Floor heating might be the most loved feature in a home that almost nobody asks for — and once the floors are down, it's too late.

This week Az sits down with Rick Florence, managing director and owner of Coldbuster Floor Heating, a business that's been in the Australian market for over 25 years. Rick reckons only a tiny fraction of people building or renovating ever see a floor heating quote before the floors go in — and he's built his whole business around fixing that gap.

In this episode:

• The four misconceptions that stop clients considering floor heating — and why "it's a luxury, it must be expensive" no longer holds up
• Why Rick says you should never ask a client if they want floor heating — quote first, present second
• Electric vs hydronic: Rick's case for why electric wins on cost, running costs, and maintenance
• How floor heating slots into a build program without disrupting a single trade
• The value-add argument: why Rick calls floor heating an investment, not a cost
• Quoting for developers and multi-res — three ways to structure it
• What to do when it is too late: rug heaters, radiant heaters, heated towel rails and mirror demisters
• Rick's answer to our signature question: what makes a good builder?

Whether you're a volume builder, a custom builder or a reno specialist, this one's about a simple habit — send the plans, get the free quote, let the client decide — that costs nothing and could set your builds apart.

All Coldbuster links, socials and contact details below. Like, subscribe, and share it with a builder who should hear it.

Connect with Coldbuster Floor Heating:

Website: https://www.coldbuster.com.au
Get a Free Quote: https://www.coldbuster.com.au/get-a-free-quote/
Tradie Registration (trade discounts & installer program): https://www.coldbuster.com.au/trade-registration/
Running Cost Calculator: https://www.coldbuster.com.au/cost-of-running-underfloor-heating/
Phone: 1800 85 75 65
Email: [email protected]
Address: Unit 10, 14 Rodborough Road, Frenchs Forest NSW 2086

Follow Coldbuster:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coldbusterfloorheating
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coldbusterfloorheating/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coldbusterfloorheating/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYvKv7rlMCehLulIumkApYg
Pinterest: https://pin.it/ymQNOHR

Builders are being approached from outside the industry more than ever. Coaches, planners, consultants, software reps. All of them want the same thing: access to your trust.

In this short solo episode, Az shares the background check The Good Builder runs on everyone who approaches the platform, and why builders should run it on everyone who approaches them.

Two searches. Five minutes. Before a dollar moves or a meeting is taken.

Search one is ASIC. Run their name through the banned and disqualified register. It covers disqualified company directors, not just finance. Run their company through ASIC's company search. Check the ABN. If they claim a licence of any kind, check it with whoever issues it.

Search two is the news. Their name and their company through the Google News tab. Bans, court judgments and tribunal findings get reported, and they do not disappear.

Plus the three questions to ask anyone who makes it into the room, and the reaction that tells you everything.

Run the check:
ASIC banned and disqualified registers: asic.gov.au/online-services/search-asic-registers/banned-and-disqualified-registers
ASIC register search (company search): asic.gov.au/online-services/search-asic-registers
ABN Lookup: abr.business.gov.au
Financial Advisers Register: moneysmart.gov.au/financial-advice/financial-advisers-register

A clean search is not a clearance, and none of this replaces professional advice. It is the five minutes that too many people skip.

Think you'd make a good guest? There's a front door: podcast.thegoodbuilder.com.au/apply
Stories and tips: [email protected]
Everything else: [email protected]

Solar and batteries are on nearly every new-home wish list, and hardly any builders are putting them in as standard. Az sits down with Gary Higgins, owner of Sunshine Coast solar and battery installer Halcol, to work out why, and what it's costing builders.

Gary's path here is not the usual one. An electrical apprenticeship in Ireland cut short by the GFC, a stint in retail and business management, then the Northern Territory in the middle of wet season installing satellite dishes hours outside Darwin. He joined Halcol as a business development manager, became general manager, and bought the business with his wife Rosie four years ago. Halcol now runs six or seven internal install teams plus subbies out of the Sunshine Coast and Hendra, was a Smart Energy Council top-five finalist nationally last year, and by Gary's count has been the highest-volume solar installer on the coast for the past six or seven years.

In this episode:

Why battery attach has flipped. Halcol has gone from roughly one in ten installs including a battery to solar-only being close to unheard of.

The real reason builders shy away from solar: rebates, Energex, compliance, and the warranty question.

Who actually carries the warranty under Australian Consumer Law (the builder), and how Halcol takes that off the builder's desk.

The margin conversation. How volume pricing turns solar into a line item builders make money on rather than one they avoid.

How Halcol works through a 93-unit Azure Build project: pre-wired at frame, panelled with the roof, inverter fitted last. If it's planned properly the builder never sees them.

