lived in the middle of it, for nine months, with three kids and a dishwasher in the bathroom.

In this episode we're sitting at the finished marble benchtop of Callery Creek House with Zoe and Andrew, the homeowners. It's a rare thing to hear a renovation unpacked from the client's side of the table, and they don't hold back. We cover how a "bit of a tizzy up" turned into a full two storey extension, why an 18 month design process was worth every minute, and what it actually feels like to live on your own building site while it's being built around you.

Zoe brought a long held commitment to sustainable design and passive house principles to the project. Andrew brought a refusal to let her compromise on them. Between the two of them, and an architect willing to design for performance, the brief was set well before a builder was ever engaged. That timing turns out to be one of the biggest lessons of the episode.

We also get into how they chose their builder, what almost sent them in a different direction, and the one thing that ultimately got Callery Building over the line. Spoiler: it wasn't the glossy finished photos.

What you'll learn:

Chapters:

🎧 Listen to the Build Insite Podcast on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

The code is moving. Slowly. But there's a lot you can do without waiting for it.

Part two with Jess from Climasure picks up where we left off, starting with the state of the NCC and what the next update means for builders. South Australia's energy efficiency pause, the drained and vented cavity change everyone's talking about, and why blower door testing already sits in the code as a verification option that almost nobody uses.

From there, Jess gets practical. If you want to build better but can't overhaul everything on your next job, where do you start? Her answer is a step by step: benchmark with a blower door test, then get serious about membranes and moisture management, then build the team around it. Because a builder pushing high performance without the right client, trades and designer is fighting uphill.

The back half goes into the two rabbit holes Jess is currently down. EMFs, including the moment a monitor reading dropped because the electricity was travelling through her body. And mould, which she calls a silent killer for good reason, with a story from a client whose respiratory problems cleared up only after a leaking shower wall came out.

What you'll learn:

- Where the NCC is heading, and why drained and vented cavities are a game changer for moisture management

Chapters:

🎧 Listen to the Build Insite Podcast on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

You can't control what you don't measure. And in most homes, no one's measuring anything.

Recorded on site straight after the final blower door test at the Callery Creek House project (4.1 air changes an hour, for the record), this episode brings back one of Build Insite's most popular guests, Jess from Climasure. Third time on the show, and she's brought a whole new rabbit hole with her.

Jess walks us through her path from doing energy efficiency star ratings for the building code, to realising that what gets designed, what gets assessed and what actually gets built can be three very different things. That realisation set off a domino chain: blower door testing, ventilation, Passive House, hygrothermal modelling, and now building biology. We also get into her own podcast, the international guests she's landed, and the internet's very strong opinions about insulating brick cavity walls

Then things get interesting. Jess has just started working in the EMF space, taking radio frequency, electric field and magnetic field readings on a certified Passive House site before the slab was even poured. Plus the everyday stuff most people never think about, like what happens to particulate matter when you fry an egg on a gas cooktop, and why the CO2 in your bedroom is probably sitting at more than double what it should be.

What you'll learn:

Chapters

Host: Luke Callery

🎧 Listen to the Build Insite Podcast on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

The real test of a building business isn't the boom times. It's how you communicate, hire and hold your ground when things get tight.

In Part 2 of this conversation on the Build Insite Podcast, Dean and Luke continue the chat with Brett Way from VW Building Projects. This time, the focus shifts from heritage craftsmanship to the engine room of running a strong building business through uncertain conditions.

Brett opens up about VW Building's Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) process, how they educate clients on the unknowns that come with heritage homes, and the challenges of navigating council delays in Victoria. He also gets candid about the current pressure on pricing, fuel costs and material escalations, and how transparent conversations with trades, clients and team are more important now than ever.

What You'll Learn:

- Why Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) protects both builder and client

Chapters:

🎧 Listen to the Build Insite Podcast on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

A heritage facade with an architectural extension is one thing. Conserving Australia's oldest sandstone castle from 1849? That's an entirely different game.

In this episode of the Build Insite Podcast, Dean and Luke sit down with Brett Way, co-founder of VW Building Projects. Brett and his business partner Josh started out as childhood friends turned carpenters, working under the same mentor for nearly a decade before going out on their own. Today, VW Building operates two divisions across Melbourne and the Geelong/Bellarine Peninsula, with a sharp focus on true heritage conservation and high-complexity architectural builds.

Brett walks us through the story behind Corriell, the oldest building on the Bellarine, where his team is undertaking real restoration work on an 1849 sandstone property once owned by the founders of Drysdale and Newcomb. From six metres of underpinning beneath untouched stonework to hand-stencilled fretwork replicas, this is heritage building at its most demanding.

He also opens up about making the sea change to Barwon Heads, splitting roles with his business partner, building culture across two locations, and why VW Building hires the right people first and builds the role around them.

What You'll Learn:

Chapters:

Hosts: Dean Backman & Luke Callery 

🎧 Listen to the Build Insite Podcast on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Every builder has a different DNA. The way you trench plates, wrap a cavity, run your crews. It all changes the price, the program, and the product. So why are most builders still being handed a one-size-fits-all quote?

In Part 2, Dean and Luke continue the conversation with Tom Lawson from Vision 2 Estimating, going deeper into how V2E tailors every model to the way your business actually builds. From pre-model meetings and onboarding through to integrating directly with Buildxact and price book setup, this episode is a behind-the-scenes look at what makes their process tick.

Tom also opens up about where V2E is heading next, including some serious investment in AI tools, a new model viewer release, and plans for an AI chatbot built into the model itself. It wraps with rapid fire questions, plenty of laughs, and a reminder that the builders winning in 2026 are the ones treating estimating like the engine room of the business.

What You'll Learn:

- Why your "Builder's DNA" should drive every estimate, not generic plan notes

Chapters:

Hosts: Dean Backman & Luke Callery

🎧 Listen to the Build Insite Podcast on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Explore more at: https://buildinsite.com.au/

"A builder who doesn't estimate properly in 2026 is going under." Tom Lawson didn't sugarcoat it, and what follows is a masterclass in why the old way of pricing jobs is leaving builders exposed.

This week, Dean and Luke sit down with Tom Lawson from Vision 2 Estimating (V2E), fresh off the Build Insite Hub Launch and Live event at Circa and Bowens in Port Melbourne. Tom flew in from Adelaide to unpack how 3D construction modelling is reshaping the way builders price, plan, and deliver projects.

From his early days bouncing between structural engineering and architecture, to seven years detailing roof trusses at K&B Timber, Tom walks through the path that led him to co-founding V2E with Michael. What started as a "why can't we do this for the whole project?" idea has grown into a 17-modeller team helping builders nationwide resolve plans before they hit site.

If you've ever been buried under conflicting documents, frustrated by square metre rate guesswork, or burned by design issues that only surface mid-build, this one's going to hit home.

**What You'll Learn:**

- Why traditional estimating is setting builders up to redo work twice

**Chapters:**

Hosts: Dean Backman & Luke Callery

🎧 Listen to the Build Insite Podcast on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

 Explore more at: https://buildinsite.com.au/