Why a south-facing roof quietly costs 20 to 30 per cent of winter output, and the design-stage conversation that fixes it.

Inspections in Victoria, and why Queensland is heading the same way.

Hiring for attitude over paper, and running every department as its own business inside Halcol.

Why Az reckons builders have about two and a half years to get a solar process in place.

Gary's answer to what makes a good builder, which nobody has given in more than 330 episodes.

Plus an offer for builders who haven't worked with Halcol before: your first install at cost price.

FOR MORE: To learn more about Gary and the team at Halcol Energy head to: https://halcolenergy.com.au/
https://halcolenergy.com.au/solar-news/builders-put-halcol-energy-to-the-test/

SPONSOR:
The Good Builder Podcast is proudly sponsored by MyConstruct, construction software built by Australian builders for Australian builders.

Start your 30-day trial at myconstruct.com using code: GOODBUILDER

Mark Sutton has just stepped into the GM role at Goop Guys, the surface protection business builders rely on at handover. He's spent his career in hardware, paint and construction materials, starting in his father's hardware store in Cleveland, Brisbane, then leading business development for Wattyl across Australia and New Zealand, growing a network of more than a hundred stores at Everhard Industries, and working with Crimsafe Group before joining the twenty five year old family business behind Goop Guys.

Az sits down with Mark to talk about:

- What it actually means to protect an investment, for the builder and the customer at the other end of it
- Franchise growth in the construction industry, and where the opportunity sits for builders
- Why Australian manufacturing capability matters, and what it will take to rebuild it
- The project management habits that separate a good handover from a bad one
- Seventeen years of community football leadership at the Wynnum Wolves, and what building a team on the field taught him about building one in business

And as always, Az closes with the question every guest answers: what makes a good builder?

Head to https://goopguys.com/ for more.

Az runs solo through the small, low-cost moves he's watched actually shift leads for builders — no bigger ad spend required.

First, 3D walkthroughs and rendered tours of your own designs, including homes not yet built. Az's own experience — not a cited study — put these at roughly four times more likely to convert a visitor into a lead, with the added bonus of fewer variations once buyers can see how a home flows before it's built.

Second, live chat monitoring, actually staffed rather than left switched on and ignored.

Third, lead magnets, giving something of value away before asking for a quote request.

Plus a few bonus ones Az couldn't leave out: the customer experience program behind reviews and referrals, the 12 to 24 month post-handover check-in that's more psychological than transactional, and results from a TGB survey on the third-party listing platforms builders rate most, with REA well out in front.

A shout to MyConstruct for sponsoring the episode, and a look ahead to Wednesday's conversation with Mark Sutton from Goop Guys, and Friday's solar special with Gary from Halcol Energy.

Hosted by Az.

MyConstruct: 30-day trial at myconstruct.com. Use code: GOODBUILDER

Az sits down with Matt Hope, founder of Wattle Court, on building a franchise brand that is bigger than the person who started it.

Hope has run building companies and led one of the strongest performing segments of a major group. Wattle Court is the first brand he has built from scratch, and he explains why he turned down the obvious name, what the wattle tree has to do with the first homes constructed in Australia, and why the street he grew up on in regional Victoria ended up on the sign.

Covered in this episode:

The origin of the Wattle Court name, and why a builder trading under his own name is building something he cannot sell.

Exclusive territories. Why one builder given a whole market outperforms three builders splitting it, and what it does to the way franchisees help each other.

The thirteen week onboarding program, and why none of it is about construction.

Market confidence after the federal budget, the drop in new home construction searches Hope is seeing across the market, and why franchise enquiry rises when the phones go quiet.

Internal design and drafting, with plan redesigns back to franchisees inside twenty four hours.

AI takeoffs in development, taking a quoting job from eight hours to one.

Site presentation, reviews and trust, and why all of it is marketing whether builders call it that or not.

Where the brand goes next across regional Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Hosted by Az, brought to you by The New Home Electrical Specialist.

Alex Harris from Wattyl on the couch for the first time, and Bec from Adapt Modular back for a second run.

They join Az to talk about what the construction industry keeps getting wrong about its people, and what a few operators are quietly getting right.

They cover the difference between being hired for your ability and being hired to fill a gender target. The sites that still have no facilities for women. The Census question about unpaid hours at home and what it made everyone sit with. Why apprentices are walking off the tools and the role supervisors play in it. And why the fix is not men against women, or builder against supplier, but everyone against the problem.

Bec also talks about speaking at the Master Builders Inspired Minds lunch, why she got on stage, and the line she keeps coming back to. This too shall pass.

Then the market. Where modular is winning right now. Regional and remote work that traditional builds cannot reach on cost or time. A QBuild project past Mackay at the end of fifty kilometres of dirt road. A home installed on site five hours after it left the factory. Barndominiums, dark roofs, and where Alex is seeing demand head on the Sunshine Coast. Plus Bec's call on how much of the housing market modular takes from here.

Hosted by Az.

Proudly sponsored by MyConstruct. Built by Australian builders for Australian builders. Thirty day trial at myconstruct.com with code: GOODBUILDER

#thegoodbuilder #womeninconstruction #modularhomes

Az unpacks five red flags to watch for before entering a business partnership.

As The Good Builder has grown, the partnership approaches have grown with it. Some are worth taking. Many are not. This episode covers the signals that show up early, what each one actually reveals about the person across the table, and why backing yourself is the first defence.

Covered in this episode:

The love bomb. Three messages and a calendar invite the night you meet, and what that intensity says about their order book.

The fluff. Product market fit, ecosystem, still working on that piece. The one sentence test that sorts the operators from the searchers.

The profile sweep. Twenty seconds of thumb, zero seconds of thought.

Bagging the last partner. Accountability as a filter, picking up the thread from Josh Tyrrell on responsibility.

Vague on the money. Why nobody is ever vague about their own numbers.

The through line is presentation over substance, and how to spot it before it costs you time.

Hosted by Az.

This episode is brought to you by The Pulse from Australian Building Research. The Pulse tracks the customer experience across the build, so builders find out what clients think while there is still time to act. Book a twenty minute walkthrough at australianbuildingresearch.com.au/the-pulse-cep

Coming up this week. Wednesday, Bec Askin and Alex Harris. Friday, Big Matt Hope from Wattle Court.

#thegoodbuilder #constructionindustry #buildingbusiness

Josh Tyrrell signed with GJ Gardner Homes at twenty nine, opened in October 2016, and has since built around 250 homes across Warragul, Drouin, Morwell and Traralgon. Today he has 18 staff, an average contract price near $800,000, and a second office about to open in the Latrobe Valley.

He got there by chasing the work the big builders avoid. Flat greenfield sites are a brutal fight against Metricon and Simonds. Ten metres of fall is not. Josh set out to be the volume builder for difficult builds, and now the competition sends those clients his way.

He takes Az through all of it. The shift from builder to business owner. Bringing accounting inside the business and what tighter cashflow reporting exposed. Why he hires before he needs to. The year twenty five of thirty jobs triggered planning permits and he wore the hole rather than lay anyone off. Why nobody on his team quotes a price without standing on the block first.

The Good Builder has recorded more than 300 episodes. This is the first time a guest has answered the question with a single word. Responsibility.

Josh's own podcast is linked below.
https://open.spotify.com/show/53fZLgWHZwu35jQwf3tIDe

Proudly brought to you by The New Home Electrical Specialist: https://tnhes.com.au/

Construction is one of the strongest performing sectors in the Australian economy right now. Louise Southall has the data to prove it.

Louise is the Xero Economist. She joined Xero in 2020 and brings 30 years across economics and business advocacy, working with business organisations, councils, government agencies and charities. Her focus is Xero Small Business Insights, a program that uses anonymised and aggregated data from the Xero platform to show what is actually happening inside small businesses. Real sales, jobs and wages figures rather than survey responses. The Australian data set covers more than half a million small businesses.

In this episode she joins Az to unpack the June quarter for construction. Sales up more than ten per cent on a year ago. Employment up more than five per cent. Wages up around three per cent. She explains why the sector is outperforming most of the economy, what is cushioning it against cost of living pressure, and why Queensland keeps showing up near the top of the table.

The conversation goes well past the numbers. Louise makes the case that productivity is not one big step change. It is small changes at the margin. She talks about the red tape sitting inside your own business rather than in Canberra, the friction between quoting, doing the work, invoicing and getting paid, and why the Christmas shutdown conversation with your accountant needs to happen months before December.

Her answer to what makes a good builder is worth the listen on its own, and it comes from three decades of watching small businesses succeed and fail. Most builders serve a trade apprenticeship. Very few serve the second one. Businesses rarely fail because the trade work is poor. They fail because the cash does not come in fast enough.

Also covered: skills shortage as the sector's main headwind, why the five to twelve staff bracket is the hardest place to sit, what technology adoption actually looks like when you are running quotes from the ute, and what the New Zealand experience shows about a construction sector under pressure.

Hosted by Az.

This episode is proudly sponsored by MyConstruct, built by Australian builders for Australian builders. Get a 30 day trial at myconstruct.com with your CODE: GOODBUILDER